6 ms·

Comedies have most certainly not died. They've just changed in tone. A few highlights from the last decade — Booksmart is a very different take on the teenage

by pdpi 5y ago

Comedies have most certainly not died. They've just changed in tone. A few highlights from the last decade — Booksmart is a very different take on the teenage buddy comedy. Jojo Rabbit and The Death of Stalin are some of the darkest black comedies I've ever watched, which would never have gotten made in the 90s. Birdman is completely surreal. The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of most joyous films to watch I know of, and The Artist is a comedic love letter to the silent era.

drivers99 5y ago
Booksmart was the first thing I thought of too when he said, “since 2012, the only successful comedies have been animations aimed at young children.” (edit: I mean to say, you can still see movies with originality even if they're not "successful" i.e. blockbusters) In 2018 when I originally got AMC A-list subscription, I tried going to 3 movie a week at first, so I went to a lot more movies I was unsure about but they were very original and memorable, but they weren’t super popular (at least I was the only person I personally knew who had seen it). Sorry to Bother You ($18 million) Blackkklansman ($93 million) Eighth Grade ($14 million) Crazy Rich Asians ($238 million)
- securingsincity 5y ago
  Sorry to Bother You was so interesting, especially how they approached the first 2 acts. It was like a surrealist version of Do the right Thing. the 3rd act is well, it's different and while it doesn't live up to the build up... it's unforgettable .
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - runarberg 5y ago
    I concur. Sorry to Bother You was a really good movie. It is often missed how good this movie actually is. I feel like there needs to be a louder conversation on how brilliant this movie is in so many ways.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  Blackkklansman was brilliant
WickyNilliams 5y ago
The Death of Stalin is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. Cannot recommend enough. Sorry I don't have much more to add, but it's so good I wanted to add my recommendation to the pile
spywaregorilla 5y ago
I don't think even that is true. There's plenty of fairly mainstream successful comedies. Jumanji comes to mind.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  That was... 26 years ago?
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji:_Welcome_to_the_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji:_Welcome_to_the_Jungle Fifth highest grossing film of 2017 Sequel did very well as well
wpietri 5y ago
For sure. Or look at things like Knives Out or Thor: Ragnarok. Solid comedies both and mass-market successes. The notion that people can't be funny anymore just because they can no longer use particular groups as punchlines is just lazy. A great example is Get Out. It's a lot of things, but it can reasonably be called a comedy: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/jordan-peele-get-out-golden-globes-comedy https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/jordan-peele-ge... Or look at Sorry to Bother You: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorry_to_Bother_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorry_to_Bother_You I thought both of these movies were hilarious, and they worked with extremely "challenging" social topics. As an old, when people start talking about movies were only funny back in the day, I suspect they just imprinted on whatever was funny in their youth. Time moves on, and humor has to move with it.
jollybean 5y ago
You're not helping your argument though. Those were great films, however, they were niche. 'Superbad' was a big, hollywood thing. A cultural touchstone that we remember, make jokes about, memes. Very few people ever saw Booskmart or The Death of Stalin. The Globalization of Hollywood - and increased cultural sensitivities have changed this. Comedy doesn't cross borders as well as Thor. Without going into details, cultural sensitivities and fear of Twitter mobs is a 'fundamental' issue. It's not a side issue it's a primary driver. Have a listen to the podcasts and talks by various comedy writers, you can see the evolution. People with power have their knives out to destroy others - some of them obviously need to be cancelled, and some others raise some questions, but there are very, very few left with the power to make the jokes they want. Everyone else has to kowtow in fear. Comedy requires 'absolute safe spaces' in order to work, particularly writers rooms, which, if we could record what they say ... my god we'd all be offended. I'm hoping that this will just be a 'phase' but I'm afraid it may not be as the issues overlay with ostensibly historical issues of social justice, and as soon as we broach that domain, everything becomes deadly serious and we all act like good corporate citizens. It may very well take an established 'provider' like a different kind of Netflix with a different set of sensibilities. Edit: listen to Tina Fey and Judd Apatow podcasts and less public interviews, they hint at the shift while being very polite about it.
- pdpi 5y ago
  Death of Stalin, Booksmart, Jojo Rabbit are definitely smaller independent comedies, but compare: The Artist: $130M gross, $15M budget Knives Out: $311M gross, $40M budget Birdman: $100M gross, $18M budget Grand Budapest: $173M gross, $25M budget Midnight in Paris: $154M gross, $17M budget Superbad: $170M gross, $20M budget All of those are in the same rough ballpark, but Superbad had 70% of its box office revenue in the US+Canada. Compare Grand Budapest and Birdman, which only saw 40% of their takings in NA. Midnight in Paris comes in at 37%, and, as a European production, The Artist saw only 35%-ish of its revenue in NA. Even Knives Out, the most hollywood-y of the lot, came in at 53% revenue from NA. Superbad is a Hollywood movie with Hollywood sensibilities, so it obviously performed best in the US, and it's obviously become a cultual touchstone there — but I personally only even heard about it relatively recently. All the other films performed much better elsewhere so obviously don't seem to have had as much of a cultural impact from a US-centric perspective.

