Light comedies — are they evaluated unfairly?

Cafe Society
1

Sometimes, I’m in the mood for a light comedy. (Why they’re so often also romantic comedies is a topic for another day.) I just finished watching Saving Silverman for the first time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But when I was about to erase it, I noticed that it had been scored as 1 star.

1 star?? C’mon! I mean, those are supposed to be the shit of the shit, aren’t they? Movies that were Alan Smitheed. (Although I still think Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home was nowhere near deserving of that dishonor.)

And then I started looking around. Overboard, one of my favorite light comedies only got 2 stars. Big Business, an absolutely great light comedy, with Lily Tomlin and Bette Middler brilliantly delivering great lines — even that movie only got 2 stars.

I don’t know who awards these things, but it got me to wondering whether whoever it is evaluates this genre reasonably. Are they holding light comedies to the same standards as melodramas? If so, they shouldn’t. And they don’t do it with other genres. The Exorcist gets 4 stars, not for any dramatic element (the acting is hammy and the script is preachy), but for its success as a psychological thriller. So why hold Saving Silverman or Dude, Where’s My Car? to the same standard as All Quiet on the Western Front?

Sometimes, if a comedy is farcical enough, they’ll give it more stars, like Airplane or something. But light comedies, it seems to me, should be scored on what they’re intended for: how well they succeed at distracting you for a couple of brief hours from heavy, thick-syrup thinking.

Naturally, it should have good photography, acting, directing, and all the rest. Shallow Hal, in my opinion, is a 4 star light comedy. Hell, 3 at the very least. But there’s no reason to low-ball a light comedy just because it doesn’t make you angst-filled or raise tedious moral issues. What do y’all think?

2

What site do you take your stars from?

I haven’t seen any of the movies you mentioned above, except Saving Silverman. I can’t say I liked it any - the characters were obnoxious and the movie ended up being more mean-spirited than amusing, to me. It was also very derivative of most college fun flicks I’ve seen lately, to the point of abject boredom.

I don’t hold anything against light comedies, I watch them for what they are. I just can’t get past that Saving Silverman wasn’t a very good one.

As for the trend in “putting down” movies like that, well, critics have to make a living of something, right? Might as well be reinforcing the elitistic delight of the art-house lovers and the SCC. (Serious Cinema Crowd)

3

The DVR listings, which I assume are taken from TV Guide.

4

Bolding mine.

I think part of the problem is that comedy is more subjective than other genres. What you think is funny, or at least distracting, may have fallen flat for the guy who gave it the one-star review. What good is an unfunny comedy? But people have different senses of humor.

5

I dunno how to answer you. Although I usually only watch comedies or action movies I gotta say that there wasn’t one comedy that you mentioned that I would have given more than 1 or 2 stars. They just weren’t that good IMO.

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Yes. They are evaluated unfairly. By a lot of pretentious people. Sure, there are some that just don’t like the movie. But just as many, in my personal experience, jump to the conclusion that it’s horrible just because it’s a mindless comedy, without even seeing the damn movie in the first place.

Example. A few weeks ago I rented UHF (the comedy starring “Weird Al” Yankovic.) When one of my friends saw the box cover, he acted like I’d just served him a horse-shit sandwich. Ten minutes into the movie and he’s laughing heartily every 30 seconds. Afterwards: “Wow, I guess UHF really was pretty funny after all.”

The same exact thing happened with Captain Ron, starring Kurt Russell and Martin Short. This guy was like, ‘awww, this is going to be horrible,’ then as soon as the movie starts and all the way up until the end, he’s laughing. Two days later he watches the movie AGAIN, he liked it so much.

I like a lot of comedies that people hate. Freddy Got Fingered. Me, Myself and Irene. Desert Kickboxer. The Postman. Most of the people that talk shit about these movies have never seen them, especially The Postman which most people’s negative opinions on are based solely on hearsay. I wish people would just see the damn movie before criticizing it.

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If you’re talking about the Kevin Costner film The Postman, I don’t think the comedy was intentional.

I think you’re on to something, Liberal. Instead of stars maybe light comedies should be rated with “Stillers,” tiny icons of Ben Stiller’s face. So:

Zoolander - 4 Stillers (appropriately)
Dumb and Dumber - 3 1/2 Stillers
Freddy Got Fingered - zero Stillers (sorry Argent, but that was the worst fucking movie I’ve ever seen in my life.)

8

I think Jackass should be 4 star, so I’m a terrible person to rate movies, haha. I love dumb movies like that, and silly comedies like Office Space and The Big Lebowski. Overboard is awesome, and so are a lot of old comedies that I like.

Ratings are just someone’s opinion and nothing more. I try to pick movies by what looks interesting to me, and that has served me well. I like high-brow and low-brow, and one isn’t better than the other, IMO.

