Movie Nation

The JFK Assassination Conspiracy Industrial Complex won’t care for “Truth is the Only Client: The Official Investigation of the Murder of John F. Kennedy.”

Then again, will anybody watch a documentary defending the Warren Commission’s findings about the Kennedy Assassination? If there’s one thing the thousands of books, films and TV series and specials have made clear, it’s that the money’s in “conspiracy.” Even a film with the prosecutorial thoroughness of “Truth is the Only Client” will leave those deep down the rabbit hole unconvinced. They’ve been running with “alternate facts” too long to quit now.

I’ve gone back and forth on this subject, like many of us, swayed by this “revelation,” convinced by that recreation. It’s so omnipresent that the Kennedy Assassination has become a cultural punchline, doubt sewn by “Seinfeld” even as we laugh at the conspiracy nut archetype in Richard Linklater’s “Slacker.”

This film is an outgrowth of a touring lecture series run by former Commission counsel Judge Burt W. Griffin and his protege, Judge Brendan Beehan. Their access to surviving members of the legal staff involved in the investigation, to the survivors among those investigated as material witnesses to the murder and to staff of the 1970s House Select Committee on Assassinations allows them to make a convincing case for the Warren Commission’s successes and the slip-ups Chief Justice Earl Warren and others that allowed oxygen into the firestorm of conspiracies that followed the report’s release.

Manson Family prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi is also here, as a legal eagle who staged a famous mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald in the ’80s, which utterly convinced him that “no credible evidence has surfaced” that contradicts the Warren Commission in the 57 years since JFK’s murder. His assertion, that “the reality” of the mundane nature of the “unstable…lone gunman” assassination simply didn’t fit what people want to believe about this sensational, epoch-altering crime, is the guiding mission statement of “Truth is the Only Client.”

“It’s not Shakespearean.”

Dissecting the Warren Commission’s makeup and history, from the first call to Bill Moyers at the White House (by Yale Law School Dean Eugene Rostow) the weekend of the assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder pitching the need for such a commission, on through those questioned, is fascinating in an of itself. You don’t need the conspiracy-backing slant for to be engrossed in this.

So, from Soviet involvement to mob planning to the “Magic bullet theory,” from The Grassy Knoll to the shooting of Officer Tibbets and mob-connected Jack Ruby’s shooting of Oswald, the film thoroughly explains the Warren Commission’s findings and its wariness of what it might learn from the FBI and CIA, which had their own agendas in the paranoid days, weeks and months following the assassination.

What I found most interesting was getting at the places where Warren himself screwed up — hiding the Kennedy autopsy photos — the leeriness of anybody wanting help from the notorious Dallas Police Department — and the efforts by the CIA and the FBI to cover their own screw-ups which allowed Oswald’s obsession to bear fruit.

Most Americans still don’t believe the Commission’s conclusions. A convincing TV series like the British-made “The Men who Killed Kennedy” from the ’80s, or Oliver Stone’s red herring-loaded “JFK” can have a lasting impact.

When a film sets out to address much of what conspiracy buffs have used to build their house of cards, it will leave some facts out. Evidence of things “concealed” from the Warren Commission might not help the investigation’s credibility. The House Select Committee, leaning heavily on a scratchy, misinterpreted police motorcycle radio recording of the shooting, didn’t help.

But as “Truth” shows, there was no “magic” bullet, nobody saw anyone shooting from The Grassy Knoll, and I might add, the three shots fired were replicated, from the Book Depository window, for a CBS Special hosted by Dan Rather decades ago (NOT impossible).

The film’s host/narrator, Beehan, may go overboard in his suggestions that “the system worked” in spite of evidence that shows the mistrust in government spawned by the Commission’s thorough, seemingly transparent but apparently not as thorough as they claimed and not transparent enough to not seem a “rush to judgement.”

But that doesn’t mean that “alternate facts” weren’t born in the pages of Mark Lane and other researchers’ truth-bending “investigations,” or that Oliver Stone didn’t do a grave disservice to the culture by celebrating New Orleans prosecutor/crackpot Jim Garrison.

MPA Rating: unrated, Zapruder Film violence

Cast: Vincent Bugliosi, Justice Stephen Breyer, Ruth Paine, Judge Burt W. Griffin, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, G. Robert Blakey, Howard P. Willens, narrated by Judge Brendan Beehan.

