Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer
Sean Paul Murphy, Storyteller

Monday, January 14, 2019

Top 10 Comedies of the 1990s

Who doesn't love to laugh? I know I do. I grew up during in a great time, when the television was filled daily with Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy shorts, and there was always a Marx Brothers or W.C. Fields film playing somewhere. And let's not forget Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, Ma & Pa Kettle and, of course, Francis The Talking Mule. Comedy was king. As a youth, I started collecting silent comedies on Super 8mm and discovered the comic trinity of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd.

The biggest problem with making a list of comedies is deciding what actually is a comedy. How many laughs are needed to turn a drama into a comedy? What about funny musicals? Or funny horror films? It calls for some very subjective judgments.

I am not going to handcuff myself with as many self-imposed restrictions as I did when I made my lists of horror films. My decision concerning what is a comedy will be decided on the basis of the individual film. However, I will try to restrain myself from flooding a decade with the work of a single comic visionary. For example, I am not going to put six Marx Brothers films on my Top 10 Comedies of the 1930s list. I will only pick one of their films as representative of their work during the period.

Also, I am going to try to rate the films in the context of their times. Therefore, expect to see some films on the lists which would be considered politically incorrect today. I will, however, discuss the controversy concerning some of those films when it seems appropriate.

Here's my list of the top comedies of the 1990s. During this decade, the most popular comedies at the box office were by Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler. I saw all of their films in the theaters. However, checking my contemporaneous notes, I never gave any of them more than two-and-a-half stars out of four. Nostalgia has not further endeared their films to me. Therefore, I have not included any of their films in the Top 10, making this list my least reflective of the taste of the time.

Here's the list:

(10). METROPOLITAN, 1990
Written and Directed by Whit Stillman

A outsider joins a group of upper-class Manhattanites during debutante season.

This is a great little film. There is no group of people I could care less about than Manhattan debutantes, but this film completely drew me into their world. The Oscar-nominated screenplay was one of my favorites of the decade. Personally, I think Whit Stillman was born in the wrong decade. I think if he had been working in the 1930s, he would have been one of the top staff writers at MGM. Sadly, although I enjoyed his other films, none of them quite reached these heights.



Directed by Jay Roach
Written by Mike Myers*

A British swinging-sixties spy, Austin Powers, goes into deep freeze in order to battle his nemesis, Dr. Evil, who has done the same. They are both unfrozen in the 1990s to find an entirely different world.

This is a consistently funny fish-out-of-water spy spoof. The film, which didn't do much at the box office, became a big hit on DVD and generated two sequels. This is my favorite Mike Myers film. His work has been extremely spotty, but I am genuinely surprised by how few starring vehicles he ultimately made.

*Tommy Blaze, who shares some screenwriting credits with me, claims he wrote the original script that Myers adapted.


(8). HOME ALONE, 1990
Directed by Chris Columbus
Written by John Hughes

Accidentally left at home by his parents during Christmas vacation, eight-year-old Macauley Culkin must protect his home from two determined burglars, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

I thought this film was hilarious when I first saw it in the theaters, but it didn't really stick with me (and I found the sequels unnecessary.) However, a recent holiday viewing of the film guaranteed its place on this list. It resembles an old school Warner Brothers cartoon as the boy inflicts slapstick violence on the bad guys that would have killed a normal person fifty times over. Rarely do modern films rely so heavily on slapstick. I am happy to honor it here.

(7). THAT THING YOU DO!, 1996
Written and Directed by Tom Hanks

A small town Pennsylvania band in the early 1960s finds themselves on track to become one hit wonders after winning a local talent contest.

This is one of my favorite films of the decade. It is an amiable, easy-going film with just enough tension to keep the plot going. It's hard not to like this film. In fact, when we discussed the film on the Yippee Ki Yay Mother Podcast, it turned into a total lovefest.  Here's our discussion:


Here's the trailer:


Directed by Spike Jonze
Written by Charlie Kaufman

A puppeteer, John Cusack, discovers a portal that allows a person briefly into the mind of the actor John Malkovich, who, obviously, plays himself.

There's nothing derivative about this film. Who makes a film about a puppeteer? When he arrives at the seven-and-a-half floor of his workplace, you know you're in uncharted waters. It definitely reflects the combined idiosyncratic visions of both the director and the writer. Particularly the writer. He would receive Oscar nominations for three of his scripts, including this one. (He would eventually win for 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was not a comedy so don't expect to see it on my list of Top 10 Comedies of the 2000s.)



(5). BOWFINGER, 1999
Directed by Frank Oz
Written by Steve Martin

When rejected by a major star for a role in his film, an unscrupulous independent filmmaker decides to shoot the action around him in real life. This task is aided when they hire his naive, lookalike brother as a production assistant.

I was going back and forth between this film and L.A. Story, 1991, for the list. I chose this film because it's funny and it captures the mindset of many a low budget independent filmmaker. Also, after later seeing Eddie Murphy's brother Charlie talking about his Hollywood adventures on Chappelle's Show, I have to think Eddie was spoofing him in this film. Plus, you have to applaud Martin and Oz for their thinly-veiled, but obvious, takedown of Scientology. That was extremely brave at the time.



