Top Tens #4: My Top 10 All-Time Favourite Comedies

The irreplaceable screen legend Charlie Chaplin once said that “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” It is a fitting quote to introduce my newest list of my 10 favourite comedies.

Of all of the film genres, comedy is undoubtedly the most subjective one. Since a viewer’s sense of humour has a remarkable range, there are very few comedies with a universal appeal. Some audiences prefer slapstick, and some enjoy crude sight gags, while others chuckle at clever verbal wordplay. And since comedy ca have such a range, it would be impossible to cover all sorts of funny on this top 10 list – if you are expecting Will Ferrell, Mel Brooks and Monty Python to show up, you may be disappointed.

While laughter is the best medicine, it is hard to find a dose of comedy in modern times (hint) that entirely satisfies. Only two of the films on this list were released in my lifetime. Then again, there are two Best Picture winners and four films in black-and-white below. The films that make up this aren’t all straightforward laugh attacks from the very first frame. The criteria I used for this list was a balance of the film's quality with the laughs' quantity. Some films may earn big laughs at the first viewing and never again, while others still bear a potent sting decades later: expect more of the latter to appear on this list.

Here are My Top 10 All-Time Favourite Comedies:

10. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (dir. Judd Apatow, 2005)

Judd Apatow isn’t so much a comedy pioneer as one who knows how to massage two elements – gross-out raunch and sweet sentimentality – together in a wonderful balance. And while I do McLove Superbad (which he produced) and Knocked Up (which he directed), I still believe his 2005 comedy – the one where he lost his director’s chair virginity – is his most consistently funny and most tender. With Steve Carell at his awkwardly endearing best as Andy, the titular no-timer, and a fantastic supporting cast featuring Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Jane Lynch, Virgin is a hilarious look at relationships and much deeper than its one-joke premise would implicate. Oh, and it has one of the two funniest (and most unexpected) closing scenes in recent memory (see #7 for the other).

Funny fact!: The “You know how I know you’re gay?” scene between Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen was entirely improvised.

9. Duck Soup (dir. Leo McCarey, 1933)

The Marx Brothers left an impression on virtually every type of comedy known to moviegoers – whip-snap dialogue, slapstick gags, tricky wordplay and political satire, to name but a few. But their 1933 farce remains their fastest, leanest and most nutty concoction. The story: Motormouth Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) is the new president of Freedonia, a place that is anything but stable, and mayhem eventually ensues due to the new leader’s inexperience with matters of war and finance. Groucho, Chico and Harpo are all at their zaniest, and even the much-ignored Zeppo manages to get a few lines in. But between the top-banana attempts at banana-peel humour, there is that mightily impressive mirror scene (above) that still ranks as one of cinema’s most outrageously funny situational jokes.

Funny fact!: Benito Mussolini banned the film from Italy, believing it targeted his government. The Marx Brothers were reportedly ecstatic when they heard this.

8. Tootsie (dir. Sydney Pollack, 1982)

Since its release nearly 30 years ago, not a single gender-switching comedy has come close to being as sharply funny or as touching as Tootsie. Dustin Hoffman is Michael Dorsey, a struggling Manhattan thespian who lands a pivotal role on a successful soap opera. The thing is, he dressed up as elderly Southern dame Dorothy Michaels for his audition, and now he must keep the cover if he wants to ensure his career stays afloat. Oh, and he is currently falling for his co-star, Julie (Jessica Lange, in an Oscar-winning turn). Director Sydney Pollack treats his characters’ affairs with compassion – and a debonair comedy cast, including Dabney Coleman and Bill Murray, doesn’t hurt – ensuring that the classic sexual identity crisis is not just a gimmick but a source for real conflict and character development. Oh, and it features the line, “I was a better man with you as a woman that I ever was with a woman as a man” – and that’s not even Tootsie’s best quote!

Funny fact!: Bill Murray agreed to leaving his name out of the opening credits, in fear that its presence would mislead audiences to expect a “Bill Murray” show a la Caddyshack or Meatballs.

