Not this week anyway. Apparently, Airplane! turned 30 last week. Which reminded me of how funny i found that movie, even as silly as it was. Free for all, what were your favorite comedies? A few of mine – Animal House, Caddyshack, Fast TImes at Ridgemont High, Pink Panther movies, and more recently Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.
I always loved Airplane – it’s exactly my type of humour.
I also like the Pink Panther films but I’m not sure that they’ve dated too well.
I mentioned the disappointment I felt when I saw Steve Martin’s The Jerk recently and I’m now scared to watch The Man With Two Brains in case I feel the same about that.
Number one on my all-time comedy film list is undoubtedly The Life Of Brian. I watched it a few weeks ago and loved every minute of it.
Here’s my favourite scene:
[video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8%5D
I haven’t seen Pink Panther films in quite awhile. I have to say i never got The Jerk really, or Steve Martin’s humor much either, except maybe the Czeckoslovakian Brothers type skits on SNL.
Let’s try that link again:
Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn
Some Like It Hot
The Big Lebowski
The General (Buster Keaton)
I’m rather fond of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure too
Forgot that loved Dumb and Dumber. The second Ace Ventura movie too.
Ha! I thought It was just me and my best friend who liked Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, I love it, it’s the reason why I can’t wholly dismiss Jim Carrey. airplane is a classic, and informs a lot what I like now, the joke-a-minute style that means you can see new things during each viewing. I watched The Hangover tonight, and that was very funny too.
When it comes to Peter Sellers, he’s truly amazing in Dr Strangelove, and I have a soft spot for the Party too.
Anyone for Duck Soup?
Donds for Monty Python and The Big Lebowski.
I used to love MP’s The Meaning Of Life, especially the final scene (I still say “Bon…appetit” to myself from time to time) but I wonder if I would still enjoy as much as, say the Holy Grail or Life Of Brian now.
Liked the 2nd one even more. Same jokes but with added Shat. Think this may have been the 1st time that he made fun of his own unique acting abilities. Peter Graves as the pervy captain was also brilliant.
& Top Secret was great too. Val Kilmer, Peter Cushing, Omar Sherif.
Donds for Top Secret – nice shooting!
Ooh, this is what i was hoping, that people would remind me of movies that i forgot. Like Top Secret. The Naked Gun movies were pretty funny too. I frigging love Val Kilmer.
I love Jim Carrey too. But as comedian and comic actor a lot more than a straight actor, i thought that The Truman Show was lame.
The Incredible Pedant is sarcastically wondering where the band got their guitars from, especially the Strat, which wasn’t invented until 1954. I’ve told him that it’s irony, but he doesn’t really get the concept.
Comedies? The original M*A*S*H movie by Robert Altman, with Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland (and one single actor who transferred to the TV series – come on, pub quizzers….).
The original Blues Brothers. Notice all the little extras? The ‘in-time-with-the-music’ dialogue in the car? Chaka Khan in the church choir? Who keeps checking his watch, which you were told is broken when it was given back to him right at the start…?
And Coast To Coast, a made-for-TV with Lenny Henry, Pete Postlethwaite and John Shea which never made it to youTube, DVD or even video as far as I can work out. Brilliant story of a mouthy mobile soul DJ and his mate getting mixed up with the Liverpool heavy mob and hiding out in the Lake District. Stax/Volt/Motown soundtrack, too. If anybody has a copy, I have swap items. Including bank notes….
Four Lions has just been released here on DVD. I don’t know how well it would travel to the USA but it made me laugh virtually all the way through, despite it being about people attempting to blow other people up. It’s not up to Airplane for sheer quantity of gags but the quality’s there. (An it makes yer fink.)
How did Team America do over there, amy? Again, it made me laugh out loud (is there an abbreviation for that?) but I can’t imagine it got universal acclaim Stateside.
Another Lebowski/Coen fan here, too.
Although it’s now more of a dear friend, Living In Oblivion is very funny. And just wonderful.
@williamsbach-
Dond for MASH. Can’t remember – was it Radar?
