Unfunny Comedies?

Wow: some of you listed Monty Python and The Three Stooges. What's next? The Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy?

 

I LOVE Walk Hard...

 

Tastes are purely subjective. No idea why that would be surprising to any adult. Nothing is universally enjoyed.

 

Tongue in cheek comment.

 

The Boss Baby

 

I really enjoyed it.

 

Step Brothers.

 

I don't see how anyone over the age of 10 can find the Nutty Professor/Klumps funny at all. Very childish humor.

 

IMO Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are two of the most unfunny "comedians" ever.

...on a side note Howie Mandel is also on my list of unfunny "comedians".

 

Hate Ferrell if you want, but Reilly is awesome. He makes almost every movie he's in better.

And I wouldn't call him a "comedian". He's an actor who sometimes does comedy, but he's done a lot of drama as well. He even got an Oscar nomination for "Chicago" - not a comedy...

 

I admit I am only really aware of John C Reilly through Step Brothers and Walk Hard (another stinker IMO) but perhaps its only his attempts at comedy that he fails at. I could actually see him better suited for drama.

 

I know it's sacrilege but The Big Lebowksi. I don't think I laughed once. I just don't get the following that the film has but to each their own.

 

I'm not in the "Walk Hard" fan club - that movie remains a massive disappointment to me - but I think Reilly adds to his Ferrell collaborations. The two have great chemistry and Reilly makes potentially lame jokes funny.

YMMV, of course.

Did you ever see "Boogie Nights"? He walks a line between comedy and drama there and is very good...

 

Do you like other Coen brothers comedies?

I'm in your club - I don't get the appeal - but I've never liked the Coens' brand of comedy. They make good dramas but their comedies don't work for me...

 

If EVERYBODY got "The Big Lebowski" it wouldn't be "The Big Lebowski".

 

Yeah unfortunately 1941 was a major dissappointment.

 

The thought has occurred to me, concerning this movie anyway, that it could be used as a basis for what NOT to do in a comedy.

Comedy is an obscure, intangible, difficult target to hit. Almost like grabbing a hand full of steam. You can see the steam, you can hear hear the steam, you can feel the steam, you can even harness the steam and put it to work, but when you try to grab the steam all you get is a burnt, wet hand...it can not be grasped.

To define and make tangible the entity known as comedy is almost impossible. However, the movie 1941 does have the honor of possessing many things that could have been comical, while at the same time trying so desperately to be comical, that it ends up being anything but comical...a very unique combination indeed.

 

Totally agree in every respect!

 

Your post reminded me vividly of a scene in "The Circus". After being spontaneously funny, the tramp is told to be funny on command. He of course fails miserably.

 

He does a kid turn as a traitorous police chief in "Gangs Of New York".

 

That scene is a great example of the intangible quality of comedy.

 

I loved it, too. Although, I know many people who don't care for it. I think that you have to know a lot about different musicians to get it, though.

 

The Dude does abide.

 

Not to belabour the discussion on Walk Hard and/or JCR but I like to think I have adequate knowledge on a wide variety of music and musicians. I get the jokes and I get the references, I just think they are badly written moaners that are poorly executed. JMO