Blockbuster Comedies That Didnt Make You Laugh Much
KNOCKED UP
WEDDING CRASHERS
40YOV
21 JUMP STREET
You go!
"I ask every producer I meet if they need TV specs they say yeah. They all want a 40 inch display that's 1080p and 120Hz. So, I quit my job at the West Hollywood Best Buy."
- Screenwriting Friend
Re: Blockbuster Comedies That Didnt Make You Laugh Much
Yeah, I didn't laugh once during KNOCKED UP. Definitely a movie you needed to see in a theater with an undiscriminating audience just so it seems funny.
Weird thing is that there was a deleted scene on YouTube that I really did think was funny. Figures.
Re: Blockbuster Comedies That Didnt Make You Laugh Much
I felt very alone watching "Home Alone." The audience was rolling in the aisles. I was just kinda sad. Similar experience watching "There's something about Mary."
"I need someone who laughs at all my jokes. You know; honest feedback."
- C. Montgomery Burns
I felt very alone watching "Home Alone." The audience was rolling in the aisles. I was just kinda sad. Similar experience watching "There's something about Mary."
OMG, I felt the exact same way when I saw Home Alone.
I had a few chuckles in There's Something About Mary.
Re: Blockbuster Comedies That Didnt Make You Laugh Much
I thought Horrible Bosses was not funny at all save for a few Jamie Foxx lines.
Burt Wonderstone was easily the worst movie I've ever seen half of. I had a hard time coming to terms with the realization that I live in a world where that movie got greenlit.
Re: Blockbuster Comedies That Didnt Make You Laugh Much
I have a number of reactions to the posts in this thread, but this one seems the most relevant:
If you happen to like, even love, some of the films others have listed here as not-laugh-worthy... and you've written a script that you consider to be very much like one of those films (or, even like two of those films - This meets That)...
Keep in mind that people who have read/will read your script might have the same POV as those who've posted above: That those BLOCKBUSTER films did not make these people laugh. And if these people could have, they would have spiked those scripts. Those films that went on to make $$$$.
I am not saying that the dislike-posts here are wrong. I am simply pointing to the fact that some films which many of us assume "everyone thinks are funny" (even if to varying degrees of funny) are, in reality, films that are not liked by everyone. And on any given day, one of those dislikers may be the person assigned to read your (or my) comedy screenplay. And if so, maybe we'll be luckier with the next reader.
I felt very alone watching "Home Alone." The audience was rolling in the aisles. I was just kinda sad.
Having read the script, I think that's precisely the effect that the script goes for. It is at its heart a deeply moving story of loneliness and abandonment.
And that, I believe, is its strength. That's why the film made more money than any comedy before it or after it. The sadness, not the jokes, make it a great film.
People may think that they go to comedies to hear one joke after another, but I don't think that's what they really want. (They can get that from a stand-up routine or a moronic sitcom.) What they really want, when they go to the theater to see a comedy film, is to have their hearts touched, to be moved. The jokes are extras -- they're the stuff you put in a trailer. But I think it's the serious side of a comedy, the emotion at the heart of it, that makes it a great film (or not) and brings people back to see it again.
Mind you, I'm saying this as someone who generally doesn't enjoy comedies. But those that I do enjoy, it's not because of their jokes.
Re: Blockbuster Comedies That Didnt Make You Laugh Much
Anchorman. A good comedy is one where the actors play foolish characters who are unaware of their foolishness; Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau was the epitome of this. But all the actors in Anchorman- and probably 90% of comedies today- were totally cognizant of their characters' stupidity, which made their on-screen antics seem self-aware, unfunny, artificial.
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