Comedy

  • Lina Wertmüller – Io speriamo che me la cavo AKA Ciao, Professore! (1992)

    Lina Wertmüller1991-2000ComedyItaly

    Marco Sperelli is a teacher, he is divorced and he is sent to work in Corzano, a town near Naples. The first day of work he finds in the school only the school-caretaker and few girls and boys in the class-room. He goes out looking for them and he discovers then a wretched life led by the boys and the girls of Corzano. A life in which only power and violence are worth respecting. Sperelli tries to teach something different but he gets their respect only by slapping Raffaele, on the way to became a camorrist. His presence and his work, however, disturb too many persons and he will be transferred.Read More »

  • Richard Linklater – Dazed and Confused (1993)

    Richard Linklater1991-2000ComedyUSA

    Quote:
    Richard Linklater’s follow-up to Slacker, Dazed and Confused, flopped at the box office, but Dazed and Confused went on to become a huge cult hit. It’s set somewhere in suburban Middle America (filmed in Texas) on May 28, 1976, on the last day of school, and everyone’s looking for something exciting to do. First, however, the incoming freshmen students must spend the day fleeing from bizarre initiation rituals from paddle-wielding, abusive seniors – while everyone else does their best to get stoned or get laid. Set over the course of 24 hours, Linklater’s observations about the rituals of teenage life, and about small town mentality, is spot on – as is his attention to the smallest details of time and place. The camera swerves between some two dozen youngsters and a handful of stories, but Linklater keeps everything and everyone on the same level. All parties congregate at a huge beer bust in the middle of the woods, but amidst the keg parties, fights, dope-smoking, classic rock tunes, and endless partying, not much happens.Read More »

  • Luigi Comencini – Pane, amore e fantasia aka Bread, love and dreams (1953)

    Luigi Comencini1951-1960ComedyItaly

    Originally titled Pane, Amore, e Fantasia when released in Italy, Bread, Love and Dreams contains what some regard as Gina Lollobrigida’s best and most naturalistic performance. The film’s popularity resulted in two sequels, both with Lollobrigida: Pane, Amore e Gelosia (US title: Frisky) and the open-ended Pane, Amore e… (released in the states as Scandal in Sorrento). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Quentin Dupieux – Au poste! AKA Keep an Eye Out (2018)

    Quentin Dupieux2011-2020ComedyFrance

    Quote:
    You could potentially create some sort of slogan from Garde à vue meeting Buffet froid, if it was at all possible to classify the unclassifiable director Quentin Dupieux, as illustrated by Keep an Eye Out, the new film by the very offbeat director of Steak, Rubber (Cannes Critics’ Week in 2010), Wrong (in competition at Sundance in 2012), Wrong Cops (Piazza Grande at Locarno in 2013) and Reality (Horizons section at Venice in 2014). In a feature film as zany as ever that marks the director’s return to the French language, the filmmaker has nevertheless embarked on an interesting and subtle variation of his exploration of absurd realism.Read More »

  • Dariush Mehrjui – Ejareh-Nesheenha AKA The Lodgers (1986)

    Dariush Mehrjui1981-1990ComedyDramaIran

    Two brothers are involved in a dispute over a house in urban Tehran. It is only through a series of adventures with the tenants that they are able to settle their differences.Read More »

  • Dariush Mehrjui – Aghaye Halou AKA Mr. Gullible (1970)

    Dariush Mehrjui1961-1970ComedyDramaIran

    Quote:
    While on the surface Mr. Gullible contains all the hallmarks of a good comedy, at its heart this movie portrays with uncommon clarity the pitfalls of love and the pain of betrayal. When the protagonist leaves his small village and travels to Tehran to find a wife, he does so with all the gusto and naivete of one who has not experienced the world. Yet even when Mr. Gullible encounters some of the harsh realities of the big city, he is not dissuaded from accomplishing his mission to find a bride. When he finally meets what he believes is the perfect woman, Mr Gullible showers her with gifts and asks her to marry him. However, his romantic visions of life with his lady love are obliterated when he discovers her true identity. Festivals/Awards: Special Jury Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival, 1971; Best film, best direction, best screenplay, best actress, best supporting actor at the Third National Film Festival Sepas, 1971.Read More »

  • Michael Kang – The Motel (2005)

    Michael Kang2001-2010ComedyDramaUSA

    Quote:
    Writer-director Michael Kang makes his feature debut with the coming-of-age comedy, The Motel. Newcomer Jeffrey Chyau stars as Ernest Chin, a chubby 13 year-old Chinese-American boy whose mother (Jade Wu) runs a sleazy motel in upstate New York. The clientele of The Motel are predominantly prostitutes and their johns, which spurs Ernest’s budding sexual curiosity. When he’s not cleaning rooms, eavesdropping on guests, avoiding the local bully, or tormenting his little sister Katie (Alexis Chin), Ernest harbors a crush on Christine (Samantha Futerman), who works at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Ernest has entered a writing contest at school with a story about his unhappy life at The Motel, and won an honorable mention. Read More »

  • Hisayasu Satô – Rafureshia AKA Sukebe-zuma: otto no rusu ni (1995)

    Drama1991-2000ComedyHisayasu SatôJapan

    From The Director Of Survey Map Ofia Paradise Lost And Love-Zero=Infinity

    Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the sledgehammer style of Hisayasu Sato helped redefine Japanese erotic cinema with carefully constructed characters that would walk the fine line between decadence and innocence. Known for his guerrilla techniques, using a style born out of constricted budgets, Sato’s raw camerawork accurately depicts the reality of modern life.

    Rafureshia, or as it is also known, Wife in Heat: While Husband Is Away, is the darkly humorous story of three very different women and their search through their sexuality into the freedom that lies beyond it.Read More »

  • Dito Tsintsadze – Lost Killers (2000)

    Dito Tsintsadze1991-2000ComedyDramaGermany

    Quote:
    Noted Georgian filmmaker Dito Tsintsadze directs this darkly-humorous urban drama about the desperate lives of illegal immigrants in Mannheim, Germany. Lan (Nicole Seelig) is a Vietnamese prostitute whose rotting teeth and odd affliction, which causes her to turn comatose after an orgasm, is impeding her marketability. She soon finds herself in an unlikely romance with Haitian Carlos (Elie James Blezes), who schemes to sell his kidney for enough money to immigrate to Australia. Meanwhile, tyro hitmen Branko (Misel Maticevic) and Merab (Lasha Bakradze) dilly-dally with their assignment to kill a businessman. Merab bores his Croatian counterpart by regaling him with stories about his native Georgia — in between vomiting out of anxiety.Read More »

Back to top button