Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
In today's controlling invasive tabloid culture, a certifiable wack job like Peter Sellers would be run right out of Hollywood. Imagine trying to make him take a urine test! (That's a hilarious thought, actually.) Without a urine test, nobody would insure him. And he would be declared a poor role model. He'd never be able to hire a decent publicist. And imagine what Peter Sellers would DO to a publicist. He'd be doomed.
We should just consider ourselves lucky that once upon a time, he happened.
And now I'm going to go back to pretending this movie didn't come out, thank you.
I remember when Steve Martin and Woody Allen were funny. The closest Albert Brooks ever got was "winsome".
Comparing Steve Martin with Albert Brooks with Woody Allen is really comparing apples and oranges and bananas. Martin is obviously using the “one for them, one for me” strategy—only the most indiscriminant of his fans are expected to pay to see Cheaper By the Dozen or The Pink Panther, so there is really no reason to even bother reviewing them. Albert Brooks is not really a comedian, he’s an actor whose best roles happen to have been in comedies (the distinction is the same as between, say, Groucho Marx and John Barrymore). Broadcast News, for instance, is about serious people in an absurd situation, the humor built around complex characters, not comic personae. With “Looking for Comedy,” Brooks tried to take on current events and ended up over his head; a regrettable failure perhaps, but a noble effort, and not at all indicative of a career in decline.
Now, for the hundredth time, about Woody…
I happened to find Match Point one of the most discomforting movies of 2005, and, for that very reason, one of the best. From the awkward juxtaposition of Italian opera and Buckingham Palace guards to the final scene with the murderer’s happy extended family and newborn baby, a truly nauseating existential dread grows on the viewer. Any hint of comedy, even an appearance by Allen in a serious role, would have broken the Doestoyevskian spell.
Ms. Zacharek, who obviously prefers Allen’s early, funny pictures, complains, without bothering to give evidence, of Match Point’s “dunderheaded moralism.” But in reality the film is less about any specific moral code than it is an examination of the amorality of it’s narrator, and how flawed but basically decent people, both in the film and in the audience, can become ensnared by his self-exculpatory rationalizations. I don’t know what Allen’s opinion of Doestoyevsky is—his main character can’t read Crime and Punishment without a crib, and even then, all he seems to get out of it is the inspiration for a murder scheme, after which his victims come back to try to haunt his conscience, but are almost comically unsuccessful. We do know what Nabokov thought Doestoyevsky to be—an overpraised, illiterate, reactionary fanatic. Nabokov’s response to Crime and Punishment was Lolita (a title that always seems to come to mind when Allen is the topic of conversation), the amorality of the unreliable narrator of which is strikingly similar to Match Point’s.
Allen’s movies tend to polarize critics in strange ways—instead of champions and detractors, he attracts critics who try to divide his work into masterpieces and failures. While I would agree that Manhattan is extremely good and Anything Else is mostly flat, for the most part I tend toward the opinion that Allen’s good films are not as great, nor are his poorer films nearly so bad, as everybody tries to tell me. His dialogue will always strike me as a little too mannered and stagebound for the cinema, his actors projecting to the audience instead of conversing with each other. But if his wit occasionally sours, and if his work is never quite realistic enough to be true art, he never fails to be inventive and provocative—and that even goes for the “indefensible” Melinda and Melinda.
While I dislike South Park, I think it is funny. Beavis and Butthead were inspired and made me laugh harder than nearly anything (thanks Mike Judge), Mike Myers is still funny as hell. All these things have good, sharp writing in common.
also, I look to Europe for funny movies. One of the funniest I have seen in many years was the Fifth Element, granted it was sci fi, but it was meant to be satiric and worked very well.
This may sound trite or simplistic, but simple aging may have a lot to do with this phenomenon. Very few artists are able to sustain a high level of output, no matter what their particular medium. I could name several contemporaries of these men (not comedians) whose star has decidely faded over the last 15 years. Scorsese, Coppola, DePalma -- none have produced work that approaches their very best when they were at their peak. Same thing in music: Springsteen, Elvis Costello, U2, etc. And, as Stephanie points out, comedy may be the most difficult form of all.
(I do not include Adam Sandler because he is relatively young and egregiously not funny.)
The object on William's nose in *Patch Adams* is part of an ear wax removing system. Giving an enema with something that size would take all day. I also think the movie better than average and Mr. Williams did rather well in the part of Patch Adams (who resembles Dick Van Dyke more in terms of body type). I wouldn't classify the movie a comedy, but more a drama with comedic moments.
None of these three professional funny men were ever A grade, like Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin, Ernie Kovacs, or even Steve Allen. I got some laughs from all three, but it didn't take long before they became redundant, formulaic, and tiresome.
Albert Brooks, of course, ran out of material first. Woody Allen's creepiness crept in around the time he became America's most notorious "short eyes." With Steve Martin, I think his biggest problem is his familiarity. He's a guy who tries to be funny, rather than actually being funny.
It's worth mentioning that Robin Williams is even more tiresome, a relentless ham who forces his humor in every situation. Jim Carrey is tiresome for the same reason. What this all points out is the great difficulty in being a comedian. I suspect that if one were to spend an evening filled with laughs, a night out with Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, or Jack Nicholson would be a hoot. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Nicholson and Warren Beatty were smoking it up in their younger days.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
