The far-left Variety accidentally proved that modern comedies suck with its lousy list of what it considers to be “The 100 Best Comedy Movies of All Time.”
My friend Christian Toto put it this way: “Variety (Accidentally) Confirms Woke Killed Movie Comedies.”
The list itself is not great…
No Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. No Christmas Story. No 48 Hours or Beverly Hills Cop. No Rushmore or The More the Merrier. No Longest Yard or Smokey and the Bandit. No The Lady Eve or Dazed and Confused. No Animal House or Stir Crazy. No Ninotchka or Friday. Not a single Pink Panther, Bob Hope, or Abbott and Costello movie. Only one entry from Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, and Woody Allen.
Oh, but you will find Everything Everywhere All at Once, Bridesmaids, and Me and You and Everyone We Know.
Waiting for Guffman at number five?
Blazing Saddles at 77?
This is what happens when a publication stops hiring Normal People.
One interesting revelation in this list, especially one plagued by what’s called a recency bias, is that there are only four titles post-2009. That’s a mere four titles over 15 whole years: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Poor Things (2023), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Bridesmaids (2011).
Does that not say it all?
Even with the bias and laziness and lack of depth and movie history required to find only nine worthy comedies between 1923 and 1939 (the era of Chaplin, Keaton, Fields, Lubitsch, and Laurel & Hardy), it’s still nine compared to a mere four.
Between 2000 and 2010, 18 movies made the list. Same with 1990 to 1999.
The eighties topped every decade with 20.
Even the fifties, which was a weak decade for comedy, scored three, and did so without listing Singin’ in the Rain, Mister Roberts, The Seven Year Itch, or The Court Jester.
But only four comedies between 2010 and today??? And at least two of them smack of an affirmative action, DEI pity pick.
Woke Hollywood has painted itself into a fascinating corner. First, to increase the power of producers and studios, the movie star was deliberately wiped out by making high concepts the draw.
Then, because woke prudes now run Hollywood, the movie comedy was killed off by a mix of political correctness, ironic distance, grosser and grosser gags, a lack of warmth (Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen), and self-indulgence (Adam McKay and Judd Apatow), when, at the very same time, budgets blew out of control. Nothing is cheaper to produce than a comedy. Americans love to laugh, but the movie industry hates their customers so much that it refuses to produce the comedy we want, even though it’s obvious what we want when 30 and 40 years later we’re still watching Seinfeld, Friends reruns, along with John Candy, John Hughes, Adam Sandler, Chevy Chase, and Eddie Murphy classics.
My affection for Hollywood and desire to see the movie business pull out of its kamikaze run ended when Disney and the rest began grooming kids. That means I love that Hollywood no longer even tries to make us laugh with a $20 million comedy, and instead spends $400 million on some shitty comic book movie that will never make a profit.
Meanwhile, studio stock prices remain down, down, down…
Thank heaven, then, that we have home video. Without it, our only option would be this woke slop.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.