HAHAHAAHAHAH!

Comedies and their best moments:

I continue to confuse myself. I fancy myself something of a wit, often being snarky or funny without really intending to be. It gets worse when I’m angry. My mother, a showman of the highest order, made sure that we always had presentation wherever we went. So, even in the darkest of moments, we should be smiling and not letting the rabble know of our pain. This led to many dark, seeded inner angst. This led me to be able to ramble out a snide comment when, in the end, I wanted to kick the living shit out of the asshole standing in front of me on Space Mountain.

Of course, they’d laugh and suddenly be all buddy-buddy, for, as I’ve also learned, comedy and laughter seems to form bonds that weren’t there.  People think I’m friendly when I’m seething.

((By the same token, when I’m in front of the classroom, I’m trying to be funny-for some reason, kids behave better when you have their attention. It’s like they’re waiting to see what happens next. So there, I had it made.))

But, the fact is, well, I hate comedies.

Always have. I would have to see them for some other premise. Like there was an actor I wanted to see; maybe it was already a Disney movie. Kids’ movies don’t count. I’m talking real, down to the wire, comedy, where the main goal is giggling. Many of these movies I’d not go see if I had my druthers like Zero Dark Thirty, The Bourne Identity, the Amityville Horror or Casablanca.  I’m just built that way.

I guess the drama queen like high drama.

(Remember, there’s going to be spoilers)

10:
 

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

What’s that other quote that makes the rounds every now and again? “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” No one has suffered so for his comedy than Woody Allen. Taking Jewish comedy in a totally different direction, he made laughing something we can do by just being normal. He did the normal stuff, fluff with movies like Sleeper, but, as he matured, he began to show the audience that everyday life can be funny too. His jokes were beyond subtle, just out of reach. But you could picture a friend or two saying something similar. And all of his movies revolve around romance of some sort.

But in this picture, you have two pictures in one, with the punchline so calming that you’re not sure of it when it happens. And that’s the beauty of it; it’s what made me laugh so hard. Other comedies are blantant, “this is a joke” shtick.  But Mr. Allen’s tale? It borders on dark comedy. In two separate stories of adultery; a New York doctor resorts to desperate measures to cover up his long-term adulterous affair. An unhappily married documentary filmmaker fights an adulterous temptation while making his latest documentary on a TV producer.  And, in the end, the New York doctor confesses the tale to the filmmaker. And Woody makes the great quote, “It’d make a terrible movie.”

A movie we just watched for two hours.  (That’s the scene that had me!)  I love Woody Allen movies.

Quotes:

Judah Rosenthal: I remember my father telling me, "The eyes of God are on us always." The eyes of God. What a phrase to a young boy. What were God's eyes like? Unimaginably penetrating, intense eyes, I assumed. And I wonder if it was just a coincidence I made my specialty ophthalmology.

Clifford Stern: [to his wife] Honey, you're the one who stopped sleeping with me, ok. It'll be a year come April 20th. I remember the date exactly, because it was Hitler's birthday.

Clifford Stern: I don't know from suicide, y'know. Where I grew up in Brooklyn we were too unhappy to commit suicide.

 
9.
 

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Another black and white movie, I’m sad to day, but, heck, they don’t make them like they used to, do they? This movie started a genre of film that we just don’t really see any more—the screwball comedy. It is almost like a funny film noir, where the female dominates a man who’s masculinity is question. It almost always involves challenges between the wealthy, the middle class and the poor in a comedic fashion and is filled with banter, banter, banter.

In fact, I’m wondering if it might be time to get on Kevin Smith to make some kind of remake.

This title follows the formula to wonderful effect. We have wealthy Katherine Hepburn (she improvises several of the scenes when things don’t go according to plan) who falls for an engaged scientist who is in desperate need for cash.

She accidently acquires a pet leopard and, well, figures she could use some help taking care of it—and a scientist will do! It would probably equate to stalking today, but the humor is kept light enough that we are willing to take the time to follow along.

