[nelsonone]

well good discussion boys......

I'm a big Bill Murray fan and really laughed out loud all through "Steve Zizhou's a Life Aquatic" being a diver and a mad keen lover of Jaques Cousteau as a kid......I just love it......I ahve it on DVD......also Rushmore + The Royal Tenenbaums are a classic wry comedies if you haven't seen them........I think that Wes Anderson (maker of all of the above) is a film/comedic genius and THE MAN for modern day off beat comedies.....

also in a little film "school" with Anderson are Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation + Virgin suicides.....both beautiful understated examples of non comedy comedies.....the point I raised in my original post) and Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich + Adaptation.....written by comic genius Andy Kaufman)....Jonze also acted in "Three Kings" another classic comedy

Mel Brooks is a fantastic old school writer/director/producer and Blazing Saddles is one of the best surreal comedies ever......from the farts to the bawdy western genre mining and then busting through the sets into a full scale homo musical set......classic...I own the box set of Mel's movies.....up until the new Producers which is a very funny film (Will Ferrell is very good but somehowbut his original with Gene Wilder(another great comedic actor) is miles better

I think that all of the Python films are ridiculously side splittingly funny.....but none better than "Brian".....it is classic British absurdist school.....as were Spike Miligan, Peter Sellers + Tony Hhhhhancock.......but I too wasn't so fond of the Python TV series .....it was a bit esoteric and too clever by half for me.......too much Gilliam influence IMHO

Did anyone see "the King of Comedy" with Gerry Lewis (not normally a fan) and DeNiro as Rupert Pupkin....... also a great cameo from Sandra Bernhardt plaqying as you guessed it.....an obsessed fan....now that's a knife edge black comedy....

I also like some of the Farrelly bros films and think M26 is right that "something about mary" is the best one......Matt Dillon (not usually a fan...again) shows a great hand for comedy in that one.....and Stiller is the best of those pretty lightweight new comedians I mentioned in my 1st post....

But Hey I am goin' on a little here........seems like there are plenty of good comedies about...just working different forms and nuances within the genre I guess......