Lazing around on the coach has never been so good, especially when it’s considered “work”. This week, I took a look at Seth MacFarlane‘s supposed comedy Ted, the acclaimed foreign film from France Holy Motors, the Weinstein‘s MPAA debacle-filled documentary Bully as well as the first season of AMC‘s The Killing.

Ted (2012)

Shallow, elementary and plain not funny, Ted is the breed of humor you can expect from Family Guy everything guy Seth MacFarlane. Although MacFarlane clearly has a knack for comedy, it feels like he’s just ran the gambit of New England-centric humor and everything he has to offer is ultimately slate or retread. The breadth of jokes don’t go far beyond white trash, hookers, bong rips and the age old comedy gag: a shit on the floor.

For a movie that spanned more than 106 minutes of my life, I think I laughed about three times, hardly a satisfying number. Surprisingly enough, the most redeeming quality to this laugh bereft waste of time is the genuinely sweet relationship developed between CGI Ted and Mark Wahlberg‘s Johnny but it hardly carries the film along nor does it excuse it’s lazy plot and character development. If anything it was a much needed band-aid that just barely held the guts from spilling out.

D

Bully (2011)

While I can appreciate the sentiment behind this revealing expose on the often devastating effects of bullying in middle and high school, it’s too easy to see the strings being pulled in Bully. Even when a good cause is front and center, it’s easy to tell when you’re being emotionally manipulated and there is nothing in Bully that is less than a blatant grab for sympathy and tears. Unlike any great documentary, it doesn’t present both sides of the story and only really scratches the surface of any one account.

We don’t spend enough time with one individual to really get a rounded view of their life, just disjointed sections piecemealed together into other dissimilar narratives. The desire to capture these moments in a voyeuristic manner is understandable but I was hoping for more of a Louis Theroux type investigative reporting. There are a few genuinely heartbreaking moments but they come across like an awkward victory for the documentarians, the icing on the cake of bullying depravity.

The ultimate failure of Bully though is the glossing over of the duality between the subjects and their alleged tormentors. Instead of trying to cut to the core of the problem, director Lee Hirsh and Co only cast brief glimpses into the perspective of the bullied and their families, failing to even broach the tumultuous psychology of those on the offending side which would make for a much more rich and deep feature. Perhaps the most offensive and off-putting aspect of the film is the various adults “dealing” with the situation whose views are often so obtuse and nim-witted that it’s hard not to get frustrated.

C-

Holy Motors (2012)

French avant–garde filmmaking at it’s most eccentric and bizarre, Holy Motors deserves the win for most WTF movie of the year if not the decade. Following the journey of a man who plays different “roles” throughout the period of a single day, Holy Motors plays out like a wild acid-fueled symphony of imaginative vignettes.

It’s fundamentally disjointed and perhaps even pandering in it’s quest for the title of art but there is captivating intrigue behind the mystifying theatrics that shamble from scene to scene. Denis Lavant, who plays the shapeshifting Oscar, is terrifically varied in his assorted incarnations and a scene where he plays the part of a sewer dwelling, mute, demonic leprechaun is sure to get a rise purely for it’s unintelligible objective.

While it’s impossible to say what is real in this strange world crafted by Leos Carax, one thing that remains is a semblance of the human condition. He’s clearly trying to say something, the only problem is it’s nearly impossible to say what. In this collage of visual parables there is visionary tact but it doesn’t really amount to anything concrete in the end. The question remains: must art have a purpose? Surely not but I like my movies to.

C

The Killing: Season 1 (2010)

AMC‘s The Killing is a grim, brooding procedural that draws out what would normally be one episode of CSI into an entire season. What it manages to achieve with that is substantial. Instead of quick whodunnit turns, The Killing allows the events to play out like a plodding mind game, building characters and relationships while our expectations slowly ebb and change. By fleshing out all the pieces of the puzzle, every reveal feels more substantial, more gut-wrenching, more shocking.

Mireille Enos plays Detective Sarah Linden with weathered restraint that is breaks the mold of the traditional female detective. This is an empowered, independent 21st century woman who never resorts to his sex to get the job done. A strong second fiddle to the tactful Linden is found in partner Stephen Holder, Joel Kinnaman, another atypical detective with a junkie past and questionable methods.

While The Killing had me entranced for the duration of the first season, the finale, although satisfying to some degree, feels somewhat shortchanged and could perhaps even be charged with misleading it’s audience. While some have knocked it for slow-playing it’s story, I think that is the one thing that distinguishes it from the girth of other cop-drama-procedurals on the market. While The Killing hardly re-invents the wheel, it surely improves upon it.