Different Types of Comedy

"The problem with humor these days is that you're always supposed to GET it. What's worse: If you're smart enough, even if you don't get it, you can make up elaborate reasons for why you do. You can describe a video of a German guy repeatedly plunging his head in a bucket of water as being surreal, absurd, or ironic." (Brandon Ivers, XLR8R, Jan/Feb 2009)

I've posted top ten lists for every genre of film except for comedy and drama. You'd think those would be the most obvious, but they're the hardest because they're SO broad. While there may be many different kinds of action movies and subgenres of horror and science fiction, there are even more types of comedy, and drama could include every other genre and subgenre including comedy. In the old days, it wasn't so complicated. Plays were either comedies or tragedies, and comedies were just tragedies with an extra act. Browse by genre for movies on Amazon and you'll find a list of over 40 different types of comedy, not including hybird genres like action comedy, horror comedy, sci-fi comedy, etc. I like Charlie Chaplin slapstick to Cary Grant screwball to Doris Day sex farce, so don't think me narrow-minded for only including movies from the '80s and '90s on my top ten comedy list:

1. Groundhog Day (1993) I should mention that my only criterion for this list was how hard and how often each movie makes me laugh. Groundhog Day is at the top of the list because I still laugh out loud after all the times I've seen it. There are some obvious omissions on this list which can be found on "My Favorite Teen Movies" post (10/20/08).

2. Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) My wife and I can communicate a little bit using only lines from this anarchic (also known as "wacky") comedy. The best part is that Meg Ryan plays three different characters, all funny in different ways.

3. The Chase (1994) An extremely underrated and overlooked gem starring Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson, which could be considered a mild comedy of manners. Southern California. Punk soundtrack from Epitaph. Parodies the O.J. Simpson freeway chase a little.

4. High Fidelity (2000) Not just for music lovers, it's a romantic comedy all about break-ups, based on a book by the same author as About a Boy and Fever Pitch (two other favorites of mine). John Cusack's Better Off Dead isn't on this list, so here's a substitute which also represents Jack Black at his funniest (and doing a surprisingly beautiful rendition of "Let's Get It On."

5. Forget Paris (1995) If you thought break-ups were funny, try childless marriage and looming divorce in Billy Crystal's situational comedy follow-up to the "boys only" City Slickers I & II. I think I first saw this around the same time as the similarly themed Bye Bye Love and Parenthood (both funny but sadder too).

6. The Addams Family (1991) If you really want to understand my sense of humor, you have to combine things that shouldn't go together, but do. For example, old fashioned family values in a haunted house full of homicidal maniacs. Sure, it's just dark comedy, but softer and sweeter (another oxymoron).

7. The 'Burbs (1989) Like a children's adventure where the children are grown men and the neighborhood bully is half as tall and actually deadly. It's interesting to note that Carrie Fisher went from Star Wars to Hannah and Her Sisters to playing Tom Hank's wife/mother figure here.

8. Ghostbusters (1984) This wraps up my trilogy of supernatural comedies, but there are a lot more where these came from, namely Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands.

9. Reality Bites (1994) Hard to believe that Ben Stiller directed this and The Cable Guy (which I still haven't seen) before going off to act in some of the worst movies I've ever seen, but there it is. He plays a Planet of the Apes-fanatical corporate zombie and Ethan Hawke a Shakespeare-quoting, Violent Femmes-singing, greasy slacker.

10. Empire Records (1995) What High Fidelity was for me in college, Empire Records was in high school. It's all about the Lucas character, but also my first exposure to Liv Tyler,
Renée Zellweger, and last but definitely not least, stoner brownies while watching Gwar vidoes.

Honorable Mentions: Friday (1995) and Office Space (1999) are two sides of the same "urban American" coin; now compare and contrast. As for this list in general, I realize that a joke's not funny if you have to explain it, and I agree with the quote above that a good joke isn't defined by what you "get."