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Author	Topic: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

robin4 Standard Userer	Did anyone watch this? I turned to it, saw "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" at 40, and stopped watching it. What was on the list? Is there a website with this info?
posted 06-14-2000 11:10 AM PT (US)

dantoris Standard Userer	Well, I know that Some Like It Hot was Number 1, and Tootsie was Number 2. Now, I haven't seen Some Like It Hot, and while Tootsie was indeed a very funny movie, I don't think it should've been in the Top Five. Personally, my Number 1 pick for the funniest movie of all time would be Animal House. I've never laughed so hard in a comedy. I'm surprised I didn't pass out from laughter the first time I saw it. Definitely the funniest movie of all time.
posted 06-14-2000 01:18 PM PT (US)

dantoris Standard Userer	Here's what made the Top Ten: 1. Some Like It Hot 2. Tootsie 3. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 4. Annie Hall 5. Duck Soup 6. Blazing Saddles (I have to disagree with this one!) 7. MASH* 8. It Happened One Night 9. The Graduate (This one, too! The Top Ten!?) 10. Airplane! (Surprised to see this one on her!)
posted 06-14-2000 01:59 PM PT (US)

John Maher Standard Userer	I despise this whole AFI list thing so much, that I wrote them a letter about it a couple of years ago, when they started it. I also cancelled my membership. For them to bring film to its most base level and publish lists of "best", as if it were no more than someone's opinion, is shameful for this organization. For us, it is fine. So, with that in mind, here is my top ten list (I don't believe I have seen 100 films that made me laugh) of favorite comedies: 10. Back To School 9. Summer Rental 8. S.O.B. 7. It's A Mad...World 6. The Pink Panther Strikes Again 5. Auntie Mame 4. Planes, Trains and Automobiles 3. Female Trouble 2. It's A Gift 1. The Producers
posted 06-14-2000 03:03 PM PT (US)

SBD Standard Userer	Though, IMO, the list was fairly complete, I was upset to find that MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF, PLANES TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES AND AUSTIN POWERS were all absent.
posted 06-14-2000 04:55 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Standard Userer	I realize that these are just people's opinions, but Something About Mary??? In the top 20??? Color me confused!
posted 06-14-2000 05:22 PM PT (US)

Ted Standard Userer	SBD, don't be to dissapointed about MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. The special was from the American Film Institute, so only American films were judged. If the British do a list of top comedies, as they did following AFI's top 100 films (where the THIRD MAN was chosen as #1 BTW), I would expect to see Monty Python be in the top ten at least twice (THE HOLY GRAIL, THE MEANING OF LIFE). Also, MWRuger, you have to remember that SOMETHING ABOUT MARY was not only funny, but influential when it came to gross-out humor. In the last three years or so since it came out, it's been one of the most copied movies in Hollywood. It was the first of its kind to go to the (politically incorrect, offensive, but hilarious) lengths to get the laughs, and really, though it had been done before, MARY was the first movie to do it to such extremes. However, I did miss the following films from the list: FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF THE BLUES BROTHERS (WHY?!?!?) AUSTIN POWERS SPACEBALLS THE BIG LEBOWSKI SOUTH PARK: BL&U --Ted [This message has been edited by Ted (edited 14 June 2000).]
posted 06-14-2000 08:08 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Standard Userer	I understand that, I just didn't think it was that funny. I thought that Animal House did the same thing. I wanted to see 1-2-3! the incredible Billy Wilder flick with James Cagney as the head of the local Coca-Cola bottling plant in Post War Berlin make the list. Hilarious! For those of you who have never seen Some Like It Hot, give a look. It is a very funny movie. Great performances all around!
posted 06-15-2000 12:35 PM PT (US)

robin4 Standard Userer	WHAT?????????????????? NO FERRIS?????? NO BLUES BROTHERS???????? What has this world come to?
posted 06-15-2000 12:58 PM PT (US)

Howard L Standard Userer	I've always felt that Some Like It Hot, The Producers, Young Frankenstein and It's A Mad... were the funniest films ever made. I also laughed myself silly with Back To School. But Tootsie #2? No way.
posted 06-16-2000 09:32 AM PT (US)

Marian Schedenig Standard Userer	Never seen Some Like it Hot?? Watch it NOW!
posted 06-16-2000 10:29 AM PT (US)

