Recently I came across this list on a blog I read: The Top 25 Comedies of the Past 25 Years List: Thoughts? I can see that if you dislike Judd Apatow, Todd Phillips, and/or their style of comedy, this list is really going to stick in your craw. It's certainly heavy on those guys. That said, I don't see why "I Love You, Man" wouldn't get in, as I thought it was on par with or better than other Apatow films. Rudd gave one of the better performances of his career there. I also found many movies on this list to be overrated. Road Trip was, in my opinion, fairly forgettable, predictable, and genre-typical. Not a bad comedy, but not one that I pine to see again. If it makes a top 25 list, it should just barely sneak in. Certainly not 15. Similarly, Pineapple Express left me kinda unenthused, and Superbad at 13 seems generous. Another question (which my roommate and I have heavily debated in the past) is whether Thank You For Smoking qualifies as a comedy. I say it certainly does, because if it's not a comedy, I don't know what other genre it falls into. And if I get to count it as a comedy, it's certainly top 10. In fact, I would say top 5 and vying for the top spot. If the original list-makers get to count Mean Girls as a comedy, I don't see why I can't count Thank You For Smoking. Similar borderline-comedies that I would certainly take over Meet The Parents (not horrible, but fairly middling) or Napoleon Dynamite (which I actively dislike): Little Miss Sunshine, Elf, Juno. I would sneak the movie Sex Drive towards the bottom of the list. The movie had fairly limited theatrical release, and I'm guessing most that saw it caught it on DVD or Netflix. It's entirely cliché, but in a sort of self-aware fashion that makes it tolerable. I think it rivaled Superbad, and possibly surpassed it as the best coming-of-age comedy of the decade. I could see this, however, being fairly divisive, as it doesn't exactly break new ground and I imagine many thought the movie was amateurish. It's a less-polished, but in my opinion significantly less predictable and funnier, version of American Pie. FOCUS: Missing on the list? Egregiously overrated? P.S. Can we not turn this into "YouKnowWho tells you why all your preferences and choices are idiotic, and there are at least 14 foreign movies that did that concept better"? Just a humble request.
I'd add Walk Hard and Rat Race and take out Meet the Parents and Zoolander. I may have a Stiller dislike going on.
I also dislike Stiller, but thought Zoolander was hilarious despite him. That said, I feel like Meet The Parents is a good rule of thumb as too whether a movie is particularly good. In order to be "good" rather than "average," it must be better than Meet the Parents.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell didn't make the list(kidding)? I would definitely take of Napoleon Dynamite and Easy A. Napoleon Dynamite was probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen, I did not laugh once.
I might want to put on Big Lebowski Clerks Dumb and Dumber I would take off Mean Girls Meet The Parents Napoleon Dynamite. There's others that I can see making it. 25 years goes back a long time.
Kinda surprised Tropic Thunder is on this list, let alone as high as it is. I thought it was a hilarious movie and a personal favorite of mine but I was under the impression I was in the minority there.
I was about to make a snarky response, but then observed that I made a typo in the original post. The list was the past 10 years, not 25. From what I can see, the opposite is true. The movie was fairly highly touted. I think it was really overly praised, and is 20-25 if on the list at all.
It's an idiotic disaster of a list, but that's to be expected. I've put my impressions of the ones I have seen in bold. Anywho, what are the best comedies I have personally seen in the last decade? (I know foreign/lesser marketed films are scary and evil for MoreCowbell, but I honestly don't care) Let's go with (English language films in bold) 1. Johnny English (favorite comedy ever) 2. Crank 2 3. Shaolin Soccer 4. Wasabi 5. Find Me Guilty (borderline by genre) 6. Six Shooter (best black comedy) 7. Burn after Reading 8. Fantastic Mr. Fox 9. Dead Leaves 10. Kung Fu Hustle 11. Tropic Thunder 12. Wallace and Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death' 13. The Old Negro Space Program (Yes, it's a short) 14. Up in the Air (romcom, whatever) 15. Adventureland (romcom, whatever) 16. Mind Game (borderine by genre) 17. Catch me if you can (borderline by genre) 18. Ali G Indahouse 19. Borat 20. Idiocracy So yeah, I guess I agree with them on "Borat" and "Tropic Thunder", although that's partly because I haven't seen enough comedies during the last decade.
Don't you have a degree in math or something? And you thought a decade was 25 years? I was about to rip into john_b for posting movies from the 90's then read that you said the past 25 years despite the thread title. Someone ban this idiot. I think I need a nap. Fuck the haters, Napolean Dynamite kicks ass, I'd easily have it in my top 25, possibly top 5 of the decade. I also agree with MC on Sex Drive, it was a surprisingly good movie for what it was.
