Today’s topic is scenes or sequences from movies and TV shows that made you laugh so hard that you fell off whatever chair you were sitting in, had trouble breathing or suffered abdominal cramps so severe you had to look away from the screen for fear of sloughing off this mortal coil. Comedy as health risk.
1. “Raising Arizona.” (1987) I saw this movie in high school with my then-girlfriend. We were one of about ten people in the theater. Midway through we were both laughing so hard that we were kneeling on the floor, holding onto the seats in front of us, gasping and crying. We looked like we’d been tear gassed in church. The sequence that put us in fear of our lives was the one where doltish prison escapees Gale and Evelle Snoats (John Goodman and William Forsythe) are leaving a scene of a savings and loan robbery and a dye pack goes off, spraying their car interior with blue paint. It’s hard to say what’s funnier, those two ox-like gents covered in blue paint and bellowing, or the earlier moment in the S&L where they tell the customers and staff to freeze and get down on the ground, only to be met with blank stares. “Now, what's it gonna be young feller?” an old man asks. “You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? 'Cause if'n I freeze, I can't rightly drop. And if'n I drop, I'm gonna be in motion.”
2. “Big Business.” (1929) Laurel and Hardy roam around suburban Los Angeles neighborhoods, selling Christmas trees door-to-door, and get in a running feud with a sourpuss homeowner (James Finlayson) who doesn’t want any. By the end, the boys are chucking the homeowner’s furniture out onto his lawn while the homeowner systematically destroys their car. I first saw this one from inside the projection booth during an SMU class in silent and early sound comedy. During the climactic orgy of mayhem, I laughed so hard I thought I was going to rupture an internal organ.
3. “Ren & Stimpy: Ren’s Toothache.” (1991) Possibly the grossest cartoon ever aired on commercial TV. Despite Stimpy’s evangelizing on behalf of good dental hygiene, Ren refuses to brush his teeth and, thanks to infestation of the Tooth Beaver (which chops away a tiny axe) they disintegrate into a wasteland of nubs, holes and exposed nerve endings. Ren’s mouth becomes so revolting that in time even the Tooth Beaver packs up and splits. High (or low) point: flies swarming over an abscess declare that it’s too stinky even for them.
4. “Duck Soup.” (1933) I saw this at a local repertory house in eighth grade, when I was still acclimating myself to the Marx Bros. The whole movie is great, of course, but for my money the most striking and hilarious moment is when Chico, clad in Groucho garb and nightshirt, stands before a broken mirror and impersonates Groucho’s reflection. Groucho seems to know that he’s not really looking at his reflection, but an impostor. Yet he feels obliged to test his theory by gyrating, dancing and making faces, etc. Whole papers have been written about how this scene is uncharacteristically quiet and purely physical (by Marx Bros. standards), and hopeless movie referencer Woody Allen thought enough of it to rip if off wholesale in “Sleeper.” But academic considerations aside, it’s just flat-out funny.
5. “The Big Lebowski.” (1998) The pot-addled title character visits porn king Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara) while investigating a mystery. Mid-conversation, Jackie takes a phone call on the other side of the room and speaks cryptically to the person on the other end while scribbling intently on a notepad. Pulling a “North by Northwest,” the Dude waits until Jackie pockets the note and leaves, then goes over to the notepad and rubs the exposed page with a pencil to see what the guy was scribbling. Let’s just say it’s of no help.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
5 for the day: death by laughter
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
75 comments:
There are many and when I think harder on it, I'll come back and add some but one scene stands out far and above most: the climax of The Player, when they are watching the ending of the movie in the screening room. For months afterward -- and even now for some extent -- I can just think of that scene and start laughing.
"The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers, when John Cleese starts doing his Hitler imitation (complete with silly walk!) for his poor Continental guests. I turn into a laughing, slobbering, shivering wreck every time I see it.
Anytime George C. Scott opens his yap in DR. STRANGELOVE.
Also, any given minute of the episode "Homer Loves Flanders" in Season 5 of the Simpsons.
If we're going "Lebowski," I'd have to go with Maude Lebowski introducing The Dude to "Logjammin" ("The story is ludicrous!"), or Walter ranting about the Shabbos, or The Jesus warning The Dude not to fuck with him, or the nihlists threatening to cut off The Dude's johnson ("Johnson?"), or...
God, I need to watch that movie again -- preferably with my special lady friend.
1- IT'S A GIFT
For a long time all anyone had to say to me was "I'm looking for Karl LaFong, capital L, small a, capitol F..." or "Look out Mr. Muckle,
Honey!" and I would collapse. And then talk like W.C. Fields the rest of the day.
2-MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK
Norville finally summons up the nerve to ask the love of his life, Trudy Kockenlocker, to marry him and she replies:"Why Norville, this is so sudden!"
3-SOME LIKE IT HOT
Lemmon and Monroe in that upper berth. By the way, in the original script that scene goes on another couple of pages. Don't know if they ever filmed them
4-TWENTIETH CENTURY
Any time Barrymore exclaims:"Anathema!"
