Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 08:13:00 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Comedy films you wish had a bigger impact

Started by armful, April 11, 2017, 07:31:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

armful

Withnail and I, The Holy Grail , Naked Gun , Groundhog Day, Ghost Busters.  These comic movies have had a massive impact on the movie world be it at the box office or becoming cult classics .

But what of the comedy movies you love that haven't become classics ? For example Freaked starring Alex Winter.  I fell in love with this film from the first moment I saw it. The film is full of childish gross out humour wonderful sight gags and Mr T as the bearded lady. Alex winter is amazing as the cocky wise cracking half man half beast, making a nice transition from the more naïve  character he portrayed in Bill and Ted. In my home town growing up loads of kids loved this film, since leaving  that town I have yet to meet a new person who has even heard of the film let alone loves it . So what is your Freaked ? A comedy you feel has been cruelly neglected

https://youtu.be/uStWk3TCnn8

Alberon

Ah, Freaked is brilliant.

Not nearly as obscure but Top Secret from the team behind Naked Gun and Airplane tends to get relatively ignored though I think it's as strong as both.

I'm sure there are plenty more but I can't think of any at the moment. I have a soft spot for National Lampoon's School Reunion, but it doesn't qualify as it is terrible.

I wish Dirty Work had made Norm MacDonald into the superstar he deserves to be. If it had been more widely seen and had more influence/impact, the comedy landscape would probably be richer.

armful

Quote from: Alberon on April 11, 2017, 08:25:36 PM
Ah, Freaked is brilliant.

Not nearly as obscure but Top Secret from the team behind Naked Gun and Airplane tends to get relatively ignored though I think it's as strong as both.

I'm sure there are plenty more but I can't think of any at the moment. I have a soft spot for National Lampoon's School Reunion, but it doesn't qualify as it is terrible.

Top secret who stars in that ? I think I recall this film being recommended to me.

Finally another freaked fan :)

Phil_A

No-one ever mentions Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, even people who still like Steve Martin. I wouldn't say all the jokes land, but it's worth watching for the sheer technical audacity involved in splicing together all those classic noir movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2efDnLZjsk

armful

Quote from: Phil_A on April 11, 2017, 08:45:52 PM
No-one ever mentions Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, even people who still like Steve Martin. I wouldn't say all the jokes land, but it's worth watching for the sheer technical audacity involved in splicing together all those classic noir movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2efDnLZjsk


I've never heard of that film. From the trailer it looks like it should be a cult classic .

Sydward Lartle

Quote from: Alberon on April 11, 2017, 08:25:36 PM
Top Secret from the team behind Naked Gun and Airplane tends to get relatively ignored though I think it's as strong as both.

I absolutely loved Top Secret to shreds back in the eighties, and when it turned up on ITV over Christmas 1986 I watched the videotape so often it eventually wore out. A couple of years ago, I went looking for a DVD release in the hope that it would still be marvellous, only to find the R2 DVD was long out of print and the few traders on Ebay who had copies wanted a small fortune for it. Not to be deterred, I bought the R1 DVD and...

...Yeah, I can see why I loved it back then. It's fast-paced, it's packed to the rafters with gags, it's joyously silly, there's the marvellous part where the animated overhead view / road map turns into a game of Pac-Man, but overall it left me cold. I know the Airplane films managed to cram in parodies of all kinds of films in tandem with the central spoofing of airline disaster movies and Zero Hour, but Top Secret apparently couldn't decide if it wanted to be set in the early forties, the early sixties or the present day; if it wanted to spoof Elvis / rock and roll films or World War Two films; if it wanted to be Ripping Yarns or Kentucky Fried Movie, Monty Python or Mel Brooks... the net result was that I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to be watching half the time, a similar sensation that always prevented me from enjoying the Blues Brothers as effortlessly as other people seem to embrace it.

I still think the "Yes, I am Albert Potato" exchange is a fine example of schoolboy comedy done properly, though.

As for my own comedy films that I wish had a bigger impact, I'd go with the following...

The Last Remake of Beau Geste - Marty Feldman's utterly barmy mid-seventies vehicle with small and large parts for just about everyone in British comedy at the time. Apparently the final cut ran something like three hours and Universal realised that giving him free reign was a bad idea before Feldman himself brought in Jim Clark to whip the footage into its present shape, and even casual viewers can see a hell of a lot of recutting, reshooting and reshaping has gone on, but there's so much to enjoy and such a high level of invention that complaining about it seems churlish.

Better off Dead - Fair enough, it seems to be set in stone as an eighties classic now, but I'd love to see it fully embraced in the same way that things like the Breakfast Club and even Porky's are embraced as a very funny film in its own right, without the need to claim you like it for nostalgic reasons. It's just crammed with quotable dialogue, too - "I've been at this high school for seven years. I'm no dummy!"

phantom_power

Quote from: Alberon on April 11, 2017, 08:25:36 PM
Ah, Freaked is brilliant.

