Review of It's Entertainment (2014) by Fabulous H — 04 Dec 2015

So.

I can't exactly say whether Iiked this or not. It's aggressively confrontational, and it's very difficult to enjoy in any conventional sense. It's difficult to empathize with the main character, a sad sack version of Turkington's Neil Hamburger persona, and difficult not to pity him. He's a sad, lonely human being, substituting an adversarial relationship with his audience for real connection. The character, named in the credits as The Comedian, finds himself in a bleak desert landscape, touring uninteresting sites between gigs at dive bars, prisons, and dirt bike rallies, occasionally trying (and failing) to reconnect with his braggart but well-meaning businessman cousin (John C Reilly), leaving increasingly hopeless voicemails for his daughter, and getting stuck in surreal situations that are meant to be taken at face value despite approaching almost Lynchian levels of weirdness. The score consists mostly of scraping, pulsating drones that ratchet up our unease at every opportunity. The movie is only rarely funny, usually when The Comedian is performing, and it can be a difficult and tedious watch at times, but it was incredibly affecting. So while I can't say I liked the movie, I'm glad I watched it and it's stuck with me.