5-BLOCKHEADS
Ollie and his wife scream at each other while Stan pretends to be a chair. I usually lose it when they all stop to take a breath
I can't think of scenes off the top of my head, but the movies that most recently have literally made laugh til I cried were ANCHORMAN and THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN -- although the latter squandered the effect by devolving into an aimless series of disconnected bits. (arguably true of ANCHORMAN as well, but the bits are funnier.)
I haven't seen RAISING AZ in many years (and it may, in fact, be the only Coen bros movie I haven't seen on film), but it's a constant fount of references for my girlfriend and me -- even after four years of working the same joke, we can't give each other driving directions without throwing in a "Turn to the raght!" For sheer quotability, it eclipses even LEBOWSKI. I could probably do half the script off the top of my head.
As a side note, are we the only people for whom the solemnity of the SIX FEET UNDER finale was undercut by the sense that at some point Nicolas Cage was going to butt in and say, "I don't know -- maybe it was Utah"?
Some Like It Hot has several fall on the floor funny scenes. Good choice, stevent. I didn't choose any from that movie, but then again, nobody's perfect.
How about two from old HBO movies:
1. James Garner reacting to the consumer test results for the smokeless cigarette in Barbarians at the Gate. "Tastes like shit, smells like a fart?!" yells Garner. "We got a real winner here!"
2. Ving Rhames' dynamite Don King impression explains the negritudian origins of a certain maternal twelve letter cuss word to the preacher's wife in Don King: Only in America.
3. Speaking of America, I can remember literally falling on the sticky theater floor when the jHeri-curled family left big jHeri-curl juice stains on the couch in Coming to America. Sometimes the biggest laugh comes from something familiar, which is why I love this movie.
4. The ONLY laugh in Caddyshack: the candy bar in the pool scene. I laughed so hard that Caddyshack fell from the top of my ten worsts list all the way off the list.
5. I love Raising Arizona too. It's my favorite Coen brothers movie. I always crack up when Nicolas Cage says "you stay ah-way from mah wife!" and also when Randall Tex Cobb blows the rabbit up with the grenade.
6. Conversely, The Big Lebowski is my least favorite movie of theirs, appearing at #10 on my ten worsts that year. The only remotely amusing thing about it to me was the scene where Jeff Bridges drifts between the legs of the women straddling the bowling lane. His face when he turns around to look upward was funny.
Since Lebowski inexplicably has a large following, I did a year long survey on who liked it and why. I'd tell you the results, but I'm on probation here, so I'd better be good. You can E-mail me if you really wanna know. Hell, you might fit the description of the typical Lebowski lover. :)
I'm also partial to anything featuring that masterr of sexual harrassment, Pepe LePew. (Any Looney Tunes will do, really.)
Enough of me. I have a Super Bowl to watch.
Oh, and how can I forget Burt Reynolds' monologue/prayer to God at the end of The End. "10! 10 percent, Lord..."
I still laugh out loud at Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Fields and the Marx Bros.
In modern times, I'd say that Jim Jarmusch really knows where my funnybone is located. I find myself quoting his movies more than any other modern filmaker. He's also great at character names. Lots of lines from "Sranger Than Paradise" and "Dead Man".
Mitchum saying "Conway Twill, you're a real fine killer,but you need to learn how to keep that goddamn trap shut." Or Depp's tense delivery: "Well, it's a rose ...and it's made of paper."
Or how about when the evil Cole Wilson, so mean and miserable with a toothache, shoots the kid.
Twill: "he was just a kid."
Wilson: " He's a navajo mud toy now."
How is it, that insensitvity, which can suck so much in real life, can be so uproarious in comedy?
Most recently, my friends almost had to take me to the hospital after my sustained gut-busting during the hilarious "Shaolin Soccer".
Well I'm gonna have to think for a while about my list. The last time my guts were busted was during the "Hertz Donut" scene in The American Astronaut. Still not exactley sure how I feel about the rest of the movie.
the scene in Crimes & Misdemeanors when Woody's character finally reveals his documentary to Alda's character. That whole documentary film-within-the-film, woody's self-defense, and alda's reaction has me rolling every time i see it.
Wow, good call on the "Ren's Toothache" episode. I'm partial to the "Space Madness" one myself -- I could watch Ren chomp into that bar of soap for the rest of my days -- but you gotta love tooth residue pouring out of Ren's mouth while he sleeps.
I also find myself reaching for the Kleenex while watching Bringing Up Baby, which I long ago decided was the single funniest movie of all time. David Thomson's belief that Cary Grant was the greatest actor of all time is hard to debate with.
Son, you got a panty on your head...
Color me mundane, but Kevin Kline making fun of Michael Palin's stutter in "A Fish Called Wanda" always cracks me up.
Along with Clouseau flying across the room after placing his hand on the spinning globe in one of the Pink Panther movies.
Five LOL, fell-out-of-my-chair Mr. Show moments:
-Pit Pat
-Three Times One Minus One
-Pallies
-The "Take Back the Streets" intro (Where he chases the criminal with the crime stick)
-The Story of Everest
A Mr. Show top 5 without the Ronnie Dobbs musical? For shame. Tofutti break!
Wasn't really a top five. Left off a lot of great stuff, obviously. Imagineer your own. Or don't. It's entirly up to you.
"I'm talkin' about me and Dot are swingers. As in, to swing."
"Bill Parsons? Not that mother-scratcher!"
"Real good cereal flakes, Miz McDonough."
"When there was no crawdad, we et sand."
"No sir, that's a real bonehead name."
"Her insides were a rocky place in which my seed could find no purchase."
I could quite literally go on for hours.
This blog entry should have been titled "Death by Laughter, or Lol and Behold."
"Ya ate sand?!"
Okay, so it's hard just doing one.
"Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase."
"No. Less you think round is funny."
"I don't know what the damn jammies looked like...they had Yodas and shit on 'em."
"Yes, I know that feeling. I told Dot to lose some weight, but she don't wanna listen."
"Now you take that diaper off your head and you put it back on your sister."
I also want to mention that, for about two years of my life, I shopped at the same supermarket as Randall "Tex" Cobb. The day he let me on a trolley ahead of him is a kind of turning point in my life.
Apologies for putting the same "innards were a rocky place" line as Sam. That was a real bonehead move. My replacement is:
Glen: How many Pollacks it take to screw in a lightbulb?
H.I.: I dunno, Glen, one?
Glenn: Nope, it takes three. (laughs uproariously on his lonesome, then stops) Wait a minute, I told it wrong.
The Dude: "Let me explain something to you. I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness. Or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing."
I thought of five more:
1. The Farmer's Daughter musical from the pilot for MR. SHOW, with Jack Black as Satan.
2. The scene in DO THE RIGHT THING where Radio Raheem walks past the Greek Chorus on the corner, and his boombox is so loud that Robin Harris has to stand up and go relieve himself.
3. The scene in THE HEARTBREAK KID where Charles Grodin tries to impress future father-in-law Eddie Albert by paraphrasing a pro-enviromental editorial he read in the paper that morning, and gets busted.
4. Ben Stiller in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER leaping into a clinch with Tea Leoni, then pathetically insisting to wife Patricia Arquette that nothing is amiss, his cover story torpedoed by his conspicuous boner.
5. The Simpsons episode where Bart ghostwrites love letters to Miss Krabapple. He asks his mom if his dad ever wrote her a love letter, and she says, "No, but he wrote me a postcard once," then produces a postcard from Duff Breweries, which Homer reads in voice-over, drunkenly: "Marge, maybe it's the beer talking, but you got a butt that just won't quit. They've got these chewy pretzels here, and... (slurry mumbling)…Five dollars? Get out of here!"
"Pre-taped call-in show" skit from Mr. Show. The punchline to this skit was both hilarious and mind bending.
More LEBOWSKI:
WALTER: "Ma'am, does your husband still write?"
PILAR: "Oh no... he has health problems."
(pause to listen to the sound of the iron lung.)
I also can't get through the cloning-factory finale of SLEEPER without weeping with laughter - and recently found myself quietly reciting it during THE ISLAND. ("We're doctors, not impostors." "I never clone alone!" "Yes, we're here to see the nose, we heard it was running.")
Last year I lost it bad when Gilbert Gottfried told THE ARISTOCRATS - though that was more of an unholy cathartic incantation than an actual joke, and also in KISS KISS BANG BANG when poor Robert Downey had to explain to Val Kilmer that he'd peed on the corpse.
Possibly my all time lowest moment though, was the "climax" of FREDDY GOT FINGERED.
As Tom Green desperately tries to prove his worth to Rip Torn's furiously disapproving Dad, the under-appreciated son begins frantically masturbating a nearby elephant - all the while screaming: "Daddy, I have talent! Daddy, look what I can do!"
The resulting fire-hose blast of elephant semen sends Torn flying at least fifty feet, and just won't stop spraying and spraying and spraying for what feels like half an hour.
I shall never forget my friend and I both falling off the couch and rolling around my living room floor with tears streaming down our faces...
...only slowly becoming aware, far too late, that our then-girlfriends were staring at us with such appalled looks of such horror and disgust, it was going to be a long time before we lived this one down.
Since we're being very, very frank here, I might as well tell you all that I have never seen my mother, who is now in her sixties, laugh harder in her life than she laughed at that scene in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER with Ben Stiller and his boner. I really thought I was going to have to call an ambulance.
I should also mention that my mom's favorite comedy of all time is THE JERK. She and my stepdad quote the dialogue to each other the way other couples croon song lyrics. They are incapable of looking up a number in a phone book without exclaiming, "I'm in the phone book! I'm SOMEBODY!", nor are they capable of going out for a meal in a restaurant without re-enacting the escargot scene line by frickin' line. ("Waiter...there are SNAILS on her PLATE!") With each passing year, as THE JERK loses its cultural currency, the waiters get more and more confused.
Okay, I'd much rather talk about life-threatening comedy than get to work, so...
