What is the difference between a great comedy and a really funny movie? Is one easily classifiable and the other too subjective? It’s quite possible. Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hotis considered by many academics and critics to be the best comedy film of all time. I won’t argue, as I’m not an expert on the craft of comedy, but despite the fact that I enjoy the film, it’s not one that makes me laugh much. Meanwhile I’ll fall on the floor laughing at parts of Cabin Boy, which I know is not a well-made movie, and which I don’t even especially like. So, the question is, how does one award comedy?
Every year during the awards season, people talk about how comedies and comedic performances are largely overlooked. I’ve already commented once on the subject, regarding this year’s Golden Globe nominations, but since then I’ve noticed more complaints about overlooked comedies, and in most instances there seems to be a confusion about what it really means to be a great comedy and what is just a funny movie. Today, the IMDb linked to the Misfortune Cookie Blog and its honoring of “the year’s funniest in film.” The site references Knocked Upand Juno as “comedic achievements” that will go unrecognized (never mind that Juno is a Best Picture Oscar front-runner) yet also makes the point of naming Superbadthe “Funniest Movie of the Year” with a disclaimer stating that it is not the “best movie, or best-written, or most likely to change your life.” So, what is the argument? Are you making a point of recognizing under-appreciated comedic genius, or are you just pointing out something that made YOU laugh.
***Nothing gets butts in seats like baiting a generally well-liked governor who’s sort of on your side to begin with. At a rally in Los Angeles yesterday, Michael Moore taunted Arnold Schwarzenegger (who was not present) for becoming a bodybuilder on the back of the Austrian universal health care system. “I would like Gov. Schwarzenegger to say that he wants the citizens of California to have the same, fine, universal health coverage he got as a young man in the country of Austria,” Moore said. “That great Austrian health care system that provided you with that fine body that you brought to this great country.”
***Sony has hired novice David Ondaatje to write, direct and produce an update of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film The Lodger. Ondaatje’s version, which will presumably be shot with sync sound, is expected to transplant the original serial-killer source story to modern-day Los Angeles.
***Apparently locating its demographic as “middle-aged men too lazy to change the channel”, FX has paid $16 million for the cable premiere rights to Wild Hogs.
***Proving that anyone who’s ever had a beer with Judd Apatow is going to have no trouble finding work this summer, Freaks and Geeks star John Francis Daley (seen above) has sold a script to New Line called The $40,000 Man. Per Variety, it’s about a “legendary astronaut and true American hero who finds himself horribly injured in a car accident and rebuilt by the government to be a bionic man, on a budget of $40,000 — which makes him not that bionic.”
***In other dude-com news, Jack Black and Todd Phillips are teaming up to develop something called Man-Witch for Warner Brothers. The pitch sounds something like School of Rock meets The Craft, but with Jack Black in the Neve Campbell part. Sexy!
***Steve Carell, Daniel Craig, and J.J. Abrams are among the notables who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 2007.
***Oh good! A Wild Hogs sequel is on the way! Your dad’s half-wit friend will be so pleased.
What is the difference between a great comedy and a really funny movie? Is one easily classifiable and the other too subjective? It’s quite possible. Billy Wilder’s 
