Easter Sunday

I love Jo Koy. His stand up is very funny. His storytelling is great. His tales of family and growing up and achieving success as a Filipino-American are very endearing. This movie contains many of the best elements of his storytelling and it is fun to see him playing a version of himself. His family is very memorable if you have seen his stand up. This film's stand up moments are the best. The Church scene is best part of the movie. The weakness is that the movie has been sanitized for family viewing. It is the Filipino version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Heartfelt. Warm and funny. Not the best but good.

Someone mentioned it's an hour and a half sitcom, and it probably is but it provided a steady stream of chuckles, laughs, cringes, "hmmm???", "whaaattt???" and a window into a different culture as well as the west coast point of view (I'm East Coast). Plus it finishes off nicely. It's a good night out that will leave you with a smile on your face after you've left. Enjoy.

Oh dear, this was a huge disappointment. Let me make it clear this is in no way a funny movie. Cheesy yes, but funny? Well there were a couple of funny moments but they were fleeting.

The 2 scenes that had Tiffany Haddish playing the cop and bouncing off Jo Koy, those were the fun bits. This movie did not make me LOL like what Jo Koy does when I watch his stand up either on his Netflix specials or the most special to me when I saw him life when he came to Australia that performance was really funny. It's probably a difficult thing to move over to comedy acting rather than stand up, even when your playing yourself. Maybe the script was too stifling for his natural comedic abilities. The movie had too much going on and tried too hard, some of the comedic acting was lame. I like the Filipino humour as I can related being the husband of a Filipina,. I hope his next attempt at a movie does a lot better and I hope he does make another movie. His first will be mostly forgotten and he could have dome so much better. Maybe he should have used his actual real mother and other family members in the movie rather than the actors.

Wanted so bad for this movie to be great. I typically love Comedies about Family. This was so bad! I was surprised, I expected more. There were a couple of small chuckles..no real belly laughs. The movie is more about Jo Koy's character than the Family. I also thought they would have more Lou Diamond Phillips in it. However,he had a small part. Tiffany Hadish has a small part in it and she was pretty funny..but could have been in it longer. It was great to see Tia Carrere, she did well with the few lines that she had. All in all a total miss. Which is ashamed because I have always like Jo Koy and thought he would bring it. Maybe next time, because he is talented.

Greetings again from the darkness. Director Jay Chandrasekhar and co-writers Kate Angelo and Ken Cheng have crafted a tribute to the Filipino community, paying homage to family bonds and the culture. The obvious comparisons here are CRAZY RICH ASIANS (2018) and any number of Bollywood movies offering insight and a peek behind the curtain of Indian families. As global societies continue to disburse and intertwine with various races and cultures, it only makes sense for us to gain more understanding of each other ... and what better way than through comedy?

In the film, real life comedian Jo Koy plays fictional comedian and aspiring actor Joe Valencia. Joe moved to Los Angeles, away from his Bay area family, to pursue a career in entertainment. It's been a struggle, and he's best known for a beer commercial where he looks into the camera and says, "Let's get this party started, bayBee!" One of the recurring gags is how so many either recite the line to him, or plea with him to do so. Up for a big role in a TV pilot, Joe once again lets down his high school aged son, by attending an audition rather than a parent meeting at school. Junior (Brandon Wardell) is struggling a bit with his grades at the prestigious prep school he attends. See, Joe's career as an actor might not be rolling, but his ex-wife is a powerful attorney married to a professional athlete.

The real fun begins as we see the tension between father and son on the road trip they make to join the rest of the family for Easter Sunday ... an important day for Filipinos. Along the way, we experience two more of the film's running gags: Joe's mom (Lydia Gaston) pressuring him not just to show up, but to not be late, and Joe's agent (played by director Chandrasekhar), whose use of 'entering a tunnel, so I'll be losing the connection' is his standard way of ending a conversation when he's done. Once they arrive, we get yet another running gag - the ongoing sister rivalry between Joe's mom and his Tita Theresa (Tia Carrere). It's a quick trip for Joe and Junior, but it's filled with family drama, Joe's impromptu stand-up in church, a love interest for Junior (Eva Noblezada), a run-in with a former lover (Tiffany Haddish) for Joe, a questionable business investment between Joe and his cousin Eugene (Eugene Cordero), a confrontation with a local gangster named Dev Deluxe (Asif Ali), and an all-in family karaoke song. There is even a Lou Diamond Phillips tie-in that adds a touch of class.

The writers and director have worked mostly in TV to this point, and that is just too obvious. A TV sitcom style rarely succeeds on the big screen, and though we do get some laughs, there is an amateurish feel to the proceedings. On the upside, some insight into Filipino culture is welcome, I now know Manny Pacquaio's birthday, and it was my first exposure to "Hype Truck!" Opens in theaters on August 5, 2022.