Without The King
Everybody’s trying to be Christopher Guest these days. And if Christopher Guest can’t even do that anymore, what chance does Michael Skolnik have?
Skolnik misses the mark widely with Without The King, a mockumentary that strives to be clever but succeeds only in being silly and offensive.
The key to comedies like Best In Show and Spinal Tap is that the subjects are treated seriously, no matter how ridiculous the action gets. And even though the characters are completely loopy, they come off as real people.
Skolnik forgets this in Without The King. First he sets the movie in an utterly implausible setting (Africa’s last absolute monarchy? Please.) and then he draws the characters far too broadly, giving them silly names like “King Mswati III” and dressing them like castoffs from some racist Busby Berkeley musical.
And Mr. Skonlik? If you’re going to name a fictional African country, you can do better than “Swaziland”. That’s just plain stupid.
Posted: May 2nd, 2008
Comments: 6
6 Responses to “Without The King”
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May 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
Dear Kevin,
I can definitely take a good joke, but your review here is very, very bizarre. Our film is not a “mockumentary.” Please explain. Not sure what good it does to make fun of a film about a country, Swaziland, that has the highest AIDS rate in the world and the lowest life expectancy. I am perplexed by your write-up and not sure of the motivation. If it is all in fun, no problem — but if it is not, please let me know what drug you’re taking.
Thanks,
Michael Skolnik
Director, Without the King
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Heh… have you actually *read* this before? its a joke.. haha.. funny..
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:53 am
HA!
May 5th, 2008 at 4:07 am
I know for a fact that Kevin is on at least 14 different drugs as I have stolen all of them at various points from his medicine cabinet. (BTW, since when did they start prescribing crack?)
May 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I thought this was a remake of “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”
May 13th, 2008 at 6:19 am
I thought this was a remake of “Kinky Boots”.