Not nearly as obscure but Top Secret from the team behind Naked Gun and Airplane tends to get relatively ignored though I think it's as strong as both.

I'm sure there are plenty more but I can't think of any at the moment. I have a soft spot for National Lampoon's School Reunion, but it doesn't qualify as it is terrible.

Class Reunion, and I used to love that film. It was one of those that I used to rent from the video shop over and over again. Like American Ninja and Johnny Dangerously

oh, Johnny Dangerously

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is every bit as good as Zoolander and Anchorman, I say. For whatever reason though, it doesn't seem to enjoy the same status. Maybe it's thanks to the shoddy state of spoof films around that time - your Epic Movies and suchlike.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2017, 09:21:38 PM
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is every bit as good as Zoolander and Anchorman, I say. For whatever reason though, it doesn't seem to enjoy the same status. Maybe it's thanks to the shoddy state of spoof films around that time - your Epic Movies and suchlike.

So many great cameos too. A very good film

Glebe

Yeah, it's weird, Top Secret! - while not quite in the same league as Airplane! - is seriously underrated and fairly jammed with some really cracking gags.

"I know, it all sound's like some bad movie..."

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2017, 09:21:38 PM
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is every bit as good as Zoolander and Anchorman, I say. For whatever reason though, it doesn't seem to enjoy the same status. Maybe it's thanks to the shoddy state of spoof films around that time - your Epic Movies and suchlike.

Yes, yes, yes! Couldn't agree more. Deserves to be thought of as an absolute classic.

armful

Quote from: Sydward Lartle on April 11, 2017, 09:06:48 PM
I absolutely loved Top Secret to shreds back in the eighties, and when it turned up on ITV over Christmas 1986 I watched the videotape so often it eventually wore out. A couple of years ago, I went looking for a DVD release in the hope that it would still be marvellous, only to find the R2 DVD was long out of print and the few traders on Ebay who had copies wanted a small fortune for it. Not to be deterred, I bought the R1 DVD and...

...Yeah, I can see why I loved it back then. It's fast-paced, it's packed to the rafters with gags, it's joyously silly, there's the marvellous part where the animated overhead view / road map turns into a game of Pac-Man, but overall it left me cold. I know the Airplane films managed to cram in parodies of all kinds of films in tandem with the central spoofing of airline disaster movies and Zero Hour, but Top Secret apparently couldn't decide if it wanted to be set in the early forties, the early sixties or the present day; if it wanted to spoof Elvis / rock and roll films or World War Two films; if it wanted to be Ripping Yarns or Kentucky Fried Movie, Monty Python or Mel Brooks... the net result was that I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to be watching half the time, a similar sensation that always prevented me from enjoying the Blues Brothers as effortlessly as other people seem to embrace it.

I still think the "Yes, I am Albert Potato" exchange is a fine example of schoolboy comedy done properly, though.

As for my own comedy films that I wish had a bigger impact, I'd go with the following...

The Last Remake of Beau Geste - Marty Feldman's utterly barmy mid-seventies vehicle with small and large parts for just about everyone in British comedy at the time. Apparently the final cut ran something like three hours and Universal realised that giving him free reign was a bad idea before Feldman himself brought in Jim Clark to whip the footage into its present shape, and even casual viewers can see a hell of a lot of recutting, reshooting and reshaping has gone on, but there's so much to enjoy and such a high level of invention that complaining about it seems churlish.

Better off Dead - Fair enough, it seems to be set in stone as an eighties classic now, but I'd love to see it fully embraced in the same way that things like the Breakfast Club and even Porky's are embraced as a very funny film in its own right, without the need to claim you like it for nostalgic reasons. It's just crammed with quotable dialogue, too - "I've been at this high school for seven years. I'm no dummy!"

I got hold of a copy of
The Last Remake of Beau Geste  the other yeah but misplaced it without even watching it. I'll  be on a mission looking for that now

armful

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 11, 2017, 09:21:38 PM
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is every bit as good as Zoolander and Anchorman, I say. For whatever reason though, it doesn't seem to enjoy the same status. Maybe it's thanks to the shoddy state of spoof films around that time - your Epic Movies and suchlike.

I do like the look of this film.

Shit Good Nose

Another Freaked freak here.

I would also add:

UHF - only getting the nods it has long deserved in the last few years.

Stir Crazy - people lament about Silver Streak.  They are wrong.  Richard Pryor has about 15 minutes screen time, even less of it with Gene Wilder.  Take out the (admittedly amazing) Wilder blacking up scene, and you are left with nothing more than a mediocre comedy thriller with very few laughs.  If you can ignore the abysmal ending, Stir Crazy represents the best Wilder/Pryor collaboration, and the best film Sidney Poitier directed.  That it generally generates such a mixed response to this day is bewildering.

