In light of the march madness starting today, I found a neat little app that MSN has up on their site where you put together a little pseudo-tournament pitting the "top 64" comedic movies against each other in an NCAA-style javascript window. It's kind of fun for a few minutes, and made me ponder deep thoughts like "Which is funnier, A Christmas Story or High Fidelity?". I don't know about you, but I found the "Smart" and "Classic" regions to be much more difficult to call than the "Broad" or "SNL" regions.
So, who's your final four? Finalists? Champions? And finally, who's missing from the field?*
For me:
FF - Raising Arizona, Caddyshack, Princess Pride, and Airplane
Finalists - Raising Arizona, Airplane
Champion - Airplane. It's the funniest movie ever made, and survived a tough scare from a scrappy Princess Bride team in the semifinals and a seasoned veteran Raising Arizona club.
Outside Looking in - Undercover Brother, LA Story, Army of Darkness
* = In selecting candidates, the authors only chose movies that were predominantly comedies (not other genres with funny parts like Nightmare on Elm Street 4, etc) and that were not sequels - thus eliminating Austin Powers in Goldmember (which I find the funniest of the three) and Christmas Vacation.
So, who's your final four? Finalists? Champions? And finally, who's missing from the field?*
For me:
FF - Raising Arizona, Caddyshack, Princess Pride, and Airplane
Finalists - Raising Arizona, Airplane
Champion - Airplane. It's the funniest movie ever made, and survived a tough scare from a scrappy Princess Bride team in the semifinals and a seasoned veteran Raising Arizona club.
Outside Looking in - Undercover Brother, LA Story, Army of Darkness
* = In selecting candidates, the authors only chose movies that were predominantly comedies (not other genres with funny parts like Nightmare on Elm Street 4, etc) and that were not sequels - thus eliminating Austin Powers in Goldmember (which I find the funniest of the three) and Christmas Vacation.
Comments
I was somewhat hindered by the fact that I haven't seen some of the movies or saw them so long ago that I don't really remember them (e.g. Bull Durham). At the same time, that was a good criterion - I first saw Annie Hall in high school (in an English class, no less), and still remember thinking it was really funny (we also saw Woody Allen's "Love and Death" in that class - and since that was a bit easier to 'get' we all liked that one more than AH).
I've seen AH a few times since then, and it just gets funnier as I understand more of the intellectual stuff. Not a movie for everyone, but excellent if you can handle the New York intellectual snobbery.
As for TSAM, I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in a theater in my entire life. I think I may have laughed so hard I cried. And I'm not one who usually goes for the super-broad stuff.
"OH MY GOD! This guy HATES cans!"
I still chuckle, even when typing it...