@Chris-
Haven’t seen Team America, is it something i need to see? Shamefully i haven’t seen The Big Lebowski. I have seen Fargo, was expecting to be unimpressed, but i loved it.
I don’t know how many people are into stoner movies, but Harold and Kumar is hilarious, better than Cheech and Chong. I went to see it on a sort of date, he gave me a choice of that or Napoleon Dynamite. I picked that one, and we laughed so hard we were crying.
And i just remembered Mel Brooks movies, and Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy too.
Has anyone else been getting 404′d here on the Spill? Or is it just Safari that’s acting up?
Yes it was, Amylee, but who was the actor? And you really need to watch The Big Lebowski. Coen bros genius
Gary… erm, erm….
Burghoff
Donds, for Team America. In The Loop was great too – less puppet sex but better swearing.
I’ve seen clips of In The Loop and episodes of In the Thick of It, i loved them. If Team America is anything similar, i’ll have to check it out.
Team America is similar in that it takes the p*ss out of world politics but it is just a bit (no, lot) more extreme. It was made by the South Park geniuses using Thunderbird style puppets and a brief to blow up every bit of scenery they made for the film.
It also contains the sweetest, saddest song ever sung by Kim Jong-Il.
If you enjoy South Park, you’ll love TA. Alternatively, if you hate South Park….
“America, Fuck Yeah!”
Double donds for Team America and In The Loop, that and THe THick Of It was my comedy revelation of the year.
The puppet sex in Team America was designed to give the censor something to cut (so that he’d leave the rest of the film alone). And it worked perfectly, the sucker! It’s out there on the internet but I’m not going to ruin the shards of my reputation by posting the clip.
Many great noms above, and I’ll add any Laurel and Hardy, and that historical French one where they all have to be witty in the Court. And of course, that brings me to my funniest film of all time, Les Visiteurs (which I could sit down and watch right now). But the Hollywood remake in English was sad sad sad sad sad and awkward. . . much like the totally shit remake of the brilliant La Cage Aux Folles (The Birdcage).
Carry On Screaming was a cracker, as was It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Richard Pryor made one crap movie after another to fund his freebasing habit, but his Live In Concert remains unique in the history of the universe. Okay, maybe there’s a betentacled comic who was raised in a whorehouse on the third stone from Alpha Centauri with the characters, voices and observation of Pryor, but I won’t believe it until I see it.
I need to shut up now . . . .
Agree The Birdcage was shit, Hank Azaria was the only good thing about it.
Hank Azaria is always watchable.
As well as Lebowski, I love the Coens’ other funny films: O Brother, Burn After Reading and especially Intolerable Cruelty – updated version of classic screwball comedy.
Galaxy Quest is a work of genius, simultaneously parodying and celebrating Star Trek and its ilk.
Funniest ever western parody is German: Der Schuh des Manitu, focused on the ghastly Karl May films from the 1960s but universally applicable. Available with an English soundtrack, though unfortunately that means you miss out on all the jokes about the Bayerisch accent.
Huge support for Galaxy Quest from me. A perfect example of having your cake and eating it. Very clever and very funny.
And probably the only good piece Tim Allen has ever done?
Way Out West – Laurel and Hardy always make me laugh.
Annie Hall – “Well I happen to have Marshall McLuen right here”
Music And Lyrics – everybody I know hates this film. I love it for the eighties parodies – especially that video – and Hugh Grant’s refusal to take his acting remotely seriously
Life Of Brian – never seems to pall – even though it’s been quoted to deat (not least by me)
The only Marx Brother I ever found funny was Harpo. Groucho’s lines are clever but I can’t even seem to raise a smile.
Some Like It Hot – Brian’s only rival for my “funniest film ever”.
And for laughter that sticks in your throat – Happiness, Palindromes, Life During Wartime etc.
“quoted to deat”???
Another “Team America” fan here – just hysterical. I giggle to myself every time I see Matt Damon now. And I LOVED “Airplane” as a child. The singing nun springs to mind as a particular highlight.
Does “Shaun of the Dead” count, or is there too much ‘zom’ and ‘com’ for it to be seen as a ‘com’? I love it anyway. Feeling a bit braindead right now (how apt), but sure I’ll be back for more…
And don’t call me Shirley.