First of all, nice call, Grand Epic, on Mr. Show's "The Story of Everest"-- that sketch is a rare, brilliant example of how knowing what's coming doesn't make it less funny, it actually makes it funnier. I've never seen my wife laugh so hard... Also, since we're talking Mr. Show, I mustn't forget to mention that very special meal to be had at "The Burgundy Loaf"...
But on to my list (in alphabetical order):
1) The Big Lebowski I'll always admire the Coen Bros. for following their Oscar success (Fargo) with this shaggy classic. It's actually become my favorite Coen Bros. film, and one of my favorites period, for many reasons, not least of which are exchanges like this:
WALTER
This kid is in the ninth grade, Dude, and his father is – are you ready for this? – Arthur Digby Sellers.
DUDE
Who the fuck is that?
WALTER
Huh?
DUDE
Who the fuck is Arthur Digby Sellers?
WALTER
Who the f–- Have you ever heard of a little show called Branded, Dude?
DUDE
Yeah.
WALTER
"All but one man died there at Bitter Creek"?
DUDE
Yeah, yeah, I know the fucking show Walter. So what?
WALTER
Fucking Arthur Digby Sellers wrote 156 episodes, Dude.
DUDE
Uh-huh.
WALTER
The bulk of the series.
DUDE
Uh-huh.
WALTER
Not exactly a lightweight.
DUDE
No.
WALTER
And yet his son is a fucking dunce.
2) Horsefeathers I love Duck Soup as well, but Horsefeathers was the first Marx Bros. movie I ever saw. Professor Wagstaff's orientation speech brought me to the edge of hyperventilation, and Harpo pulling out the candle burning at both ends sent me sailing over it.
3) Richard Pryor Live In Concert This movie makes me laugh so hard, and makes me so aware of my own body functions, particularly when Pryor is describing his own heart attack (his heart reaching down and twisting itself, sending him to the floor in paroxysms of pain while shouting, "Guess you shoulda thought about that when you was eatin' all that pork!") that at some point, whenever I see this movie, I become convinced that I actually will die while watching it.
4) Rock-a-bye Bear One of Tex Avery's greatest achievements, and more chest-crushing laughter in 7 minutes that many feature film comedies have ever managed. A hapless bulldog gets sprung from jail to stand guard over a hibernating bear, only to be constantly undercut by a bassett hound who escapes the cell at the same time and causes the bulldog to repeatedly wake up his increasingly angry and unreasonable charge. Just the sheepish look on the bulldog's face as he is harangued by the bear for the first time ("Ahh sed quiet, and when ahh say quiet, I means QUIIIIIET!") is enough to leave me gasping.
5) South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut Cartman laying in bed after his mom has tucked him in for the night:
CARTMAN
Mom?
MOTHER
Yes, hon?
CARTMAN
If you were in a German scheisse video, you'd tell me right?
MOTHER
Sure, hon. Good night!
Matt, here's the one from The Jerk that will drop my wife every time I'm fast enough to send it her way: Navin spots the gas station assassin, now dressed in a suit and porkpie hat, approaching his apartment, and starts yelling: "It's him! It's him! What's him doing here?"
Dennis:
Re: HORSEFEATHERS: I assume you mean the following, courtesy of filmsite.org. And even if you don't mean the following, I'm quoting it anyway, because it's one of the great nonsense monologues in movie history.
Wagstaff: As you know, there is constant warfare between the red and white corpuscles. Now then, baboons, what is a corpuscle?
Baravelli: That's easy. First there's a captain. Then there's a lieutenant. Then there's a corpuscle.
Wagstaff: That's fine. Why don't you bore a hole in yourself and let the sap run out? We now find ourselves among the Alps. The Alps are a very simple people living on a diet of rice and old shoes. Beyond the Alps lies more Alps and the Lord Alps those that Alps themselves. We then come to the bloodstream. The blood rushes from the head down to the feet, gets a look at those feet, and rushes back to the head again. This is known as auction pinochle. Now in studying your basic metabolism, we first listen to your heartsbeat. And if your hearts beat anything but diamonds and clubs, it's because your partner is cheating - or your wife...Now take this point for instance (He points to a horse's ass placed over an anatomy chart - a picture of Pinky's beloved horse that he placed there when Wagstaff wasn't looking) - That reminds me, I haven't seen my son all day. Well, the human body takes many strange forms. Now here is a most unusual organ. The organ will play a solo immediately after the feature picture. Scientists make these deductions by examining a rat, or your landlord, who won't cut the rent. And what do they find? Asparagus! Now, on closer examination... (Pinky has now placed a picture of his ballerina beauty over Wagstaff's anatomy chart) Hmm! This needs closer examination. In fact, it needs a nightgown. Baravelli, who's responsible for this? Is this your picture?
Baravelli: I no think so. It doesn't look like me.
"He hates these cans!"
Now that I'm done laughing-- Oh, that's it, all right. "We then come to the bloodstream. The blood rushes from the head down to the feet, gets a look at those feet, and rushes back to the head again. This is known as auction pinochle." My late grandmother told stories until almost the day she died of watching me react as I encountered this scene for the first time, and to that line in particular. I thought I was going insane. Thanks so much for getting that in print for me. It is now attached permanently to my computer monitor.
