Issue 196
News: Top 15 funniest films (with honorable mention).
Last week, I met someone I knew from school at the library. We were in the video section, specifically comedy section, and he asked if I had any recommendations for comedic films. I ended up choosing "Serial Mom." As of that moment, I decided that I would create a list of my favourite comedies in case I ever met with him again. I have chosen one film from each of my favourite comedians because, otherwise I would never have been able to narrow it down, but in some cases, other recommendations by the same people are given.
Honorable Mention. Sophie's Choice.
Yes, I do genuinely love this film, especially because it is genuinely disturbing in ways that so many Holocaust films fail to be (even Polanski couldn't help but try to spin an inspiring tale of survival out of one of the most horrific events in human history. You may well ask, Why am I putting a film where a woman is forced to choose which of her kids should live in a list of my funniest films? The answer is actually relatively simple: The sections about the Holocaust only occur in about the last third of the film, and it is for its first two thirds that I put it on this list. There are two characters whose performances are funny enough to put it on this list: Kevin Kline, whose performance as Nathan is almost exactly the same as the performance he would use a few years later in A Fish Called Wanda (which I will cover later in the list), and Stingo's erstwhile love interest Leslie, who is a woman who puts up a pose as a foul-mouthed sex maniac to hide how frigid she really is, wouldn't be out of place in a Woody Allen film (He is not covered later in the list, as I couldn't choose between five of his films: Manhattan, Annie Hall, Sleeper, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Love and Death.)
15. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
I must admit that I am a big fan of Adult Swim, and when it turned out that one of their flagship series has been given a film, I knew I had to see it. As it turned out, unlike a lot of TV shows that got adapted to film, very little of what got into the film would seem too out of place in the series itself, and, impressively for a show with 11-minute episodes, it doesn't feel like there's any real attempt at padding. That said, it's pretty much impossible to recommend it to people because, on the one hand, if you're not already a fan of the series, you won't become a convert, but on the other hand, if you are already a fan, you'll probably have either seen it or want to do so.
14. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
In 2002, Steve Oedekerk found an old kung fu flick where a guy managed to weather several kicks to the groin. He liked it so much that he decided to insert himself into the movie (it actually kind of works, believe it or not), and create a whole new script which consists of the characters making odd noises and saying the most insane lines imaginable. Just one example: "I have been called bad before. Many have said I do things that are not correct to do. I don't believe in talk such as this. I am nice man, with happy feelings. All of the time. First, a joke. What do you get when you cross an owl with a bungee cord? My ass." Warning: This film is incredibly polarizing. People either love it for its complete insanity or hate it for those exact reasons.
Other recommendations: All Thumbs. It is a collection of several short films that Oedekerk made around the same time as he was making this film, where several famous films were parodied with a cast made entirely of thumbs.
13. The Butcher Boy
This movie is shelved in the "Drama" section of my local library, and it would seem, for the first half hour, anyway, to be like a lot of Neil Jordan's other films, about life in Ireland during the Troubles, but after Francie, our hero, breaks into his friend's house, the film goes completely off the rails as he starts hallucinating and pretending he is a pig, getting caught by his friend's mother crapping on the floor. By the end of the film, he is on a first-name basis with the Virgin Mother, has survived a nuclear holocaust, and killed said friend's mother Charlie Manson-style.
Other Recommendations: While I did mention that the director made other works, none of them even come close to this level of hilarity or insanity, although many of his other works, including The Crying Game, are quite good.
12. Catch Me If You Can.
I'm normally not that big a fan of Steven Spielberg's movies, but I actually like quite a few of them, but quite honestly, this film, one of his more underrated films, is probably the only one of his films which I really love. Unlike the previous three films on this list, it's not really that insane. What I really find interesting, and even quite amusing, is how easily a sixteen-year old manages to gain a job as a pediatrician, lawyer, and airline pilot simultaneously and even manages to hold on to all three for several years. Of course, having Christopher Walken as the dad really helps make the film funny. Also, this includes one of my favourite court scenes in a film.
11. A Shot in the Dark.
Peter Sellers is widely considered to be one of the funniest people to ever maintain a presence on the silver screen, and, as it turns out, The Pink Panther series is one of the best showcases he was ever given for his comedic talents. Of all the films in the series, the second, A Shot in the Dark, is, hands down, the best, because, among many other reasons, Sellers is, in fact, the star of this one (the first one has him only as a relatively small character). In theory, there were nine films in the series, but four of them were made without Sellers, and three after his death in a desperate attempt by Blake Edwards to prove that he was really the one responsible for the film's popularity, and not Sellers. For what it's worth, there was a reboot a few years ago, but it's not really that good.