Cannibal the Musical, Orgazmo and Baseketball - largely overlooked in the Trey and Matt canon, but no less worthy.  Baseketball scores extra points for mixing classic Trey and Matt with on-form David Zucker.

Cheech and Chong's Next Movie - much as I love Up In Smoke, Next Movie is arguably more consistent.  Hardly anyone else has seen it, though, and it's even less well known than the subsequent Cheech and Chong films which followed it, which were all dreadful.

Airport 2 - yeah, okay it's nowhere near as good as the first one, but it really doesn't deserve the sheer hatred it has received over the years.  If nothing else, William Shatner's scenes rank among the greatest comedy cameos of all time.

Silent Movie - I love most of Mel Brooks films, but Silent Movie rarely gets mentioned in the same breath as even the over rated (in my opinion) High Anxiety.  James Caan's wobbly caravan (later borrowed by the Chuckle Brothers) and Sid Caesar's "slapstick is dead!" scenes are masterful.

Office Space - popular for a time with "those in the know" but, along with Mike Judge's other works that aren't Beavis and Butthead or King of the Hill, quickly forgotten (Extract, anyone?).  Diedrich Bader a particular highlight.

Matchstick Men - like Office Space, after a brief dalliance with some minor critical acclaim, everyone then forgot that Ridley Scott made a decent and genuinely funny comedy film.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America - a Finnish comedy is probably a hard sell, but it's just wonderful. 

The Money Pit - one of those films that everyone has seen, but most don't think much of.  Never understood why - peak comedy Hanks, plenty of memorable moments.  Infinitely better than the likes of Big.

Waiting For Guffman - still the jewel for me in Christopher Guest's writer-director comedy crown, but largely ignored to this day on account of a disastrous cinema run in the States and going straight to video in most other countries.

Fear of a Black Hat - Rusty Cundieff does not have the greatest of track records but this, his one great film, is much better than (the admittedly still not bad) CB4, which remains the more well known and popular thanks to Chris Rock's subsequent rise to stardom.

Whilst we're on the subject of Chris Rock - I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and, albeit to a slightly lesser degree, Don't Be A Menace to South Central-etc-etc - two films from the, shudder, house of Wayans, but both great.

Canadian Bacon - in the very long run, it may prove to be Michael Moore's best, most honest and most balanced film.  As it currently stands it still remains very unpopular with most critics, with only a small cult who think it worthy.  But give it time...

Spies Like Us - I'm a big Chevy fan anyway but, whilst the likes of Fletch, the Vacation films, Funny Farm and the two early Goldie Hawn films have long been considered as the "Chevy films it's okay to like", people have generally been less favourable about Spies Like Us.  I fucking love it - cameos galore, "doctor...doctor...doctor...doctor...", training, cheating at the exam and Vanessa Angel.  What's not to like?!??!?!

And,to finish off, another Chevy film - Fletch Lives.  Now, most people think Fletch is okay, but watch it again and refresh your memory - like the aforementioned Silver Streak, Fletch is for the most part actually a rather straight ahead thriller with a few laughs thrown in.  Fletch 2, on the other hand, includes the comedy lacking from the first.  Hated almost universally by critics when it came out, and still rarely mentioned among the good Chevy films now.


Probs loads more I could come up with...

Old Nehamkin

I think that Welcome to Me (2014) definitely deserves to be ranked as one of the best comedy films of the 10s. It stars Kristen Wiig as a woman with bipolar disorder who wins the lottery and uses the money to launch an insane public access TV show centred completely around herself. Unlike a lot of modern American comedy films it has a very distinct, self-assured comic voice and Wiig is absolutely amazing in it.  I really love it, it's great. It's only got a 5.9 user rating on IMDB though, because people don't know what they're talking about.

Puce Moment

Idiocracy - I guess it has recently gained some interest in the run-up to Trump being elected, but this is such a razorsharp insight into our near or even present future. There are some brilliantly funny sections.

Cyrus - I always think I hate the Duplass brothers, and then I remember this film, which is fantastic

Brundle-Fly

Mr Saturday Night (1992)



Yes, it's flawed. A bit schmaltzy and make up prosthetic heavy, but for fans of comedy industry satire and snappy Jewish American stand up comedy this film is utterly ESSENTIAL! Relentless gag after gag after gag.  It bombed because the main protagonist is perceived as a self-serving git, but there are real heartwarming moments in the movie.

MSN also has the etymology of the phrase Did you see what I did there? but don't let that put you off.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Sydward Lartle on April 11, 2017, 09:06:48 PM
Better off Dead - Fair enough, it seems to be set in stone as an eighties classic now, but I'd love to see it fully embraced in the same way that things like the Breakfast Club and even Porky's are embraced as a very funny film in its own right, without the need to claim you like it for nostalgic reasons. It's just crammed with quotable dialogue, too - "I've been at this high school for seven years. I'm no dummy!"

