Saturday, April 13, 2019

Laughter

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

Theme: Why I watch movies (as if I need a reason)...


Laughter
Wikimedia Commons

Comedy is my favorite genre. I promised in the "E" post (Escape) I would reveal my genre preference when I got to the letter "L" ... so there you have it. I love laughing! Negative thoughts plague me more than I want to admit, and laughter is a natural anti-depressant. "Why I watch movies (as if I need a reason)..." well, because I need laughter.

Ironically, searching for a decent comedy nowadays can put me in a deep blue funk. The quality of comedy films has diminished over recent decades. Too many rely on moronic raunchy humor, as though written by middle-schoolers yucking it up in the locker room. I like most comedy styles--satire, irony, wit, pratfalls, sight gags, slapstick, farce, highbrow, deadpan--but not raunch.

If you have any recommendations for fun humorous films, please share!

And feel free to laugh at these photos of me (circa 1979).











12 comments:

  1. My favourite genre is horror movies, but I do quite enjoy comedy too. You're right though - it's so hard to find comedy movies that are actually funny now
    Debbie

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  2. Here are a few:

    "A Hard Day's Night"
    Any Monty Python movie
    Any of the Three Stooges shorts
    Most Mel Brooks movies (skip "Spaceballs")
    The "Pink Panther" movies (with Peter Sellers, not Steve Martin)
    "The Magic Christian"
    "The Ladykillers" with Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, and Herbert Lom
    "Dumb and Dumber" (a really stupid movie, although Jeff Daniels upstaged Jim Carrey)
    "Dr. Strangelove"

    That'll give you a start...

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  3. @Random Musings ... Yikes! I avoid horror films because they give me nightmares. Even reading "horror movies" in your comment made me shudder! LOL

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  4. @John ... That's a fantastic list. I've seen most of them, and they would all be fun to see again, especially "A Hard Day's Night" ... I was too head-over-heels ga-ga for the Beatles to fully take it in, so it will be fun to watch it as an adult.

    I haven't seen the following two movies, so I'll keep an eye out for them: "The Magic Christian" and that particular version of "The Ladykillers" (I've only seen the one with Tom Hanks).

    Thanks!

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  5. I love:
    Dumb and Dumber
    Liar Liar
    Birdcage
    ... or anything with Robin Williams

    Hard to think of any right now.

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  6. My sense of humor runs to movies like the remake of Oceans 11 and Sandra Bullock comedies. But even heavy dramas have good humor: Die Hard; Lethal Weapon; Good Fellas.

    http://gail-baugniet.blogspot.com/
    (AtoZ Theme: very short stories/various genres)

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  7. @Susan ... Those were funny movies. Jim Carrey does such great physical comedy, cracks me up. And I miss Robin Williams. Sad.

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  8. @Gail ... Definitely, I appreciate dramas and action films, but even more so when they include humor. I recently watched "Thor: Ragnarok" and it contained lots of comedy.

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  9. I'm not really a fan of Jim Carrey. Some of the Adam Sandler movies are good - Waterboy and the Grown Ups amused me.

    Janet’s Smiles

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  10. @Janet ... I like some of Adam Sandler's work. I think my favorites are the Hotel Transylvania animated movies (voice for Dracula). It's been years since I watched Waterboy... I can't even remember if I liked it, so I will give it another try.

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  11. Trudy,

    Comedies are my favorite genre, too. Often on the weekends when we do a movie marathon I prefer to watch a good comedy first and you're right it's so hard to find a decent movie that chockful of good laughs. There are plenty of old films that fall into this category. In recent months, we viewed on Amazon Prime 'Cactus Flower'(1969) with Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman which introduced Goldie Hawn. Another flick we caught on AP was 'The Notorious Landlord' (1962) with Jack Lemmon and Kim Novack. Also, we watched 'How to Murder a Millionaire'(1990) with Joan Rivers, Morgan Fairchild, & Alex Rocco and 'Semi-Tough'(1977) with Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh. One more film that gave us some laughs...no correction two more movies 'Sunset Limousine'('83) with John Ritter and 'They Call Me Bruce'('82) with Johnny Yune. And yet another, 'Big Trouble' ('86) Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, & Beverly D'Angelo. I'm sure we've seen others but that's enough for now. The pictures are great fun. You know I never dressed up like a clown. :) Thank you for visiting my A2Z Little Mermaid art sketch Chef Louis post over the weekend. I'm still reeling from being away from Blogosphere and trying to get caught. Sorry for the late return. Have a good week and happy a2zing!

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  12. @Cathy ... what a treasure list of films! I haven't seen most of those, so I did a search and discovered several are available on Amazon Prime. I especially want to see Sunset Limousine with John Ritter. How did I miss that movie? I enjoyed his work, and I miss him!

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