7. Little Miss Sunshine (dirs. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006)

Simultaneously morose and saccharine – a rare combination for first-time screenwriter Michael Arndt (who deservedly won the Oscar) and directors Dayton and Faris to pull off so easily – Little Miss Sunshine is a story about a family of distanced losers coming together, driving to California to ensure their young sweetheart (Abigail Breslin) gets the tiara at a beauty pageant. It appeals to those who love feel-good endings and those who like to squirm at the crass, dark uneasiness of the journey getting there. Since dysfunctional families are rapt for cliché and a road trip is hardly the freshest set-up for family reconciliation, where does this film go right? Well, for one, the impeccable performances, including Steve Carell as a suicidal Proust scholar and Greg Kinnear as a rather pessimistic self-help expert, ensuring that these characters are grounded regardless of the bizarre decisions they make. Also, the final 20 minutes, featuring a beauty pageant both cringe-worthy and howlingly funny at once, is satire at its most sublime. Who knew that a film about losers could be so winning?

Funny Fact!: Just to make the final scenes even funnier (or creepier), all of the young beauty pageant contestants featured in the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant are – wait for it – actual participants of beauty pageants.

6. Annie Hall (dir. Woody Allen, 1977)

No comedy writer for any medium has had quite as prolific a career as Woody Allen, and the Best Picture-winning Annie Hall is considered by many to be his most quintessential work. There’s a reason for that: it’s a delightfully inventive, bitterly funny and compassionate dissection of a relationship between neurotic comedian Alvy Singer (Allen) and the one girl who got away (the title character, played by Diane Keaton). Between the spontaneous flashbacks, animated inserts and cameo appearances – including a terrific one by Marshall McLuhan – it’s the endearing chemistry between Allen and Keaton in one of their many incandescent pairings that makes this the writer/director’s funniest film (although I do like Manhattan a smidgen more, this gets the spot because of its heightened comedy ingenuity).

Funny Fact: Diane Keaton’s real name is Diane Hall, and to make matters more interesting, one of her nicknames is Annie.

5. Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1964)

If an average moviegoer would walk into a showing of Dr. Strangelove today, without any prior knowledge of the film, the odds are better they would classify the movie as a thriller rather than a comedy. That’s not to discredit its stature as a first-rate satire of nuclear war, but it goes to show how perfectly the absurd comic pieces are merged with other aspects of terror, paranoia and mutually assured destruction – balanced perfectly under a firm grip by director Stanley Kubrick. They also likely wouldn’t recognize Peter Sellers in three entirely separate performances, all nuanced and excellent, and which highlight different aspects of his comedic brilliance. Released just a month after Kennedy’s assassination and during a tense Cold War period, Dr. Strangelove challenges its audience to laugh; thankfully, it’s a challenge that’s easy to partake in. It’s a film that mines comedy from the most nightmarish of scenarios. Disagree with this classic’s comedic merits? Well, we can fight about it – just not in the War Room, of course.

Funny fact!: The film was originally supposed to end with a giant pie fight in the War Room, but Kubrick thought this slapstick wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the film and had it cut.

4. Network (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1976)

Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove may have been the finest screen satire during the Cold War years, but in today’s troubling media-dominated atmosphere, no comedy strikes such a fiercely topical note than Network, from late great Sidney Lumet. The film centers on a struggling television network that injects some oxygen into its ratings through the riotous, nihilistic ranting of its depressed news anchor, selling off his anarchical notions as news, and as a result, turning its news into entertainment. The anchor is a brilliant Peter Finch and the producer who sets him for success is a blisteringly sharp Faye Dunaway in her finest role – thank Lumet, one of the finest actor’s directors to have ever gone through Hollywood, helping them earn Oscars. Network also feels, moves and acts like the most scathing and acerbic sermon ever given, thanks to a limitless screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. In other words, it’s a comedy so funny, it’s scary.

Funny fact!: Beatrice Straight won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the film, but is only on screen for five minutes and 40 seconds – the briefest performance to ever win an Oscar.

3. Airplane! (dirs. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980)

I know what you’re thinking: how can such an iconic spoof, which packs such a loony barrage of laughs within a scant 87 minutes, miss out on the top spot? Well, to be fair, it does pack more literal double entendres, pop culture references and inspired routines than any comedy ever has or likely ever will. But not every joke works, and despite the many punches of gut-bustingly zany humour, some of the jokes feel scattershot in their placement – the film doesn’t really jump from scene to scene as it does from joke to joke. But I am being too harsh on this comedy classic, which satirizes the Airport disaster films of the 1970s (as well as B-movie Zero Hour!) with wit, vulgarity, a jive-talkin’ grandma, a kinky automatic pilot, a guitar-playing nun, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, and best of all, a remarkably effective deadpan tone, led by Leslie Nielsen in his star-making turn. It’s Shirley the best parody ever made… and, despite minor reservations, I’m serious about that.