That's one of my all time favourite films and I dread to think how many times I rented it out, in the end I paid about £30 for an ex-rental version because it made more financial sense. Indeed in my pretentious teenage years I used to claim that I could never love anyone who didn't like the film, though that was a blatant lie as I'd happily fall in love with anyone female who talked to me. The day I found out about Cusack's views on the film, and treatment of Savage Steve, is the day I lost all respect for the man.

Quote from: armful on April 11, 2017, 08:56:25 PM

I've never heard of that film. From the trailer it looks like it should be a cult classic .

I haven't seen it since I was a teen but was very fond of it back then and rented it a good few times. Add me to the list of Freaked fans as well, I'm surprised that hasn't become a cult hit over the years.

I'm not sure if it counts but Clue was a big flop at the time which I've always loved, though it seems lately people have grown fonder of it.

Step Brothers was the film I immediately thought of when I saw the thread title, a lot of people I know think it's just one of those lukewarm vaguely Judd Aptow-esque comedies whereas it's a surprisingly hilarious film, at least after the initial ten slightly bland minutes.

pigamus


Shit Good Nose

Quote from: pigamus on April 11, 2017, 10:52:07 PM
Bless. You are my nan, and I claim my £500.

I have transferred it via electronic magic that I've had to ask you to do for me, as I don't understand this new fangled technology.


I spotted the error soon after posting, but decided to leave it as it was both because it made me chuckle and also to see how long it would take to, or even if anyone would, notice.  Your quick response has disappointed me in a way.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: armful on April 11, 2017, 10:41:37 PM
I do like the look of this film.
The sound is even better[nb]because it's about a singer. Geddit?[/nb].

Captain Yep

I wish Brain Candy had been more successful, although I didn't particularly enjoy it at the time, and haven't had the opportunity to watch it since.

Alberon

Quote from: armful on April 11, 2017, 08:43:54 PM
Top secret who stars in that ? I think I recall this film being recommended to me.

Val Kilmer's finest hour (and a half). Though admittedly he's not in either of these gifs.





Quote from: Sydward Lartle on April 11, 2017, 09:06:48 PM
...Yeah, I can see why I loved it back then. It's fast-paced, it's packed to the rafters with gags, it's joyously silly, there's the marvellous part where the animated overhead view / road map turns into a game of Pac-Man, but overall it left me cold. I know the Airplane films managed to cram in parodies of all kinds of films in tandem with the central spoofing of airline disaster movies and Zero Hour, but Top Secret apparently couldn't decide if it wanted to be set in the early forties, the early sixties or the present day; if it wanted to spoof Elvis / rock and roll films or World War Two films; if it wanted to be Ripping Yarns or Kentucky Fried Movie, Monty Python or Mel Brooks... the net result was that I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to be watching half the time, a similar sensation that always prevented me from enjoying the Blues Brothers as effortlessly as other people seem to embrace it.

That never bothered me. Having the French resistance battling pseudo-nazis in communist era East Germany deliberately makes absolutely no sense and I'm perfectly happy to go with it.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Captain Yep on April 11, 2017, 11:04:22 PM
I wish Brain Candy had been more successful, although I didn't particularly enjoy it at the time, and haven't had the opportunity to watch it since.

It's on YouTube in full.

Not great, but then I was never a fan of Kids In the Hall so I'm not the best yardstick.

Sydward Lartle

Another fan of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka here. A blaxploitation spoof with a proper plot inside it, genuine affection for the genre, legitimate personalities from the films it pokes fun at gleefully taking the piss out of themselves (only Pam Grier is missing) and lots of laugh-out-loud moments. Really hard to believe that the Wayans family have gone on to produce so much unutterable excrement when they began with such enormous promise.

Shit Good Nose

Perhaps my favourite Top Secret moment (aside from Anal Intruder and Peter Cushing's massive eye, of course) is during the gun battle when the guy throws himself on a grenade and everyone else blows up.

Absorb the anus burn

Foul Play.
What's Up Doc.
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer.
The Ruling Class.
Manhattan Murder Mystery

Brundle-Fly

Evil Roy Slade (1972) Western TV movie parody with the great John "Gomez Addams" Astin.



The origin of Negan from The Walking Dead
Evil Roy Slade Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPITzDwH_K0

up_the_hampipe

I thought The Other Guys was the best work from both Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. That might not be saying much to some of you, but with Anchorman and Step Brothers often lauded as Ferrell classics, this one doesn't get nearly as much love. I think it's hilarious. Might prefer it to Hot Fuzz in terms of buddy cop comedies.