As a docudrama about my love life, The 40-Year-Old Virgin muddies a lot of the details, but as a more "mature" sex comedy, it's pretty great. Like all Apatow movies, it's too long, but it possesses more heart and sweetness than most comedies with a concentrated focus on crude humor. I guess you could also technically call this a romantic comedy. Keener and Carrell have great chemistry. Even the deleted scenes and alternate takes are hilarious, with Rudd, Jane Lynch, Rogen and crew on their ad-lib A-game. Certainly one of the best comedies of the 2000's, and I much prefer it to the more popular Wedding Crashers released the same year.
To Be or Not to Be and Dazed and Confused were at least considered for my ballot. The latter is one of my all-time favorites, but I chose to omit it since my admiration for it lies mostly in its secondhand nostalgia and laidback, hang-out vibes rather than in its ability to provoke an abundance of laughs. The audacious To Be or Not to Be was penalized for having only seen it once, but I'm confident that a re-watch would've landed it a spot. Easily my favorite Lubitsch film (although I've only seen a small fraction). Brilliant script. I'm a firm believer that no subject should be off-limits in comedy, no matter how heinous or tragic, and To Be or Not to Be is a superlative example of how to wring amusement from the unfunniest subjects.
I've probably only watched Christmas Vacation twice from beginning to end, yet I feel like I've seen it over a hundred times since it plays non-stop on TV throughout December. I'll usually put down the remote and watch for a bit if it's near the Christmas dinner sequence, which is the funniest section of the movie for me. Wayne's World I watched for the first time a few years ago and really enjoyed. I've always been drawn to heavy-partying, burn-out, rock or metal obsessed characters, but Wayne and Garth appeared more nerdy than cool so I never sought out the film despite enjoying their skits on SNL. They're definitely huge nerds, but that's part of their charm. Wayne's IQ is higher than his airheaded peers, and that gives the film a sort of intelligent stupidity. Wayne's World is also a rare example where meta-humor and 4th-wall breaking actually works for me.
Stripes was just okay. I've found that Bill Murray works best for me when he's either part of an ensemble or just a minor character or cameo. House is a live-action Scooby-Doo cartoon on acid. The hallucinogenic visuals work best for me in .GIF format. Surprised to see it make the countdown but I always underestimate the size of its cult following. Clueless is good but not a movie I feel any desire to revisit. When Harry Met Sally is one of the better rom-coms. I'd probably enjoy it more if it starred anyone but Billy Crystal, who is one of my least favorite actors.
The Gold Rush was the first silent I ever watched. Several scenes remain vivid in my memory, but my inexperience with silent films at the time also meant that I was quite restless during it. I remember The Kid more for its heartwarming tenderness than its comedy. Don't care for The Producers or Mel Brooks in general. Step Brothers has its share of laughs, but they're mostly concentrated in the first half, and the overall film is too uneven to be a favorite. I voted for a different Adam McKay film starring Ferrell and John C. Reilly.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? gets better with every viewing, and features an all-time great soundtrack, but there's still a few Coen Bros. films I'd rank above it. MASH was more off-putting than amusing, but I feel like I should give it another go someday. I mostly just remember the football sequence, which felt like something lifted from a bad sitcom. Best in Show was hit or miss with me depending on which character was on screen at the moment. Snatch is by far the worst film to make the countdown. I've disliked or outright hated everything I've seen from Guy Ritchie, which is odd since he's always compared to my favorite filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino. Some of their films might look similar from afar, but when you get up close you see that Ritchie is merely the slack-jawed, booger-eating, mouth-drooling, unibrowed distant cousin from Britain who suffered severe head trauma as a child. At least Snatch's appearance gives me hope that enough others recognize Pulp Fiction as a comedy for it to also make the countdown.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure and One, Two, Three are the only entries that I haven't seen. Almost everything Billy Wilder made is great, so I'm sure the latter is no exception. I have extremely vague memories of watching Pee-wee's Playhouse as a toddler, and one of my first presents from Santa was that big blue chair with eyes and a mouth from the show, but I've never had much interest in watching the movie. Pee-wee Herman just seems like such an obnoxious character. His laugh alone makes me cringe. Who knows, though, maybe I'll like the movie more than I suspect. Tim Burton, before he devolved into a parody of himself, was responsible for a lot of my favorites. That includes Beetlejuice, which was #12 on my ballot. I'll save my write-up for it for a separate post.
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