Friday, January 09, 2009

Wither Comedies 2

A couple of years ago I wrote Wither Comedies. I speculated that there have been fewer and fewer really great five star comedies in recent years.

Today's Entertainment Weekly lists 25 Great Comedies from the Past 25 Years. Here they are in the order they gave, which I'm not sure is significant:

1. Ghostbusters (1984)
2. National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
3. Beverly Hills Copy (1984)
4. This is Spinal Tap! (1984)
5. Office Space (1999)
6. South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)
7. There's Something About Mary (1998)
8. The Big Lebowski (1998)
9. A Fish Called Wanda (1998)
10. Dazed and Confused (1993)
11. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
12. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
13. Waiting for Guffman (1997)
14. Wedding Crashers (2005)
15. Trading Spaces (1983)
16. Superbad (2007)
17. Tropic Thunder (2008)
18. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
19. Clueless (1995)
20. Best in Show (2000)
21. Clerks (1994)
22. Old School (2003)
23. Austin Powers (1997)
24. The Naked Gun (1998)
25. Withnail and I (1987)

Ok, I've never heard of Withnail and I , I'll have to add it to my Netflix queue. Here's their list ordered by decade for comparison with mine.

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
Trading Spaces (1983)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
This is Spinal Tap! (1984)
Withnail and I (1987)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

I count Beverly Hills Cop as more a cop movie than a comedy and When Harry Met Sally... more as a romance than a comedy, but ok. I would give Vacation 4 stars not 5, but I could see an argument. I think there's no excuse for them to have left off Meaning of Life, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Raising Arizona or The Princess Bride. Then again, I wasn't keeping my list to 25.

Dazed and Confused (1993)
Clerks (1994)
Clueless (1995)
Waiting for Guffman (1997)
Austin Powers (1997)
The Naked Gun (1998)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
There's Something About Mary (1998)
Office Space (1999)
South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

We only have two overlapping choices in the 90s: There's Something About Mary and Office Space. Lebowski is definitely five stars. South Park was a riot but I had eliminated animation. I was thinking Disney/Pixar and not South Park/Simpsons but they are both worthy.

Best in Show (2000)
Old School (2003)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
Wedding Crashers (2005)
Superbad (2007)
Tropic Thunder (2008)

The last two weren't out when I made my list. I agree with Superbad and still have to see Tropic Thunder. Otherwise our lists match except I had O Brother, Where Art Thou? and they have Napoleon Dynamite. I see that as reasonable disagreement. Forgetting Sarah Marshall had some fans but I wouldn't put it on a list of five star comedies.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When you look at your list and look at the crap they put on their list, I can only conclude that they are idiots. Tropic Thunder???

The other possibility is that they happen to see all these movies when you where in the theater.