Eulogy

Starring: Hank Azaria, Jesse Bradford, Zooey Deschanel, Glenne Headly, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Kelly Preston, Ray Romano, Rip Torn, Debra Winger, Keith Garcia and Curtis Garcia
Directed by: Micheal Clancy

Bluntly speaking? Eulogy puts the fun back in dysfunctional. Hardeeharhar. The ensemble cast delivers a subtly hilarious look at a helluva family. It's done in a kind of Christopher Guest meets The Big Chill style - less the music and walnuts.

Story goes… Katie Collins (Zooey Deschanel) has just heard her grandfather has passed away. She heads to spend time with her family, her oddball family.

Kate, the deceased's favorite grandchild, has been given the duty of writing granpa's eulogy- but it seems no one really particularly cared for the man, aside from her, and wicked truths are surfacing.

These truths are sharp as rotten Lindburger cheese on the third shelf after a forty-eight hour blackout. Kate's dad, father Daniel (Hank Azaria) is the most loved of the man's four adult kids. Dan's now a middle-aged unhappy pot-smoking should-have-been…His life having apexed at age ten as a peanut butter pushing child-actor with a catch-phrase that, at this point, makes his siblings' skin crawl off and catch the train to Peoria when he so much as shapes the phrase's beginning vowel towards a sentence. Also they're a tad bitter as his brief stardom made him his father's favorite.

His sister Alice (Debra Winger) is an anal retentive suburbanite who has literally bitched her family into an odd form of mute-ism. The other sister Lucy (Kelly Preston) is a cardholder clamdigger who shows up with her love, Judy (Famke Janssen). Lucy wants to use the gathering to announce their wedding plans. Then there's the other brother Skip (Ray Romano). Skip is a sleazstack-sort who's in the shape of man but harbors the DNA of an Atlantic City off-the-main-drag lounge lizard complete with a smarmy moustache. And he's brought his Damian-esque twins along. They are a puppy-in-the-microwave away from being profiled by an F.B.I. guy.

Then there's grandma (Piper Laurie). She's very sad. As much as the kids seem to have loathed their father, she is heartbroken and attempts several exits - literal exits - to join him on the other side. She's overtly suicidal and wants a big old vat of cyanide cookies to comfort her.

Eulogy has oodles of outlandish shenanigans fluttering about. But, in the end, Eulogy is a warmer tale about family bonds brought to us by an incredibly talented cast. And as you watch the frantic frolicking, you start to wonder if the family's "quirks" are fabricated thoughts of Kate's mind. Perhaps, these mad kin are caractitures cartooned in her memory? Or maybe they are just this whacked 24/7. Enjoy.

Snack recommendation: Casserole and a few loosely rolled blunts