"Let's escape on my barge!"

Kinds of Funny
Will Arnett and Amy Poehler both made it into New York magazine’s New Yorkers of the Year list – in the interview Arnett introduced the phrase “L.A. funny”, a phrase that he and Poehler use to mean just barely funny enough to be considered funny (as opposed to “New York funny,” actually funny). Learn it and use it, people!

Casanova
Let me see, Casanova. This movie was one of two things:

1. The Japanese made an irresponsibly allusive Playstation game about the life of Casanova, which then got picked up and made into a movie for some reason.


2. Heath Ledger and his friends went on an unusually well-financed LARP set in 18th century Venice.

I really wanted to like this movie – anything transcendently stupid enough to try to be a Venetian court drama AND a ninja battle has to be at least worth watching. But it’s basically a modern romantic comedy with a bunch of brocade outfits, and it falls prey to all the stupidities inherent to the genre: pale characters, L.A. funny dialogue, convoluted yet inane plot, meaningless action sequences, and of course the central romances have absolutely no substance to them. Maybe watch it for Jeremy Irons' purple gloves, I can't think of any other reason.