Credits: Written and directed by Todd Kwait, Rob Stegman. A Blue Star Media release.

Running time: 2:20

Here’s a laugh we didn’t know we needed right now, a light LEGO lampooning of “Star Wars,” just in time for the holidays.

All those jokes you share with your friends when watching the various trilogies in this over-saturated “universe,” “A New Hope” through “The Mandalorian?” They’re stuffed into “The LEGO ‘Star Wars’ Holiday Special.”

How would Darth Vader react to his first gaze upon the wonder of Baby Yoda?

“Awwww.”

Master Yoda’s comeback, if Luke Skywalker gives him backtalk about the Jedi credo, “Do or do not, there is no try?”

“ParTICipation trophies for Jedi, there are not!”

The Emperor’s patience is always ALWAYS wearing thin.

“Less talky talky, more FIGHTY FIGHTY!”

Jedi Rey (Helen Sadler) can’t seem to get the hang of training Finn. So she takes off for an ancient temple where she and BB8 acquire a key to…”Star Trek’s” “City on the Edge of Forever” time portal. They don’t call it that, but hey, if the portal fits.

She will bounce through the saga, from Yoda’s training of Luke to Qui-Gon Jinn’s training of Obi Wan to Obi Wan’s training of Anakin, taking notes.

Only, because it’s time travel, things get messier by the minute. How many Vaders, Lukes and Darth Maul’s can one 47 minute “special” squeeze in?

She’s got to accomplish all this before a big Life Day holiday party with Chewbacca’s family. Yes, they’ve booked the cantina band. Yes, only one member remains. Don’t ask. And yes, Yoda becomes “The Ghost of Christmas Past” because of course he does.

The overarching theme of the recent trilogy, that individualism is fine, but we’re stronger together, is underlined. And the emperor’s insistence on naming his planet destroyers gets on Vader’s nerves.

“It’s just that ‘Death Star II feels--kind of derivative!”

The animation’s digital LEGO sharp, the effects decent facsimiles of “the real thing” and no, that’s never what matters in Lego send-ups. Some of the voice acting substitutes are as lame as all the “holiday of friendship, of family and of CONNECTION” definitions of Life Day.

It doesn’t really take off until Rey does. Still, for any fan, all these riffs on classic scenes and goofs on the repetitive, formulaic nature of it all, will sting just enough to be funny.

MPA Rating: G.

Cast: The voices of Helen Sadler, Trevor Devall, Matt Sloan, Tom Kane, and Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams and Kelly Marie Tran.

Credits: Directed by Ken Cunningham, script by David Shayne. A Disney+ release.

Running time: :47

A famous writer drags relatives along on a cruise.

Agatha Christie?

In theaters? On TV? No. HBO.

That little dickens Anna Kendrick already did a Christmas movie. But “Happy Christmas” was a bit more naughty than…you know.

So here she is in a genuine Disney Christmas movie for kids, back on Disney+ for the holidays. Did you catch it last year? Do the kids want to see it again?

“Noelle” is sentimental farce that puts Miss “Pitch Perfect” in holiday tights and Christmas sweaters as Santa’s daughter, second banana to older brother Nick (Bill Hader), a woman who has never left the North Pole and who “majored in calligraphy and minored in popcorn stringing.”

But she’s sensitive, always looking out for others. And she “twinkles.” Nick is stressing about taking on the new job, so she suggests he “take a weekend off” have a little get away. Nick doesn’t come back. Even the North Pole puffins are peeved.

Noelle has to “borrow” the sleigh, with trusty nanny elf Polly (Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine) and track Nick down to whatever destination in the travel mag she gave him he might have ventured.

It’s Phoenix, and no, she doesn’t have to circle the globe hunting for him to other cities. That’s the first missed opportunity in a limp comedy that Kendrick has to carry all by herself.

They don’t have her sing, just a little “Tra la la” this and “fa la” that, summoning her animal buddy Snowcone, the (digital) white reindeer calf.

They do let her show off her language skills, which hints at a better comedy that might have been. She’s just as funny in French.

Track down Nick, or tech nerd cousin Gabe (a sadly subdued Billy Eichner) will take over, digitally crack down on the “Naughty or Nice” list and let Amazon Prime replace the sleigh, reindeer, etc.

Nerd.

