Comedy

Enchanting, always funny, sometimes hilarious, and featuring a surprisingly light comic performance from the ever adaptable Meryl Streep, this is the most likeable and endearing comedy to date for writer/director/star Albert Brooks. His satirical edge, so sharp in his three previous films — Real Life (1979), Modern Romance (1981), and Lost in America (1985) — seems at first glance to have been dulled, even if his funny bone is still in perfect working order. But Brooks is still mocking the human race; it’s just that his humor has become gentler, suggesting that his longtime bitterness has evolved into a bemused, perceptive wisdom. Those who have become addicted to the Brooks oeuvre and its underlying neurotic cynicism might be dismayed that their favorite artistic pessimist has created a film that can be labeled heartwarming. But most Brooks fans will be delighted to find intact the brand of raw, naked honesty about the writer/director’s own shortcomings they expect, treated with a tender forgiveness that’s a new development to be sure, but an entirely welcome one. Peopled with memorable supporting players (particularly Rip Torn as a gruff but amiable legal eagle), and overflowing with creative ideas about the afterlife and its machinations, Defending Your Life amounts to a must-see film from one of the funniest, most under-appreciated filmmakers of our time. — Karl Williams
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Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader wrote:
Charles Chaplin’s best-loved film, with the tramp down-and-out (as usual) in Alaska, where he looks for gold, falls in love with a dance-hall girl (Georgia Hale), eats his shoes for Thanksgiving dinner, and ends up a millionaire. The blend of slapstick and pathos is seamless, although the cynicism of the final scene is still surprising. Chaplin’s later films are quirkier and more personal, but this is quintessential Charlie, and unmissable. The film has been issued in several different forms with different sound tracks and cuts, including a 72-minute version butchered by Chaplin himself in the 40s. Hold out for the 1925 original, which runs 82 minutes.Read More »

Quote:
Cinematically, Harold And Maude is a child of the Seventies. A film about death and disillusionment jarringly complete with a sunny Cat Stevens soundtrack, on the surface it is about pushing boundaries and definitions (not least in the kind humour allowed to be depicted on screen). However, it’s also a film about being true to yourself and following your own path.Read More »

Centres on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of “Factotum” author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don’t interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.
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An American comedy film directed by Otto Preminger, starring Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing, written by Doran William Cannon and released by Paramount Pictures on December 19, 1968. The screenplay satirizes late 1960s lifestyle and its creature comforts, technology, anti-technology, hippies, free love and then-prevalent use of the mind-altering drug LSD.
Along with top-billed Gleason and Channing, Skidoo also stars (alphabetically listed) Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark (who died on December 5, two weeks before the film’s release), Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, John Phillip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx playing “God” (making, at age 77, his final film appearance). Singer-songwriter Nilsson, who wrote the score and receives credit as a member of the cast, appears in a few brief scenes with Fred Clark, as both portray prison tower guards swaying to Nilsson’s music while under the influence of LSD.
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A humorous story of what happens when the U.S. Government sends comedian Albert Brooks to India and Pakistan to find out what makes the over 300 million Muslims in the region laugh. Brooks, accompanied by two state department handlers and his trusted assistant, goes on a journey that takes him from a concert stage in New Delhi, to the Taj Mahal, to a secret location in the mountains of Pakistan. It’s a comedic, insightful look at the some of the issues we are dealing with in a post-9/11 world. Read More »

Synopsis:
Based on William Faulkner’s novel, THE REIVERS is a coming-of-age story laced with adventure and comedy. Young Lucius McCaslin (Mitch Vogel) leaves home and sets off on a journey with Boon (Steve McQueen), the family handyman, who is a reiver (cheating philanderer); and his best friend, Ned (Rupert Crosse). The three set off for the big city, where the boy, inspired by Boon, learns some valuable lessons about the world. A delightful piece of southern Americana, director Mark Rydell’s THE REIVERS is witty and filled with lively action. The score by John Williams and the superb cinematography enhance the richly fleshed-out characters. McQueen, in particular, gives one of the most memorable–and often underrated–performances of his career.Read More »

Ada was settled in her life, she was pleased with it, or thought she was. She was one half of a couple who seemed happy, she’d had a child, was even due to get married, and wham… she met Paul… And this Paul was writer to boot, who lived alone with his grown daughter, had an exceedingly intrusive mother, and had the unfortunate idea of losing his father when this story had hardly got off the ground… Life started to gather speed. It was about time.Read More »

Wiki:
Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek (Turkish: Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda) is a 1973 Turkish cult comedy science-fiction film, produced and directed by Hulki Saner, featuring Sadri Alışık as a Turkish hobo who is beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise. The film, which is the eighth and final in a series of films featuring Alışık as Ömer the Tourist, is commonly known as Turkish Star Trek because of plot and stylistic elements parodied from Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Man Trap (1966) as well as the unauthorized use of footage from the series.Read More »