Other Recommendations: The other four Pink Panther films that Sellers made (including The Pink Panther, Return, Revenge, and Strikes Again), Dr. Strangelove, and Being There.
10. Bratz
When I saw the trailer for this film before Harry Potter 5, I knew that this had to be utterly ridiculous, but eventually, I managed to see it, and only then did I manage to notice how utterly insane this film is. Like Buster Keaton's featurette Sherlock Jr. (A film which is not on the list as a consequence of shortening the list down), almost every second is either devoted to something utterly hilarious or is leading up to something. Of course, in the case of Bratz, the laughs are almost entirely unintentional. What kind of things am I talking about here? Here's a few: a Hispanic family which inexplicably has a live-in mariachi band, a girl changing her outfit out in the open, students who dress like dinosaurs, the popular girl brandishing a sword in her own office (which she apparently has), and, as you might expect from a movie based on fashion dolls, insanely unnecessary makeovers. No, I'm not making any of this up.
9. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Is there anybody who doubts that there is really much of a point to explaining why I would be into this sort of film? In essence, the film is roughly two hours of Johnny Depp and Benecio del Toro acting completely out of their gourds. How could that fail? It may be possible, but it certainly doesn't happen.
Other Recommendations: An adaptation of Hunter Thompson's novel The Rum Diary, also starring Johnny Depp has actually been made, and is currently scheduled for an October release. It may be saner, but it may be quite good.
8. Plan 9 From Outer Space
This film is widely considered to be one of the worst films of all time, and also the epitome of "So Bad it's Good." I tend to lean towards the latter, because the movie is way too entertaining to be considered the worst film ever. Here's the plot: two aliens in a spaceship made of paper plates decide to avert the creation of a bomb that can blow up particles of light, which would lead to the destruction of the universe. They do so by going to a cemetery and resurrecting two dead people, one of whom is played by Bela Lugosi except when he's not. All those two dead people do is wander around that cemetery and kill a police officer, and make him one of them. Eventually, two other cops go up to the spaceship and the aliens explain everything. Shortly afterward, they leave.
Other recommendations: Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster were made by the same guy, and a biopic titled Ed Wood was made by Tim Burton about the making of those films. Of course, a similarly ridiculous film is 1938's Reefer Madness, which is probably a better companion piece.
7. Modern Times
I must admit that this film holds a particular hold on my heart (reading about him made me want to get into film), but the main reason I only gave it #7 is that, according to many people, Chaplin's own sentimental style doesn't hold up very well. Although, that said, he actually does sentimentality much better than most filmmakers, even Steven Speilberg, and even then, he manages to put a lot of priceless bits into the film, from his going into a machine to tighten the nuts on the inside, while it's still operating, stopping a jailbreak while on cocaine that he accidentally ate, and even the rollerblading scene where he manages to evade falling off a ledge blindfolded several times.
Other Recommendations: While any of his films between 1921-1952 (with the possible exception of The Circus and the definite exception of A Woman of Paris), are, in my opinion, essential viewing, only Modern Times and The Great Dictator (wherein he takes on Hitler) are currently in print.
6. Borat
Of the many comedians I've talked about here, Sasha Baron Cohen is one of the very few (with the possible exception of Williams Street, who made #15, and Edgar Wright, who will be talked about below) who appears to currently be in the prime of his career. The fact is that Baron Cohen made his name on television giving interviews with three different alter egos: Ali G, a wigger who is incredibly dense, Borat, a Kazakh journalist whose humour derives from the vast differences between his culture and that of the West, and Bruno, an Austrian fashionista who interviews mainly show business figures and people who would not be very comfortable with his homosexuality. Each character is known to use their personae to paint a less than flattering portrait of the people they interview, and each character had a film devoted to them. Ali G's was, hands down, the worst, due to its complete genre shift, and Bruno's film was still quite funny and far more psychologically revealing for American Culture (as the commentary for that film will underscore), but in terms of sheer funny, Borat's film was definitely the best, and part of the reason for this is, despite all the bigotry that Borat displays towards blacks, women, and Jews (which Baron Cohen is), it's evident that the character is actually pretty good-natured. And despite the fact that all three characters have been retired, it seems like he's still going strong.
Other Recommendations: As mentioned before, I also liked the Bruno movie, and as it turns out, he's also making a film based on a novel by, of all people, Saddam Hussein.
5. Hot Fuzz
This film was the third collaboration of Edgar Wright (director and writer) and Simon Pegg (Star and writer), a team which has probably been the most popular and best thing to come out of British comedy since Monty Python (and any of its spin-off projects, which I will talk about below). This film's particular target is police movies, and what really struck me about this film was that, not only did they reference many cop movies, and deconstruct many of the elements that are in them, but that they managed to do a lot of research about what the police actually do, but that they managed to incorporate an insane amount of things that they learned about it(Yes, Nicholas Angel is probably one of the only movie cops who would actually do well on the force). And considering that around the same time, Seltzer and Friedberg were working on several films which focused on "parodying" movies without doing any more research than watching their trailers, so, considering that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg managed to do all the work that they did and still make the whole film a laugh riot shows that filmmakers like Seltzer and Friedberger have no excuse.
Other Recommendations: Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have also collaborated on the zombie film Shaun of the Dead, and the TV series Spaced, and will both work with Steven Spielberg on the upcoming Tintin film adaptation. Wright went solo on the Scott Pilgrim movie, which I also recommend.
4. Harvey.
This is probably one of the most well-crafted comedic plays of all time (many of Shakespeare's works included). The film is about a man who appears to be best friends with a 6 1/2-foot tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. It's really hard to put my finger on just one thing that makes this film so funny, but I think that a large part of the humor comes from how nonchalant Jimmy Stewart's character is about everything, and another part of it comes down to how something as simple as getting a stoic man who appears to be hallucinating a large rabbit to get committed goes so disastrously wrong.
Other Recommendations: This film is not available in the library, but Jimmy Stewart and the director Henry Kostler reunited twelve years later to create a very different film called Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. The film is definitely a product of the early sixties, when Hollywood was beginning to let its hair down, but not to get so risque as to actually break the Production Code. That said, Jimmy Stewart's roles in Harvey and Mr. Hobbs couldn't be any more different, but he makes them both work well.
3. A Fish Called Wanda
Of all the many projects that featured members of the Monty Python troupe without actually being part of the canon, this is without a doubt, the best of them all. It starts off as a heist film, beginning with the theft of several diamonds, and, after trying to collect the loot, Jamie Lee Curtis decides to seduce John Cleese so she can discover the real location of the loot, her boyfriend Kevin Kline (in one of his better performances) gets jealous, and while all this happens, Michael Palin tries to kill the only witness to the crime, but only manages to get her dogs. How funny is it? Well, it caused a guy to literally die of laughter several years ago.
2. Monty Python and the Meaning of Life
Monty Python is probably my favourite comedy troupe, and, for what it's worth, it's probably everyone else's favourite troupe as well. It was really difficult to choose which of their three films were the funniest, but I decided to choose their last film, Monty Python and the Meaning of Life, due in no small part to their retaining the format of their classic television series. In fact, one of my favourite moments comes from this film. In one animated sequence, a leaf falls, but just before that happens, it appeared to be going into a suicidal depression. The same cycle happens for the leaf's "Wife and kids", but after the kids fall, there is a pause, and every other leaf on the tree falls off simultaneously.
1. Duck Soup
Of all the films that the Marx Brothers made, this was probably the funniest. If it was certainly good enough to bring Woody Allen out of a suicidal funk in Hannah And Her Sisters, it's certainly good enough for you. As Roy Blount, who recently wrote a book-length analysis of the film, wrote, there is, at most, one dead spot in the entire film: and it appears when Groucho references a recently popular song entitled "That's Why Darkies Were Born." Yes, this song really existed, and it's just as patronising as you would expect it to be. What really makes the moment is that just after he drops that title, Groucho lets out a single "Huh!" that is pretty much the sort of reaction somebody who actually gets the reference would react to the scene. That said, every other second of the film is hilarious.
Other Recommendations: Any of the Marx Brothers' other films from 1930-1935 are highly recommended, and that includes most of their other Universal films which are only available on the same boxed set as Duck Soup.
At any rate, it's pretty difficult to analyse humour, and I honestly hope I did a pretty good job.
Last week, I met someone I knew from school at the library. We were in the video section, specifically comedy section, and he asked if I had any recommendations for comedic films. I ended up choosing "Serial Mom." As of that moment, I decided that I would create a list of my favourite comedies in case I ever met with him again. I have chosen one film from each of my favourite comedians because, otherwise I would never have been able to narrow it down, but in some cases, other recommendations by the same people are given.
Honorable Mention. Sophie's Choice.
Yes, I do genuinely love this film, especially because it is genuinely disturbing in ways that so many Holocaust films fail to be (even Polanski couldn't help but try to spin an inspiring tale of survival out of one of the most horrific events in human history. You may well ask, Why am I putting a film where a woman is forced to choose which of her kids should live in a list of my funniest films? The answer is actually relatively simple: The sections about the Holocaust only occur in about the last third of the film, and it is for its first two thirds that I put it on this list. There are two characters whose performances are funny enough to put it on this list: Kevin Kline, whose performance as Nathan is almost exactly the same as the performance he would use a few years later in A Fish Called Wanda (which I will cover later in the list), and Stingo's erstwhile love interest Leslie, who is a woman who puts up a pose as a foul-mouthed sex maniac to hide how frigid she really is, wouldn't be out of place in a Woody Allen film (He is not covered later in the list, as I couldn't choose between five of his films: Manhattan, Annie Hall, Sleeper, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Love and Death.)
15. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
I must admit that I am a big fan of Adult Swim, and when it turned out that one of their flagship series has been given a film, I knew I had to see it. As it turned out, unlike a lot of TV shows that got adapted to film, very little of what got into the film would seem too out of place in the series itself, and, impressively for a show with 11-minute episodes, it doesn't feel like there's any real attempt at padding. That said, it's pretty much impossible to recommend it to people because, on the one hand, if you're not already a fan of the series, you won't become a convert, but on the other hand, if you are already a fan, you'll probably have either seen it or want to do so.
14. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
In 2002, Steve Oedekerk found an old kung fu flick where a guy managed to weather several kicks to the groin. He liked it so much that he decided to insert himself into the movie (it actually kind of works, believe it or not), and create a whole new script which consists of the characters making odd noises and saying the most insane lines imaginable. Just one example: "I have been called bad before. Many have said I do things that are not correct to do. I don't believe in talk such as this. I am nice man, with happy feelings. All of the time. First, a joke. What do you get when you cross an owl with a bungee cord? My ass." Warning: This film is incredibly polarizing. People either love it for its complete insanity or hate it for those exact reasons.
Other recommendations: All Thumbs. It is a collection of several short films that Oedekerk made around the same time as he was making this film, where several famous films were parodied with a cast made entirely of thumbs.
13. The Butcher Boy
This movie is shelved in the "Drama" section of my local library, and it would seem, for the first half hour, anyway, to be like a lot of Neil Jordan's other films, about life in Ireland during the Troubles, but after Francie, our hero, breaks into his friend's house, the film goes completely off the rails as he starts hallucinating and pretending he is a pig, getting caught by his friend's mother crapping on the floor. By the end of the film, he is on a first-name basis with the Virgin Mother, has survived a nuclear holocaust, and killed said friend's mother Charlie Manson-style.
Other Recommendations: While I did mention that the director made other works, none of them even come close to this level of hilarity or insanity, although many of his other works, including The Crying Game, are quite good.
12. Catch Me If You Can.
I'm normally not that big a fan of Steven Spielberg's movies, but I actually like quite a few of them, but quite honestly, this film, one of his more underrated films, is probably the only one of his films which I really love. Unlike the previous three films on this list, it's not really that insane. What I really find interesting, and even quite amusing, is how easily a sixteen-year old manages to gain a job as a pediatrician, lawyer, and airline pilot simultaneously and even manages to hold on to all three for several years. Of course, having Christopher Walken as the dad really helps make the film funny. Also, this includes one of my favourite court scenes in a film.
11. A Shot in the Dark.
Peter Sellers is widely considered to be one of the funniest people to ever maintain a presence on the silver screen, and, as it turns out, The Pink Panther series is one of the best showcases he was ever given for his comedic talents. Of all the films in the series, the second, A Shot in the Dark, is, hands down, the best, because, among many other reasons, Sellers is, in fact, the star of this one (the first one has him only as a relatively small character). In theory, there were nine films in the series, but four of them were made without Sellers, and three after his death in a desperate attempt by Blake Edwards to prove that he was really the one responsible for the film's popularity, and not Sellers. For what it's worth, there was a reboot a few years ago, but it's not really that good.