The scene that sells it? He finally falls for the girl (you wouldn’t hang with her as long as he does if you didn’t find that great hair so worthwhile!) and they topple over a skeleton that he’s been making of a dinosaur.  We’re there. We get it. They “fell” for each other!

Quotes:

 Susan Vance: Well, don't you worry, David, because if there's anything that I can do to help you, just let me know and I'll do it.
David Huxley: Well, er - don't do it until I let you know.

[David discovers the leopard in Susan's bathroom]
David Huxley: Susan, you have to get out of this apartment!
Susan Vance: I can't, I have a lease.

David Huxley: But Susan, you can't climb in a man's bedroom window!
Susan Vance: I know, it's on the second floor!

8.

 

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Ahhh, ANOTHER gay flick? Seriously?

Yes, and, well, fuck yourself, quite frankly. The fact is that its my fucking blog and I write what I want, when I want.

I like this movie.

Your move.

Wait, what? You didn’t realize this is a gay movie?

Well it DOES have drag. But here, it’s something else. It’s not implicitly queer. It’s a precursor to all the drag movies that have come since, but you don’t really see it as a queer movie until the last line of the film. And, due to the Hays’ code at that time, you’re not allowed to mention the gay joke, so it was shoehorned in, a treat for those in the know.

The tale is so simple. Two men, on the lam, escape by dressing up as women. One finds love (the always awesome Tony Curtis) and the other finds he kinda likes the attention (the always awesome Jack Lemmon). Throw in Marilyn Monroe, and you have a fun movie that moves like a beeline to that one, great awesome gay joke.  A gay joke my brother and I used over and over again at my own wedding.  I’ll include it here in the quotes as well. Wait, I’m seeing two that cover my thinking and goes to prove the greatness of this simple picture!

Quotes:

Joe: But, you're *not* a girl! You're a *guy*, and, why would a guy wanna marry a guy?
Jerry: Security!

(There’s that terrific line!)

Joe: There's another problem.
Jerry: Like what?
Joe: Like, what are you gonna do on your honeymoon?
Jerry: We've been discussing that. He wants to go to the Riviera but I kinda lean towards Niagara Falls.

Remember—Jerry is a man in drag, and he’s been offered a ring!

And that terrific joke, when Jack’s character comes out to his finance—

Jerry:  But I’m a man.

Osgood: Well? Nobody’s perfect.

7.

Addams Family Values

Remember everything I said about My Big Fat Greek Wedding? What if you pulled back from the reality it subjected the audience to, in connection to my life, and turned it into some kind of artsy-fartsy analogy?

This is my family, as I see it, pulled way-the-fuck back.  The very definition of “dark comedy” this wonderful tale is based on the television show and comic strip about a very disturbed family that loves very thing dark. I loved the strip and the writing is so crisp, it captures that spirit.

So? Is my family dark?

No. But they are passionate in their pursuits. They support each other; they tease and try to kill one another. Just like Gomez Addams and his family. 

The production design is terrific, like watching a hilarious horror movie. The plot, like most of these movies, is really a series of set-ups for decent jokes, so I have little need to elaborate.

There’s also a sublime gay-joke going on here. When the family is “out” and interacting with the world at large, it becomes so evident that they are different that they are ridiculed. But they are immune. They’re so comfortable with who they are as a family, they don’t give a shit—and they embrace those who are outsiders too.

The scene:

Stuck in doing the summer camp play to end their time together, the kids of the family resort to an attack on all those wealthy upper class kids who bully the rest of the world. It’s terrific.  And they deserve it. Those Mitt Romney kids.

The quotes:

Gary: [to the Campers] Lifesaving! Now I know we're all top-notch, little swimmers, but now we get to show our stuff and earn those certificates! Hey, how about our first little pair of lifesaving buddies? Amanda, Wednesday?
Amanda: Is that your bathing suit?
Wednesday: Is that your overbite?
Gary: Now, one of you will be the drowning victim and the other one gets to be our lifesaver.
Amanda: I'll be the victim!
Wednesday: All your life.