This childish confection was cooked up by Marc Lawrence, who was once Sandra Bullock’s go-to guy (“Miss Congeniality” scripts, “Two Weeks Notice”), and it’s got a quest and a would-be love interest, the private eye (Kingsley Ben-Adir) Noelle hires to help her locate Nick. Can she afford him? Will he take North Pole gold (covered chocolate) coins?

“Bring non-edible money.”

It has Hader with very little that’s funny to play.

But there’s an elvish quintet who sing little commentaries on the proceedings like a Greek chorus.

“Joy to the world, except for YOU.”

That’s a gimmick worth running with. As with too many other mildly-promising tidbits, Lawrence doesn’t.

But the ladies sell this, with old pros MacLaine and Julie Haggerty (as Mrs. Claus, Noelle’s worrywart Mom) giving it their all.

And Kendrick? After 45 minutes or so of thin entertainment, Anna gets her groove back. Bubbly Noelle has no time for pessimism.

“That’s pretty stocking half-empty.”

She’s got to keep her true identity from the simple happy natives of Phoenix. Where’s she from?

“A little town…up north.”

“Canada?”

“Canada WISHES.”

And arguing with a sibling who’s found “yoga” is apt to bring tears.

“Oh! You! Better not pout, you BETTER not cry!”

In sum, Kendrick’s twinkles. “Noelle” doesn’t. Let her sing and get her a dozen more jokes and this one could have been a holiday keeper.

MPA Rating: G.

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader, Shirley MacLaine, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Michael Gross.

Credits: Written and directed by Marc Lawrence. A Disney release on Disney+.

Running time: 1:40

From Exhibitor Relations, your top five for another weak weekend at the cineplex.

“Let Him Go” fell off by just over half, “Freaky” didn’t open at “Unhinged” or “”Let Him Go” levels.

And the pandemic is back, worse than ever. Watch em while you got’em, Film fans.

TOP 5 DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE 1. FREAKY ($3.7M) 2. LET HIM GO ($1.8M) 3. THE WAR WITH GRANDPA ($1.3M) 4. COME PLAY ($1.1M) 5. HONEST THIEF ($800k) So, uh, that freak-flag looks a lot like this… https://t.co/wXViCuHdnY https://twitter.com/ERCboxoffice/status/1328020731381174272?s=20

“Playhouse” is a stylish British ghost story with a great, gloomy Scottish setting, and little else to recommend it.

It’s not frightening, rarely suspenseful and never comes close to the harrowing experience audiences have come to expect from horror movies these days. It’s all squandered opportunities and dull substitutions for our best guesses as to where it will go next.

But the set up is solid gold. A grumpy teen (Grace Courtney) and her Dad (William Holstead) have relocated from London to this seaside Scottish “castle.” It’s one of those homely manor houses that used to be a castle, victim of a drab Dickensian makeover or two over the decades.

But Dad, Jack Travis, has big plans for it. He’s the “horropreneur” of The West End, a successful playwright who has a mind to turn this place into an immersive theatrical experience, “the living play,” he calls it. He’s so deep into the idea that he’s talking to the dead son of the late laird of the manor.

“We’ll show them, won’t we, Alastair?”

Daughter Bee sees all the news-clippings on Dad’s bulletin board, even if she doesn’t overhear him improvising dialogue around the place’s unfortunate history. People have died, an aristocratic family left secrets and perhaps unfortunate members buried in the wall.

Bee, just finishing school, invites classmates over for a spooky evening of drinks, candles and wild tales of the place. They egg each other on until they’ve laid hands upon “the wall,” an exposed part of the older incarnation of the “castle,” where you can still “hear Alastair…the laird’s son” screaming if you touch it.

The girls might not have played this “game” had they known “Bee” is short for “Beleth,” one of the “Kings” (or queens) of Hell.

Can I mention what an utter bust this scene is, dramatically?

Jenny (Helen Mackay) is a curious neighbor who grew up down the lane. She and husband Callum (James Rottger) may be here to tidy up granny’s old place to sell it. But the history of “the castle” tugs at her, and pretty soon they’re having a tetchy dinner with the Travis’s.

What are the secrets this spooky place will draw out of our principals? And what secrets does the castle have for those who dare to dwell there as they hunt for actors and financing for a theatrical theme-park style spooktactular?

Holstead, of “The Burying Party,” has precious little to play here. Jack has to be off his rocker to think he’ll lure people to the middle of nowhere to experience his “living play.” He hints that he expects folks to want to move there just to be a part of this thing. Holstead doesn’t give us much that says “madness.”

Courtney’s “Bee” is all sullen and bangs, and the movie loses track of her for most of the second half. So no help there.

And Mackay and Rottger, playing a couple who aren’t on the same page, with ties to the spooky house that aren’t mysterious or shocking, don’t add much to the proceedings. Something draws Callum to Jack, but there’s no hint of the house putting him under its spell, just as there’s too little of that where Jack is concerned as well.

So what we’re left with is a fumbling, groping and almost wholly-unsatisfying thriller set in a towering old house near the water’s edge, where the wind howls and there’s a shock, fright or laugh behind every tree.

Except that it being Scotland, there’re no bleeding trees.

MPA Rating: unrated, horror imagery, profanity

Cast: William Holstead, Grace Courtney, Helen Mackay, James Rottger

Credits: Written and directed by Fionn Watts and Toby Watts. A Devilworks release.

Running time: 1:26

There’s a moment, after we’ve seen an hour of the stoic Swedish teen Greta Thunberg start a global climate movement, meet with world leaders and agree to every “selfie” asked of her by fans along the way, when we get a taste of just what this activism has cost her.

It’s not in the scary “security” briefing and first aid refresher course her dad, Svante, gets after the death threats start. And it doesn’t come the first time she expresses dismay and even outrage at the “fake” political leaders and all the lip service paid her cause when the cameras are rolling and Celebrity Greta is present.

She’s on board the racing sloop “Malizia II,” bombing across the Atlantic on a carbon-fibre/carbon-neutral sailboat trip to New York. The seas are heaving, but she’s as poker-faced as a Vegas high roller. It’s the tearful aftermath of a call home that reminds us that she’s just 16 when this footage was shot. She’s a teenager with Asperger’s forced to cope with being mobbed, meeting tens of thousands of strangers when what she craves are solitude, “routine,” and the family and the animals she always found easier to relate to.

“I Am Greta” isn’t just about a global phenomenon that’s grown out of one child’s protest. It’s about what a little girl, derided by climate change deniers and right wing pundits as “mentally ill” and “depressed” and “attention-starved,” having the do a staggering laundry list of things she fears the most in life because of one thing she fears worse than any other — mass extinction and an unending climate crisis that leads to it.

Nathan Grossman’s marvelous “fly on the wall” documentary follows Thunberg from that first day, as she took her hand-drawn placard and sat down in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm.

“SKOLSTREJK for KLIMATET,” it read. “School Strike for Climate.”

Adults shake their heads as they pass. One older woman stops to gently lecture her that yes, there’s a crisis, but you’d get more accomplished staying in school.

“No one gives a damn,” Greta mutters, in Swedish, with English subtitles.

And then other kids join her. A tiny bit of online video attention follows, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, with millions of followers on Twitter, endorses her protest. Just like that, a Swedish protest becomes a European, and then global phenomenon and movement.

What humanizes her is how she soldiers through all this activity that she has an aversion to, accompanied by her skeptical father, polishing her message and sharpening her criticism, which she gets the chance to deliver in the world’s most public places — at conferences, in British parliament (“Is my microphone on?” she wants to know, in English. “Because you don’t seem to be hearing me.”) and at the U.N.

“I want you to panic. I want you to act like the house is on fire.”

Because, frankly, it is.

Grossman’s film makes us appreciate what a smart kid she is and how she somehow shrugs off her symptoms and the way she triggers the climate-denial right. Her Dad should have bought a plane ticket to Australia and punched the wingnut who called his daughter “a virtue signaling little turd” on Murdoch-friendly TV. But you know, flying is off limits in this family. That’s why she traveled to the UN via sailboat, after all.

Being on the autism spectrum may explain her laser-intense focus on this issue, on “drowning polar bears, deforestation and ocean acidification.” She freely admits it lets her “see through the static.”

Her Dad may be proud of her ability to turn herself into an expert on this subject and a global icon through her “almost photographic memory” (a politician fervently shoves a big climate report into her hands as she’s heading into one speech) and well-intentioned obsession. What moves her mother Elena to tears is just the knowledge that Greta is now able to “eat in front of other people,” another phobia related to her condition that she won’t let stop her.

Who knows if she’ll remain this focused on this issue forever? And will she remain an icon when she’s no longer a pony-tailed teen?

But when she promises “We will be a pain in the ass” of officialdom, and “We will not stop,” I wouldn’t bet against her. She’s already one tough, laser-focused broad.