Or even ‘zom’ and ‘rom’… Brain working marginally faster than typing finger(s).
Oh, and I found “Superbad” very amusing. And “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. But “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” was a bit shit.
I saw “Four Lions” at the flicks – loved it. Great performances, great premise, some proper laugh-out-loud funny stuff and an ending that made me a little teary.
Superbad and The 40 Year Old Virgin were highly recommended to me. I saw parts of Superbad which was hilarious, need to see more. My family is a bit weird, on holidays we watch teen sex comedies and Jackass type movies after dinner.
Shaun of the Dead, definitely, and also Hot Fuzz.
Another wonderful foreign one: Bienvenue ches les Ch’tis, hysterically funny account of a man from the south of France who gets sent to Le NORD where they all speak oddly… Supposedly Will Smith has bought the rights to make an English version, which I can’t quite imagine – however they try to do it, introducing race politics is going to produce something very different. Mrs Abahachi and I stayed in Bergues, the town where the film is set, for a night this summer, so we could wander round to recognise bits of it (the same way that we now view Wells after Hot Fuzz).
I liked the above including ‘Forgetting…’ but thought ‘Knocked Up’ was poor. Yes to ‘Shaun’!
I’d like to add ‘Repo Man’ with the god-like genius of Harry Dean Stanton, Coens’ ‘Raising Arizona’, ‘The Producers’, ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ the Lombard & Benny version,’His Girl Friday’ and ‘Arsenic & Old Lace’
Arsenic and Old Lace reminded me that I also love “The Ladykillers” (original version) and the peerless “Kind Hearts and Coronets”.
A French comedy that, for me, still works even when you have to read the subtitles is Le Dîner de Cons (an unfortunate word for English speakers, repeated incessantly in the theme song, but which only means ‘idiots’). A modern farce in the grand French tradition of Molière & co: stupid but clever and funny.
God, there are sooooo many. Pretty much every movie mentioned so far…Coen Bros, Monty Python, Superbad (and all those, except I haven’t seen Forgetting…), The Anchorman was a good one, I thought, Steve Martin, Repo Man (I like most of Cox’s films that I’ve seen), all of the older films mentioned, all of them, and I’d add Ball of Fire, My Man Godfrey, Desk Set is one of my favorite, most quotable movies ever. In the Loop was brilliant, Dr Strangelove is on a whole nother level of goodness. ALso love Buster Keaton. Too many to mention, really.
But just this week I was thinking about songs that are beautiful, or otherwise well-crafted, despite the fact that they’re silly or jokey. And we have a category of films, in my house, that are beautiful comedies. Which is an aesthetically well-made film that is also hilarious. To me, the best of these is Nacho Libre. Napoleon Dynamite also falls in that category. And the Coen Films, and the Alec Guinness that Mnemonic mentioned, even Semi-Pro, which was quite silly, had that quality of lighting and production design that nudged it into this category.
I have to wonder how many of the Airplane gags would be allowed if it was made today. Like the “Have you ever seen a grown man naked” routine, and even the scene kung fu-ing the Hare Krishnas in the airport. At the time, it was hilarious, you couldn’t go into a major airport without hordes of them descending. Can’t imagine the houseboy / assassin routines of the Clouseau movies would make it today either.
Can’t believe we’re down to 36 comments and nobody has mentioned “A Fish called Wanda”, it deserves a post of it’s own.
You’ve all given me a list to plug into at Netflix.
GF – I’ll gladly dond A Fish Called Wanda.
Headslap donds for Wanda!! Hi K-k-ken’s pets!
Donds for Mad, Mad, Mad World, MASH, Dr. Strangelove, The Ladykillers & a host of others above I now can’t recall. I’d add What’s New Pussycat, Being There, the remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels & just for the scottish dad bits So I Married An Axe Killer.
Fintan – Heid – come here!!!!
Ay – a veritable planetoid!
Another shameful admission (I’m really hanging my head here, but i figure i’m among friends), I haven’t seen Spinal Tap.
