Fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm Can Do No Wrong with Clear History

In HBO's Clear History, Larry David behaves exactly as he does in his brilliant Curb Your Enthusiasm show.

He plays an advertising guru of sorts named Nathan Flomm who opens his opinionated big mouth one too many times and gets fired by his boss, played by Jon Hamm.

Hamm’s company creates the Howard, a car that Flomm thinks will be a grand failure. He’s wrong, and Flomm becomes a national laughingstock for missing out on what would have been a huge payday.

Hamm plays it straight, but Clear History is dotted with hilarious performances, led by David.  The always-lovably-ridiculous Danny McBride plays Flomm’s best friend in his new life in Martha’s Vineyard. Bill Hader and Michael Keaton play a couple of local yokels, Kate Hudson is steady as Flomm’s love interest, and J.B. Smoove is wack as usual.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the movie is how 70s yacht rockers Chicago fill the soundtrack throughout, and also play a role in pulling the entire plot together.

For fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm, there is no going wrong with Clear History.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Danny McBride Saves the World in This Is the End

It's been a while since I've watched Danny McBride's HBO masterpiece Eastbound and Down, so the new film, This Is the End, turned out to be a real treat for me.

McBride steals the show in a show with lots of comic actors who could have done so. Seth Rogen, James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, and Jay Baruchel each have their moments, even if they have less-consistent barrages of funny lines than McBride.

Nobody is as funny as him, the uninvited outcast of a party being held at the real Franco's house when, all of a sudden, the world ends for most of the people on the planet. That is, except for these boneheads, who take self-deprecation and celebrity egocentricity to a new level.

Many of these actors were in the very-good Pineapple Express, and This Is the End turns out to be a bit of a sequel, with several inside jokes and a storyline based on that movie about Rogen and Franco on a wild drug trip.

The wacky, world-ending premise surprisingly doesn't take anything away from the movie, which is satisfying, often hilarious (most often thanks to McBride), and even probably a bit better than Pineapple Express.

A nice little summer 2013 surprise.

***1/2 out of ***** stars