For a film loaded with many laughs, it’s strange that Joshy begins on quite the morbid note. Joshy (Silicon Valley’s Thomas Middleditch) arrives home one day to find his fiancé (Alison Brie) lifeless on the floor, dead from an apparent suicide. But the film doesn’t dwell on her death for very long, instead jumping ahead four months when Joshy’s small crew of friends (Nick Kroll, Adam Pally, Alex Ross Perry, and Brett Gelman) elect to celebrate his bachelor party, just as they had intended before the incident occurred. When the boys arrive at their secluded cabin for the party, they discover Joshy saying goodbye to a girl he picked up from the local bar—a rather uncharacteristic move and one that isn’t ever addressed again. Other than this small inexplicable moment, the rest of the film plays out as a hysterical weekend bender of heavy drinking, drug consumption, and partying with hookers. In theory it’s a classic recipe for a “what could possibly go wrong?” scenario, but, oddly enough, the answer in Joshy is nothing.

Credit the amazing cast for making Joshy work as well as it does. Without them, it’s just another hangout movie with a paper-thin plot and very little character development. Granted, simply putting these hilarious actors together in a room would make for entertainment. Each character’s personality puzzle-pieces into the group as a whole. Kroll is the partier. Pally is the sensitive married guy. Perry is the geek. Gelman is the wildcard. And then there’s Middleditch, who’s stuck playing the uninteresting title character—ironically, the least developed of the bunch. There’s also a random appearance by Joe Swanberg (and his real family), who seem only to show up to get a few laughs.

Luckily, there’s enough humor found in sophomore director Jeff Baena’s (Life After Beth) film that it’s easy to forgive some of the off moments. The highlight of Joshy is watching Perry finally getting his wish to play a complicated board game with the group. That’s right, this ensemble even finds a way to make the struggle to play a board game amusing to watch.

Rating:
7/10

The slasher film is one of the few types of movies with the honour of having its own deconstruction be just as stale as its own genre. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson more or less opened and closed the book on self-aware slashers with Scream back in 1996, a film that’s almost two decades old (yes, Scream is now older than today’s average college freshman, but don’t think about it that way). But it wasn’t too long ago that Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard showed that the meta approach still had some life in it with The Cabin in the Woods, although it targeted the horror genre as a whole rather than one specific subgenre. Now, director Todd Strauss-Schulson and writers M.A. Fortin & Joshua John Miller try their hand at lovingly taking down slasher tropes with The Final Girls, a glossy horror/comedy that’s severely lacking in both horror and comedy.

Max (Taissa Farmiga) still hasn’t gotten over the death of her mother Amanda (Malin Akerman), an actress who got her break playing a piece of cannon fodder in the cheesy ‘80s slasher Camp Bloodbath. A tragic car accident took Amanda’s life several years ago, and for Max the film, and her mother’s death scene in it, is more traumatizing than entertaining. But her personal issues don’t matter to Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), the stepbrother of her best friend Gertie (Alia Shawkat). Duncan bribes Max to attend an anniversary screening of Camp Bloodbath and she accepts his offer, taking Gertie and her classmate/romantic interest Max (Alexander Ludwig) along. A freak accident at the screening causes a fire to break out, and Max, Gertie, Duncan, Chris and Chris’ ex-girlfriend Vicki (Nina Dobrev) find themselves literally transported into Camp Bloodbath as they try to escape the theatre. With no idea how to get out of the movie, they decide the best way for them to get back into the real world is to play along, hoping to survive by the time the credits roll.

It’s hard to get a sense of what exactly The Final Girls wants to be. Is it a slasher with meta elements? A deconstruction? A satire? No matter what it is, the fact that it’s aware of its own tropes, formulas and clichés means it has to bring something to the table that’s smarter or better than the old familiars it’s lampooning. But The Final Girls really doesn’t have any ideas, preferring to just plop modern-day characters in a sleazy 1980s slasher and make sitcom-esque jokes about their cultural differences (just wait until you see how these camp counsellors react to an iPhone!). A lot of The Final Girl’s jokes feel lazy, as if the mere mention of a trope will generate laughs because of viewers’ familiarity with it. It’s tame at best, and reminiscent of the way a show like Family Guy will make an obscure pop culture reference both the set-up and punchline to a joke.

