Blazing Saddles. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad. Some Like It Hot. The Room. These are all movies that are commonly regarded as comedic masterpieces, so you probably know about them already, and that’s okay. Well, maybe not The Room. It’s as funny as some of those genuine masterpieces, but whether all that comedy is intentional is up for debate. Or it potentially doesn’t matter. Funny is funny.
Speaking of funny, and speaking of great movies, that’s what the following ones all are, but they’re not quite as well known as some of the most legendary comedies out there. If you’ve actually heard of most of these before, then congratulations, you are very smart. Also, if there are forgotten movies you think should be here that didn’t appear, maybe they were forgotten by the person who put all this together. Ironic.
8
‘Real Life’ (1979)
It’s pretty easy to call Real Life ahead of its time, since it does an excellent job of poking fun at reality TV quite a while before reality TV, as it’s currently understood/defined, was a thing. Well, okay, its premise was a way to parody a documentary series from the 1970s called An American Family, but things get pushed further and into more ridiculous territory in Real Life, which makes it feel weirdly in line with what reality TV would become by the time the 21st century had begun.
Because of that, you don’t even have to be familiar with An American Family to find humor in Real Life. It’s farcical, and does a great job at pitting a ceaselessly ambitious filmmaker against a seemingly normal family, the members of whom are slowly driven mad by what he wants from a project that involves documenting their lives. It’s still genuinely very funny, and up there among the most underrated comedies of all time, so it’s certainly deserving of more attention/acclaim nowadays.
7
‘Crab Goalkeeper’ (2006)
There is a movie called Crab Goalkeeper, and what else do you need? Just watch it. It’s about a crab who aspires to play soccer, or football, if you want to call it that, specifically in the goalkeeper position, as the title makes very clear. Again, that title is all you need. This is a sports movie that plays most of the conventions of the sports genre straight, but the main character is a giant crab.
The film writes itself. Crab Goalkeeper has one joke that it milks for 92 minutes, but thankfully, that joke is sufficiently strong and genuinely never gets old. There’s an absurdism and a sincerity to Crab Goalkeeper that is hard to resist. It’s transcendental cinema, or it’s about as transcendental as cinema gets when you’ve got a budget of about $7.20. And you had the crab costume on hand, in this hypothetical situation. That crab costume looks like it cost at least $6.70. We can’t exactly go nearly doubling the budget in one fell swoop now, can we?
6
‘Windy City Heat’ (2003)
Like Crab Goalkeeper, there’s one main joke to be found throughout Windy City Heat, but it’s a great one. Basically, the entire film is an extended prank – or a series of pranks – on a man named Perry Caravello who longs to be a famous actor, but doesn’t really have the people skills, nor the acting skills, to pull it off. His so-called friends convince him he’s the star of a movie, and it’s just an excuse to humiliate him, all for the purposes of “making” a “movie.”
Caravello isn’t exactly very sympathetic throughout Windy City Heat, which does make the act of laughing at some of his misery a little easier to handle.
Which sounds like it’s in bad taste, and maybe it is, but Caravello isn’t exactly sympathetic throughout, which does make the act of laughing at some of his misery a little easier to handle. Well, your mileage may vary. Windy City Heat is incredibly funny if you’re willing to find it funny, but no hard feelings if it’s a bridge too far, taste-wise.
5
‘Two Hands’ (1999)
The best-known Heath Ledger movie of 1999 is 10 Things I Hate About You, which is kind of the one that helped make him a star, but just as worthy of attention is the slightly smaller – and overall grittier – Two Hands. This one does count as a comedy of sorts, albeit not as breezy a one as 10 Things I Hate About You was, since that film was a rom-com, and Two Hands is more of a darkly comedic crime movie.
Also, Two Hands feels a tiny bit like an early Guy Ritchie movie with its tone, style, and characters, and the plot here involves a young man on the run from some gangsters, and a couple of younger kids who find the money that’s gone missing (the money that’s put the protagonist in trouble with those aforementioned gangsters). Two Hands moves well, feels pretty cleverly made, and is honestly very overlooked, overall, being one of the best movies Ledger starred in during his tragically short acting career.
4
‘Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood’ (2022)
Even though some of his movies are very well known (see those that make up the Before trilogy, as well as the famously ambitious Boyhood), Richard Linklater continues to feel largely underappreciated. Like, his movies tend to get good to great reviews, but so many of them seem to come and go without as much fanfare as they deserve, and his output in the 2020s so far demonstrates that particularly well.
Like, Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, Hit Man, and Nouvelle Vague were all very good and easy to like, but never quite made the impact you might’ve expected any of them to make. Anyway, Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood is probably the funniest of the bunch, so that’s why that particular coming-of-age animated movie is being highlighted here, but this spot could’ve gone to Hit Man or Nouvelle Vague as well (as for Blue Moon, that’s probably a bit more of a drama than a comedy, but was still sort of overlooked overall).
3
‘The Funeral’ (1984)
The most widely appreciated movie directed by famed Japanese filmmaker Jūzō Itami remains Tampopo, but honestly, The Funeral is better. It’s about as funny, but it also works as a drama about grief (no surprise, considering the title) alongside being a comedy, so it’s got more to offer. There are highs and lows here, emotionally speaking, that make all the bits of absurd comedy ultimately hit harder.
The titular funeral and all the related events take a few days to unfold, with the family at said funeral being rather dysfunctional, which leads to plenty of chaos, sometimes played for laughs and sometimes for drama. The Funeral keeps you on your toes throughout, proves admittedly weird, and ultimately leaves quite the impact as far as dramedies go, and it’s unsurprisingly easy to recommend to anyone who might’ve enjoyed what Tampopo was going for.
2
‘The Hot Rock’ (1972)
A movie that sells itself pretty easily, The Hot Rock is a comedic heist movie starring Robert Redford in one of his very best (and maybe most underrated) roles. He plays one of several thieves who try to steal something very valuable from a museum, but find the whole endeavor more complicated than it seems, so that leads to multiple attempts at the one job, which is where a lot of the comedy comes in.
At times, The Hot Rock is a little suspenseful, though it is ultimately more focused on comedy than thrills. Still, it’s nice that it strikes up a balance, having a little by way of grit while also ensuring it stays fun throughout. It moves at a very good pace for a movie that’s now more than half a century old, and it’s anyone’s guess why more people don’t talk about it a little more often. There’s not much to fault here, with The Hot Rock, in all honesty.
1
‘Going in Style’ (1979)
At the risk of being a bit boring, here’s another comedic heist movie from the 1970s that’s very underrated overall: Going in Style. This one came out at the decade’s end, compared to The Hot Rock, and it’s a bit of a slower film overall, seeing as the characters trying to pull off some kind of robbery here are all elderly. And there’s humor in that premise, at least at first, seeing some old men out of their depths trying to rob a bank.
Though Going in Style does play with your expectations, and gets more adventurous tonally, in its second half, than the first half might’ve led you to believe. It works as a dramedy overall, with the drama here maybe being more striking and impactful than the comedy, but what matters most is that there’s a great balance achieved here, and that when Going in Style wants to be funny, it is, and then when it wants to get a little sad, it succeeds on that front as well.
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