Debbie Jellinsky: [meeting Gomez] Isn't he a lady killer!
Gomez: Acquitted.

Wednesday: I'm not perky.
Amanda: That's for damn sure.

Amanda: Hi, I'm Amanda Buckman. Why are you dressed like that?
Wednesday: Like what?
Amanda: Like you're going to a funeral. Why are you dressed like somebody died?
Wednesday: Wait.

6.

Clerks

Ah, Kevin Smith.  You’ve become the Spielberg of Generation X. Your witty repartee and nack for smooth humor make for massively entertaining storytelling. Here’s the story of our Everyman, forced into work beneath him, trying to make a go at it. He is, in no way, wealthy, like most of us Xers, and when he tries to get beyond the boundaries set upon him by the society at large—he’s forced back to another day at work.

Or it’s about some dudes at the 7-11.

Devoid of special effects and budget, Mr. Smith’s movie takes us on a rollercoaster of scenarios and set-ups with delicious comedy pay off.  Plot? That’s just a device to get us to the next joke. But he’s so well worded and written, you don’t mind. You can’t take your eyes off this little art-house movie. Nice thing is, he never lost that momentum, even in his other films.

The scene:

ANYTHING with the protagonist, Dante and his foil, Randall.

Some of this terrific writing:

Randal Graves: My mom's been fuckin' a dead guy for 30 years. I call him dad. 

Randal Graves: Why don't you go join her, make a little bathroom bam bam? 
Dante Hicks: I love your sexy talk. It's so kindergarten. "Poo poo". "Wee wee". 
Randal Graves: Fuck you. 

Dante Hicks: Hey, whatcha rent? 
[reads the cover to Randal's videotape] 
Dante Hicks: "Best of Both Worlds"? 
Randal Graves: Hermaphroditic porn. Starlets with both organs. You should see the box. Beautiful chicks with dicks that put mine to shame. 
Dante Hicks: And you rented this? 
Randal Graves: Hey, I like to expand my horizons.

Randal Graves: Fine, just let me borrow your car. 
Dante Hicks: Why should I loan you my car? 
Randal Graves: I wanna rent a movie. 
Dante Hicks: You wanna rent a movie? 
Randal Graves: I wanna rent a movie! 
[Dante sighs] 
Randal Graves: What's that for? 
Dante Hicks: You work in a video store! 
Randal Graves: I work in a shitty video store! I wanna go to a good video store so I can get a good movie! 

Randal Graves: You know who I can do without? I can do without the people in the video store. 
Dante Hicks: Which ones? 
Randal Graves: All of them. 
[a series of vignettes] 
Bed Wetting Dad: What would you get for a six-year-old boy who chronically wets his bed? 
Video Confusion Customer: So, do you have any new movies in? 
[zoom out to see a huge sign that says "Brand New Movies" directly above her] 
Low I.Q. Video Customer: Do you have that one with that guy who was in that movie that was out last year? 
Randal Graves: They never rent quality flicks. They always pick the most intellectually devoid movies on the racks. 
Low I.Q. Video Customer: OOOOH! NAVY SEALS! 
Randal Graves: It's like in order to join, they have to have an I.Q. less than their shoe size. 
Dante Hicks: You think you get stupid questions? You should hear the barrage of stupid questions I get. 
[more vignettes] 
Cold Coffee Lover: What do mean there's no ice? You mean I gotta drink this coffee hot? 
Candy Confusion Customer: So how much is this thing anyway? 
[zoom out to see a huge "99¢" sign behind her] 
Hubcap Searching Customer: Do you sell hubcaps for a '72 Pinto hatchback? Ooh, Mini-Trucker Magazine! 

5.

Little Miss Sunshine

I am fully aware might be better suited on the independent film listing. It's truly a solo flick, barely hitting the genre of comedy with its subtle commentary and real life milieu.  In fact, reality is key here. You know this family, it might even be yours. A really weird road trip movie, where a lower class family, unable to afford proper transport to a little girl’s pagent, elect to drive out. Every one of the main characters comes and goes with their various crisises and malaise, but there’s something very heartfelt here.

