Semi-compelling in its melding of the English countryside circa 1812 and brain-eating undead, this film has its moments.   In particular, Matthew Smith (an old Dr. Who) as Parson Collins and Lena Headey (Ceirse Lannister in Game of Thrones) as Lady Catherine de Bourgh get the joke, stealing every scene they are in with wink and nod mugging that acknowledges the levity of this venture. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast actually seems to be struggling with the delivery of Jane Austen in the middle of a zombie outbreak and choose to treat the latter as a catastrophe that demands some degree of solemnity. Worse, director Burr Steers finds it necessary to inject the tiresome physicality of a kung-fu movie, which is one ingredient too many for the stew. Still, this is pretty decent fun.

Barton Fink had the Coen Brothers delving into the dark heart of old Hollywood as it crushed the dreams, condescension and verve of the working man’s playwright. The result was a dark and sometimes terrifying comedy that revealed the old film business as an industrial behemoth, plowing over the souls of artists. It is a dour, unpleasant movie, and ironically, so arty and showy that you long for the simplistic Wallace Beery wrestling picture that plagues its protagonist.

It appears the Coen Brothers have lightened up considerably. Hail, Caesar! is a breezy, clever and light love letter to old Hollywood. The studio chief (Josh Brolin) is being wooed by corporate America, and the man sent to Tinseltown to lure him away can’t help but take jabs at the frivolity of Brolin’s work. Indeed, between staging marriages to deal with the unplanned pregnancy of a star (Scarlett Johansson), matchmaking stars to feed to the gossip columnists, squelching rumors about his Clark Gable-esque A lister (George Clooney) and saving that same commodity from kidnappers, it all seems pretty silly. But it is not. It is, as presented by the Coen Brothers, noble work.

This light romp is made glorious by several masterful recreations of old Hollywood scenes, from the massive scale of period pieces to cowboy antics to jaw-dropping swim and song-and-dance numbers. The detail is lovingly rendered, and the humor is always there. This is one of their better films. It prompted Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post to rank her Coen Brothers films, a list that is in many ways beyond stupid. Here is mine:

1. Fargo
2. No Country for Old Men
3. The Big Lebowski
4. True Grit
5. Inside Llewyn Davis
6. Burn After Reading
7. Miller’s Crossing
8. Hail, Caesar
9. Raising Arizona
10. Oh Brother Where Art Thou
11. Blood Simple
12. Intolerable Cruelty
13. Barton Fink
14. The Hudsucker Proxy
15. The Man Who Wasn’t There
16. A Serious Man

**. The Ladykillers (never saw it)

Will Ferrell has seemingly gone to the well too often with his super clueless white dude schtick (as I write this, he dropped another one into theaters with Mark Wahlberg; Ferrell is the super clueless white stepdad to Wahlberg’s bitchin’ cool real dad). There’s nothing new to it, but I have to say, coupled with Kevin Hart, in Get Hard, you have the two hardest working men in show biz peddling standard physical, fish-out-of-water yuks. and they hit more targets than they miss. And by hardest working, I don’t mean they do a lot of movies (although they do), but that they work the ever-loving shit out of a bit, no matter how lame the premise or how Hindenburg-esque it feels. And I have to give them credit. Ferrell, as the super clueless white dude hedge fund manager set up by his boss, and Hart, as the man who washes his car and acts like an ex-felon to prepare Ferrell for hard time, create laughs on the sheer strength of their dedicated efforts. It’s almost as if they’re beating them out of you in their riffs, and it jumps this movie a full 2 stars. Interestingly, what murdered the movie with the critics was the constant refrain of Ferrell fearing forced sex (or otherwise) in prison; those halcyon days of making mirth of prison rape have passed (The Atlantic‘s Christopher Orr gave the film the “Gay Panic Award” and Salon took the time to provide a compendium of reviews deeming it “a racist, homophobic mess”). I’ll leave it to others more sensitive than myself to judge the film’s racism or homophobia, but I confirm it is a mess, albeit one that has some very funny bits (including some centered on Ferrell’s fear of gay sex), made funnier by the blood, sweat and tears of the leads.

When Noah Baumbach makes movies about miserable people, they tend to be miserable experiences. Ben Stiller was a depressed, egocentric bundle of nerves in Greenberg. In Margot at the Wedding, Nicole Kidman was a near hysteric mother, so casually cruel to her teen son it set your teeth on edge. And Jeff Daniels’ insecure, superior father in The Squid and the Whale was a textbook narcissist and a gasbag academic to boot. While talent is evident in these films, they are neither enjoyable or incisive. Rather, they are merely intricate portraits of unpleasant people doing awful things to themselves and those around them.

But Baumbach has a breezier side, one that was shown in his writing of Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic and Fantastic Mr. Fox, and of late, his films seem less like autopsies and more like entertainment. In Frances Ha and While We’re Young, Baumbach could not quite leave the realm of the neurotic, but at least we had characters to semi-root for. In Mistress America, we have an unqualified heroine, Greta Gerwig (who dates Baumbach and co-wrote the script), a whirling dervish of a climber, all idea and no follow-through, who latches on to a lonely college freshman (Lola Kirke), lifts her spirits and serves as her muse. What follows is a hilarious social and then drawing room comedy, which has a bit of a Whit Stillman nostalgia, but is decidedly more modern in its literate and canny observation of academia, money, status and success. Gerwig is truly a force of nature, and Kirke is genuinely touching as a child adrift in the cold realm of college and New York City. I laughed out loud throughout, one of the best films of the year.

A smart, kinetic re-imagining of Risky Business, except instead of Joel from the tony suburbs of Chicago, we get Malcolm, a geek from the decidedly tougher “the Bottoms” of Inglewood.  A lot of good laughs and a few inspired set pieces.  Unfortunately, it shoots itself in the foot at the end with some clunky, preachy Spike Lee homily.  Shame.

Melissa McCarthy blew the doors off of Bridesmaids, and that was in a very strong ensemble. Since that time, she’s taken several whacks at a lead or co-lead role (Identity Thief, Tammy, The Heat) and the results have been blah. In the first two of those movies, McCarthy played up the grotesque, as if to say, “Yes, I know I’m fat, but wait until you see me fat and disgusting and humiliated.” It was a complete reversal from her character in Bridesmaids, who acted as if her weight was an advantage, an intriguing sexy charm, only to reveal to a self-pitying Kristen Wiig that her arrival at such self-confidence was no easy road. In this, McCarthy was hilarious and touching. In Tammy and Identity Thief, she was gross, charmless and, unsurprisingly, not funny.

McCarthy should thank the stars for writer-director Paul Feig, who also directed Bridesmaids, because he leads her back to her strengths. As CIA office minder for the James Bondian Bradley Fine (Jude Law), her secret agent exploits are limited to getting Fine out of jams while talking in his earpiece.  Of course, she’s in love with him, a love that is unrequited but deep nonetheless. When Fine is killed, McCarthy goes out into the field to avenge him, tangling with a fellow agent who is dismissive of her skills (a very funny Jason Statham), a horny Italian liaison on the ground (Peter Serafinowicz, who damn near steals the movie), and the arch villain Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne, who may be the hardest working woman in show biz). For each of these characters, Feig writes very clever bits, and McCarthy plays off of their barbs beautifully. The result is a bit of Austin Powers and a bit of Bond at its most campy, consistently interspersed with crisp and amusing banter and a few laugh-out-loud set pieces. It’s all held together because you like McCarthy and instead of reveling in her misfortune, she exhibits wit and pluck and you root for her to rise above each indignity (the worst of which are the increasingly disparaging “undercover” personalities she is assigned).  Great fun.