(4). KINGPIN, 1996
Directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly
Written by Barry Fanaro & Mort Nathan

A former bowling hustler, Woody Harrelson, who lost his hand, finds a promising but naive Amish bowler, Randy Quaid, and tries to take him to the World Championship.

I had a hard time choosing between this film and the Farrelly Brothers' other monster hit There's Something About Mary, 1998.  That film had Jonathan Richman acting as a greek chorus, but this one had Bill Murray. Billy Murray wins hands down. I found the Farrelly Brothers' work madly inconsistent. I didn't discover the source of the difficulty until I started paying attention to the writing credits. It seems to me that the film they wrote entirely themselves aren't as funny as the ones that other people wrote.


(3). ELECTION, 1999
Directed by Alexander Payne
Written by Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor
Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta

A frustrated high school teacher, Matthew Broderick, sets in motion a self-destructive chain of events when he conspires to thwart the campaign of an annoyingly overeager student, Reece Witherspoon, for class president.

Alexander Payne, and his writing partner, Jim Taylor, first rose to fame with Citizen Ruth, a satire about abortion. Obviously, they are not afraid to take down sacred cows. This film, however, is my favorite. It is very dark and wanders into taboo sexually areas, but very funny and acerbic. They say John Hughes really had an insight into teenagers of the 1980s. I hope Payne and Taylor's vision isn't quite as accurate!



(2). THE BIG LEBOWSKI, 1998
Directed by Joel Coen
Written by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

A lazy sixties reject, Jeff Bridges, is forced to play detective after he accidentally becomes embroiled in a case involving the missing wife of a millionaire and a soiled rug.

The Coen Brothers are geniuses. They have had the longest run of genius in modern cinema.  Think about it. How many of their independent filmmaking peers who arose with them in the mid-1980s are still consistently making great films? Not many. Granted, they have had their share of misfires, but they are always fascinating and relevant. Last week I just saw their new Netflix film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. It was marvelous. All I could think was that no other filmmakers could have captured the delicate balance of perfectly being the thing that you are satirizing.

That said, The Big Lebowski left me cold on the first viewing. I didn't dislike it. But I didn't like it either. The extraordinary praise it received was always greeted by an arched eyebrow from yours truly. Then I saw the film again, and I liked it more. I saw it again, and again, and again. It rose in my estimation with each viewing until I am surprised that it doesn't top my list as the best comedy of the 1990s. Then, however, I remember the film at the top of the list....


(1). GROUNDHOG DAY, 1993
Directed by Harold Ramis
Written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis
Story by Danny Rubin

A self-centered, narcissistic television weatherman, Bill Murray, finds himself endlessly repeating Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, PA.

This is not just one of the best comedies ever made. It is one of the best movies ever made. The script, by Danny Rubin, is a work of genius. I had read a great deal about it. The studios wanted an explanation -- a gypsy curse or something. The writer was fired from the project. Other people were unsuccessfully brought in. Eventually, Rubin was brought back to restore what everyone had loved about the project in the first place. It was a rare screenwriting happy ending! Plus, if you did had to take on a co-writer for a comedy in the 70s, 80s or 90s, you could certainly do worse than the great Harold Ramis! A lot of the credit for the success also goes to the cast. Great performances by all involved, particularly by Bill Murray was perfect for the role. The role was the culmination of the persona he had been developing since the late-70s, with an extra heaping of arrogance.

This film has been much-imitated, but never surpassed. In fact, my writing partner Tim Ratajczak and I were offered the opportunity to write a faith-based rip-off. We declined. (Other people who had fewer scruples and wrote this film, which I did end up editing.....)



Honorable Mention:

DUMB AND DUMBER, 1994.  If you had to include a Jim Carrey film, I guess this would be the one. The recent sequel was a very sad affair. A shark once jumped can never be unjumped. HAPPY GILMORE, 1996, would be my choice for an Adam Sandler film, although THE WEDDING SINGER, 1998, was a little less schtickier. CITY SLICKERS, 1991, was a good middle of the road Hollywood comedy.  Baltimore's own John Waters managed to deliver a mainstream comedy with an edge with his PECKER, 1998.  FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, 1996. My favorite film by the inconsistent David O. Russell. Really enjoyed Tea Leoni. Wish she stayed with comedy. James L. Brook's AS GOOD AS IT GETS, 1997, was probably the best romantic comedy of the period with a great, scenery-chewing turn by Jack Nicholson. I really liked OFFICE SPACE, 1999, but I don't worship it the way others do. Maybe it's a generational thing. WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, 1996, was a very funny mockumentary in the vein of Spinal Tap, but this group's real moment of genius would come four years later. People really loved or hated THE CABLE GUY, 1996. Today it's sometimes considered the birthplace of the Judd Apatow school of comedy, that reigned supreme until the recent collapse of the whole comedy genre during the current decade.

Other Lists:


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