 

The scene:  At the very end of the movie, the young girl, obviously not the material the wealthier girls are, makes her talent portion. And it was a stripper number. No, she keeps her clothes on, but basically, in the end, flubs her little beautiful nose at everyone who choose beauty over being genuine. Good stuff! 

 

Quotes: 

Frank: Good night Dwayne. 
Dwayne: [scribbles on notepad] Don't kill yourself tonight. 
Frank: Not on your watch Dwayne. I wouldn't do that to you. 
Dwayne: [on notepad] Welcome to hell. 
Frank: Thanks Dwayne. Coming from you that means a lot.

Sheryl: [after Frank tried to commit suicide] I'm so glad you're still here. 
Frank: Well, that makes one of us

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it. 
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is? 
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach. 

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. 

4.

 

Airplane! (1980)

When I was in college, all the cool cats in the theatre department, all artsy and angsty, had to do this absurdist play to prove it. It was called the Bald Soprano. Weird ass shit. Made no sense. Right up there with Waiting for Godot, a paradigm for life, in that we don’t actually have a story, all we say or do is kinda meaningless and, well, you pay ten dollars a ticket to see other people remind you for some reason.

It was weird and I didn’t get it. If you want to see the absurdity of life, go on a date.

But deeper thinking meant coming across this movie. This movie is basically a filmmaker making a comedy and throwing so many jokes at the screen, you know something will hit. It’s meant as a spoof, a play on the famed disaster movies that came out in the early seventies. But it is actually something more. That plot becomes the source material to literally fly off the hinges. There are tons of luggage and extras standing in the background, doing absolutely nothing. There are jokes that make no link to the tale being told.  There is comedy so broad, a four year old will get it.

And it plays into absurdity

Here’s the tic. I’m going to cheat a little here. I cannot think of one scene in this entire picture that defines it. It’s THAT funny. So I’m going to say, it’s the entire picture!

Don’t believe me? Get a load of these quotes and see if you can figure them out!:

Striped controller: Bad news. The fog's getting thicker.
Johnny: [jumps to an overweight controller] And Leon is getting laaaaarrrrrger.
_________________________________________________

Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

Captain Oveur: Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

Ted Striker: It's Lieutenant Hurwitz. Severe shell-shock. Thinks he's Ethel Merman.
Lieutenant Hurwitz: [singing] You'll be swell, you'll be great. Gonna have the whole world on a plate. Startin' here, startin' now. Honey, everything's comin' up roses...
Ted Striker: War is hell.

[Thinking to himself]
Ted Striker: I've got to concentrate...
[his thoughts echo]
Ted Striker: concentrate... concentrate... I've got to concentrate... concentrate... concentrate... Hello?... hello... hello... Echo... echo... echo... Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota...

Rex Kramer: Striker, listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.

[as the plane prepares to take off]
Hanging Lady: Nervous?
Ted Striker: Yes.
Hanging Lady: First time?
Ted Striker: No, I've been nervous lots of times.

[an epidemic of food poisoning is sweeping the plane]
Captain Oveur: What is it, Doctor? What's going on?
Rumack: I'm not sure. I haven't seen anything like this since the Anita Bryant concert.

Steve McCroskey: [to Mrs. Oveur] Now your husband and the others are alive, but unconscious.
Johnny: Just like Gerald Ford.

I can go on and on and on!!!

3. 

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

This movie was a step in a different direction for the Empire of the Mouse. Originally, they tried to cover all different cultures of the world and change them into musicals with a strong feminist slant. The formula had been working, so why mess with it. Even Tarzan kind of fit into the mold. This film, originally called Kingdom of the Sun, however, wasn’t clicking for them.  In it, a very wealthy but innocent ruler of a Mesoamerican nation is turned into a llama by a witch, bent on bringing him down.  Kuzco, the emperor, lives among the rabble and learns to have a heart and make people like him.