Other Recommendations: The other four Pink Panther films that Sellers made (including The Pink Panther, Return, Revenge, and Strikes Again), Dr. Strangelove, and Being There.
10. Bratz
When I saw the trailer for this film before Harry Potter 5, I knew that this had to be utterly ridiculous, but eventually, I managed to see it, and only then did I manage to notice how utterly insane this film is. Like Buster Keaton's featurette Sherlock Jr. (A film which is not on the list as a consequence of shortening the list down), almost every second is either devoted to something utterly hilarious or is leading up to something. Of course, in the case of Bratz, the laughs are almost entirely unintentional. What kind of things am I talking about here? Here's a few: a Hispanic family which inexplicably has a live-in mariachi band, a girl changing her outfit out in the open, students who dress like dinosaurs, the popular girl brandishing a sword in her own office (which she apparently has), and, as you might expect from a movie based on fashion dolls, insanely unnecessary makeovers. No, I'm not making any of this up.
9. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Is there anybody who doubts that there is really much of a point to explaining why I would be into this sort of film? In essence, the film is roughly two hours of Johnny Depp and Benecio del Toro acting completely out of their gourds. How could that fail? It may be possible, but it certainly doesn't happen.
Other Recommendations: An adaptation of Hunter Thompson's novel The Rum Diary, also starring Johnny Depp has actually been made, and is currently scheduled for an October release. It may be saner, but it may be quite good.
8. Plan 9 From Outer Space
This film is widely considered to be one of the worst films of all time, and also the epitome of "So Bad it's Good." I tend to lean towards the latter, because the movie is way too entertaining to be considered the worst film ever. Here's the plot: two aliens in a spaceship made of paper plates decide to avert the creation of a bomb that can blow up particles of light, which would lead to the destruction of the universe. They do so by going to a cemetery and resurrecting two dead people, one of whom is played by Bela Lugosi except when he's not. All those two dead people do is wander around that cemetery and kill a police officer, and make him one of them. Eventually, two other cops go up to the spaceship and the aliens explain everything. Shortly afterward, they leave.
Other recommendations: Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster were made by the same guy, and a biopic titled Ed Wood was made by Tim Burton about the making of those films. Of course, a similarly ridiculous film is 1938's Reefer Madness, which is probably a better companion piece.
7. Modern Times
I must admit that this film holds a particular hold on my heart (reading about him made me want to get into film), but the main reason I only gave it #7 is that, according to many people, Chaplin's own sentimental style doesn't hold up very well. Although, that said, he actually does sentimentality much better than most filmmakers, even Steven Speilberg, and even then, he manages to put a lot of priceless bits into the film, from his going into a machine to tighten the nuts on the inside, while it's still operating, stopping a jailbreak while on cocaine that he accidentally ate, and even the rollerblading scene where he manages to evade falling off a ledge blindfolded several times.
Other Recommendations: While any of his films between 1921-1952 (with the possible exception of The Circus and the definite exception of A Woman of Paris), are, in my opinion, essential viewing, only Modern Times and The Great Dictator (wherein he takes on Hitler) are currently in print.
6. Borat
Of the many comedians I've talked about here, Sasha Baron Cohen is one of the very few (with the possible exception of Williams Street, who made #15, and Edgar Wright, who will be talked about below) who appears to currently be in the prime of his career. The fact is that Baron Cohen made his name on television giving interviews with three different alter egos: Ali G, a wigger who is incredibly dense, Borat, a Kazakh journalist whose humour derives from the vast differences between his culture and that of the West, and Bruno, an Austrian fashionista who interviews mainly show business figures and people who would not be very comfortable with his homosexuality. Each character is known to use their personae to paint a less than flattering portrait of the people they interview, and each character had a film devoted to them. Ali G's was, hands down, the worst, due to its complete genre shift, and Bruno's film was still quite funny and far more psychologically revealing for American Culture (as the commentary for that film will underscore), but in terms of sheer funny, Borat's film was definitely the best, and part of the reason for this is, despite all the bigotry that Borat displays towards blacks, women, and Jews (which Baron Cohen is), it's evident that the character is actually pretty good-natured. And despite the fact that all three characters have been retired, it seems like he's still going strong.
