Black Comedies

No. It’s a thread about COMEDIES!

Barton Fink.

Check out Jules Feiffer’s Little Murders. The play is better than the movie. While 60s relevancy usually makes me want to reach for my revolver, this one holds up surprisingly well.

Also, Vonnegut’s Happy Birthday, Wanda June. Like all Vonnegut, it doesn’t transfer well to film but the play is worthwhile nonetheless.

Pretty Woman had all the elements of a black comedy (moreso in its first draft); a love story between the two most reviled caricatures of American capitalism, the hooker and the tycoon. Not sure how that crossed the line into Chick Flick, but it did.

Another vote for Heathers here.

And I must say that I was a huge fan if Very Bad Things.

I sat through the whole entire move scratching my head and looking confused. Until that final scene, and it dawned on me. The whole movie, all those situations and crimial acts and all that destruction- were all Cameron Diaz’s comeuppance.

She was the main character the whole time, and the movie was aobut her punishment.

I laughed at least twice as long as she wailed.

American Beauty. Kevin Spacey was great.

No love for Kubrick’s LOLITA?

also, THEATRE OF BLOOD starring Vincent Price

TALES OF TERROR - the second of the three, THE BLACK CAT (mixed with CASK OF AMONTILLADO) with Price & Peter Lorre as Fortunato & Monstressor.

COMEDY OF TERRORS with Price, Lorre, Boris Karloff & Basil Rathbone

THE RAVEN with Price, Lorre & Karloff

Guess what kinda films I watched a lot in my formative years! :smiley:

My two favorite black comedies are Very Bad Things and Love Stinks.

I can not remember if it is Black or Dark (reminds me of coffee, oddly enough) but check out Naked Lunch.

My only other suggestion would be one of my favorite movies, Brazil.

Brazil is a great choice.

**Monty Python and the Holy Grail ** is a pretty dark comedy really and another Gilliam film Time Bandits is pretty dark and really funny.

Showgirls[COLOR=DarkOrchid]![/COLOR]

How about A Fish Called Wanda?

Todd Solondz made Welcome to the Dollhouse, the blackest of comedies, as well as Happiness, which had comedic moments. *Welcome to the Dollhouse * was a revelation when I first saw it, and I consider to be among the finest movies of its decade.

Happiness was a bit tougher, not only because it was difficult to watch, but because it evoked deeper emotions that blunted the impact of the comic elements. The scene where Joy is broken up by the death of Jon Lovitz and the ensuing conversation among the coworkers as to who, exactly he was is emotionally wrenching as well as very funny.

Todd Solondz always does black comedies, but some are better than others. If you liked Happiness and Welcome… you may be, as I was, let down by Storytelling.

My favorite black comedy, however, is The Last Supper. Another ood one, that I bet even fewer people have seen is Life in the Fast Lane. The imdb rating is proof some people have no sense of humor. Some being 60, apparently

Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux.

NAKED LUNCH is beyond black! Ewwwww! L

As Bart Simpson said, there are two things wrong with that title!

Man Bites Dog - A Belgian comedy darker than a black hole. At night. Wearing sunglasses.

*Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life * – covers the alpha and omega of the human condition, doesn’t it? (And can’t I please have your liver?)

*The End * – A terminally-ill Burt Reynolds repeatedly tries to kill himself.

*Life Stinks * – A successful, arrogant real-estate tycoon (Mel Brooks) self-strands in dystopic Los Angeles to win a bet. Much degradation follows.

*After Hours * – Griffin Dunne similarly lost in lower Manhattan in the A.M. and is menaced by its neurotic, paranoid, and strange denizens.

*The Trouble With Harry * – Alfred Hitchcock’s bonbon about an inconvenient corpse found in a rural field in New England, which everyone feels guilty for, and repeatedly tries to dispose of… see it for Shirley McLaine and John Forsythe.

*Spanking the Monkey * and *Flirting With Disaster * – both by David O. Russell. Comic fodder includes: incest, family dysfunction, drug use, neurotic and unpleasant personalities, gay relationships, inappropriate lust, and law enforcement.

The War of the Roses – In which a divorce gets very ugly. Marvellous decon work on the materialism of yuppie suburbanites, though I could’ve done without the DeVito framing device.

The New Age – Michael Tolkin’s very dry *amour de’feu * tale in which a materialistic, flaky L.A. power couple direct their self-absorbed gaze on various idealistic fancies, with disastrous results.

Withnail & I – unemployment, boredom, drug use, alcoholism, bad food, deranged violent wierdos, urban and rural squalidness, and unwelcome buggery.

The Wicker Man – Sometimes the border between horror and black comedy is razor-thin. For my first viewing it was the former, but subsequently, the latter.

Ravenous – Social dysfunction, anomie, drug use, professional incompetence,… and, oh yeah, berzerker cannibalism at a remote Army outpost in the postbellum West.

*Twelve Monkeys * and *Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas * – Terry Gilliam’s takes on apocalypse and drugged-out gonzos. (His Brazil was great, too.)

*Fight Club * – It’s a question of taste, or the lack of it, but I think Chuck Palahniuk’s febrile nightmare of urban alienation, postmodern emasculation, and free-ranging anarchy is just freakin’ hilarious.

*Groundhog Day * – weak as a romantic comedy, but is redeemed by its strong black comedy elements, where it revels in Bill Murray’s antisocial personality, repeated suicide attempts, etc.

Magnolia – on balance a heavy-handed large-cast melodrama. But the first ten minutes or so (the prologue section narrated by Ricky Jay) is priceless black comedy: (paraphrasing) “And, somehow, I know that this cannot be… simply a matter of chance.”

*Re-Animator * – horror/gorefest/farce/black comedy… and totally OTT. :cool:

That’s burglary :wink: