After 10 years, Todd Solondz has done a sequel to his most popular (or at least most successful) movie Happiness. If you follow the movie club, Happiness was my pick last go 'round, and one of the most brutal and funny dark comedies I've ever seen.
This new movie is a fairly direct sequel, but the characters have all been recast, sometimes pretty radically. Michael K. Williams (Omar from The Wire) takes over Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character, and Paul Reubens takes over Jon Lovitz's role. The continuity isn't perfect, either, with some characters having aged more than others, and other aspects of their background being toyed with a bit.
I caught this at the New York Film Festival last year, and I really liked it. I would strongly recommend, however, that you see Happiness first and make an effort to know the character names before you walk into this, because there are some very funny callbacks that went over most of the audience's heads. You can follow the movie fine without seeing Happiness plot-wise, but you're going to miss some of the jokes.
Last edited by Frogacuda; 13 Jul 2010 at 05:19 PM.
This seems to be floating around piratey places now. I watched it again, and my assessment hasn't changed. Totally good movie, probably Solondz's best since Happiness, but not really recommended for anyone who hasn't seen Happiness (aka heathens), since it has a lot of callbacks.
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