Funny fact!: Pete Rose was originally cast in Kareem Abdul-Jabaar’s role as co-pilot Roger Murdock, but he was playing baseball at the time of shooting, and so the Lakers star took his place.

2. The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

Billy Wilder’s romantic comedy classic hasn’t aged a day since it won the Oscar 50 years ago. Tightly plotted, bruisingly funny and blissfully romantic, The Apartment tells the story of a hard-working accountant, C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), who lends out his apartment for his senior employees' personal trysts, in exchange for a good word to promote him. Along the way, he falls in love with a charming elevator operator, Fran Kubelick (Shirley MacLaine), who happens to be canoodling in Baxter’s apartment with his boss (Fred MacMurray). The film barely misses out on the top spot because it is also the most dramatic film on the list (there are some rather dark turns amidst the humour, such as a botched suicide). Wilder was one of the best American directors of his generation, and The Apartment is his masterpiece. Line for line and scene for scene, no screen couple manages to swell up as many sweet-natured smiles as Lemmon and MacLaine.

Funny fact!: The film was the inspiration for the Neil Simon-penned musical “Promises, Promises,” which debuted on Broadway in 1968 and was recently revived in a production starring Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes.

1. Modern Times (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1936)

There will never be a screen legend with such a definitive stronghold on comedy as Charlie Chaplin. Not only was he one of the freshest and most versatile comic talents onscreen, but a dedicated and ingenious craftsman behind-the-scenes. But it wasn’t just the laughter he nailed, but how he used humour as a way to comment on American life. Nobody’s films deserve the top spot more than his, and while it’s a chore to choose just one of his titles – The Great Dictator, City Lights and The Kid all could have easily taken this position – no Chaplin film had me in stitches quite like Modern Times, his last silent venture in his signature Tramp persona. Chaplin plays a factory worker trying to adjust to life in a modern, industrialized America during the Great Depression. He lampoons the assembly line monotony and pokes fun at a capitalist society, where man will soon be complacent to machine – not a common theme for a comedy from the 1930s. But with a manic energy, unpredictable plot development, terrific physical comedy, and a superb romance developing between the Tramp and an orphan girl (Paulette Goddard) that never feels inorganic, it’s also Chaplin’s biggest crowd-pleaser.

Funny fact!: A full dialogue script had been written for the film since Chaplin had originally intended to do a talkie, and he even filmed an entire scene with sound before deciding to be more careful with sound placement.

When Shakespeare Meets CGI

Thor

*** out of ****

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston and Stellan Skarsgard

Running time: 114 minutes

As Marvel Studios begins to maneuver the pieces together for their magnum opus, The Avengers, a long-awaited teaming up of their brawniest superheroes, they have delivered big-budget profile pieces on each of the constituents. These include Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Black Widow (from Iron Man 2), and now we have Thor, the bulky, Herculean Norse God.

The big challenge with tackling a character like Thor is constructing a vehicle for him that faithfully delivers his mythology without detracting from the modern verve of other Marvel-ous comic-book adaptations. With that in mind, Thor is quite successful, impressively balancing thickly noble pageantry and breezy humour in a way that recalls Shakespeare. Perhaps that’s why Kenneth Branagh, best known for directing recent retellings of Hamlet and Henry V, was called on to helm the project.

Thor, the film and the captivating hero himself, travels through two ‘realms.’ The first is Asgard, a golden kingdom full of sound, fury and lush CGI cityscapes. Its ruler is Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and the supposed heir to his throne is his strong-willed son, our title character played by Chris Hemsworth, whose hubris is his tragic flaw (yes, this is making me recall my high school English class, too).

After engaging in battle against his father’s wishes with his hammer of choice, Mjolnir, Thor is stripped of his godly power and banished to another realm – Earth. Here, he is discovered by a trio of scientists, led by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard), who are curious on finding the source of the thunderous storm that unleashed the Norse God into their vicinity.

But, wait! A franchise is brewing, so S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), currently rounding up his Avengers team across several films, is called out to investigate the mysterious wormhole that Thor descended from. Also, since every great hero deserves an even better nemesis, Thor’s cunning brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has plans of his own to find a passageway to Earth, kill his sibling and capture the throne himself.