MPA Rating: unrated, a little profanity

Cast: Greta Thunberg, Svante Thunberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emanuel Macron, Pope Francis

Credits: Directed by Nathan Grossman. A Hulu release.

Running time: 1:37

As the lady once said, “What fresh Hell is this?”

For everybody who found the polish, sophistication and gentility of “The Devil’s Rejects” a turn-off, we present “Derelicts,” a little slice of holiday slaughter from the people who brought you…

Hell, I’ve never heard of any of them, and neither have you.

It’s a slasher/splatter pic about murderous drifters who dismember, shoot, skull-crush and sexually assault a seriously dysfunctional family gathering for an uneasy Thanksgiving dinner.

And as ol’ honest reviewer Abe put it, “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.”

Constance (Kelly Dealyn) wakes up with a dream droplet of blood on her cheek. Testy husband Gregg (David Lee Hess) has no time for that. He’s prepping the meal for HER family. And her ob-gyn Dad (Steve Uzzell) and his new girlfriend (Lana Dieterich) woke everybody up early with their noisy love-making.

Gregg’s an out-of-work theater company director, their near-adult son Leslie (Dalton Allen) is a sex-obsessed cretin and daughter Barbara (Emily Ammon) is going through a mental health crisis that manifests itself with blackouts on the (running) track and nosebleeds.

Then this slaughterhouse gang of five led by “Cap” (Les Best) wipes out Constance’s brother and nephew, hijacks their truck and apparently follows the onboard GPS (only way to explain it) to their house.

Let the torture, murders and dress-for-dinner games begin.

“This is MY house!” the Cap lets one and all know. “I carved it outta the bones of 40 dead Chinamen in Cambodia, and I’m about to PAINT it in your blood!”

He’s got an “x” tattooed between his eyebrows, so any resemblance to Charles Manson is intentional.

The gang includes “Black Forrest” (Sam Pleasant), killer shrew Bo (Kara Mellyn) and most horrifically, “Turk” (Andre Evrenos) who never speaks. He only screams. Oh, and he’s fashioned a pink teddy bear into a mask.

The mayhem starts with another murder getting in the front door, then sexual assaults and escalates from there.

“FINGER food?”

Anyway, you get the idea. There’s nothing remotely witty about this, no real room for pathos or outrage either.

But as outraged Gregg is moved to ask, perhaps speaking to the potential audience of such movies — “Is that how you people get off?”

Don’t answer that.

MPA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, sexual assault, drug abuse, profanity

Cast: Les Best, Kelly Dealyn, Sam Pleasant, David Lee Hess, Steve Uzzell, Dalton Allen, Emily Ammon, Marcela Pineda and Andre Evrenos

Credits: Directed by Brett Glassberg, script by Andre Evrenos, Brett Glassberg and Clay Shirley. A Terror Films release.

Running time: 1:13

There’s no footage of Hurricane Maria’ pounding Puerto Rico back in 2017, back when the storm made landfall and wrecked the island.

We don’t see the gas lines, people lining up for water, the months of governmental indifference in San Juan and Washington.

No, there’ll be no paper-towel tossing here.

Cecilia Aldarondo’s “Landfall” is an impressive, impressionistic and intimate overview of the unhappy “Island of Enchantment” as it stands today, years after Hurricane Maria hit.

She ends her film with scenes of the street protests that brought down the island’s corrupt government in 12 days back in 2019. But everything that comes before is people reminiscing about the “tragedy” of Maria and “the real disaster (that) happened afterwards.” New Orleans level devastation, all levels of government services lost, decades of mismanagement, postponed infrastructure and incompetence all came home to roost.

People on the farms of Orocovis, in the beachfront tourist cities, on Vieques Island were cut off. “We didn’t know when help from the U.S.” was coming.

Those warehouses full of cases of bottled water that was never distributed? They’re shown here, and the natives are still furious about that.

Aldarondo, director of “Memories of a Penitent Heart,” travels the length and breadth of Puerto Rico, Bartolo to Dorado, San Juan to Rincón, sketching in lives interrupted but getting back to dinner-party-normal, fishermen back to harvesting spiny lobster, farmers hitching up oxen to the plow again.

But beyond all that, there is youthful discontent and island-wide fury at “The Junta,” the Obama-appointed fiscal management board trying to get the island’s debt under control.

