Things that aren't funny

[rbandrews]

Let it be known:

• Quoting Monty Python
• Finding double-entendres where there aren't any
• Fetishizng caffeine
• This guy

Comments

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

I like Ben Stiller!

[rbandrews]

I've been thinking about it all day. I really liked Zoolander, but I can't think of anything else of his I didn't find sophomoric and stupid. I also really wanted at least four items, and I wanted one to be of the form "This guy" with a link, and I couldn't think of anyone else.

[jameshroberts.livejournal.com]

Mystery Men?

[rbandrews]

Okay, I didn't remember that he was in that, I stand corrected. Ben Stiller is funny.

I changed the link.

[tango.livejournal.com]

Also not funny: Ashton Kutcher, Jim Carrey, Larry the Cable Guy, anyone from Jackass...

[rbandrews]

Yeah, but their unfunniness is too obvious. Like obsessive Python memorizers, some people might be laboring under the delusion that Adam Sandler is funny, particularly after having Christopher Walken's funny rub off on him during Click.

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Adam Sandler was in Mixed Nuts? Whoa.

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Jim Carrey is only good as a straight man, such as The Mask, The Truman Show, and Liar, Liar. And he absolutely nailed Kaufman in Man on the Moon.

Larry the Cable Guy is the George W. Bush of comedians. Eeuurgh.

[rbandrews]

I thought about Carrey, but Truman Show is what kept me from linking him.

[uilos.livejournal.com]

What gets me about Jim Carrey is that the man can totally act, but he chooses to do dumb slapstick stuff more often than not.

[jameshroberts.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I think the writers are funny. Ben Stiller is funny if he's cast into an appropriate role in a decent movie. That doesn't often happen.

In any case, I wholeheartedly support your choice of where to redirect the link.

[rbandrews]

Perhaps it's better to say Ben Stiller can be funny. I don't think that's true of Adam Sandler.

[jazzfish]

The Wedding Singer, in which enough funny things happen around Adam Sandler that he gets some of the credit by default. Kind of like David Spade in the llama movie.

[desfido.livejournal.com]

I agree on the first item.

The second item can be funny if done well, but so rarely is, that it is essentially correct.

The third is correct.

The fourth is incorrect, at least in part: if you mean he isn't particularly funny as an actor, I might be willing to agree with you. Much as Ben Stiller, he is someone thought of as an actor, who is okay at it, but is much better at behind the camera tasks (though, of course, Ben Stiller is a much better writer/director than Sandler is a writer). The movies where Adam Sandler has a writing credit were pretty darn funny (as were his movies done with Drew Barrymore), and some of the sketches on his comedy albums are hilarious ("Joining the Cult" and "The Hypnotist" come to mind).

[laughin.livejournal.com]

I am with you on all but #1.

Ben Stiller seems to think funny is being angry all the time. