The underappreciated and underseen comedy Bad Words gets a fresh chance at an audience, releasing today on DVD. In his directorial debut, Jason Bateman plays a terrible man but an excellent speller in a squeamishly hilarious film that won’t cater to predictability or common decency. Bateman’s direction – like his film – is lean and mean. Bad Words is not for the sensitive or easily offended, but for the rest of us, it’s a refreshing piece of nastiness.
Need more jocularity at the expense of children? Why not dust off that ol’ Yule Tide classic Bad Santa? Madman Terry Zwigoff directs the most irreverent, mean and hilarious holiday film of all time,thanks in large part to flawless performances from Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, Cloris Leachman, Tony Cox, John Ritter, and of course Brett Kelly as Thurman Murman (“That’s your name?”). This screenplay bends to no one, but the film is an absolute classic of wrong, wrong comedy.