That laziness runs throughout The Final Girls, which never bothers to set up any consistency or logic once it enters Camp Bloodbath. The movie within the movie, which looks like your standard piece of ‘80s schlock (based on the fake trailer that opens The Final Girls), becomes a colourful fantasy land once Max and her crew enter it, and their decision to “play along” and let the movie play out doesn’t make much sense. Neither does the ‘80s setting itself, with Camp Bloodbath characters like the dumb, horny “jock” (Adam Devine) playing like a deleted scene from a Judd Apatow movie. And Strauss-Schulson’s style, with the camera whirling and moving all over the place, doesn’t mesh with the visually bland looks of the film(s) he’s taking inspiration from. The camera’s eccentricity is reminiscent of Sam Raimi and The Evil Dead, but its pointless purpose and showiness puts it more in line with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and American Horror Story.

So it comes as a surprise that The Final Girls’ biggest success is how well it establishes a strong emotional core. For Max, entering Camp Bloodbath gives her another chance to meet her mother, or more accurately her mother’s character Nancy. Max and Nancy’s relationship turns out to be the most captivating part of the film, largely due to the talents of Farmiga and Akerman (especially Akerman, a terrific comedic actress who uses her equally strong dramatic skills effectively here). And the rest of the cast give it their all too, and despite having little material to work with they make The Final Girls watchable. But a game cast can only take things so far, and the tired inconsistency of Strauss-Schulson’s film makes all of its attempts to wink, nod and nudge at the audience ring hollow. The Final Girls isn’t the first film to simultaneously indulge in and upend the rules of horror films, so it’s disappointing to watch it coast along on its own concept rather than try, well, anything remotely interesting or subversive. Films designed to call out its own genre’s traditions shouldn’t feel this safe.

Topping the first season’s elaborate dick equation would be nearly impossible to do, but season two of Silicon Valley had plenty of funny moments of its own. Although director Mike Judge stretched the plotline thin throughout the season, there were so many great comedic line in each episode that it was barely noticeable. Below we’ve gathered the 11 best moments from Silicon Valley season two, let us know your favorite in the comments.

11 Best Moments From Silicon Valley Season 2

Gilfoyle: “If Blaine dies on our live-stream it could be good for us. I mean, we’d get a lot more traffic.”
Dinesh: “Well, and it would probably lead the cause for regulations in the stunt industry. So, in the long term, we’re saving lives.”
Dinesh: “Obviously his incessant suffering will be a strength.”
Gilfoyle: “But our ability to enjoy it is an opportunity.”

Russ: “I’ve got three nannies suing me. One of them for no reason.”
Russ: “All of a sudden, I’m 22 years young, and I’m worth $1.2 billion. Now a couple decades later, I’m worth $1.4. You do the math.”
Russ: “Synergy, bitches!”

Richard: “Had Endframe accidentally put a tequila bottle on their Delete key, I guarantee they would have struggled to delete half of the amount of files that we did. At best. Or worst.”

Erlich: “Look at them. They’re like two genetically enhanced Ken dolls. Do you know how much Bitcoin they’re worth?”
Erlich: “Oh shit, they’re splitting up. Cameron’s the left dominant one, right? I’m gonna come at him from the right side, try and herd them back together without spooking them.”

Dinesh: “It’s a messaging app that lets you send the word ‘bro’ to everyone else who has the app.”
Gilfoyle: “So it’s exactly like the Yo app.”
Dinesh: “Exactly, but less original.”

Richard: “It’s starting to feel weird letting all these firms suck up to us.”
Erlich: “If you can’t enjoy this many people kissing our ass at this level, then I feel sorry for you. I mean, we’re getting our dicks sucked at the AT&T park.”
Dinesh: “We’re standing on the field of the World Series champions!”
Gilfoyle: “It’s totally lost on me.”
Dinesh: “Yeah, I don’t give a shit either.”

Gilfoyle: “The picture is so blocky, it looks like Minecraft.”
Announcer: “Unbelievable! I have never, in all my years of watching fights, have seen a finishing combination more furious.”
Erlich: “Gavin Belson just shit everyone’s pants.”

Gavin: “I don’t want to live in a world where someone makes the world a better place better than we do.”

Jared: “Do you think maybe you sweat from your urethra?”
Jared: “Can you put a dollar value on not wetting your bed?”

Dinesh: “This guy falling off the cliff is the first good luck we’ve had.”
Gilfoyle: “Even when his sobbing shakes the camera, there’s no blocking it all. The quality is great.”
Dinesh: “This guy is going to drink his own piss? That’s too good. We’re going to fail by succeeding.”

Erlich: “One of you is the least attractive person I’ve ever seen. I won’t say who. *Glances at the man on the right*
Erlich: “Here’s my concern: Who the hell picked out that shirt for you?….Then you married poorly.”
Erlich: “There is a linear correlation between how intolerable I was and the height of valuation.”
Gilfoyle: “He put his balls on the table?”
Dinesh: “On purpose?”
Richard: “I don’t see how it could be by accident.”