Funny Movies

Everyone’s taste in humor is different, yet there are some all time favorite funny movies that many different types of people seem to enjoy. Ever since they’ve been making movies, humor has been an important facet of these types of stories. Along with drama, intrigue and human struggle, humor is one of the major parts of many movies.

For example, many people agree that the National Lampoon Family Vacation movies are funny. These movies generally rely on an impossible series of events where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. But instead of becoming obviously frustrated, the characters in these movies go about trying to solve the problems and, well, more funny things happen.

So what is it that makes funny movies funny? Sometimes funny movies depend on slapstick humor, such as the Dumb and Dumber movies, as well as many other Jim Carey movies. Many people find these types of visual and jocular humor very entertaining, while still others require more subtle forms of humor.

Some times humor is used in order to explore particularly serious issues in movies. A great example of this are the movies made by Michael Moore. In Moore’s movies, such as ‘Roger and Me’ and ‘Fahrenheit 911’, humor is the irony that the viewer is exposed to when various real-life practices of those responsible for serious issues are displayed. The viewer is allowed to experience the same disbelief that Moore does himself, when confronted with actualities of crooked politicians and politics as well as other national and public issues.

Satire is more truly humor, but still relies on an ironic connection between the humor and real life. It’s difficult to say which are more biting, satirical works that are obviously poking fun, or the type of funny movies that merely show viewers true situations. Some of the bigger issues, evoking strong feeling and opinion are works of satire. A wonderful example of a satirical movie about a very serous issue is the film ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’, by Stanley Kubrick.

In 1964 Stanley Kubrick made the film ‘Dr. Strangelove’, based on the novel by Peter Sellers called ‘Red Alert’. This film is a satire of the cold war, yet remains relevant in today’s climate of nuclear proliferation. The movie is so funny that it is quite disturbing when you realize nuclear bombs aren’t really funny at all.

In this movie, General Jack D. Ripper plans to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in order to stop what he believes to be a fearful Communist plot to contaminate the water supply with fluoride. Without presidential approval, he initiates an attack on the Soviet Union. Then he seals himself in a military base and hopes that the president will initiate a full scale attack that would prevent an otherwise inevitable nuclear retaliation from the Soviet Union.

The main character, as well as the other characters that are responsible for participating in this mad sequence of events are depicted as being quite insane, yet Kubrick masterfully portrays these characters as going along with the flow of the other people around them, as humans tend to do, even when we know it’s not right.

Through a series of events were no one is able to stop the bomb from going off, or just doesn’t do anything to stop it, the bomb is eventually dropped on the Soviet Union. This is one of the most memorable scenes, as a Texan cowboy figure has trouble releasing the bomb, and so rides down atop it, as if it were a bucking bronco. As far as funny movies with serious underpinnings go, this is a must see.

Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.