Oh, I love all of those movies, too…Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman. Haven’t seen A Mighty Wind, though.
The trouble with watching Spinal Tap after all this time is that you already know too much about it (e.g. turning amps up to 11) and it looks a little dated. Must be seen, of course, but try to lower your expectations.
I loved A Mighty Wind and Best In Show, too, but thought For Your Consideration missed by a mile. It’s definitely a genre you either ‘get’ or don’t: the humour is so gentle you can miss it quite easily if you’re wearing different antennae.
Well, there’s the thing, how funny could i find seeing the cucumber scene in the movie at this point in time? Gentle humor sometimes is a problem for me too, that was one of my complaints about Wayne’s World, is that the humor was a bit too gentle.
I have heard others say they liked Best in Show too.
I was just dropping in to say that I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to mention Spinal Tap. Never found the cucumber bit funny at all, but there are so many other hilarious set-pieces, and above all the completely dead-pan, naturalistic acting, showing people who really are almost completely oblivious to what’s going on around them.
Of course Spinal Tap! I first watched it not knowing much about it, so I slowly realised it wasn’t a documentary, but a perfect parody. Indeed, it’s all about the other layers, like the blisters the singer and guitarist share on their respective lips. It’s not addressed but it’s fun speculation.
Oh, I forgot the original Bedazzled. Still gets me laughing.
You must see This Is Spinal Tap!
Now!
I’ve met people who thought it was a documentary.
A Mighty Wind is pretty good, but the same team’s Best In Show is even better.
Am I alone in enjoying Strictly Ballroom?
Strictly Ballroom is wonderful.
Who has EOTWQ’s this week? (Not me!) And a quiz with movie lines and name that comedy could be fun.
I remember watching Airplane the night before my first national school english exam, I think I included a few of the gags in my paper. Luckily nobody noticed.
I’ll join Ejay in a bowl of Duck Soup, natch.
Tati always makes me laugh too, especially Jour de Fete, Mon Oncle, and Playtime. Kitano’s tatiesque films, such as Kikujiro, also hit the spot.
I’ve also got a soft spot for Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the aforementioned Bedazzled of course, as well as The Wrong Box. The only recent all-out comedy I can remember us having enjoyed is Zoolander.
Zoolander is great, (“it’s IN the computer”) especially the petrol station scene. I thought about Jacques Tati yesterday as I had come back from watching The Illusionist, which I found… not sure what the word is, but there’s something magical about Tati’s work, which makes me watch in a child-like state.
headslap, Arthur!
Of course, Jacques Tati!! All three of my grandchildren (when I was on grandad duty) accompanied me to Borough Road library where we selected the films for the day. Amongst the most popular was M. Hulot’s Holiday. An absolute masterpiece!! What struck me was how similar seaside holidays were on opposite sides of the Channel.
You’ve all mentioned the best ones (well nearly all). I’ve definately got to agree with Monty P’s ‘Life Of Brian’. The ‘Biggus Diccus’ scene (does anybody else feel like a little giggle when I mention my friend Biggus……Diccus?) is the one that brought me closest to death (rolling on the floor sides hurting, laughing too much too be able to take a breath) but I’ll also definately go along with ToffeeBoy and the ‘Romanes Eunt Domus ‘scene. I was doing Latin at school when I first saw that and it rang so many bells.
Donds also for Airplane, Naked Gun, Spinal Tap.
But has anyone mentioned Mel Brooks ‘Blazing Saddles’ which always gets my vote for 2nd best comedy film ever – the farting scene, the toll booth in the middle of the prairie, winding up the KKK etc.
Ooh, sorry! ‘Anonymous’ was me!
And what was his wife called?
‘He has a wife you know. D’you know what she’s called? She’s called Incontinentia. Incontinentia Buttox.’
[Which is when the famed discipline of the Roman legionnaries breaks down altogether and Brian makes a break for it]
But there are just so many sketches from that film that are comic immortality
‘What have the Romans ever done for us…’
‘He won’t haggle?’
‘Are You The Judeans Peoples Front?’