Other Recommendations: As mentioned before, I also liked the Bruno movie, and as it turns out, he's also making a film based on a novel by, of all people, Saddam Hussein.
5. Hot Fuzz
This film was the third collaboration of Edgar Wright (director and writer) and Simon Pegg (Star and writer), a team which has probably been the most popular and best thing to come out of British comedy since Monty Python (and any of its spin-off projects, which I will talk about below). This film's particular target is police movies, and what really struck me about this film was that, not only did they reference many cop movies, and deconstruct many of the elements that are in them, but that they managed to do a lot of research about what the police actually do, but that they managed to incorporate an insane amount of things that they learned about it(Yes, Nicholas Angel is probably one of the only movie cops who would actually do well on the force). And considering that around the same time, Seltzer and Friedberg were working on several films which focused on "parodying" movies without doing any more research than watching their trailers, so, considering that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg managed to do all the work that they did and still make the whole film a laugh riot shows that filmmakers like Seltzer and Friedberger have no excuse.
Other Recommendations: Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have also collaborated on the zombie film Shaun of the Dead, and the TV series Spaced, and will both work with Steven Spielberg on the upcoming Tintin film adaptation. Wright went solo on the Scott Pilgrim movie, which I also recommend.
4. Harvey.
This is probably one of the most well-crafted comedic plays of all time (many of Shakespeare's works included). The film is about a man who appears to be best friends with a 6 1/2-foot tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. It's really hard to put my finger on just one thing that makes this film so funny, but I think that a large part of the humor comes from how nonchalant Jimmy Stewart's character is about everything, and another part of it comes down to how something as simple as getting a stoic man who appears to be hallucinating a large rabbit to get committed goes so disastrously wrong.
Other Recommendations: This film is not available in the library, but Jimmy Stewart and the director Henry Kostler reunited twelve years later to create a very different film called Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. The film is definitely a product of the early sixties, when Hollywood was beginning to let its hair down, but not to get so risque as to actually break the Production Code. That said, Jimmy Stewart's roles in Harvey and Mr. Hobbs couldn't be any more different, but he makes them both work well.
3. A Fish Called Wanda
Of all the many projects that featured members of the Monty Python troupe without actually being part of the canon, this is without a doubt, the best of them all. It starts off as a heist film, beginning with the theft of several diamonds, and, after trying to collect the loot, Jamie Lee Curtis decides to seduce John Cleese so she can discover the real location of the loot, her boyfriend Kevin Kline (in one of his better performances) gets jealous, and while all this happens, Michael Palin tries to kill the only witness to the crime, but only manages to get her dogs. How funny is it? Well, it caused a guy to literally die of laughter several years ago.
2. Monty Python and the Meaning of Life
Monty Python is probably my favourite comedy troupe, and, for what it's worth, it's probably everyone else's favourite troupe as well. It was really difficult to choose which of their three films were the funniest, but I decided to choose their last film, Monty Python and the Meaning of Life, due in no small part to their retaining the format of their classic television series. In fact, one of my favourite moments comes from this film. In one animated sequence, a leaf falls, but just before that happens, it appeared to be going into a suicidal depression. The same cycle happens for the leaf's "Wife and kids", but after the kids fall, there is a pause, and every other leaf on the tree falls off simultaneously.
1. Duck Soup
Of all the films that the Marx Brothers made, this was probably the funniest. If it was certainly good enough to bring Woody Allen out of a suicidal funk in Hannah And Her Sisters, it's certainly good enough for you. As Roy Blount, who recently wrote a book-length analysis of the film, wrote, there is, at most, one dead spot in the entire film: and it appears when Groucho references a recently popular song entitled "That's Why Darkies Were Born." Yes, this song really existed, and it's just as patronising as you would expect it to be. What really makes the moment is that just after he drops that title, Groucho lets out a single "Huh!" that is pretty much the sort of reaction somebody who actually gets the reference would react to the scene. That said, every other second of the film is hilarious.
Other Recommendations: Any of the Marx Brothers' other films from 1930-1935 are highly recommended, and that includes most of their other Universal films which are only available on the same boxed set as Duck Soup.
At any rate, it's pretty difficult to analyse humour, and I honestly hope I did a pretty good job.
posted by DerekAxe at 10:31 AM
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