Strangers with Candy (2006)

This is an awesome movie that serves as a prequel to the hilarious TV series! A 47-year old ex-con, ex-prostitute, and ex-drug addict named Jerri Blank returns home and finds her dad in a coma. She returns to school as a freshman. Jerri makes some friends like Megawatti Sucarnaputri and Tammi Littlenut. A science fair comes up and Principal Blackman wants to win, so he hires a genius. Chuck Noblet puts together his own team to win. Jerri gets high with the other team, and gives them their plans. Jerri is kicked off the team and tries to think of a way to make it all better. If you love comedy, and the TV show, you'll love STRANGERS WITH CANDY!!!

I was waiting for Stephen Colbert to produce something funny. I waited, and waited, and waited... but the only joke in the Col-bear Re-por is its name, and that got old after the first repetition. You have to be a hard-wired politics addict to find anything funny in Colbert's show - it's the sort of "satire" the idiot radio-show lieutenant in "Good Morning, Vietnam!" inflicted on people who had to be drafted to hear (aptly summed up as "your show sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls... ").Imagine my surprise, then - I'd seen a few episodes of the television series version of "Strangers," was unimpressed, but decided to give the movie version a try. I'm glad I did. The MOVIE version of "Strangers with Candy" is actually pretty funny. Not because it's an extraordinarily well-written story - but the acting talent showed up for work instead of phoning it in, the way big-name stars do so often in B-movies. To paraphrase one of the celebrity GEICO commercials, "Real actors really acting... what a concept!" This story needed to be adapted for a movie, somehow. What came over as hackneyed and lame in the series is edgy and funny in the movie. The thousand nasty little gags fit the pace of the movie much better. Even Stephen Colbert manages to be funny in this movie, something I just don't see happening in the "Re-por" (and as much as I really want to laugh at something he does on that show... it doesn't happen).There's this scarily authentic blend of nerdiness and depravity that just... works somehow. Amy Sedaris kills in a very, very bizarre role - I'm not going to spoil it if you're unfamiliar with the show's main premise, but it's really out there... and yet... it works. Just sit there and let the strangeness wash over your mind in waves.Perhaps part of the appeal of this film are the flashes of familiarity from real high school... the semi-lethal drivers' ed simulators, the teachers who missed their vocations by being born too late to work in East German reformatories, the nearly edible cafeteria food, unrequited love with unlikely objects of adoration... goofiness overlaid with multiple coats of malignancy.Watch it. Just don't admit to watching it. And wash your hands afterward.

This is my first review....why you might ask yourself? Why now? I'll tell you why.....so i can help people to avoid the god awful tripe that this movie is. I don't think my comedy tastes are really any different to anyone else's...i don't think i just didn't "get it" i honestly and truly think this is the worst film i have ever seen in my entire life. Not once did i laugh....the whole film i wanted to punch Jerri in her mutilated face, and quite frankly i'm disturbed Colbert would put his name, let alone face, to something this bad. The quote on the box says "The funniest film since 'Shaun of the dead'" - where was that from you ask? IMDb. Yes folks...right here...thats the only place they could find someone insane enough to actually like this movie. Avoid like the plague. For the love of God.

This movie failed for me on a major level. I love the TV show, and was looking forward to seeing this flick. But it was no good. If you are going to have a crazy character like Gerri, the REST of the characters in the school need to be very normal! The reason why Gerri is funny on the TV show is because she's acting like a lunatic while the rest of society are being mostly normal. The writers and directors made the unfortunate choice of having every single actor ham it up, and instead of having believable scenes, I felt stuck in a burdensome, long SNL skit that refused to end. Comedy is mixing the real with the strange. None of the things that took place in that high school looked remotely like anything anybody has experienced in a school. I'll repeat - for something like that to be funny, the rest has to be played straight. The plot is completely absurd and unfunny - yet the movie spends a maddeningly long amount of time nursing and building it. Everyone associated with this movie should be ashamed of this product.