Apparently non-literal statements elude you, seeing as I have no problem with either (although comedy rarely translates well). That was actually just meant to be taken as "Don't be pretentious asshats and unreasonably insult everyone with different tastes than you." I've seen the movie 3 times in the past year. All three started with someone saying something along the lines of "Wait, you're serious?! We're really watching THIS?!?!" because of how crude and low-budget it appears. Yet all three times, those people (myself included) have been converted. Burn After Reading strikes me as an odd film, because those who like it LOVE it, whereas others are left completely cold by it. I thought it was excessively frenetic and over-the-top. One thing that surprised me about the list: Have you ever heard ANYONE refer to Easy A as being that good? I've literally never heard a single person suggest this before.
Dude, I thought you said your favorite comedy was "Freddy got Fingered" (2002)?! Edit- Great job then; in the very first post of this topic, you were a pretentious asshat who unreasonably insulted someone with different taste than you...before they even posted in the topic, no less.
1. 40 year old Virgin 2. Beerfest 3. American Wedding 4. The Hangover 5. RockNRolla 6. Shaun of the Dead 7. Super Troopers 8. Wedding Crashers 9. Tropic Thunder 10. Superbad
You know what's the funniest movie of this decade? My boot in your ass. And yes you did read that in the voice of Red Foreman, you had no choice in the matter. Keep it on topic.
I watched it on demand because I was bored and because Emma Stone is hot. It was good enough that I immediately bought it on amazon once it ended. I've only done that with a couple other movies in the last five years.
I'll second Dumb and Dumber needing to be somewhere on that list. But 40 Year Old Virgin being #1? I definitely don't agree.
Dumb and Dumber was 1994... are we sticking with the decade or are we going to do the original 25? Because if the latter, if Big Lebowski isn't in anyone's top 5, they're dead to me.
Despite Tom Greens total lack of ability to write a movie script, this movie had some really funny parts. Ripp Torn blowing a gasket with curse filled rants every scene never gets old and his girlfriend who likes to get her paraplegic legs whipped with bamboo canes for sexual pleasure is just fucking hilarious. Not a top 25er though. Id also defend putting Napoleon Dynamite in the top 25. I know I fucking hated it the first time I saw it because of the huge amount of hipster douches that wouldnt shut the fuck up about it. After it came out on DVD and the hipster love wore off I watched it a few more times and grew to really like it. Simple non-hollywood premise, funny cast of quirky weirdos (this is what the hipsters really masturbated to), and executed really well on a fucking shoestring budget. As far as overly praised Indie films go I thought it was ten times better than retarded ass Little Miss Sunshine. Maybe not top ten but it deserves to be on the list. Apatow got a lot of love on the list. Honestly the amount of useless melodrama he adds to his films has left me with a poorer view of his work than I would have otherwise. Does it feel like he was just trying to hit every demographic by adding it in all of his films to anyone else? Most of his films feel about 15-20 minutes longer than they should all bogged down by the melodrama of the stories. Case in point Funny People was an absolute abortion. Even though 40 Year Old Virgin suffered from this I still put it up there in the top two of my list for the past decade (actually the list top 5 is pretty solid). I would only suggest 40YOV in its unrated version though. I saw it first on DVD and then later saw the theatrical version on HBO and it literally cut out 99% of the funniest most quotable lines of the film. I had never seen anything like it. EDIT: We should stick with the 2000-2010 decade ONLY. Top 25 comedy films of 2000 to 2010.
Gonna echo everyone and say I too hated Napoleon Dynamite. Then again, I rarely agree with the "best X" lists. I would definitely like to see Zombieland up there though. The scene with Bill Murray was brilliant.
I'll answer your rep to me; See, Best in Show was utter garbage because it took itself seriously, and was highly pretentious to boot. Even worse, Christopher Guest's films are completely ad-libbed and improvised, and this one lacked any actual jokes. The fact that there was a gay couple with a dog or that Eugene Levy was a nerd married to a formerly slutty woman are not funny by themselves; you actually have to make fucking joke somewhere. As such, it was boring as dishwater, and especially annoying with its arrogance. While I'm not a big fan, "This is Spinal Tap" was way more modest in its presentation, and had legitimate jokes in parts of the film. This one didn't. As for "Ali G Indahouse", it was silly as hell, but it never presented itself as anything besides that, and had several awesome jokes. What really surprises me is that you cut "Freddy Got Fingered" slack for the thing (I haven't seen it, but it seems completely goofy and over-the-top), but fail to notice the same is true for the first Sasha Baron Cohen picture.