Now they had tried one other experiment, Atlantis, as an action movie and it just didn’t work. But, someone noticed, they’d never done a straight up comedy.  Recasting the Emperor from naïve victim to Boomer Yuppie, with a vocal improvisation involvement from David Spade (unlike Robin Williams, this worked, the audience could understand and follow David’s ranting), and a film like none other in the House of the Mouse’s pantheon was born. This movie was quotable, a sure sign, that it was written well. I didn’t mind watching it and I laughed in all the right spots. Throw in a terrific villain in Yzma, played by Eartha Kitt.  Who knew that hottie little singer could have comic timing? Check out some of these zingers:

Pacha: Where'd you come from, little guy?
Kuzco: No... touchy.
Pacha: Demon llama!
Kuzco: Demon llama? Where?
[Turns around and sees Misty, a real llama]
Misty: Maaah.
Kuzco: Aaah!

 

[Kuzco considers seven potential brides who all look remarkably alike]
Kuzco: Let's take a look-see. Hate your hair. Not likely. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. And, let me guess, you have a great personality.

Kuzco: Okay, I admit it. Maybe I wasn't as nice as I should have been. But, Yzma, do you really want to kill me?
Yzma: Just think of it as you're being let go, that your life's going in a different direction, that your body's part of a permanent outplacement.
Kronk: Hey, that's kinda like what he said to you when you got fired.
Yzma: I know. It's called a "cruel irony", like my dependence on you.

[plotting ways to kill Kuzco]
Yzma: Ah, how shall I do it? Oh, I know. I'll turn him into a flea, a harmless, little flea, and then I'll put that flea in a box, and then I'll put that box inside of another box, and then I'll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives...
[laughs]
Yzma: ...I'll smash it with a hammer! It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say!
[knocks over bottle of poison on flower, which shrivels up and dies]
Yzma: Or, to save on postage, I'll just poison him with this.

In the end, I laughed. I quoted and I remembered. And a few hours of my life were erased in a good way.

            The scene that makes it for me:  Watch Yzma and her boytoy, Kronk, have a dialogue. Zing-zing-zing.

2.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

 

I hate stereotypes, I really do.  I love it when a movie that has great potential to include stereotypes and elects not to.

 

And there is this movie. You know Rahrahpancakeeater? He was the best man at my wedding. Terrific dude. He saw this movie and, the week before my own nupitals, giggling, he took me to the art movie house (it wasn’t playing mainstream theatres yet) and my jaw went slack when I saw it.

 

This wasn’t a comedy at that time. This was a documentary of my family. A family that has a “small get together” of a few hundred people. Where they keep eating. Where they emphasize getting married and having children. Where the Mom, Lainie Kazan, actually LOOKS like my mother, the Irish/Jewish lady.  We’re not Greek, but we’re ethnic, and every stereotype that showed up in this movie was what I was living through at that very moment in my life.

 

My family loves weddings. It’s a time of joyous eating and copious drinking. Just like in this movie and the family in the movie. My family encourages marriage relations.  It’s a time to get the family bigger and have more brought into the fold. Just like the family and the movie.

 

The scene:  Watch the actual wedding part. It’s not as funny as the rest of the movie, but, for all the annoyances the protagonist is subjected to by her overbearing family, when she finally gives in and has a wedding? It is truly a time of joy. Even the groom’s family mixes in well—and sees there’s no harm done in truly being yourselves and being celebatory.

Wonderful stuff!

Some quotes:

Maria Portokalos: Nicko! Don't play with the food! When I was your age, we didn't have food! (I have heard MotherUnitPrime use this…last week)

Aunt Voula: What do you mean he don't eat no meat? 
[the entire room stops, in shock] 
Aunt Voula: Oh, that's okay. I make lamb. 

(NOTE:  When I dated a vegan for a while, MotherUnitPrime and Aunt Linda pulled me aside and had a similar conversation. “He’s a vegetarian?!?!??!How can you trust him????)

