HUMOR%20IN%20THE%20MOVIES

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HUMOR IN THE MOVIES

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Rocky Horror Picture Show
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• ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
• http//www.rockyhorror.com/

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MEL BROOKS

• In Blazing Saddles, all of the townspeople have
  the same name, Johnson. And after a bunch of
  cowboys have beans for dinner they have a farting
  contest.
• Young Frankenstein is about the grandson of the
  infamous scientist. He tries to get back his
  good name by pronouncing his name Frahnkensteen
  and by teaching his monstor to dance in top hat
  and tails.

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• The plot line of Mel Brooks The Producers is
  that two producers buy a lot of insurance in a
  play, and then try to produce a play that is so
  lousy that they can collect the insurance money.
• But the play is so lousy as a tragedy that it is
  a success as a comedy.
• Springtime for Hitler is a play within the play
  of The Producers. It is so exaggerated that it
  succeeds as a comedy.

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• Mel Brooks High Anxiety spoofs Alfred
  Hitchcock-type thrillers.
• His Spaceballs spoofs such space epics as Star
  Wars.
• In his History of the World, Part I, Brooks plays
  the roles of Moses, Louis XVI, and Comicus, a
  stand-up philosopher who cant get a job and so
  has to work as a waiter, asking at the Last
  Supper, Are you all together, or is it separate
  checks?

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Mel Brooks

• THE PRODUCERS (MEL BROOKS)
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0395251/
• BLAZING SADDLESFART SCENE
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vR6dm9rN6oTs

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CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD

• When Marlee Matlin, the deaf protagonist, in this
  1986 movie wanted to sign her disagreement, she
  signed two fingers representing the word bull.
• But then she laid her right arm over her left and
  signed the bulls horns lifting up from the
  inside of her elbow while the fingers of her left
  hand wagged back and forth as if the bull were
  relieving itself.

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EXAGGERATED PLOT LINES

• Wish fulfillment for children can be seen in
  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
• Wish fulfillment for young adults can be seen in
  National Lampoons Animal House.
• And for adults we can see the post-divorce
  hostilities in War of the Roses.

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GIMMICKS

• Movie producers are always looking for gimmicks
  that will allow their stars to shine.
• The stage play Harvey was a perfect movie vehicle
  for tall and lanky Jimmy Stewart, who looked up
  to an even taller, imaginary white rabbit.

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• CARRIE
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vVlOxlSOr3_M

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The Marx Brothers
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(No Transcript)
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• Whoopie Goldbergs singing ability was
  highlighted in Sister Act where Whoopie is a
  singer on the run from the Mafia who hides in a
  convent and transforms the nuns into singing
  performers.
• The large, muscular and blond Arnold
  Schwarzenegger is contrasted with the short,
  plump dark-haired twin Danny DeVito in Twins.

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Adam Sandler
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• Arnold Schwarzeneggers size and muscles are also
  featured ironically in Kindergarten Cop.

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PARODIES

• Monty Pythons The Life of Brian is an irreverent
  parody of the story of Jesus Christ.
• Brian denies that he is the Christ. His
  followers declare that only the true Christ would
  deny his divinity.
• The movie ends with Brian being crucified with
  many other people. And they are all singing,
  Always look on the bright side of life.

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Monty Python

• QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRAIL (MONTY PYTHON)
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/
• THE LIFE OF BRIAN (MONTY PYTHONERIC IDLE)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vSJUhlRoBL8M

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• Roxanne is a parody of Cyrano de Bergerac.
• Men in Black parodies the whole genre of movies
  about secret government agencies and aliens from
  outer space.
• Airplane parodies the disaster movies that were
  produced in the 1970s. When Leslie Nielsen asks
  Robert Hays if he can fly the plane, Hays
  responds, Surely you cant be serious?
• Nielson responds, Dont call me Shirley.

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• Caddyshack is a parody not so much of other
  movies as of the game of golf itself.
• In the same way, Stir Crazy contains much prison
  humor.
• Bull Durham is filled with baseball humor.
• And Analyze This has humor about psychiatric
  counseling.

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Parodies

• INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/
• MEET THE FOCKERS
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0290002/trailers-scree
  nplay-E23858-10-2

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• Woody Allens Bullets over Broadway Neil Simons
  The Sunshine Boys and Some Like it Hot are filled
  with inside jokes about show business.
• The Pink Panther The Naked Gun, Fargo, and Pulp
  Fiction are detective spoofs.
• The Police Academy films are police spoofs.

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Woody Allen

• ANNIE HALL (WOODY ALLEN)
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/

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PERIPHERALS

• Producers and theatre managers are now putting
  more and more humor into the peripherals that
  surround movie goers.
• Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd come onto the
  screen with the message Watch movies in the old
  fashioned wayin Silence.

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• The advertisement for the theaters THX sound
  system is done as a sophisticated cartoon.
• At the end of movies now there are often funny
  outtakes or original messages.
• At the end of Spice World the five Spice Girls
  stare out at the audience and Sporty says, Why
  do people sit there at the end of the film and
  watch the credits go up?
• Ginger answers, Its probably the sad
  anticlimax. Its all over. Back to reality.

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QUEST STORIES

• Humorous quest stories can be as realistic as
  Biloxi Blues, the autobiographical story of Neil
  Simons 1945 conscription into the army, or as
  ridiculous as Pee-wees Big Adventure in which
  Pee-wee Herman goes searching for his lost
  bicycle.

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The Dude!

• THE BIG LABOWSKI
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vcd-go0oBF4Y

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SILENT MOVIES

• Because they are not language-dependent, silent
  movies have a universal appeal that the talkies
  dont have.
• For example, every year in Gabrovo, Bulgaria,
  there is a humor festival in which a large
  percentage of the town members put on their derby
  hats and oversized pants and shoes, pick up their
  canes, and go about the city turning square
  corners like Charlie Chaplin did.

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• Other icons of the silent films include Buster
  Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., the Keystone Kops,
  and Fatty Arbuckle.
• In vaudeville, Buster Keaton was the human mop
  who never smiled. He also never smiled in
  movies, even when a side of a house came falling
  down around his ears.

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SCREWBALL COMEDIES

• Screwball comedies are the zany but romantic
  movies that were produced during the Depression
  and on into the early 1940s.
• Virtually all screwball comedies included a
  male-female conflict, with one or both of them
  being rich.

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• Therefore the screwball comedy was always set in
  the elegant surroundings of the idle rich, with
  occasional visits to the poorer sides of life.

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MODERN SCREWBALL COMEDIES

• Modern screwball comedies, like the earlier
  screwball comedies, are based on the slapstick
  relationships that can occur in the battle of the
  sexes.
• They include Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, Mrs.
  Doubtfire, War of the Roses, and Arthur.
• The rich theme can be seen in Trading Places.

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Were the Millers
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TRAGICOMEDY

• Another recent trend in movies is tragicomedy.
• The Italian film, Life Is Beautiful is set in a
  Nazi death camp.
• The humor and irony in the film serves as a foil
  to make the horror all the more terrible.

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Life is Beautiful

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v64ZoO7oiN0s

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In conclusion How it should have ended!

• HOW IT SHOULD HAVE ENDED
• http//www.howitshouldhaveended.com/