how im gonna make up something universal, doesnt even make any sense: IT"S THE TOP 100 COMEDY FILMS RESULTS THREAD

incidentally all of Network's Golden Globes were in the drama categories instead of the musical/comedy ones

Despite its critical reception, (The Tourist) was nominated for three Golden Globes: Best Musical or Comedy, Depp for Actor Musical or Comedy and Jolie for Actress Musical or Comedy. The fact that a film originally promoted as romantic thriller was nominated for the comedy or musical category garnered the film and the Golden Globes considerable mockery; when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) made the official announcement of nominees, the press room erupted with laughter.

crusty but benign ILE posters who are crosses between Grizzly Bear and G. Gordon Liddy.

eh Strangelove is "funnier" than Network in a pretty explicit way

#94 (3-WAY-TIE)

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE

Trey Parker
2004
United States
(255 pts, 10 votes)

All I've heard about this movie, politically, is that us brave Americans have to be dicks to stop assholes, and that liberal actors/filmmakers die horribly and are helping to guard evil dictators. What happens to conservative critics/actors/whatever? I'm guessing that nothing, because they're too busy SAVING THE WORLD.

SERIOUSLY does this not strike ANYONE ELSE as intentionally ludicrous? People really think they're arguing that a global stance that they're portraying as "be a dick" as a positive course of action?

(xpost: I see something that is a gigantic lampoon of the "national mood" that is going to go completely over people's heads because everyone seems more than willing to jump right into whatever stereotype is laid out for them.)

This is going to be like "Natural Born Killers" all over again.
― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Thursday, October 14, 2004 9:34 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not funny.
― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, January 14, 2005 1:20 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm with Cozen. Me and my girl laughed at one thing but after the movie we couldn't remember what it was.
― adam (adam), Friday, January 14, 2005 1:36 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought this was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long, long time. I could not stop laughing. A couple friends of mine who grew up in the same Red America conservative small town had the same reaction.. funniest. movie. ever. On the other hand, I had gone to see it w/some colleagues who were from France, Lebanon, and Argentina, and their reaction was.. WTF?
― daria g (daria g), Friday, January 14, 2005 4:09 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought this was a great film, and I'll tell you why.
Sure, the gross-out jokes were funny, puppets having sex is funny, and every time you get drawn into the story, along comes another illustration of the puppets' limitations (walking, for example, or even any time you see a puppet walking) to jolt you back into the real world. It even works as a take-off of the Hollywood film system. All the lazy writing, lazy acting and lazy directing is hilarious and intentional - a puppet has no facial expressions after all, and so getting a puppet to act badly is a tremendous feat and very very funny indeed.

However, it goes further than that. This film works as a high-level satire of a plethora of subjects. Obviously the US foreign policy is ridiculed, as is the anti-war movement, but there's more. Having actors as the most potent instrument of political change is a masterstroke of satirical commentary, and by reducing all the characters to simply drawn caricatures (racial or not) highlights how far lies that life is black and white have infiltrated worldwide politics, on both sides of the socio-political divide.

No, this is a great film, and worth certainly worth a visit to the cinema. It's the LACK of preaching that makes me like it - instead of taking the easy option of being for-or-against, it comes across as disliking everybody, which as far as I'm concerned is a far more likeable position.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Monday, January 17, 2005 2:31 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's gets a bit preachy at the end there!
― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, January 17, 2005 2:37 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha - it was unintentional satire since the speech at the end was VERY SIMILAR to the speech at the end of any south park which are always clearly meant and, when they veer into the political, always libertarian or conservative. when they get to the moral of the story (and they always do) they have no qualms with wielding a hammer. moral of team america: sure rightwingers might be dicks but if we listen to liberal pussies assholes like kim jong-il would kill us all. and 'liberals = pussies' is hardly a new joke!
― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, January 17, 2005 2:54 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Team America:World Police" -- Come anticipate the return of Supermarionation, thanks to Trey Parker & Matt Stone!

obviously, yes, but i was referring to a post itt about satire suffering in this poll (xpost)

Okay, bye thread.

i've never seen army of darkness, so i can't get outraged/feel happy that it placed w/n the Top 100. so someone else can get raise yer standards/honour the fire over this one!

i have a hard time with Parker/Stone because often their comedy is as shrill and unyielding as what they're making fun of

Network couldn't be more explicitly funny if it laughed at all its own jokes. Which it does.

it could be more explicitly funny if it was one of the 97 other movies that placed ahead of it probably

tbf network laughs at everything and everyone who isnt william holden

i like team america b/c it has pussy and poop jokes. i didn't vote for it, though.

Raise Team America! This even improved watching Rent a few years later.

some dude OTM. It's humor by brute force. It can be amusing, and I get the appeal, but it's really not for me.

also Network is #64 in the AFI top 100 but isn't in their top 100 comedies list. so that Network placed at all here is i think proof that satire is NOT suffering in this poll.

actually it means that the AFI knows that satire and comedy are different, you incurious music-expert motherfucker.

and Singin' in the Rain is a musical.

so the problem is that ilx doesn't know the difference and should've waited for the top 100 satires poll to vote for Network?

yes because no one has ever heard of a "musical comedy"

hah, never

You held out 80 minutes. Positively tantric.

THINGS CAN ONLY BE OF ONE GENRE, AND OF ONE GENRE ONLY SHALL THEY BE.
- Morbz 3:16

tbf network laughs at everything and everyone who isnt william holden

haha ... of course, though, by that logic breezy is even funnier than network

You held out 80 minutes. Positively tantric.

