Comedy

There is an interesting bit of commentary called Should Comedies Get a Free Pass from Critics? by Kim Voynar which is also getting a good deal of interesting and grown up comments from the readership.

I take issue with a few things said though.
Where she says… I’m not arguing that every movie made has to aspire to be intellectual or high art, but have we really reached a place in society where fart, dick and boob jokes, or groovy CGI, have come to be accepted as the most that the younger generation expects for their $10 movie ticket?

Okay, granted, she’s saying some thing I say a lot here. However, speaking as a historian, there are probably more dick, fart, and titty jokes in the works of Geoff Chaucer than in all of South Park. A talking piece of cartoon feces is hardly something you can compare with the story of a talking penis! Not only did he write a story about a talking bit of man meat, but said tube steak had to be put on trial and speak in its own defense! How can you beat that? The level of scatology in some of Chaucer’s works is pretty high from what I remember.

Shakespeare is FULL of fart jokes, drunk jokes, and titty jokes as well. All you need is to learn the vocabulary of the times and suddenly, many of his plays are absolutely filthy things. You can’t even get through much of a really dark play like Macbeth without a guy telling you how great drinking is and how horny it makes him, only to find that being too drunk he can’t get it up.

Dick and fart jokes have stood the test of time and we shouldn’t dismiss them so easily. Granted they’ve got to be done well, but they have remained funny for a good long time.

And one of the commenters said…You could never make any of Mel Brooks’ old movies today. Or Monty Python. Studios wouldn’t stand for it. Those movies don’t fit the mathematical formulas executives use to decide whether or not to greenlight a project.

Well, actually, you couldn’t make them back when they were made either. Studios didn’t stand for it then either. Mel Brooks and the Monty Python team were both renegades who only worked on things they could control. Mel had final cut on Blazing Saddles, which it pretty much how he got away with making it. The studio was very nervous about it and they would have made tons of cuts if he’d let them. Monty Python’s Life of Brian was funded by George Harrison because no one else would even give them a meeting. When they made Meaning of Life the only thing they gave Universal was a budget and a poem, telling them hands off after that.

Beyond those two points though, pretty well thought out stuff for the most part.

More Movies…

I find the final thesis in Angels With Dirty Faces patronizing and stupid. Like anyone really buys the idea of a gangster being afraid of death. Or that the kids, seeing their hero being afraid would suddenly reject him and his ways. They’re poor kids from a rough neighborhood who know deprivation and violence. Even if the character of Rocky disappointed them, they’re going to transfer to some other tough guy that has it all and isn’t afraid of anything.

Also, the Petrified Forest spends too much time talking about the human condition and man’s place in the modern world. Even when Bogart shows up as the tough guy to save the movie he can’t save the day from all the damn hubris.

I always recall a story about some RKO executive when someone asked him about what message he thought his movies were going to relate. “We make movies,” he said. “If you want to send a message, go to Western Union!”

I’ve read important books, both fiction and non fiction. I’ve read classics of literature and philosophy. I’ve watched important movies, and I’ve memorized more documentaries than I care to think about. I’ve seen all the great and improving things a person is supposed to see as they grow up. All kinds of art, cultural exchanges, and I have a huge amount of first hand experience with all strata of human beings from the lowest to the highest.

As a result, I’ve kind of gone full circle. I’m so damn educated, I can only relate to gritty black & white crime dramas, two gunned-slow motion-flying-gun men, or people pummeling the shit out of each other with blood spraying everywhere as a result. I don’t need to be informed about the human condition anymore. I’m all full up on the human condition, thanks. What I don’t need is to listen to a couple of love birds prattling on about poetry and how Paris might not be everything you think it is but the desert is so nice. Just get to the guy with the tommy gun! All I really need is a bit of entertainment that isn’t idiotically stupid and doesn’t try to patronize me too much.

I feel a bit like Sarah Vowell does at the end of this short piece of hers about her own movie going experiences. I’ve done hard time in Silent, Swedish and Japanese cinemas, I think I get to watch a bit of bloody action now and then. Actually I’ve also done hard time with cheap flicks that make Hammer Horror and things you’d only find at a Grindhouse look pricey and high class too. Yeah, the early days of cable could give you a really odd mixture sometimes. Also, we watched everything when I was a kid, I’ve seen it all man!