Bad Moms

By now, the bro-com genre has been around for a while. R-rated. Dudes. Dick jokes. We get it. There have been some good ones (“Wedding Crashers,” “Old School,” “The Hangover”). “Bridesmaids” proved you could do a female bro-com. “Bad Moms” (2016) took it one step further, timewise, by moving toward a more grown-up edge. Instead of weddings or a college frat, we get moms and a middle school PTA. But it’s still funny. And there’s still dick jokes (seriously). And Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Bell absolutely kill in supporting roles. And the metaphorical birth of a new genre: the mom-com.

Breaking News in Yuba County

Wow, positive thinking really does work. A woman, getting dumped on from all directions, finds her husband in flagrante delicto and absurdly dark comic hijinks ensue in “Breaking News in Yuba County” (2021). It’s not Shakespeare, but if “A Comedy of Errors” met “Hamlet” in small-town Kentucky… maybe not, but there’s definitely a full-on competition between cases of mistaken identity and cases of homicide. Allison Janney convincingly connives atop an ensemble of bad daughters (Awkafina), bad cops (Regina Hall) and bad sisters (Mila Kunis). If you think almost all the characters are annoying – I know I did – just be patient.

A Bad Moms Christmas

Apparently, “Bad Moms” was such a surprise hit (as if it was still a surprise that in 2016, there was a market for R-rated shock-comedies starring women) that the makers got Mila Kunis and everyone else back together to crank out a sequel in a little more than a year. Even better (as in not better), it’s Christmas themed. So we have “A Bad Moms Christmas” (2017) trying to catch lightning in a chimney. But whereas the original had just the right amount of mommy pathos, this one overdoes things (sequels always do) by pitting the moms against their moms.