More Favorite Comedies: The Hangover; Farrelly Brothers; Ben Stiller

Posted by Jason Ihle | No Comments

Following on from my previous post plotting my favorites of the decade, here are the remaining comedies:

The Hangover (2009) dir. Todd Phillips – A Las Vegas bachelor party gone out of control. This could have been a generic Hollywood comedy. But somehow it transcends the genre. It’s so well written and acted. The first of two revelations is Bradley Cooper, who could easily have been pigeonholed as the dick after Wedding Crashers. But here he uses that same cocky swagger to create a wholly different character. The second is Zach Galifianakis, whose constant stream of non-sequiturs is as varied as it is funny.

Me, Myself & Irene (2000) dir. Peter and Bobby Farrelly – I still say There’s Something About Mary is their best, but I dare you not to laugh at this one. Jim Carrey is as good as he’s ever been. I’d say this is probably his best comedic performance, playing a nice guy cop who gets pushed around all his life until he finally cracks and develops a split personality, who is constantly at odds with his other self. A fist fight he has with himself is physical comedy gold.

Pineapple Express (2008) dir. David Gordon Green – Let me say off the bat that there were two Oscar tragedies connected with this film: the first is that the Huey Lewis and the News title song was, for some unknown reason, ineligible; second was that James Franco was not nominated. Seth Rogen is great, but the film belongs to Franco and Danny McBride is something of a revelation. Each scene is crazier than the last until the final big action sequence that is like Tarantino gone haywire. It all may seem way over the top, but look at it as if it’s not actually happening to the characters, but rather what a bunch of stoners might come up with when writing a screenplay.

Superbad (2007) dir. Greg Mottola – A film that owes a great debt to Judd Apatow. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are best friends looking to have a great night out during their last weeks of high school. It’s a fairly standard premise for a high school comedy, but is so damn funny (NSFW) (unlike most films of this ilk).

Tropic Thunder (2008) dir. Ben Stiller – Robert Downy, Jr. as an Australian actor playing the part of a black man in a Vietnam war film. He is truly incredible as an actor who refuses to break character for anything, a brilliant commentary on pop-culture representations of black characters. The movie is a great skewering of Hollywood garbage. Just check out the “full retard” speech (if you can ignore the stupid pasting job done by some jackass).

Comments