SBD Standard Userer	Ted - Now that I think of it, SPACEBALLS should have been listed.
posted 06-16-2000 12:12 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Standard Userer	Where's Kinsinger? I remember his post at the Other Board: "BOYCOTT THE AFI TOP 100! It's all about RATINGS!" or some such. (Even Spielberg said he'd happily give up a couple of his movies cited in the Top 100 to make room for the likes of SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS.) I hold no brief with these Top 100s. I was interested to see that the one attempt at This Board to amass a Top 100 Scores of All Time sputtered and broke down before we even hit fifty. (I actually thought we were coming up with some interesting titles there ... though it was just a matter of time before the latest slop job by the most mediocre of fellows got cited ... no, I won't name names, anyway it didn't go on long enough for that to happen ... which, in a weird way, is sort of a shame. Opinions do interest me, even when I hate em.) NP: nothing, but my mother has fallen in love with Ron Goodwin's main title for Hitchcock's FRENZY which I rented for her today. She's played it three times in a row now.
posted 06-16-2000 01:35 PM PT (US)

Howard L Standard Userer	Sir Rocco, just thought I'd let you know that the ending of Sullivan's Travels is on "Guy McKone's Cinema Paradiso" vol. 2 due out sometime by 2005.
posted 06-16-2000 03:38 PM PT (US)

Chris Kinsinger Standard Userer	KINSINGER IS HERE! ...and I STILL do not agree with the AFI!
posted 06-16-2000 11:21 PM PT (US)

logied Standard Userer	Was the Long, Long Trailer and American Dreamer on the List? Lucy in the trailer making dinner is a classic and the rain storm mud scene is priceless. Dreamer was always a guilty pleasure for some reason.
posted 06-22-2000 04:25 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Standard Userer	Sorry logied, neither made the list. You're right about the Long, Long Trailer. It is a classic, but I am afraid that Lucille Ball is too closely associated with television to be respectable. One of the most glaring omissions was The Three Stooges. I understand that their humor is not for everyone, but they were certainly at least as worthy as Harold Lloyd whom not everyone finds a laugh riot.
posted 06-22-2000 05:01 PM PT (US)

H Rocco Standard Userer	THE LONG LONG TRAILER is AMAZING! I'm thrilled anybody else even remembers it. And I wasn't a big fan of any of Lucy's TV shows, either. It benefited in large part from the amazingly subversive approach director Vincente Minnelli took towards the minutiae of American suburban culture of the day. Ditto his slightly earlier, fascinating FATHER OF THE BRIDE. ("Right brake, left brake, trailer brake -- go, boy!" It's just as well that Roseanne and Tom Arnold broke up before they got to perpetrate their planned TRAILER remake on us.)
posted 06-22-2000 05:17 PM PT (US)

Chris Kinsinger Standard Userer	I'm with John Maher. The AFI shouldn't be making "100 Best" lists...all it does is keep us all squabbling. However, I happen to be a big fan of Tootsie. I think it's a masterpiece, so I wouldn't argue about it making #2 on the list. Were any Abbott & Costello movies on this list of 100? I just adore Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Francis Ford Coppola has joked for years about making Abbott & Costello Meet The Godfather! The very IDEA of it puts me in stitches! The toughest thing would be to find two guys who could duplicate A&C's style...but it would be hysterical! Especially if he got Brando, Pacino & Caan to do it!
posted 06-22-2000 08:16 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Standard Userer	Chris, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein did make the list.
posted 06-22-2000 09:40 PM PT (US)

MWRuger Standard Userer	I am wondering if anyone recall's Forever Darling, another Lucille Ball/Desi Arnez comedy that cast James Mason as a guardian angel? (He is excellant in this)It is not as funny as Long, Long Trailer which was mad e two years earlier, but it isn't bad. There is a very scene with Lucille Ball in rubber raft in a swamp.
posted 06-23-2000 08:44 AM PT (US)

SBD Standard Userer	Interestingly, A FISH CALLED WANDA made the list at number 21. I have nothing against the film (it is very funny); it's just that I assumed that, since this was the AMERICAN Film Institute, it might be ignored. Why? Look at the elements: British locale, a mostly British cast, British director, writer, cinematographer, composer. I guess that the fact that it was released by an American studio (MGM) earned it a spot. Still, it does make you think...
posted 06-23-2000 12:34 PM PT (US)

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