― hot and brothered (Eric H.), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 8:03 AM

he's been edging

You held out 80 minutes. Positively tantric.

― hot and brothered (Eric H.), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 11:03 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lollll

btw Strangelove is AFI's #3 comedy so uh

what's uh about that?

oh satire - nevermind. sorry!

You held out 80 minutes. Positively tantric.

i, for one, would like to know what Sting thinks about this poll's results ...

strangelove even had a pie-fight ... though it got edited out. so it's a def. a comedy.

#94 (3-WAY-TIE)

SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS

Preston Sturges
1941
United States
(255 pts, 10 votes)

also, mentioning Sturges without mentioning Sullivan's Travels is surely some kind of criminal activity. Joel McCrea realizing how to get out of jail had me laughing for 20 minutes straight.
also, of course, The Prince of Tides. saw the last 20 mins the same night as Wayne's World, and while I liked that movie the Streisand/Nolte ending was even funnier.
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, August 2, 2003 11:31 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

45 Your Mass In My Ass 2005
This sounds like one of the fake movies from Sullivan's Travels.
― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Friday, June 24, 2005 10:24 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the best 50 should all fit with a montage of peoples around the world laughing a la Sullivan's Travels.

also I will volunteer to carve the results on Mack Sennett's tomb.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 4:29 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Preston Sturges S/D

some dude, I got a bombshell for ya: the AFI is a really awful source to cite if you're trying to make a point you want people to agree with.

lol @ the thought that knowing the difference between satire and comedy is the sign of a true film maven

Too low. Glad it's on here. I'm always confused at the moment of revelation, though... did people actually think Mickey Mouse was hilarious? Did they laugh out loud at him?

I ended up not voting for that one as my token dark ages pick, but I endorse it's placement for reasons stated in the worst ILX thread ever.

nb: i hope that sullivan's travels isn't the only Preston Sturges film to make the Top 100. though if only one has to make it, then sullivan's is the best one for that.

Huh. I guess Team America got in by being the right era for lots of ilxors to have seen it. I mean, there are a couple of moments that are funny, granted, but it's a generally poor film.

I was gonna challenge Morbs on the musical/satire/comedy thing, but I've realised I can no longer tell when he's joking and when he's deadly serious, so probably best not to go there.

I prefer Lady Eve... hope it places better.

network is a ludicrous movie in which a black militant group is given a primetime television show and everybody talks in a snappy form of personal insult

if satire is not comedy you can get rid of 80% of my ballot

n/m the voting prolly sorted that out anyway

Sullivan's travels, OK don't know that one at all.

I can no longer tell when he's joking and when he's deadly serious

You can't tell when morbs is being funny and morbs is being a satire of morbs you don't say

some dude, I got a bombshell for ya: the AFI is a really awful source to cite if you're trying to make a point you want people to agree with.

― Michael J. Fuxxx (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 11:10 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

listen i know AFI and the Globes aren't unimpeachable but when you're trying to just tease out some vague sense of consensus about how these things are perceived out in the general public they're better than nothing. either tell me what other source to site or please assume i'm taking it all with at least half as big a grain of salt as you are.

sullivan's travels is 100 times better as a satire on politics and Hollywood than team america ... and it is a lot funnier too.

unfaithfully yours is actually funnier than sullivan's travels ... but overall it isn't as good a film.

I really need to know who put Swingers as their number one.

I voted for Team America.

I love all of the ED movies but it didn't even occur to me to put any of them on this list. Weird. Not that AoD made an appearance. Weird that it didn't occur to me, I mean.

network is a ludicrous movie in which a black militant group is given a primetime television show and everybody talks in a snappy form of personal insult

so you think that it's a sort-of a Juno for 1970's-era grumpy old men.

You held out 80 minutes. Positively tantric.

Yeah, but I still wouldn't fuck you with Bea Arthur's decaying dick.
THAT'S comedy!

Sullivan's Travels is THE Sturges comedy for ppl who don't otherwise like Sturges, or don't know they don't.

xpost Don't do that.

Sullivan's Travels was the lowest Sturges on my ballot. Slightly overrated i feel but still a classic obviously

Yeah, but I still wouldn't fuck you with Bea Arthur's decaying dick.

Tempting offer tho.

#94 (3-WAY-TIE)

MANHATTAN

Woody Allen
1979
United States
(255 pts, 7 votes)

i watched woody allen's Manhattan four times last week and every time i saw something new.

(this is not supposed to be shocking or sarcastic)
― poortheatre, Thursday, July 19, 2007 1:47 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And speaking of old and prestige pieces, nobody's mentioned Woody Allen, who certainly counts as an auteur. And of course his best films were done in the 70's (Annie Hall, Manhattan).
― Sean, Wednesday, October 10, 2001 7:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like woody allen in manhattan, and you are all diane keaton after the trip to the museum, talking about yr academy of the overrated.
― chev rivera (stevie), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 7:11 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hate Woody Allen, he's a fuckhead.
― Ally, Wednesday, October 24, 2001 7:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Top Woody Allen films

i like the scene in manhattan where woody+mariel are in the grocery store but woody's so worked up about diane keaton's pretensions (+ in love w/ diane keaton) that he doesn't even look at any of the shelves and his 17-year-old girlfriend has to do all the shopping. i didn't notice it until like viewing fifty and it's so sad/lol.