The characters bare closer similarities to Shakespeare: Thor draws comparisons with Henry VI, while Loki recalls Edmund from King Lear, with his treacherous plan to usurp power. Thor's dialogue - at least in Asgard - is as descriptively stylized as the Bard's.

This could have been recited in a hilariously campy manner had Branagh and his cast not had the sufficient command for the material. Hemsworth is terrific in his first starring role, matching the charm of Errol Flynn and the physical strength of Achilles. The earthlings offer strong support: Portman is terrifically at ease as the cute brainiac Jane (and nobody recalls a cute brainiac quite like Portman), Skarsgard is a welcome addition as a noble aide to our Norse God, and Kat Dennings plays the fool’s hand delightfully as Darcy, the former scientists’ assistant.

With Bard enthusiast Branagh on board, Thor makes terrific use of its vast, regal interiors. Production designer Bo Welch and her team of art directors build chambers and castles that have a sleekness of golds and crimsons, making Asgard look as if the metropolis from Tron: Legacy had leapt back to medieval times. Branagh, who is used to getting intimate performances from gargantuan settings, captures both the acting and the grandeur of the scenery with an assured hand.

Still, these vivid interiors are often overwhelmed by a flurry of CGI, and unfortunately Branagh doesn’t have the same grace with action sequences that, say, Jon Favreau or Christopher Nolan have developed. The fights often use close framing and tight editing, which makes some of their finer elements hard to decipher (and the dimness of 3D glasses can only hinder the excitement further).

But with these minor reservations, Thor accomplishes what it sets out to be: an enchanting and entertaining myriad of humourless mythology and breezy, humourous fun – the latter which arrives as soon as our brawny hero steps down in the foreign ‘realm’ of planet Earth. And on top of being a fine introduction to a character generally unknown to the general public, it manages to be an even better introduction to an excellent young actor, Australian native Chris Hemsworth.

Author Kathryn Stockett Brings The Help to the Big Screen

Hello,

One of my feature stories that I have written for Tribute Magazine, about Kathryn Stockett and her novel The Help being adapted for the big screen, has been posted on the Tribute website. Check it out below, and stay tuned for the list of My Top 10 Favourite Comedies, to be posted this week.

http://www.tribute.ca/news/index.php/author-kathryn-stockett-brings-the-help-to-the-big-screen/2011/05/20/

'Pirates' Franchise Plundering Wallets

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

** out of ****

Directed by: Rob Marshall

Starring: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane, Geoffrey Rush and Sam Claflin

Running time: 137 minutes

While watching the fourth installment of Disney’s swashbuckling Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, one would probably wonder how the film managed to get the subtitle On Stranger Tides, since it is the least convoluted and most conventional film of the lot. Its ordinary qualities end up helping and hurting the film: the main adventure is easier to follow, but it lacks the zany fun of the earlier voyages. Even Johnny Depp’s sly bravado as the mischievous Capt. Jack Sparrow seems oddly restrained.

In this installment, Sparrow is being hunted by the British authorities while looking for a worthy crew to set sail with on a voyage to find the Fountain of Youth. An old flame, Angelica (Penelope Cruz) is also on the quest and has a boat to lend to an old friend. The thing is, she forgets to tell Sparrow that the boat belongs to her father, the dastard, notorious pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane, who is growlingly good here).

Old favourites from the original trilogy are sparse in this sequel, although Geoffrey Rush’s grimacing, one-legged Barbossa is back, and is likely hunting the Fountain to rid himself of mounds of unconvincingly-grizzled makeup. Meanwhile, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, stars of the original trilogy, are gone, but not to worry: young love is still present, this time between a stalwart missionary (Sam Claflin) and a gorgeous mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey).

They’re not the only ones who have ditched this installment, as director Gore Verbinski has left the director’s chair this time, clearing the way for Rob Marshall (Chicago). Marshall has worked with big budgets before, ensuring that he can utilize exotic locations to the brim – much of the film was shot in the jungles of Oahu – while also sprucing up some exhilarating action set-pieces (at least for the first hour).

The film fairs best when it treads into darker waters, such as a frightening surprise attack from venomous mermaids, as well as instances of black magic from Blackbeard himself. But for a film about rum-drinking, sword-flailing, gold tooth-flashing pirates, the straightforward screenplay could have used a bit of loosening up. Even the swordfights, which grow tiresome after the fourth or fifth one, lack the verve and manic creativity that the epic-scaled battles in the earlier films all flaunted.

