BBC Culture 100 Greatest Comedies Of All Time

[newbridge]

Great idea Serge, though full disclosure I will be voting for the theatrical release of Nathan Barley Eps. 1-4

[Serge]

A vote thread? I'd be up for that. Time to start pimping Sir Henry at Rawlinson End and the original Bedazzled.

Heh, and possibly the film you're named after? I've never seen it, so I don't know how comedic it is, but knowing ol' Timothy Carey, it'll be as dark as fuck.

I'll start a thread later.

[worldsgreatestsinner]

It's exceptionally dark and one of those films that really straddles the line between if it's a comedy or drama. Carey is one of those figures screaming out for a biopic, so many great stories from his career. I really love the story of his Godfather Part II audition.

I went to talk to Francis at Paramount. I already had the part, but I still wanted to do a scene. Francis and his pals were sitting around his office and I brought a box of cannolis and Italian pastries as gifts. I said, "I brought you this gift to pay respect to my friends," and I reached down into those dripping cannolis and pulled out a gun—boom boom!—and blew the hell out of all of them. And then I shot myself and staggered over and fell on Roos's desk—all the contracts went flying. And Coppola grabbed my blank gun and shot me back—bang bang!—like a kid. It was byootiful—I took 'em completely by surprise. Francis was stunned, "How much do you want?" But Roos didn't like it, so he went to work and influenced Coppola against me.

[colacentral]

If they're going to try to be clever and name a non-comedy film (Pulp Fiction) as a comedy, there are other, better candidates for it. Boogie Nights springs to mind.

Where is Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie?

[Dr Rock]

WHERE IS COMMANDO THE GREATEST FILM EVER.

Also Showgirls.

[zomgmouse]

I'd be up for compiling a list (not just of what's missing, but a CaB 100 Greatest Comedies Of All Time list) like I did with the UK sitcoms poll a couple of years ago? If anyone's interested, I'll start a thread.

This would be amazing. Definitely keen to be involved.

The ten votes each system must count against the type of films that lots of people would place in the top 100 but nobody would put in the top ten, so they end up with an incoherent impression of disparate favourites, rather than a consensual top 100.

Does this mean it would be more accurate for everyone to make a list of 100?

[Smeraldina Rima]

It might be too much trouble but it would favour inclusion of films that "everyone" feels should be around 50 but nobody would put in their top 10 (maybe it's better to pack the list with different people's real favourites). One way you could compromise without putting people off is to let everyone name up to 100 films (we could still name just 10) and still count the most frequent appearances. The more difficult decision is whether you want to weight the higher and lower ranked choices. If I remember rightly, for the sitcoms we each picked 10 sitcoms working towards a top 10 and I don't think it mattered if the sitcom was voted for as number 10 or 1, it just counted as one vote. I think a lot of people would prefer to keep it simple again and some people are already dropping out while reading this.

[newbridge]

I don't know if there's going to be enough CaB ballots to warrant a top 100 overall list.

[Smeraldina Rima]

I think you're right.

[zomgmouse]

Whatever ends up happening I'm still in!

[Bazooka]

I don't know if there's going to be enough CaB ballots to warrant a top 100 overall list.

Quincey has alt accounts mate.

[DrGreggles]

Whatever ends up happening I'm still in!

Me too. I love lists. For the following reasons:

1. Arguments
2. Remembering things
3. etc

[Gurke and Hare]

I wonder if responding to this list by saying "But X is funnier than Y" is really appropriate? The thing is, it's not "The 100 funniest films" but "The best 100 comedy films", and if you're asking film critics then they're going to take into account more than how much they laughed - they'll probably consider cinematography, art design, score and all those things that they know about. And I'm sticking to that as my reason why there wasn't any Kevin Smith in there.

[DrGreggles]

True. Some of the funniest films I've ever seen would fall into that category purely by accident.
Usually by being fucking awful.

[Glebe]

No Ladykillers.

Yeah, Pulp Fiction on there but a solid-gold classic like that gets overlooked?

And not a single Carry On, the stuck up cunts.

Up the Khyber should have gotten a nod, natch.

Also also... no Clouseau?

Well there you go... another wonky movie poll.

Glad to see my favourite Marx movie (possibly still my favourite comedy movie) in the top ten... Naked Gun - which I caught on ITV4 recently after not seeing for yonks - could've been higher.