Comedy is a universal concept. Although very little comedy is straight comedy, more often than not, the humour of a situation is derived from an element within. This leads to many variations on the concept of comedy, and hence the comedy genre itself. There is romantic-comedy, action-comedy, horror-comedy, the list goes on and on, and then there are even more generalised types of humour like gross-out/toilet humour and slapstick. To this writer, there are five kinds of comedy; gross-out, slapstick, black comedy, classic 'screwball', and the undefinable smart comedy
Gross-out comedies are generally thought of as the lowest form of comedy. Achieving cheap laughs from graphic imagery and jokes, it's commonly assumed that you need little or no intelligence to make or watch a gross-out comedy and so they are pushed to the bottom of comedy pile. However, great comedy can be found in films such as 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut' and 'Jackass: The Movie, 2. Film fans forget that Trey Parker and Matt Stone ('South Park', 'Team America') are also great satirists and their comedy is far above the fart gags that people associate them with. Likewise with the Jackass boys, they are commonly misunderstood as a pile of idiots. When, really, they're just doing the stupid things we would like to do, if only we had the courage.
Slapstick comedy was pioneered by the likes of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, in a time where no sound meant that all humour had to be conveyed in a physical way. People usually refer to 'slapstick' as silly or stupid comedy, because it's seen as 'easy' or as a 'cheap' laugh. Little do they realise how hard it is to get slapstick wrong, see eighties comedies for good examples of this. The best slapstick is apparent in early cinema masterpieces; 'The General' (Keaton), 'Safety Last' (Lloyd), 'Modern Times' and 'City Lights' (Chaplin).
As the title would suggest, black comedies are usually quite dark... metaphorically speaking. Black comedies derive their humour from the concept that comedy exists everywhere. Because, even when things are at their worst, life is generally surprising and laughs can be appropriated from any sort of situation. Take the film; 'Harold and Maude. The story of a teenage boy and an elderly woman who are both trying to commit suicide, 'Harold and Maude' is awash with comedic observations on the idea of such a serious concept as death. For more evidence of this kind of comedy, watch; 'Little Miss Sunshine', 'High Fidelity' and 'Withnail & I'. For those of you who like a darker edge to your comedy, I would suggest the South Korean 'Vengeance Trilogy' films.
Classic comedy is usually a name given to comedies made within the classical Hollywood era. Firstly there are standard (and quite wonderful) comedies like 'Some Like It Hot' and 'The Philadelphia Story'. However, a great deal of the classic comedies come in the form of 'screwball' comedies. 'Screwball' was a genre which evolved when strict film rules and censorship codes meant that there were just some things you couldn't do on screen, but that didn't mean you couldn't say them. And 'screwball' comedies knew exactly how to say something without the powers that be catching on to the fact that they were openly talking about sex. In 'Bringing Up Baby' Susan clearly has David's 'bone' held hostage while he helps her look after her pussy 'cat' (wink!). The 'screwball' genre only lasted for about forty films back in forties, oddly enough. For the pinnacle of the genre watch; 'It Happened One Night', 'His Girl Friday' and 'Bringing Up Baby'.
Smart comedy? How do you describe a 'smart comedy'. To this writer, this type of comedy is defined by good scriptwriting and dry humour. It is undefinable, but marks out some of the best comedies. Most of which you will find in the list below. Descending from 'great' to the 'greatest', this list, in my opinion is of the greatest comedy films ever made. But because I do believe that they are as such, it would seem a bit stupid to give them descriptions or reviews, because I could write about them for pages and pages. Plus, the last thing I want to do is hype up films which I feel you should develop your opinion on. So, just look at the list, and see if anything takes your fancy.
THE BEST COMEDIES
25. Finding Nemo
24. Jackass: The Movie, 2
23. High Fidelity
22. Toy Story 2
21. The Evil Dead Trilogy
20. The Philadelphia Story
19. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
18. The Goonies
17. The 40 Year Old Virgin
16. Grosse Pointe Blank
15. The Producers
14. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
13. Best In Show
12. Four Weddings and a Funeral
11. Duck Soup
10. Some Like It Hot
9. The Princess Bride
8. Bringing Up Baby
7. The Big Lebowski
6. Withnail & I
5. Airplane
4. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America...
3. Shaun Of The Dead
2. This Is Spinal Tap
1. Monty Python & The Holy Grail
That's probably the first and only time, 'South Park', 'The Philadelphia Story' and 'The Evil Dead Trilogy' will appear in a list together, and I'm kind of proud of that. The comedy element of many of these films are misunderstood. 'Jackass' and even 'The 40 Year Old Virgin' are avoided by people who have made up their mind about what 'their kind of thing' is and are quick to patronise films that have condom or poop jokes. As such they will probably miss out on the truly great comedy films, because that list above may only be the recommendations of this one lowly writer, but it also comprises many films which are frequently referred to as 'some of the best comedies of all time'... [p.s. Any Python fans amongst you may have noticed the absence of 'Life Of Brian', that's just because 'Holy Grail' washes out all my memories of the film and makes my memory of Monty Python mostly Grail shaped...].