‘Fuck Off! Judeans Peoples Front…we’re the People’s Front of Judea’
‘Blessed Are The Cheesemakers’
‘Nobody is to stone anybody until I blow this whistle, not even if they do say Jehovah…..’
How about The Apartment – Jack Lennon and Shirley Maclaine. Not ‘laugh out loud, roll around on the floor’ funny but if it doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart, then you probably haven’t got one …
Yes, who is this Jack Lennon of whom I speak? John’s brother?
Oh dear …
Dond list:
Some Like It Hot
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Duck Soup – and selected highlights of others – “Everybody knows there is no Sanity-Claus”
Holy Grail – never really liked The Meaning of Life
Top Secret
Naked Gun
The Blues Brothers – favourite quote “Elwood: It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Jake: Hit it,”
Team America – Fuck Yeah!
The Thick Of It
Annie Hall
Hot Fuzz
The Producers – “We got the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did we go right?”
Spinal Tap – still made me laugh last time I watched it
Best In Show
Jack Lemmon – The Out Of Towners!!
gordonimmel-
dond for Blazing Saddles, and I’ll throw in Young Frankenstein and History of the World too.
Austin Powers, anyone?
Nearly forgot – Dougal and the Blue Cat – pure genius on the part of Eric Thompson.
“we go we go we go………”
“Call me Buxton!”
Oh I’m sorry I got to this thread so late!
Donds for:
Airplane!
(I have the video release of Police Squad! on VHS. Only OJ Simpson makes repeat watching a little uncomfortable)
Caddyshack
(Chevy Chase’s comic timing is phenomenal.)
Life Of Brian
(Romanes Eunt Domus is a well-known to be a DsD fave, as it is SSOOOO reminiscent of my public school Latin)
Meaning Of Life
(John Cleese reprising the vicious anally-retentive headmaster again absolutely nails my schooldays)
Blazing Saddles
Top Secret (Val crawling up against the German sentry’s boots always makes me laugh)
Galaxy Quest
(Phew! Thought it was just me on that one!!)
and The Blues Brothers, obviously.
I own the DVD of Team America, but it’s still wrapped in cellophane – never seen it.
I’ll chuck in a couple of others:
The first Ghostbusters. I have a soft spot for the same team’s Stripes too, which could lead me off down a John Candy cul-de-sac …
That also makes me think of Little Shop Of Horrors, which (a la Chaka brief appearance in BB) has Red Dwarf’s Danny John Jules in, fleetingly: see if you can spot him!)
And a couple of others that I suspect I really AM on my own with –
51st State Rhys Ifans cracks me up, and the Liverpool setting is of course a huge personal bonus.
Small Soldiers The soundtrack helps my enjoyment, but growing up in a house full of Action Men (that’s GI Joe to you, steenbeck) meant this one gives me a kind of 35-years-too-late thrill.
More recently, I’ll stick my neck out and say that I reckon Monsters Inc is still Pixar’s high-water-mark.
i’m late too…but I view Comedy as the highest form of the art…..I gets my goat when people call a film a “a great comedy”, it’s so patronising, it’s just a great film, simple as that!!
OK…mini-rant over. Donds to most of the above.
Team America is incredible and I would recommend any of the Parker/Stone films; BASEketball is genius and Orgazmo is great too- every one of their films is well out of order at the same time as having a deeply moralistic message.
BASEketball rails against the corporate takeover of sport and culture in general and Orgazmo is a powerful message against the hypocrisy and intolerance of organised religion.
Superbad is ace and I saw The Rocker recently which was great too…oh… and Joe Dirt is another overlooked classic
I forgot Tropic Thunder, which I found hilarious. A good cameo is an important ingredient in comedy, and Tom Cruise’s is great.
Bloody Hell! How late am I. not laugh out loud funny, but an all time classic for me is WITHNAIL AND I. The guy who played the “dopehead” must have had the time of his life making that film.
Also meant to dond LEBOWSKI, AIRPLANE, NAKED GUN (the first one) and anything by LAUREL and HARDY.
Apparently, Tati’s still with us so Dubonnet donds all round.