Interesting how often we are brought closer to a loved one through an unbelievably dumb joke.
I would jump in here, but I'm afraid that someone will say, "Donnie, you're out of your element!"
As far as Mr. Show goes, I am partial to Rap, the Musical--"All the fun of rap, without all the rap!"
"I've got homophobia!" from the New San Francisco sketch.
But I think my favorite line was
"Don't blame the dildos!" I guess maybe the context helps with that one. Oh, well. Out of my element.
MZS: "Interesting how often we are brought closer to a loved one through an unbelievably dumb joke.
Hell yes! I got my Dad hooked on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, and since he didn't have HBO at the time, I fondly recall getting the phone calls every Monday afternoon: "Hey, did you tape Larry David last night? When are you bringing it over?" I felt like his drug dealer.
During that episode at the retarded car wash, with Moon Unit Zappa in the burka, I was seriously worried that I'd have to call 911. We still can't even talk about it without roaring.
And Matt, fear not, as I too took my mom to see FLIRTING WITH DISASTER. She was so excited that her TV favorites Alan Alda and Mary Tyler Moore were in a movie together, even though I'd seen it twice already and knew what we were in for... I couldn't resist a screening oppertunity like that one.
I believe it was during the closing-credit cookie when Mary Richards finished blowing George Segal and immediately began flossing, my Mom finally turned to me and yelped: "Sean, this movie is crazy!"
...and Odie (great to have you back, by the way), while I'll agree that CADDYSHACK doesn't hold up nearly as well as some of its more ardent fans would have you believe, I can't fathom how anyone could hate a movie with a moment like the one when Rodney yells:
"Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!"
Surely one of the happiest, most inclusive and all-around joyous exclamations in the history of movies... so it's got that going for it.
My most recent gut-busting moment came this last Summer in the widely-snubbed THE DEVIL'S REJECTS. Ken Foree and Michael Berryman go to buy chickens from a roadside vendor. His half-concerned question of them, "You fellas ain't going to..." I found amazingly funny.
Seitz, as a topic of consideration for a future blog I'd be interested in your list of great movie music queues.
Re: Ben's Stiller's boner in Flirting With Disaster, I love Patricia Arquette's sweet and enthused response when he comes back in the room ("Hey--where'd you get the pup tent?").
My earliest televison memory: In the 70s, Johnny Carson would do a bit in December where he trys out the latest toys (I think Leno still does this). One year (@ 1976) he is presented with a foot-high plastic basketball player that tosses a ball when his head is depressed. Carson tries to make a basket. He fails. He fails again. And again. Ho-kay, moving on, here is a ... miniature cannon. A real, live, honest-to-goodness put yer eye out cannon. Only small. After seeing it fire once, Carson gets an evil gleam in his eye. The cannon is loaded & turned to the basketball player. "So, ya wouldn't make any baskets, huh?" Carson cackles. A huge cloud of smoke, the toy is gone! Destroyed? (The audience is screaming). A frantically panning second camera finds it, zooming in to the foot of the guest chair. There the toy lies, headless!
I laughed and laughed so much that my little 6-year old body couldn't take it, & I dashed to the bathroom to puke my guts out. Hey, my first vomit memory, too!
Brett: Great idea. I am already thinking about what I'd put on that list. Maybe next week or the week after.
girish: It just so happens that that line was my mom's cue to fall off the couch she was sitting on and go from laughter to hyperventilation/tears. A very close call. I mean it when I say that calling 911 was on my list of possible responses.
Weepinggorilla: Carson was a favorite of mine, too. He and Carol Burnett.
And Sean and Odie: Regarding the CADDYSHACK talk, here's a reference I absolutely, positively know you're gonna love. From the website for my movie "Home,", a bio of one of my castmembers, Minerva Scelza. Tell me that's not the best actress bio ever.
A little late to the party but:
1) "Curb Your Enthusiasm" from its rather uneven fifth season: The climactic moments of the Louis Lewis gets shot by Frank Whaley episode and the final moment of "Ski Lift" episode where a cell phone rings off in, shall we say, a rather cavernous place.
2) "Mars Attacks!": Tom Jones lifting his arm out to a falcon
3) "Looney Tunes: Back In Action" - the whole damn thing. Matt should be somewhat sympathetic to this, unless he thinks I'm just insane, which is also valid.
4) Ingmar Bergman's hilarious (I say intentional) comedy of Catholic manners "Winter Light."
5) "How would you like to suck my balls, Mr. Garrison?"
I don't know if the story is true or just an urban legend, but I remember in the 1970s a tale of a Brit watching an episode of "The Goodies" and literally laughing himself to death.
I thought of another more recent bit in "South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut" when the general planning the attack has problems with Windows and calls Bill Gates out and before Gates can give him any explanation, he just blows his head off. People actually applauded in the theater I saw that at.
"How would you like to suck my balls, Mr. Garrison?"
For about ten minutes, I thought that this was a "JFK" quote. For me, the funniest South Park line is when Cartman, for no reason at all, turns to Kenny and says, "I hate you." Also, when all the children in the world join together and sing "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch."