Toula Portokalos: I had to go to Greek school, where I learned valuable lessons such as, "If Nick has one goat and Maria has nine, how soon will they marry?" 

(NOTE:  Ma and Pops pulled the same thing, even AFTER I came out of the closet. “You can still get married, ya know…”)

Maria Portokalos: We must let Kosta think this was his idea. 
Aunt Voula: All right, I know. 
Maria Portokalos: That he came up with it. 
Aunt Voula: All right. 
Toula Portokalos: Ma, he's gonna figure it out. 
Maria Portokalos: Don't you worry. 
Aunt Voula: Okay, I know what to do you. 
Maria Portokalos: You don't know what to do. You talk, talk, talk, all the time! 
Aunt Voula: Do you want my help? 
Maria Portokalos: Yes, I want your help! 
Aunt Voula: Tell me what to say. But don't tell me what to say. 
Maria Portokalos: Perfect! 

(NOTE:  MotherUnitPrime and Aunt Linda, usually with the help of Aunt Dolores would pull this stunt on their husbands all the time-women control the roost, men are easily led by a woman who ‘acts’ like she’s submissive.  It’s a stitch to see it in action.)

Toula Portokalos: Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. "Ah, the man is the head of the house!" 
Maria Portokalos: Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants. 

See?

1.

The Birdcage (1996)

Quotes? Quotes you say? I’m a writer, dammit. I love the feel of the language, it tickles me; makes me want to get involved. The conversation should feel natural, like we’re actually seated next to the participates, but the topics are out of the ordinary.

Like this masterpiece of slapstick. The premise is so outlandish, that it could, actually happen, since truth is always stranger than fiction. The dialogues work because they hired actually actors and comedians in the foursome of Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Robin Williams, and Nathan Lane.   Let’s take a look at that countdown. Two serious dramaturges and Oscar winners playing Mitt Romney wannabe politcos and a same sex couple that run a nightclub that specializes in female impersonation. Robin Williams, surprisingly, reigns it in (and please, go along with this and you’ll see the humor) playing the ‘straight’ (the term is operative here, he’s still ALL gay) man to his partner of 40 years, Nathan Lane, aka Starina, the headliner at the club. Williams and Lane have it made, a perfect home, job where they perform together and a perfect son off at college.  Only he comes home for a break and announces he’s going to get married.

To the daughter of the conservatives. Who are coming for a visit. In twenty four hours.

The set up of the joke pays off in a second act that I don’t need to elaborate on. It was produced long before shows like Will and Grace made being gay a bit more accepted. But there was something grander here. The humor was broad, slapstick and direct. Everyone has had, sadly, at one point or another, play a façade to be accepted. And this comedy lets us know just how stupid we look when we’re not ourselves.

And then there’s Hank Azaria in a g-string cleaning the pool. 

And not a single stereotype in the bunch. Even the Republicans have a certain normalcy that makes them difficult to dislike.

It hit me here, right in the heart. Laughing in the second act, I saw, right there in the first act, a gay family that was stable, normal and perfect. A dream come true. And not a single problem, right here in Florida.

                The scene:  Watch the expressions of the family when Albert, in full drag, enters impersonating a woman.

And these lines:

Albert: Don't give me that tone!
Armand: What tone?
Albert: That sarcastic contemptuous tone that means you know everything because you're a man, and I know nothing because I'm a woman.
Armand: You're not a woman.
Albert: Oh, you bastard!

Senator Kevin Keeley: Oh, I got to fire this woman. Uh, Miss Porter, page two, second paragraph, it's "porno", not "pronto".

Armand: Yes, I wear foundation. Yes, I live with a man. Yes, I'm a middle- aged fag. But I know who I am, Val. It took me twenty years to get here, and I'm not gonna let some idiot senator destroy that. Fuck the senator, I don't give a damn what he thinks.

Albert: I'm leaving you my stereo...
Agador: I don't want it.
Albert: My red boots?
Agador: I don't want them.
Albert: And my wigs?

 

 

Well? There you have it! Comments? Questions? Ask away!