Del: Now I'll move my car but I want you help him up
Neal: NO!
Dispatch Guy : My pleasure.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is why Neal plays with his balls a lot. In fact he does more ball handling in an hour than Larry Bird does in a night. Or so I've heard...
If there's one thing all my favorite comedies have in common it's that I saw most of them on first release in the theater. That may influence how awesome I think they are as every one of my top three had the audience in hysterics. The second John Hughes film to show up on my ballot,
Planes, Trains and Automobiles was my number three and this movie had us falling out of our seats at least three times, probably more. Every scene that was supposed to have a laugh, did. I always say my top 3 comedies are fluid between 3 movies but I did just watch this again last Thanksgiving and I'm comfortable with this remaining in the third spot from here on out.
This is a PG movie with an R rated scene (it's a family film, really) but leaving that scene clean would have ****ing sucked. I've seen it edited for tv and it does not have the same impact. It's one of the best/funniest scenes ever mainly because the build up is so good. By the time that scene rolls around you're hoping something finally works out for Neal. Just once, please. We've already had our feel bad for Del moment, which needed to be early because he is a ****ing load. If Hughes had prolonged the obnoxiousness of Del people would start to turn on him so getting that out of the way early was a nice move.
The assortment of supporting characters is top notch. Owen is one of my fav characters of all time. Dooby may be my fav cab driver ever and the rental lady can read the room and come up with exactly the right words for the situation. The cab dispatch and a couple of hot and horny bus passengers also provide brief but memorable performances.
I said it earlier when discussing Sandler that Martin is better when he isn't going all zany.
The Jerk and
The Man With Two Brains are great but I like Martin better when he's more subtle like he is here or in
Roxanne.
As for the others:
Anchorman seems like it would be a pretty heavy dose of Will Ferrell and like I always say....**** Will Ferrell! Haven't seen it, probably won't see it unless I'm convicted of a few heinous crimes and forced to undergo some type of experimental torture therapy involving horrific images on film to make me more socially acceptable. However, I'm sure it's deserving of it's unusually high ranking so no argument from me. It's just not my thing.
It Happened One Night, saw this for the first time about a year ago and it really surprised me. This is really a good, fun movie. Didn't vote for it but it's up where it should be. I'd be fine with it being a little higher.
Back to the Future an absolute classic that received no help from me. Zero, but it's fantastic. One of those movies I don't watch very often then when I do I wonder why I don't watch it more often. Another one that is up where it should be.
Trading Places not a fan and I know we need some Eddie on this list but not this one.
Beverly Hills Cop,
The Golden Child or
Norbit, please!
And
Animal House is alright. Belushi saves it. When he isn't on screen and he isn't on screen enough, it's rather ordinary. Was going to say a bunch of stuff about Landis and what an insufferable prick he is but I won't. It doesn't affect how I view his movies anyway so why bother with the douchebag. The only movie of his I really like is
Three Amigos! which probably isn't going to show at this point.
My ballot so far: