The marvelous Murray.

Let others slobber over Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. In this year of looking over our shoulders at past leaders with more heroic leadership qualities than the ones we’ve been getting lately, I’ll stick with Bill Murray as Franklin D. Roosevelt. There are two Hyde Parks—one in London and one in upstate New York on the Hudson River, where FDR made his summer home. Hyde Park on Hudson is an elegant, entertaining warts-and-all portrait of the 32nd U.S. president and the momentous summer weekend in 1939, on the eve of World War II, when two worlds melded and he hosted America’s first royal visit by a British monarch. The arrival of freshly anointed King George VI and his wife Elizabeth blends the stuffy formality of English manners with the down-home flavor of an American picnic in a film that is guaranteed to enthrall. It’s The King’s Speech with hot dogs and mustard.

The royal visit turned Hyde Park upside down. Still spinning from the abdication of Edward VIII and his scandalous marriage to a divorced woman and “an American, of all things,” the Brits were skeptical, but they needed support for the inevitable war. The Americans were rendered no less cautious by the presence of an inexperienced king who stuttered. To thicken the stew, there was also the urgent need on the part of his staff and advisers to hide Roosevelt’s true nature—an unquenchable passion for the ladies that turned the summer White House into a hotbed of sexual shenanigans while he was confined to a wheelchair and his wife Eleanor turned the other way, including simultaneous affairs with his loyal secretary “Missy” LeHand (Elizabeth Marvel) and his prim, dignified spinster cousin Margaret “Daisy” Suckley (warmly, engagingly and intelligently played by Laura Linney), who had a special talent for giving FDR discreet hand jobs on jaunty country drives through the back roads of Dutchess County in his cherished convertible. Based on Daisy’s private journals and diaries, discovered after her death, the rich screenplay by Richard Nelson draws a parallel between the trusting friendship that developed between two courageous, insecure world leaders (a stammering king on the verge of leading his country into war and a polio-stricken president who had just guided his people through the Great Depression) and the painful discovery by his disillusioned lovers that FDR was a very different man than the one he projected to the world at large. Threading myriad disparate elements into a rich needlepoint of humor, pathos and period detail, veteran director Roger Michell has created a sumptuously photographed feast, filmed in the actual historical locations 90 miles north of New York City. From the scurrilous details of FDR’s horny meetings behind closed doors with a variety of conquests (including New York Post owner-publisher Dorothy Schiff), to the silken settings of his mother’s manor house, everything about Hyde Park on Hudson is a thrill to discover and behold.

The cast brings it to life with sparkle and aplomb. The great Elizabeth Wilson is severe and imposing as FDR’s dragon-lady mother, Olivia Williams shows why the legendary Eleanor was an icon to millions but an abused and neglected wife to her husband in everything but affairs of state, Samuel West is a sensitive and astute king and Ms. Linney projects a powerful, pristine influence throughout as the chosen interloper—not really an outsider, but hardly a member of the inner family circle; left out of the official festivities, yet summoned at odd hours when the president needs a shoulder to lean on; opening doors to let in the light while averting prying eyes. But at the center of the action, holding the pieces together with infectious dazzle, a droll Bill Murray simply seizes the center ring and holds one’s attention from beginning to end. Wryly wringing crinkle-browed humor from FDR’s deadpan speech and singsong cadence, puffing away on his trademark cigarette holder and dropping ashes wherever he settles, with his upper teeth protruding when he smiles and his eyes twinkling when his robust sexual appetite surfaces, Mr. Murray channels the enormous humanity and popularity of the only U.S. president to be elected three times in a row with quotable one-liners and enchanting grace. He’s proud when he shows off his stamp collection, touching in his desperation for rare moments of privacy and relaxation, wickedly amusing as he admonishes Bayer aspirin for his sinus infections, and exasperating when he flies through the woods in his convertible with specially designed controls on the steering wheel and the Secret Service in hot pursuit. He’s especially moving in the poignant late-night candor he shares with the king, pouring out the whiskey and putting him at ease while
sharing his own flaws as both a leader and a man. The film delves beneath the arch reserve of the royals, revealing them as real people, too.

In the truth about how Eleanor was betrayed, making peace with her separation and remaining the first lady in name only; in the bond forged by two men whose alliance would ultimately defeat the stormclouds of global war; in the boundless charm exerted by a great man over a world in panic, there is revelation in every frame of Hyde Park on Hudson. It’s clearly intended for the masses that fell in love with The King’s Speech, but it adds an extra dimension of its own to world events. In beauty, tone, technical achievement and cinematic artistry on every level, Hyde Park on Hudson is a movie unto itself—funny, believable, historic and hugely entertaining.

rreed@observer.com

Running Time 95 minutes

Written by Richard Nelson

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney
and Olivia Williams

Jason Schwartzman, Bruce Willis, Wes Angerson, Ed Norton, Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray (Getty Images)

CANNES, FRANCE– Last year’s Cannes Film Festival was a bizarre anomaly by any measure. The art-house powerhouse debuted Oscar’s best picture (The Artist); Woody Allen’s highest-grossing film ever (Midnight in Paris); Terrence Malick’s mystical, masturbatory tone poem (The Tree of Life); and Lars von Trier’s apocalyptic melodrama (Melancholia), which prompted the Danish provocateur to announce himself a Nazi, get officially labeled “persona non grata,” and be told he physically can’t come within 100 yards of the festivities. That’s a hard act to follow, even for the French.

This edition, Cannes’ 65th, still has the phalanxes of gendarmerie, the crushing tuxedoed crowds, the Harvey Weinstein street sightings (two in one day!) and the obligatory media stunt appearances (Sacha Baron Cohen promoted The Dictator yesterday by literally dressing as a camel jockey and riding his dromedary in front of the Carlton Hotel). But Wednesday’s kickoff still felt a bit underwhelming. Maybe it was Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, an opening night film stuffed with big stars in small roles (including Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, and Frances McDormand), which chronicles first love between two alienated kids on a New England island in 1965.

More a taxidermist's study of WASP ennui than a full-blooded cri-de-coeur of youthful longing, Moonrise Kingdom has been polarizing the critics here: those on Team Wes see it as a consolidation and refinement of the director’s singular talents, while the haters (including myself) have been bristling at the hermetic fetishist’s prioritizing of sartorial splendor and fastidious set design over anything resembling actual human insight. Personalized stationery for all! Everyone in meticulously tailored uniforms! Visual symmetry in each frame! The cast members routinely assemble in moribund tableaux vivants and deliver stilted dialogue in deadpan barks. It’s charming until it’s stifling.

One major find is 13-year-old Kara Hayward, who makes a striking debut in the film as the pubescent love interest. Moon-faced, stern, vulnerable yet steely, Hayward brings delightful depth to the film’s otherwise unearned pathos. Also doing the heavy lifting is composer Benjamin Britten, whose rapturous “Noye’s Fludde” adds operatic levels of emotion that invigorate the anemic script.

At the press conference, Mr. Anderson’s actors spoke with deep affection for their helmer. “It’s a goofy punch,” said Bill Murray of what he sweetly called a “silly little kid’s film,” and also explained why he’s been in every one of Mr. Anderson’s films since Rushmore. “I really don't get any other work but through Wes. I just sit by the phone.”

Edward Norton called his experience “completely delightful,” while Wes regular Jason Schwartzman was more specific. “The clothes are very tight,” he said. “And I don't get to experience that kind of tightness all the time, so it's wonderful on a lot of levels."

Speaking of clothes, this year’s competition jury, headed by Palme d’Or winning auteur Nanni Moretti and featuring the expected collection of actors and directors (Diane Kruger, Ewan McGregor, Andrea Arnold, Raoul Peck), includes a wild card: couturier Jean-Paul Gautier. No stranger to film as a costume designer for Peter Greenaway, Luc Besson and—three times—Pedro Almodóvar, Mr. Gautier still got a bit of ribbing from the international media. One Italian journalist asked if a film’s lack of style would prevent him from calling it a masterpiece. "It depends what you mean by style,” Mr. Gautier shrewdly answered. “If the film really touches me, it's not just a question of the aesthetics. Of course, the image is of paramount importance, but beauty is everywhere. It's emotion that really counts." Let’s hope Wes was listening.

But the evening's marquee moment came when Bill Murray took the stage to introduce Sofia Coppola, who would receive a Special Filmmaking Achievement Award for her triple duties of writing, producing and directing Somewhere. And what is Bill Murray's strategy for cramming his digressions and non sequiturs and other assorted bits of lunacy into the two-minute speech limit? Gobbling cinnamon-spiced Red Hots, of course.

The Carpetbagger had the tact to run the speech in its entirety, and we dutifully do the same here. Enjoy.

They told me I have two minutes. I’m going to pop this Red Hot, so I can finish in two minutes. [He pops the Red Hot.]

Why to give this award, why? Because you have to throw a party. Because you have to compete with the Golden Globes. We all ask that question, if you were able to get out tonight, celebrate, without your relatives, you’ve earned it, you deserve it. Meredith [Viera, the host] is doing a really a good job moving the crowd along, isn’t she? [Applause as he mouths the Red Hot] Why would you give it to Sofia Coppola, why? Because you want to encourage her, I think. I think that’s the real reason. Look at her. [yelling] Look at her! She comes from a family, mother and father, both very successful creating entertainments and amusements and thought-provoking work. She wrote a spec on script for the ‘Virgin Suicides.’ The ambition of these young people, can you believe it? The ambition. She got the job as the director. She directed ‘Lost in Translation’ in another country and another language and got a prize for it. God, this is a hot, hot Red Hot. I’m not going to fool you people because I got another half in my pocket. [He pops it in.] I got one-and-a-half in my mouth right now.

Then she decided to work in France and do ‘Marie Antoinette.’ A woman who was beheaded, not a sympathetic creature, you know what I mean. A lot of directors who would pass on that. Who do you root for, you know? She did that beautiful, beautiful movie and now she’s done this ‘Somewhere,’ which takes place – somewhere. I know, it’s the west coast, southern California basin. So why do you give this person an award? You give them an award because they need to be encouraged. You can look around this room and you could look around the world of film and you can see people that had great success early in your career. Some earned it, some were lucky, some got it, but in a certain point they live life, they get into life. Like Sofia’s gotten into life. She’s married, now she’s got a French lover [Thomas Mars, the singer of the band Phoenix]. She has two children, beautiful children by this French lover — and honestly I’m sick of these directors with the homely kids, I can’t stand it anymore! – she’s got beautiful children and she lives with a man who is the only Frenchman that could ever play rock and roll, ever. [Expletive] Johnny Hallyday! [Beat] Pardon [beat] my [beat] French.

So why do you encourage these people, because now she’s had this success, she’s had this work, she has this life, she has this family, she has this thing going and now is when people like you have chosen well to say, let’s give this person another boost, let’s give this public person another boost, to say, keep going, because now life will come to you, hard, like it’s come to everyone that’s lived long enough, it comes hard, it gets in the way of your career, it stops your career, it stunts your life. It definitely will make your career go left. You show me an actor doing a [expletive for terrible] movie, I’ll show you a guy with a bad divorce. [Looking directly at someone in the audience] You know who I’m talking about!

I want the best for her because she’s a lady, she acts like a lady. The women in her movies are ladies, they have strength and they have power and they’re strong. Even the pole dancers in this movie had enough of themselves to call the lead actor a moron, as all you women should call your men this evening – pole or not. Give her a boost to say, go on, you’ve made it this far, push her out into the deep water, push her out into bigger and deeper films, more and more films. She has a beautiful eye, she has great taste in the people she chooses to work with, she’s a kind and thoughtful director and editor and producer. She’s all the things that we hoped we could be when we work like this. She’s been lucky so far and she’s been strong so far. Let’s keep her going. I appreciate your asking her to receive this award for filmmaking achievement. Miss, Ms. Ms. Ms. Sofia Coppola.

Click for What Twitter Taught Us: Piers Morgan Defends A Cell-Abusing Arianna

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

1. Katy Perry and Elmo Destroy Our Children

Actually, Elmo would never willingly be part to any such thing. Still, pop starlet Katy Perry has indeed appeared on Sesame Street, the show that has now raised generations of American kids with quirky wit and colorful muppet-led musicality. She did not prove she wasn't actually the most sophisticated muppet to ever come out of the Jim Henson Company, she did prove her music, with a few changes, easily lends itself to childrens' programming. So there's that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXiFsB4SYlc&feature=player_embedded

2. No One Will Ever Believe It's Bill Murray's 60th Birthday

Bill Murray, an actor beloved of comedy fans and geeks alike, turns 60 today. Below you'll see a video of Murray from 1982, in which he rants on cue for a TV promo spot about technology. We're pretty sure it's always been awesome to be the man and legend that is Bill Murray.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfG3VXaasF0&feature=fvw

3. Kids From P.S. 22, Soothe Our Wearied and Cynical Hearts

The chorus kids from P.S. 22 doing what they do best, singing pop music from sad and cynical old grown-ups' childhoods and making grizzled and grumpy oldsters a little hoarse and misty in the process. P.S. 22 of 2011, singing John Lennon's "Imagine."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJNWs52d-08&feature=player_embedded

In the maelstrom of muck that passes itself as filmmaking today, it is reassuring to come across the occasional gem made by genuine talents who still know how to tell a classic story with coherence and charm. The aura of William Faulkner lingers over Get Low, a chunk of down-home rural Southern folklore based on a real event in 1938, when a Tennessee hermit emerged after decades of hiding in the woods to hear the nearby townsfolk's opinion of him at a mock funeral. Moving the action back a few years to the Depression, this film, the debut feature by the Oscar-winning cinematographer Aaron Schneider, is a funny and tender retelling of that story, resonating with warmth and sardonic wit and containing a majestic performance by Robert Duvall.

In one of his rare screen appearances of late, the iconic actor plays Felix Bush, a grizzled old recluse who has cut himself off from society for 40 years, after a barn burning that made him a local legend, feared by men and children alike. (Some folks swear he kills his victims with his bare hands.) What a shock when Felix wanders into town one day in battered rags with his shotgun and his mule, his gnarled face buried behind a white beard. Fearing his imminent passing, he decides that "it's time to get low"-meaning time to make plans for dying, including the purchase of a plot, a casket and a eulogy. This is great news for Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), an undertaker with basset-hound eyes and the doleful owner of a failing funeral parlor, who goes after the business. Better still, his customer envisions a funeral party-one last hurrah that will draw friends and enemies alike to his shack in the woods for the final send-off, provided each guest has a story to tell about him, true or false. Chuckling with mischievous glee, he even decides to sell $5 raffle tickets. The lucky winner will get 300 acres of virgin timber land and a mule named Gracie. This Depression-era come-on draws crowds so big that they set up a tent city to house the turnout. One caveat: The celebration must take place while he is still alive to enjoy it!

From this modest premise comes characters rich with tradition (shades of everything from Tobacco Road to Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller) that extend their lives beyond the limitations of the log cabin settings. The film is enhanced by bluegrass music, and the beautifully composed camera setups serve as exquisite backdrops for a series of keenly calibrated performances. Mr. Murray is both sad and funny as the opportunistic mortician with a well-concealed conscience, and Lucas Black more than holds his own as his young sidekick. Sissy Spacek, always a minimalist, is a touching and terrifically matched counterpart for Mr. Duvall-a still lovely and radiant old flame whose sister's death in the fire that haunted their lives for so many wasted years forms the mystery at the heart of the film. It takes the whole movie to solve that mystery and discover what Felix did to become his own guilt-ridden jailer for 40 years, but while you wait, you have the rare pleasure of watching two seasoned pros interact with heart and sensitivity. While the acting is uniformly fine, it is the welcome return of Mr. Duvall that is worth a special round of applause. Odd and unpredictable, he perfectly embodies all the qualities of old age-breathing through his sinuses, hobbling left to right like a hobby horse with wheels that need oil, his expressions rising and falling with appropriate awe when he eyes a casket of solid pecan with steel handles and a satin lining or selects with trepidation a new blue suit to be buried in. The nuances with which he demonstrates the value of doing more with less for maximum effect makes every scene an acting lesson. I couldn't take my eyes off his face. With his mouth open and his tongue poised, it's like he's snoring wide awake.

Simple, straightforward and stirring without sentimentality, Get Low is a treasure.

GET LOW
Running time 100 minutes
Written by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell
Directed by Aaron Schneider
Starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray, Lucas Black

3.5 Eyeballs out of 4

Who else has gotten the short end of Murray's ire here in 2010? The Observer offers you a handy guide to the newest members of the Enemies of Bill Murray Club.

Josh Harnett

While being interviewed by BlackBook, Murray recalled a time when actor Josh Hartnett came up to him at a restaurant. "This guy shakes my hand and says, 'You worked on Lost in Translation with my [then] girlfriend. Was she as much trouble for you as she was for me?' But Scarlett [Johansson] was 17 when I worked with her, so no, she wasn’t. [...] I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I don’t know who the fuck anyone is." But wait, hasn't he seen Hollywood Homocide? To his credit, Murray also couldn't remember Jennifer Love Hewitt's name either, referring to her in GQ as "[W]hat's-her-name. The mind reader, pretty girl, really curvy girl, body's one in a million?"

Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg

The Year One screenwriters might want to grab a couple of helmets. Once a pair of hot commodities -- thanks to their work on The Office -- Year One director Harold Ramis tapped them to write the script for Ghostbusters 3. The only problem? Year One. Said Murray: "Well, I never went to see Year One, but people who did, including other Ghostbusters, said it was one of the worst things they had ever seen in their lives. So that dream just vaporized. That was gone." Nothing like a comedy icon admitting that he and his comedy icon buddies laugh at how bad your writing is, right?

Toby Kebbell

You might have never heard of Toby Kebbell before, but now you'll forever know him as...well, let Murray tell it: "I have this friend of mine now, Mitch Glazer, who wrote a screenplay that he wanted to direct. And some actor jumped, just got terrified at working with Mickey Rourke. Just jumped. And lost his balls, really." Not sure what's more emasculating: that statement or the fact that Kebbell is yet another person whose name Murray couldn't be bothered to remember.

Seinfeld

Always hoped to see Murray and Jerry Seinfeld share the screen? Keep hoping. "I never saw Seinfeld until the final episode, and that's the only one I saw. And it was terrible. I'm watching, thinking, 'This isn't funny at all. It's terrible!'"

2012

What's the story: This is how the world ends, not with a whimper but with a digitally created tidal wave. Not content with merely killing off half of the population in The Day After Tomorrow, apocalypse porn impresario Roland Emmerich returns to wipe out the rest of the planet in 2012. Filled with a cast of "what are they doing in this?"-types like John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet and Tom McCarthy (we're a long way from The Visitor), Mr. Emmerich stages the end of days with loads of special effects and enough wooden dialogue to build an ark. Naturally critics are howling—sometimes literally; the Observer's Sara Vilkomerson took utter joy in 2012's absurdity and compared it favorably to "80s shlock-tastic blockbusters"—but does any of that really matter? This thing is basically designed to print stacks of money.

Who should see it: The ghost of Irwin Allen.

Pirate Radio

What's the story: We were a lot more interested in this when it was called The Boat That Rocked. Released with that title in the United Kingdom last spring, the more generic-sounding Pirate Radio finally hits theaters today and tells the story of a group of ragtag DJs that set up a pirate radio station on a ship off the coast of Britain in the 1960s. Philip Seymour Hoffman—channeling Lester Bangs—stars alongside Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Rhys Ifans and a host of excellent music cues (bonus points for the use of "Elenore" by The Turtles in one of the original trailers). Unfortunately, the reviews have been mixed, but we still think Pirate Radio might be worth checking out if for no other reason than for the rare sight of Mr. Hoffman having fun.

Who should see it: Cousin Brucie.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

What's the story: Not to nitpick, but if George Clooney and Meryl Streep were going to co-star in a Wes Anderson film, couldn't they have picked a live-action one? The inimitable stars voice Mr. and Mrs. Fox in Mr. Anderson's long-awaited adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's classic. (If it feels like this film has been in the hopper for quite some time, that's because it has been listed on Mr. Anderson's IMDb page since The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou came out five years ago.) Co-written by Noah Baumbach, and featuring the voices of the usual array of Anderson Players—Owen Wilson, Wilem Dafoe, Jason Schwartzman and, of course, Bill Murray—Fantastic Mr. Fox is certainly a "Wes Anderson film," which is good news for film geeks like us. The reviews have been sparkling—our Ms. Vilkomerson calls it "something entirely new"—and it appears to be a return to form for the director after the lackluster The Darjeeling Limited. Move over Where the Wild Things Are, there's a new children's movie for hipsters to fall in love with.

Who should see it: Max Fischer.

Also opening this weekend: Carla Gugino is a Woman in Trouble; Woody Harrelson trades in zombie killing for honest-to-goodness human emotion in the critically praised The Messenger; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt finds Uncertainty.

Wes Anderson’s take on Fantastic Mr. Fox, the classic 1970 book by Roald Dahl, is full of the whimsy and cleverness one expects from the man behind Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, but it manages to escape the treacly feelings of overt twee-ness that have plagued later works like The Darjeeling Limited. Instead, this film manages to capture all the joy of childish delights with grown-up irony and humor, making it pure fun. Visually, its a true marvel. Perhaps best of all, it feels like something entirely new.

George Clooney is the voice of Mr. Fox, an elegant chicken-stealer who favors not-quite-long-enough-sleeved suits (just like his creator). Fox is a little bit Danny Ocean, mixed with Out of Sight schemer Jack Foley, dotted with all the finger-snapped suavity of the actor himself. When his wife (Meryl Streep) tells him they are expecting a cub, he swears to go straight, and becomes a newspaper columnist instead. Yet the highs and profit from such work can’t compare to the thrill and reward of his former dangerous life, and Foxy can’t resist the lure of one last heist involving the three meanest farmers around. He enlists a new pal, a possum named Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky), and his nephew, the naturally athletic Ash (Eric Anderson, Mr. Anderson’s brother and creative collaborator), while trying not to hurt the feelings of his “different” son (a pitch-perfect Jason Schwartzman).

The movie, co-written by Mr. Anderson and Noah Baumbach, takes some necessary departures and adds in a few subplots, but overall it enhances the story. The stop-motion animation that Mr. Anderson employs, so different from the depersonalized, ultra-smooth perfect Pixar look, only adds to the richness of the film. The animals—which include rabbits, badgers (hooray for Bill Murray), moles (The Observer’s James Hamilton!), hounds and a hilarious turn by Willem Dafoe as a vaguely Frenchy delusional rat—all have fur that bristles and whiskers that twitch. In fact, some of the movie’s best moments are when these animals break from their civilized affairs and remember that they are indeed just wild animals. As with all of Mr. Anderson’s movies, Fantastic Mr. Fox is sweetly wry, with comedic surprises and arch dialogue—I don’t know how much the kids will get out of the witticisms, but their parents will certainly be laughing.

svilkomerson@observer.com

It might only be the middle of September, but we still feel confident in calling Joel McHale the breakout star of the fall television season. The snarky host of The Soup is so perfectly on-point in Community—premiering tonight at 9:30 on NBC, before moving to 8:30 when 30 Rock returns on October 15—so comfortable and engaging, that it seems impossible to envision a scenario wherein he doesn’t become one of the biggest stars on television. That’s high praise, sure, but we don’t consider it hyperbolic; he’s just that good. And thanks to Mr. McHale, Community manages to deliver the funniest comedy pilot since 30 Rock debuted.

From executive producers Joe and Anthony Russo (the two brothers cut their teeth on Arrested Development) and Dan Harmon (The Sarah Silverman Show), Community follows Mr. McHale’s disgraced lawyer, Jeff Winger, as he attempts to gain a college diploma at the local community college. (When Jeff’s former client–cum–professor asks about his supposed degree from Columbia, Mr. McHale replies: “And now I have to get one from America.”) Whereas we’ve been conditioned to expect television comedies to rely on either the faux-documentary conceit or cutaways and digressions, Community is fairly straightforward with its humor. There is no wall breaking, no wacky situations; it’s an old-fashioned comedy, but produced for current sensibilities—hence, the absence of a laugh track and one subtle-yet-funny 9/11 joke. The brothers Russo and Mr. Harmon, who wrote the pilot, keep the show hellzapoppin’ with enough cultural references to make Josh Schwartz jealous. To wit: The pilot features a lengthy homage to The Breakfast Club and also shout-outs to Dirty Dancing, Meatballs and Stripes. It’s like Chuck, but on steroids.

The Stripes reference is fitting, of course, because Mr. McHale is so clearly channeling Bill Murray that, at times, it becomes scary. Truth be told, Mr. McHale seems much nicer than everyone’s favorite misanthrope, but that doesn’t detract from his deadpan delivery and timing (it makes us wonder how long it will be before Mr. McHale gets cast in Ghostbusters 3). That Community pairs him with Chevy Chase—playing a supporting role much smaller than the advertising would have you believe—is a delicious irony when you consider how much Messrs. Chase and Murray once hated each other (and still might). They famously came to blows during the second season of Saturday Night Live, when Mr. Murray called Mr. Chase a “medium talent,” one of the great burns of all time. Mr. Chase is funny enough in Community—as is the rest of the supporting cast, a mish-mash of Breakfast Club–like archetypes—but he is indeed the medium talent on Community. This is Joel McHale’s world and everyone else is just trying to keep up. Thanks to him, Community is a winner. The first great new show of the fall has arrived.

Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can't keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Caddyshack [starting @ 10:15 p.m. on AMC]

Why we’ll try to stay up and watch it: After staying up last week to catch The Life Aquatic, it might seem like we’re on a total Bill Murray kick—we even re-watched The Royal Tenenbaums over the weekend—but, if we’re being honest, Mr. Murray is probably the fourth funniest person in Caddyshack. And considering his character provides some of the most quoted lines in the history of college fraternities, that’s saying something. No, Caddyshack isn’t just merely a "Bill Murray movie"—it’s an amalgam of old and new school comedic ideals, pasted together with nothing more than spit and glue.

That Caddyshack ended up working at all probably seemed improbable during filming. The original script, co-written by Bill Murray’s actor brother Brian, was focused on the caddies and their day-to-day life at Bushwood Country Club. (We can hear you yawning from here.) That version of Caddyshack exists in some alternate reality, where the gawky Michael O’Keefe is the star and Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield and Mr. Murray are all stuck with cameo appearances. Thankfully, Harold Ramis, making his directorial debut, realized that the funniest parts of Caddyshack actually resided in those cameos, and built the entire movie around them.

And so the end result is rough around the edges and filled with warring sensibilities. On one side, there’s Mr. Chase, smirking at anything that moves; on the other, Mr. Dangerfield is doing his best Henny Youngman impression. At times, Caddyshack feels like a Friday night at the UCB Theater: The whole barely holds together, yet the individual parts are utterly hilarious. The quintessential needle drop movie, Caddyshack may have been the first comedy to admit that sometimes a coherent plot can get in the way of a great joke.

When we’ll probably fall asleep: Since we could probably recite Caddyshack line-by-line—seriously, we’ve seen this thing thirty times—there is no reason to stay up until the end. So we’ll make it through just 23 minutes, when the flabbergasted Judge Smails (played by the flabbergasted Ted Knight) tells Mr. Dangerfield’s Al Czervik to stop playing Journey’s "Anyway You Want It" in the middle of the golf course. Legend has it that the former Ted Baxter spent the length of the shoot upset with the improvisational nature on the set, and bristled at the reduced role it left him with. We’d like to think this was all a ploy on the part of Mr. Ramis to get the best out of Mr. Knight, but, even if it wasn’t, the trick worked: Mr. Knight acts so cranky and demonstrative throughout that he steals the entire movie from his Not-Ready-for-Primetime co-stars.