01
The Comedy
Why this pick
Alverson’s earlier anti-comedy shares Entertainment’s punishing awkwardness, deadpan provocation, and emotionally vacant protagonist drifting through corrosive encounters.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2015 1h 53m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Entertainment
DramaComedy
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Entertainment, try these.
01
02
The Mountain
Why this pick
Another stark Alverson nightmare: formal, chilly compositions and unnervingly opaque character interactions turn a period road story into sustained existential discomfort.
03
Faults
Why this pick
Its confined confrontations, brittle humor, and shabby atmosphere make discomfort feel deliberate; it similarly lets comedy curdle into an unsettling study of manipulation.
04
Listen Up Philip
Why this pick
A caustic portrait of an egotistical artist whose alienating behavior is observed with dry precision, bitter humor, and little interest in easy redemption.
05
Relaxer
Why this pick
An extreme chamber-piece endurance test with deliberately hostile humor and grimy lo-fi texture, suited to Entertainment’s taste for absurd degradation and anti-entertainment.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
After touring an Aircraft boneyard in the California desert, the film's main subject (Gregg Turkington) performs a stand-up routine as the character of Neil Hamburger to an audience of prisoners following a clown act by "Eddie the Opener" (Tye Sheridan). The convicts react positively to his openly sexist, racist, and homophobic jokes. Back at his hotel, he leaves a voicemail for his daughter while a soap opera plays on television. The next morning, he hikes across rock formations before performing at a bar, but the show goes poorly as few patrons laugh and one heckles him. This causes the performer to express irritation (in character) with the audience and the heckler.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Gregg Turkington
The Comedian
Tye Sheridan
Eddie The Mime
Amy Seimetz
Rene
Tim Heidecker
The Celebrity
Waymond Lee
Prisoner
Michael Cera
Michael
Mariann Gavelo
Sitcom Maria
Dustin Guy Defa
Ruben