9

Yadon ilaheyya (2002)

I liked when the border guards of Jerousailum would order people trying to cross the city walls
out of their car and make them get into other peoples cars

10

I find that the mood I’m in when I watch a movie plays a large part in my impression of the movie. If I haven’t seen any movies in a long while, I feel the movie-going experience is enhanced. On the other hand, if I watched as many movies as a professional film critic, I’d probably be in a completely different frame of mind. I might nitpick more or rate unusual or high falutin films more favorably.

Therefore, the best approach towards reviews is to go to a site like Rotten Tomatoes and take a statistical look at the ratings en masse. Then, you know what “most” people thought of the movie, which gives you a general sense of the quality of filmmaking that went into the movie. Factor in some societal or cultural biases (most people find the subject matter of Freddie Got Fingered distasteful, therefore that skews the ratings regardless of the film quality) and it’s a reasonable metric.

I don’t waste time debating my opinion of a film against a different viewpoint… there’s really no point in doing so. They may like / dislike a particular actor, be in a different mood or mindset, or any of a hundred factors led to that viewpoint being different.

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I used to think they did, as none have won an Oscar since Annie Hall, but then you watch them, and realize the lack of quality most share.

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People looking for a light comedy generally don’t use ratings as a guide when deciding what to watch. There are more important concerns like, who’s in it, are they hot, is it something my friends have seen or will see, was the commercial funny, etc. If someone is looking at critical ratings to decide what to watch, they are probably in the mood for something with more complexity and depth than Shallow Hal.

A movie that engages you fully should naturally have a higher ceiling than a movie aiming to be just a “light comedy.” If I see a movie is given four stars, I assume it’s something that should be given my full attention rather just a lighthearted way to kill ninety minutes. There’s obviously room for both kinds of movies, but critical ratings are designed to distinguish the two.

Also, there are four-star comedies, like the previously mentioned Office Space and The Big Lebowski. But these movies should also be distinguished from light comedies as they have more depth and substance than what I would consider a light comedy.

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I’d add Annie Hall to that. It may have been a comedy, but it wasn’t very light. I just wish these movies could be scored on the basis of what they are, not what they could be if they were more seriously written. It’s like scoring Crunk as though it should have been Classical or Jazz.

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None of the films in the OP are particularly good. There are plenty of great light, romantic comedies out there, things like Bringing Up Baby, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral, I Was a Male War Bride, It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story, Holiday, etc.

With first-class romantic comedies available, critics are not particularly kind to second-rate versions. It’s not pretentiousness; it’s that critics have already seen good light comedy and don’t praise watered-down second-rate films.

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Jackie Chan’s coming out with Rush Hour 3

he still moves

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Roger Ebert always (or at least used to) claimed to rate movies by how succesfful they are at achieving their objective - not “is it a great film” but “is it a great shlock horror film”, etc. I think he did a fairly good job of it, too.

The thing about comedy is how subjective it is - I can enjoy a drama that doesn’t necessarily hit me just right, because I can see how it’s succesful or not. A comedy has to make you laugh or it’s a failure.

17

Agreed. There are a lot of “light comedies” that do have fairly high critical ratings (for whatever they are worth).

The movies mentioned in the OP, though, are probably considered by most people to be substandard examples of the genre.

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This is just the sort of thing the OP is talking about. “Saving Silverman” is the bottom of the barrel because it isn’t on par with “The Philadelphia Story” or “It Happened One Night?” Hardly. The bottom of the barrel must be reserved for “comedies” like “Galaxina” or “Howard the Duck” (can’t speak for “Freddy Got Fingered” since everything I have ever seen or read about it convinces me that I would bitterly resent spending even a minute watching it, so I haven’t watched it). 1 or 2 level comedies not only are not funny but leave you in despair for the future of the human race, because others think they are funny.

“Saving Silverman” and the others mentioned in the OP are perfectly serviceable romantic comedies worthy of anywhere from a 4 to an 8, depending on tastes (assuming a 10 point scale).

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I agree with Liberal. In addition to comparisons between individual movies, you’ll often see unconscious comparisons being made between movie genres. The critical consensus is that dramas are “better” than comedies or action movies. Second rate dramas often win awards when first rate comedies and action pictures are ignored.

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Case in point: 1980. The most tedious, pretentious, and preachy drama imaginable — Ordinary People — won out over Nine to Five, Stir Crazy, Airplane!, and Any Which Way You Can. The four comedies each drew far more box office than that wretched, hand-wringing, moralistic screed. Hell, even Blue Lagoon drew bigger crowds. Yeah, I know. The Oscars aren’t about popularity […stifling chuckles…].