All of "To Be or Not to Be" is hilarious, but I can't stop laughing any time someone says, "So they call me Concentration Camp Erhardt." But especially when Jack Benny says it.
1: The Coen Brothers have at least one good "death by laughter" gag in each film. "O Brother, Where Art Thou" has one every couple of minutes, it seems.
"I don't want FOP, God damn it! I'm a Dapper Dan Man!"
It also has great movie music, Brett! ;-)
2: It's not a comedy, but "The Thing" is hilarious. (And scary.) Best fall down and laugh line after sheer terror (and anyone who's seen the film will know what I mean...) is Palmer's reaction to the Thing's spider-head trying to escape after a flamethrower battle.
"You have got to be fuh-king kidding!"
3. A Night at the Opera -- Some of my favorite Groucho one-liners and, of course, the famous stateroom scene...
4. "Kingpin". The best thing Bill Murray could do for himself right now is not play another middle aged sad sack, and put on a fright wig for the Farrelly Brothers. Rent this one to remind yourself of a time when Bill Murray made screamingly funny comedies. And he's not even the star!
5. The Island of Dr. Moreau starring Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis and Mini-Me. Comic gold = Brando with the bucket of ice on his head...Brando's impression of the Queen of England when he says, "The Law has been Broken!"...Kilmer's impersonation of Brando later in the film...Brando and Mini-Me playing the piano together...
An exasperated Thewlis, who doesn't seem to be acting, says midway through the film (in the scene where Brando asks Mini-Me to kindly take his foot off the dining room table), "THIS IS THE MOST ABSURD THING I HAVE EVER WITNESSED..."
Sean: Thanks for the compliment! I totally forgot about Rodney's line. The only things I remember from the movie are the aforementioned Baby Ruth gag and the stupid gopher dancing at the end (which, I must confess, I mimic whenever I hear that Kenny Loggins song. To quote Cartman: "I hate you, Kenny.")
Maybe the TRUE reason I hate Caddyshack is that I got my ass beaten by my Mom for sneaking in to see it. It was rated R, and I wasn't even PG-13 yet.
Hey, I may be onto something with that confession! Let's see: I hate Fantasia, and I distinctly remember my Mom beating my ass with my own belt at the theater during The Sorcerer's Apprentice because I wanted to go home. (She wanted to go home too, I'd later learn, but she stayed just to teach me a lesson because I wanted so adamantly to see Fantasia, and she wasted like $1.50 to take me.)
MZS: See the above for why I asked you to beat up Mickey Mouse. Also, your link is AWESOME! I did not realize the connection between Home and Caddyshack! My jaw hit the floor. The last time that happened was during White Mischief where Sarah Miles gives Charles Dance's corpse a coochie-rific goodbye present. I laughed so hard when the woman with her said "Not here, Alice!" or something to that effect!
Dennis: I love Richard Pryor Live in Concert too, but my favorite part is when his wife's orgasm sounds like the theme from Close Encounters. That heart attack routine used to be hilarious to me until I actually had a heart attack. Then that shit wasn't funny anymore! (OK, it's still hilarious!) I also love, in Live on the Sunset Strip, the nonchalant way Pryor says "when you're on fire, people will get out of your way."
My favorite Pryor joke is also from Live on the Sunset Strip:
Pryor: I asked one man [at Arizona State Penitentiary] "Why did you kill everybody in the house?" He said "They was home."
This is an embarrassing confession, but what the hell -- the first time I saw Peter Bogdanovich's Noises Off, I was reduced to helpless gasping by the whole third performance, the one where everyone in the cast hates each other and absolutely nothing is going right. The froggy-voiced young millionaire in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes pretty much slays me every time, too.
And my favorite Simpsons moment would have to be when Bart has created a fictitious romantic pen-pal for Miss Krebappel, but then feels guilty about it after she becomes smitten. He's trying to compose a delicate break-up postcard, and Homer's suggestion is, "Welcome to Dumpsville -- Population: You."
No, alonso, THIS is embarrassing:
I laugh my ass off watching...
...Mommy Dearest!
Bring me the axe!!!
I am so ashamed.
Mr. Copeland: Thanks for reminding me (a programmer no less) about the Bill Gates moment in South Park: BLU. Nobody in the audience I saw it with applauded but me. In Mr. Gates' defense, the shoddiness of his software has paid for many vacations of mine.
MZS: I love The Jerk and I spent plenty of time back in 1979 saying "I was born...a poor Black child." However, it just wasn't as funny as when Steve Martin said it. Then I realized...I WAS born a poor, Black child! That explains everything!
Soon after, I discovered my special purpose.
Sorry if I'm interrupting here, I'm not sure where or when the next NEW WORLD discussion is and I hope TNW born-again disciples are welcome.
It's been just over a week since I've seen it, and I feel I should confess to Malick's Anonymous.
In that week I've thought of almost nothing else. Before that, I hadn't read a lot of the Malick stuff over here too closely, but now that I have seen it, and said my piece (thanks for that Liverputty link) I came over here looking to soak my brain in all things Malick, and now I realize that everything I wrote has been said by you and others over here already ( and much better too.)
About those diffrent cuts, you've explained the diffrence in methods of contrapuntal narration, and the greater emphasis on collective conscience, and I think you said no major sequences were left out, but what about those tributaries? What was really left out? I'm not familiar with Slant Mag, but I look forward to finding that article.
I seemed to notice a jump-cut technique he was using, where a scene you're watching suddenly skips forward a bit. I thought it worked fine, but I wondered if it was that way in the longer cut. Could this be a way he compressed the movie?
I know that memory can sometimes exaggerate impressions. Like how as a kid at the movies, when Marion Ravenwood saved Indy's life in a Nepalese tavern by shooting a bearded goon in the back of the head, I thought I saw blood gush from the badguy's mouth. Later, when I went back, I only heard a pistol shot, then saw the merest trickle on his lip. Sometimes a vivid sequence turns out to be only a single shot.
Or another example, It's been many months since I've seen BROKEN BLOSSOMS (which I thought an excellent if minor film), but my strongest memory is of a certain repeated visual refrain of quiet shots of basketball hoops. If I ever see it again, I don't know how much of that will really be there.
So with The New World. What was that movie I was watching? Did I really see a daddy longlegs crawling across orange lichens? -or King James applauding a bald eagle? -or pumpkins for thanksgiving? -or Pocahontas' private treetop places? -or her doing that Earth Mother sky-prayer thing with her hands in front of open windows? - or Algonquin warriors practicing for wars we never see, twirling tomahawks and shooting arrows behind the village, almost a little like a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. training camp? ...was it all just a dream?
I'm gonna try like hell to see this movie again before it leaves Oklahoma. And then I'll look for the super-ultra-deluxe DVD edition. It's funny, though, the idea of all these diffrent versions makes me a little defensive, somehow, like I want to hug the one I saw closer saying "But I already HAVE a version I love 100 percent!"
It really shows you what a forward-thinking cinema genius D.W. Griffith was that he would put basketball hoops into his 1919 story of interracial romance (I keed, I keed).
Jeremiah Kipp said...
"The Coen Brothers have at least one good 'death by laughter' gag in each film."
Agreed. "Intolerable Cruelty":
Waitress: You want a salad?
Wrigley: Yeah. Do you... Do you have a, uh, green salad?
Waitress: What the fuck color would it be?
I love the attention that's been paid to "Lebowksi" here, and that kinda goes to show exactly how perfect a comedy that film really is. It's one that truly, in the words of Beetlejuice, "keeps gettin' funnier every time I see it!"
*HOWEVER*, I would like to point to the OTHER great bowling movie, and that's KINGPIN.
KINGPIN has got so many great jokes, gags and moments. With some help from IMDB, here's a few choice bits that floor me...
ESPN Announcer: So Roy, where have you been for the last fifteen years?
Roy: Well, I uh, well, ya see, I uh... Drinking. Lot a drinking.
ESPN Announcer: I see. Well, are you still drinking?
Roy: No. I uh... I put... uh... Why, you buying?
Mr. Boorg: We don't have a cow. We have a bull.
The scene where Ishmael freaks out over a drunken tattoo session only to turn around so the viewer can see in the mirror...
The sex scene with Woody, Lin Shaye and Simon & Garfunkel which culminates in...
Landlady: What is it about good sex that makes me have to crap? You really jarred something loose tiger.
Roy: Who's done more research than the good people at the American Tobacco Industry? They say its harmless. Why would they lie? If you're dead, you can't smoke.
[referring to Roy's hook for a hand]
Claudia: It must be hard to spank your monkey.
Ishmael: You have a monkey?
Claudia: He said handSOME, not handLESS.
Ishmael: Ten frames?
[scoffs]
Ishmael: That's for Quakers.
The failure of Claudia's charms to work on a certain hick because a goat standing nearby overshadows her beauty.
The dream sequence with Chris Elliott which parodies "Indecent Proposal" (which also starred Woody Harrelson).
Basically EVERY scene with Bill Murray as Ernie McCracken; here are some great quotes in particular:
[Looking at a table of women]
Ernie: Hi...not you. (beat) Hi.
Ernie: Tanqueray and Tab and keep 'em comin'.
Ernie: Do me a favor, will you? Would you mind washing off that perfume before you come back to our table?
...AND MY PERSONAL FAVE IN THE ENTIRE FLICK:
Ishmael: Whatcha doin', Mr. Munson?
Roy: Flossin'.
Ishmael: Flossin? Where the hell did I get "Munson"?
Roy: The name's Munson, what I'm doin' is flossin'.
KINGPIN is easily the jewel in the Farrelly Bros. crown, and while I like SHALLOW HAL quite a bit, I've grave doubts they'll ever scale the same heights as The [Mis]Adventures of Roy Munson.
Odie: I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh uproariously at Mommie Dearest.
Ruediger, you forgot the part about the shit-cloud.
Matt P:
It's "Why does it take three Polacks to screw in a light bulb?"
Jesus, some people just can't tell a joke.