by pdpi 5y ago

drivers99 5y ago

Booksmart was the first thing I thought of too when he said, “since 2012, the only successful comedies have been animations aimed at young children.” (edit: I mean to say, you can still see movies with originality even if they're not "successful" i.e. blockbusters) In 2018 when I originally got AMC A-list subscription, I tried going to 3 movie a week at first, so I went to a lot more movies I was unsure about but they were very original and memorable, but they weren’t super popular (at least I was the only person I personally knew who had seen it). Sorry to Bother You ($18 million) Blackkklansman ($93 million) Eighth Grade ($14 million) Crazy Rich Asians ($238 million)

securingsincity 5y ago
Sorry to Bother You was so interesting, especially how they approached the first 2 acts. It was like a surrealist version of Do the right Thing. the 3rd act is well, it's different and while it doesn't live up to the build up... it's unforgettable .
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- runarberg 5y ago
  I concur. Sorry to Bother You was a really good movie. It is often missed how good this movie actually is. I feel like there needs to be a louder conversation on how brilliant this movie is in so many ways.
52-6F-62 5y ago
Blackkklansman was brilliant

WickyNilliams 5y ago

The Death of Stalin is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. Cannot recommend enough. Sorry I don't have much more to add, but it's so good I wanted to add my recommendation to the pile

spywaregorilla 5y ago

I don't think even that is true. There's plenty of fairly mainstream successful comedies. Jumanji comes to mind.

mgkimsal 5y ago
That was... 26 years ago?
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji:_Welcome_to_the_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji:_Welcome_to_the_Jungle Fifth highest grossing film of 2017 Sequel did very well as well

wpietri 5y ago

For sure. Or look at things like Knives Out or Thor: Ragnarok. Solid comedies both and mass-market successes. The notion that people can't be funny anymore just because they can no longer use particular groups as punchlines is just lazy. A great example is Get Out. It's a lot of things, but it can reasonably be called a comedy: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/jordan-peele-get-out-golden-globes-comedy https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/jordan-peele-ge... Or look at Sorry to Bother You: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorry_to_Bother_You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorry_to_Bother_You I thought both of these movies were hilarious, and they worked with extremely "challenging" social topics. As an old, when people start talking about movies were only funny back in the day, I suspect they just imprinted on whatever was funny in their youth. Time moves on, and humor has to move with it.

jollybean 5y ago

You're not helping your argument though. Those were great films, however, they were niche. 'Superbad' was a big, hollywood thing. A cultural touchstone that we remember, make jokes about, memes. Very few people ever saw Booskmart or The Death of Stalin. The Globalization of Hollywood - and increased cultural sensitivities have changed this. Comedy doesn't cross borders as well as Thor. Without going into details, cultural sensitivities and fear of Twitter mobs is a 'fundamental' issue. It's not a side issue it's a primary driver. Have a listen to the podcasts and talks by various comedy writers, you can see the evolution. People with power have their knives out to destroy others - some of them obviously need to be cancelled, and some others raise some questions, but there are very, very few left with the power to make the jokes they want. Everyone else has to kowtow in fear. Comedy requires 'absolute safe spaces' in order to work, particularly writers rooms, which, if we could record what they say ... my god we'd all be offended. I'm hoping that this will just be a 'phase' but I'm afraid it may not be as the issues overlay with ostensibly historical issues of social justice, and as soon as we broach that domain, everything becomes deadly serious and we all act like good corporate citizens. It may very well take an established 'provider' like a different kind of Netflix with a different set of sensibilities. Edit: listen to Tina Fey and Judd Apatow podcasts and less public interviews, they hint at the shift while being very polite about it.

pdpi 5y ago
Death of Stalin, Booksmart, Jojo Rabbit are definitely smaller independent comedies, but compare: The Artist: $130M gross, $15M budget Knives Out: $311M gross, $40M budget Birdman: $100M gross, $18M budget Grand Budapest: $173M gross, $25M budget Midnight in Paris: $154M gross, $17M budget Superbad: $170M gross, $20M budget All of those are in the same rough ballpark, but Superbad had 70% of its box office revenue in the US+Canada. Compare Grand Budapest and Birdman, which only saw 40% of their takings in NA. Midnight in Paris comes in at 37%, and, as a European production, The Artist saw only 35%-ish of its revenue in NA. Even Knives Out, the most hollywood-y of the lot, came in at 53% revenue from NA. Superbad is a Hollywood movie with Hollywood sensibilities, so it obviously performed best in the US, and it's obviously become a cultual touchstone there — but I personally only even heard about it relatively recently. All the other films performed much better elsewhere so obviously don't seem to have had as much of a cultural impact from a US-centric perspective.