In mid-crisis, outsiders are still looking for ways to cut costs and services.

Luxury real estate developers are cashing in, luring blockchain/crypto-currency hipsters into buying mansions. That’s a hustle that amounts to an entire chapter of “Landfall,” with Brock Pierce and other tycoons of digital currency trying to sell the island on becoming a haven for their online business and a tax shelter for their class of entrepreneurs.

Aldarondo captures a heated meeting with locals, with Pierce losing his temper but holding his own, in Spanish and English, with skeptical Puerto Ricans, who see this blockchain pitch as another short-term “gain,” like the island’s brief flirtation with industrialization in the ’50s and 60s.

Using old newsreels and tourism promotional films, she paints a portrait of past promise, and promises broken. If the Bitcoin billionaires get their way, will Puerto Rico progress into some status other than “territory/colony?” Not if that means taxes.

That’s one of the take-aways from “Landfall,” which will be on PBS’s “POV” series next year, but can be streamed during its Oscar qualifying run via DOC/NYC this week. As Puerto Ricans march, take over abandoned schools to house themselves in co-ops run like communes, and fight off complaints about “socialism,” none of the mostly-unnamed interview subjects makes any noise about “statehood.”

One member of the New York Puerto Rican diaspora complains about the city not being “my country.” Do they want independence? Will there blockchain mogul money behind such a push?

“Landfall” doesn’t really ask such questions, or answer them. Aldarondo was going for something more impressionistic and kaleidoscopic. But the documentary makes this much clear. The days of ignoring and neglecting Puerto Rico need to end. Puerto Ricans remind us that they deserve it, and that from now on, they insist on it.

MPA Rating: unrated, some profanity, smoking

Credits: Directed by Cecilia Aldarondo. An ITVS/POV release.

Running time: 1:34

Young woman wants to make it as a stand-up comic, stalks her geezer heckler, “a comedy urban legend” until he agrees to coach her.

We all know where “All Joking Aside” is going, basically by the time the opening credits end. But those credits, underscored with a collage of comic bits, have a point that I’ll come back to — this joke.

“NOBODY wants to be a stand-up. We all wanted to be actors. But crunches are HARD!”

So watching and listening to 20something Canadian actress Raylene Harewood struggle and “get better,” as the stand-up film formula ordains, one can be forgiven for getting stuck on that opening credits zinger delivered by a comic whose face we don’t see.

She’s lovely. She’s done the crunches. She gets more comfortable on the stage, the script’s “material” improves, and she’s still not funny.

So why would she want to play a comic?

This Canadian production doesn’t differ from any other movie about the struggle to be a stand-up, from “Punch Line” on down the line. So let’s pass along the best of the sage profundities served up by the “washed-up” alcoholic comic, ably played by veteran character actor Brian Markinson, who had the good sense to never do a “set.”

“Look girl, there are two types of people in this world — funny people and happy people. You cannot be both. Do yourself a favor and go try to be happy.”

“A comic is judged every twelve seconds of his life.”

And “Bob,” the legendary comic who never got a sitcom, who supposedly managed 1000 sets, all different, in one epic year on the road, opens “All Joking Aside” with the best single-sentence review the picture could hope for.

“I’ve seen this movie a dozen times, sweetheart.”

Harewood’s a good actress, and gives a little weight to the “problems” Charlie, her character, deals with, that “personal s—” she’s supposed to “work out on the stage.”

But she’s not funny. Her delivery is all rounded locutions, prissy posh Kerry Washingtonish, not exaggerated enough to be Drew Barrymore funny.

Not that we’d see either of them as stand-ups. Because they’ve done the crunches.

“All Joking Aside” isn’t awful and Harewood isn’t its lone shortcoming. The script is too thin to hold our interest. Stand-up is so over-covered as film subject matter that the only way it can work in a movie these days is as backdrop for a more interesting story in the foreground.

Jenny Slate’s “Obvious Child” comes to mind. She’s funny, a convincing stand-up, but that’s not what has to carry the movie.

Not saying that this movie needed an unwanted pregnancy story, with stand-up as its subtext. But all joking aside, that would’ve been funnier.

MPA Rating: unrated, profanity, smoking.

Cast: Raylene Harewood, Brian Markinson, Dave “Squatch” Ward, Katrina Reynolds

Credits: Directed by Shannon Kohli, script by James Pickering. A Quiver release.

Running time: 1:23