Dave: There will be another Malick post again soon, if only a collection of interesting links as a spur to even more discussion. BTW, you did see the shot of the daddy longlegs crawling across orange lichens, in both versions of the movie. That's one of my favorite shots in the entire film/films, and perhaps the most like one of the nature's-lofty-indifference cutaways in THE THIN RED LINE; it also seems poetically right for where it occurs, a rant by John Savage's insane settler. It seems to express the disintegration of his rational mind somehow.
But I digress: shit clouds, handless bowling pros, and Marlon Brando. (That scene where he plays the piano -- "Moonlight Sonata," isn't it? -- was improvised! That's why so much of it is captured in an unbroken master. Look closely and you can actually see a couple of the ape men trying very hard not to crack up and blow the take.
Regarding "Mommie Dearest," one of my favorite moments of live performance was at a press conference in LA promoting Mario Cantone's one man show "Laugh Whore." He was so damned funny that after about five minutes the reporters stopped asking actual questions and started throwing out obvious straight lines and requests for celebrity impersonations. The best moment was when somebody yelled out "Joan Crawford!" Cantone asked if the gent wanted the young Joan Crawford, Joan Crawford circa "Trog," or Faye Dunaway impersonating Joan Crawford. Then he did all three!
1. Bringing Up Baby. Specifically where he trips over the curb after asserting that he still has his dignity.
2. Firefly ep Our Mrs Reynolds, a rather old fashioned farce from Whedon, the first half anyway, and it works. "How special"
3. Spinal Tap. All of it even the deleted scenes. And the commentary too. "It's like none more black"
4 Shameless on Channel 4. "Sorry I just came in the back door" "You're not the only one"
5. The Man With Two Brains. Remember when Steve Martin was the funniest thing in movies?
Though the thing I tend to turn to when I want to laugh are my Bill Hicks TV specials and CDs. It's only the specific references that date.
Sam:
"I guess it's what they call a 'way-homer.'"
Hey Matt, I've been thinking about that spider shot a lot. How many times have you seen the film now?
Four now. I'm probably going to add a fifth next week, if the movie's still playing. (Fingers crossed.)
For another excuse to talk about Malick, see today's post. This here thread is for silliness.
"Run for the hills, everyone! There's a shit-cloud coming!"
Unbelievably late on this one, but I put up a five-spot here.
In fact, I started laughing at "Young Frankenstein" when the Universal logo appeared.
I would have laughed too, especially since Young Frankenstein is from 20th Century-Fox!
"Put ... the candle ... back."
In fact, I started laughing at "Young Frankenstein" when the Universal logo appeared.
Two movies I bet none of you have seen (or will admit to liking): "Slither" (1972) and "The Black Bird" (1975). Very dark, very dry.
I can say that I kinda liked Slither, if this is the James Caan movie of the same name. The Black Bird is another story.
Grand Epic - the shit cloud has been duly noted. How could I forget the shit cloud!?!?!
I really should have just cut and pasted the entire screenplay!
Haven't seen either one. I've seen "Sssssss!" though. And "Slithis," possibly the worst horror film ever made. Traumatized the hell out of me and my brother, though. imagine if the Creature from the Black Lagoon was a cannibal.
Or technically not a cannibal, since that would mean it only eats other Slithises.
Er...Slithi?
This thread might be played out.
Suggestion for another thread: movies you're embarassed you were scared by. Two words: THE STUFF.
I almost never laugh at comedies. I have to be taken off guard in a drama.
Recent belly laughs: when Erich Von Stroheim explains to Gloria Swanson that "apparently your phone number is very similar to that of the pound," in "Sunset Boulevard."
Ralph Bellamy punching Constance Cummings in an Irene Dunne programmer called "This Man Is Mine"---it was so unexpected that I literally fell off my bed.
Biggest laugh of all time: Elizabeth Taylor entering in a purple turban (in front of sea green tiles) in Losey's "Secret Ceremony." Runner-up, from that film: Mia Farrow collapses, and Losey cuts to Christ on the cross.
Lana Turner confronting a bull at the end of "Love Has Many Faces."
Every time Louis Jordan tortures Doris Day with his "avant garde" music in Andrew Stone's "Julie."
Dan C: That Louis Jordan reference is priceless.
Sam: I'm already stockpiling "5 for the day" ideas, since it seems to be the most popular regualr feature on the site. Your idea is a great one and I will definitely use it. It's not my list that matters, it's the conversation that ensues.
PS Sam: You were scared by THE STUFF? I can go you one better. I was scared by THE HIDDEN.
Spinal Tap: The scene when they are at the conference table planning the record cover and the two lead guys both have fever blisters on their mouths -- on opposite sides. Its a thinker, and damn funny.
They pan very slowly across so you can take it in slowly - pure genius.
The Find The Fish and Mr. Creosote sketches from Monty Python's Meaning of Life.
The episode of SCTV about the NASA production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral.
These literally made me fall out of my chair laughing.
I don't know about falling out of my chair, but I've seen these sketches numerous times and they always make me laugh. Money Tree has the greatest voice-over EVER.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdJoeikK7Ec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6YOyQESWMs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWyHHpmV3g
Post a Comment