At times, On Stranger Tides is a fantastic voyage, with Depp comfortably back in his Captain chair – although his chemistry with Cruz, who he did Blow with ten years ago, has dissipated. But this pirates tale is more often a flatly generic one, even with the addition of 3D. By the time the final act begins, it is not the characters who we yearn will drink from the Fountain of Youth, but the franchise.

Here Comes the Bride All Dressed in Raunch

For eight weeks this spring, I am on an internship placement with Tribute, a Canadian entertainment magazine. I have grown up reading Tribute ever since I started going to the movies as a young child, and still do today. The magazine is still distributed at over half of the movie houses in Canada, mainly with the exceptions of cinemas under the Cineplex Entertainment banner (which has its own in-house magazine, Cineplex Magazine).

For this internship, I am writing stories on upcoming films and features for the magazine. In addition, I am also writing reviews for the website (www.tribute.ca). Due to my contract with Tribute, I am not allowed to write the same reviews on my blog that I have written for their website. Regardless, I will be posting links to my reviews featured on Tribute.ca here.

I had the privilege of seeing Bridesmaids, the new comedy starring Kristen Wiig, directed by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow, earlier this week. I am posting a link to my review underneath. There is no star-rating system on the website, but I would give Bridesmaids a *** out of ****. Enjoy!

http://www.tribute.ca/news/index.php/new-bridesmaids-comedy-packs-loads-of-laughs/2011/05/13/

Doctors Without Borders

In A Better World

** out of ****

Directed by: Susanne Bier

Starring: Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, William Nielsen, Markus Rygaard, and Ulrich Thomsen

Running time: 113 minutes

It’s of no coincidence that the two prominent adult figures from In a Better World, the newest recipient of the Foreign Language Film Oscar, are both doctors.

Anton, portrayed by Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt, works in a village in sub-Saharan Africa and tends to the malnourished, disease-ridden inhabitants one at a time – unless a critical injury cues him for surgery or a nearby warlord demands his services. Thousands of miles away in idyllic Denmark, his estranged wife, Marianne (Trine Dyrholm), busies herself in a clean, controlled, sterilized hospital.

However, the two cannot cure a haunting scenario involving their teenage son, Elias (Markus Rygaard), at the local school. An easy target for bullies, Elias is starting to stand up for himself after befriending an elusive new student, Christian (William Nielsen), who has just moved to the township from London with his father. Christian is troubled by his mother’s death from cancer, and takes out his manifested aggression on the tough cronies that push Elias around.

Elias is harmless and Christian is harmful, but instead of exacerbating the disjointed aspects of this relationship, director Susanne Bier (After the Wedding) brings these polar opposites together. The film’s eerily disturbing second half revolves around the thickening bond between the two boys as they contemplate to pull off a horrendous act of retribution against a violent mechanic.

Christian is hyper-masculine, detached from his late mother and tempted to strike back and exercise a raw, forceful power. His empathy has vanished and he routinely tries to prove his own merit. Elias is undeniably attracted to this strength, as it is one that he cannot encapsulate from his commonly absent father.

Bier, who has an affinity with faces, draws some very expressive, tender performances from her cast. Nielsen is especially hypnotic and intense as the off-kilter Christian, but due to the director’s pretensions, his character’s emotional arc is not entirely realized.

So, what point is the director trying to accomplish by assigning these medical occupations amidst such volatile emotional carnage? And why the strange, fragmented title? Bier could be hinting at the notion that, well, in a better world, such doctors can be the saviours we need. But an unstable human nature – the one that plagues the teenage boys in the film – bleakly communicates to the audience that this world is only a utopia.

But while Bier’s morality play often tries to draw parallels between first-world upper-class relationships and third-world upheavals by focusing on the nature of violence and corruption in both places, these comparisons ultimately don't work. The social tensions in Africa develop organically, while the provocative actions by Elias and Christian are forced and contrived.

The two sides don’t work: watching the two boys conjure up a dangerous stunt that would fly in Anton’s village setting unfortunately doesn’t flow with the direction of the story in Denmark. Perhaps the script could have used its own doctor: the two segments, separated by space, would have worked better on their own rather than as a byproduct of an overextended thematic reach.