While you are all anxiously awaiting the next Marvel super hero epic, counting the seconds until the interminable fight scene that decides the planet's fate, might I suggest entertainment of a somewhat different sort?
"Stan and Ollie" are Laurel and Hardy, of course.
They were the premier comedy team of the 1920's and 1930's. And, like Chaplin, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers, they outlived their fame. Or, rather, they outlived their viability in Hollywood. They were still world famous...they just couldn't get a movie deal.
The picture finds them in England, on tour, running through their old sketches for live audiences, hoping to get financing for a Robin Hood picture.
Hardy is a Flastaffian character, with huge appetites for food, women and gambling. Laurel is more grounded, spending his time writing new material, for projects that will never materialize. (Indeed, in what passes for "real" life, even after Hardy's death, Laurel continued to write scenes for them.)
It is an extremely touching look at two old friends struggling to make it back to the pinnacle they once knew.
John C. Reilly is Hardy, "Babe" to his closest friends. Steve Coogan is Laurel down to every small facial tic. Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda are perfect as their wives, and Rufus Jones steals most of the scenes he's in as their British promoter.
It really is a wonderful film. Naturally, it was overlooked by the Oscars.
As was "The Death of Stalin", which is simply the funniest movie I've seen in years.
Oh well...as always, there is no accounting for taste.
Let's blow something up, huh?
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