Movies To Consider Bemusedly

From MoviesToConsider

Here's a list of movies that tickle programmers, with their (programmerly) commentary on them):

Laugh 'Til You Pee in Someone Else's Pants:

• Airplane! - routinely tops "funniest movie of all times" lists, and routinely places in "best movies of all times" lists. It will ruin the entire gritty self-important melodramatic 1970s big-star disaster flick genre for you. "You can let yourself out the back. There's juice in the fridge."
• {Both the good gags and the bad ones will stick in your mind forever.
  • {http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080339/ Robert Stack as Rex Kramer keeps cracking up. it still works. (This typography is correct, by the way.)}
• God of Cookery - Steven Chow's mind boggling Hong Kong style Iron Chef.
• Fierce Creatures - John Cleese (et al from A Fish called Wanda). In order to make a profit a (former) petting zoo must house only fierce creatures. Excellent British-like humor.
• ThePrincessBride
• The Adventures Of BuckarooBanzai Across The Eighth Dimension it works because logic
  • btw "don't pull on that u have no idea what it connects to" is within the realms of reasonable internal anatomical variations ...
• AustinPowers (oh behave!)
• DrStrangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• OurManFlint
• UHF (WeirdAl's movie)
• MysteryMen is fun -- and just as you would expect
• Martha meet Frank, Daniel, Lawrence - An excellent British comedy with a neatly twisted plot.
• ThisIsSpinalTap - the original fake Rockumentary. More quotable than any MontyPython movie, and more cameos than I can remember.
• SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut - brilliant. The BillGates scene alone is worth the price of admission, but any movie that makes you root for Satan has got it on the ball.
• MontyPythonAndTheQuestForTheHolyGrail - The opening credits, alone, are funnier than most comedies. This movie is most insightful silliness.
• BringingOutTheDead (also Gripping and Moving)
• Darkstar First feature by JohnCarpenter. Definitive SF parody. "congratulations, you have chosen to clean the lift. Please stand clear of the explosive bolts."
• WagTheDog Political satire with Robert Di Niro and Dustin Hoffman
• Scary Movie
• Raising Arizona an early Coen Brothers film. Wacky funny, but pales in comparison with The Big Lebowski
• The Big Lebowski a hilarious bowling film by the Coen Brothers. Every time you think you know where it's going, it heads in another direction completely.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen Brothers take on a jail break. Very funny and a great soundtrack.
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again (uneven, but the "questioning of the estate staff" scene is rather hilarious and perhaps worth the price of admission, alone; many other amusing scenes, just a little more tiredly acted than the former) http://www.rabbitw.com/wavs/panther/clous004.wav''
• Dogma (Don't miss the cameo by Betty Aberlin of MisterRogersNeighborhood!)
• ClerksMovie (anything by Kevin Smith except Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Goddammit, that was terrible.)
• TheGodsMustBeCrazy Starts off with 'very dry humour, but had me rolling in the aisles later. Some (Bill Cosby) thought it was racist, but that's pretty narrow-minded.
• Mad adventures of Rabbi Jacob Slapstick
• Dumb & Dumber?
• The American Astronaut B&W, very absurd.

Religious:

• JesusChristSuperstar

For Adults Of All Ages:

• The Iron Giant <-- a brilliant lampoon of the ColdWar hardware fetish'' (trivia bit: based on 'TheIronMan', a book by Ted Hughes, who was British Poet Laureate and Sylvia Plath's husband.)

Wait for Cable:

• Charlie's Angels A helplessly camp big-screen adaptation of that popular TV show, The Power Puff Girls.
  • I disagree - this is a wonderfully funny, while campy (sor of like StarWars, or maybe SpaceBalls in that, eh?) movie definitely worth renting.

Don't Listen to the Critics:

• Chasing Papi this poorly-named tidbit was widely panned as a bad sitcom full of latina stereotypes, like watching Telemundo or Univision. I find those comedies insipid and I found this a delightful antidote. It sets up all the typical tired "cat-fighting over a hunk" themes and twists them to attempt to show character development. "Attempts" being the operative word, but the ensemble acting (yes, real ensemble acting & not clever editing) and the minor pratfalls between the major attempts are a scream. During a moment of reflection on one woman's life story we see an insert of another woman listening intently. But her toy dog picks that moment for an enormous yawn.
• What's Up Doc? Screwball comedy and great UFH Saturday-afternoon movie fair. Yes, the gays like it too, because it has a young nubile 30-yo Barbra Streisand stealing every scene, one by one. And who's under the tarp on the piano?

Cult Classic:

• FasterPussycatKillKill
• Anything by Ed Wood, especially PlanNineFromOuterSpace and Glen or Glenda
• EyesWideShut - gets better if you can stay awake
• The RockyHorrorPictureShow
• "Harold and Maude" sometimes the biggest risk is living
• The Evil Dead

See It On Video:

• Dune [DuneTheMovie] (best if you read and liked the books)
• There's Something About Mary