Pun Salad

We took our Curtailed Operations Day to squeeze in this Netflix DVD, and the general consensus was: "Cute". It's technically a comedy, but one where there aren't a lot of laugh-out-loud moments.

But I think it has a claim to fame, because I'm pretty sure it was completely inspired by this hilarious trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's 2002 documentary Comedian, which featured the late, great, Don LaFontaine, master voice-over star:

I can't think of any other movie hatched by a different movie's trailer. (This one comes close, but not quite the same thing.)

In a World... was written, directed, and stars Lake Bell. She plays Carol Solomon, daughter of (fictional) master voice-over star Sammy Sotto (Fred Melamed). She's also trying to make a go of her vocal/aural gifts, mainly picking up work as a voice coach (for example, teaching Eva Longoria how to sound believable as a Scottish pirate). She finds herself in a financial bind when Sammy tosses her out to make room for his new girlfriend, so she moves in with sister Dani (Michaela Watkins) and her husband Moe (Rob Corddry). Who have their own problems.

There are a few merry mishaps. For example, Carol finds herself in the sack with Gustav (Ken Marino), a cad who happens to be Sammy's voice-over protégé; while concurrently being incompetently wooed by Louis (Demetri Martin), who manages the voice studio she frequents. Carol eventually finds herself in contention for voicing a movie trailer for "The Amazon Games", the first of a blockbuster "quadrilogy". And, yes, it starts out with the words "In a world...".

So the amusement here is pretty much rooted in absurd situations, rather than sight gags or jokey dialog. To its credit, it's not formulaic. Just watchable and (as I said) "cute".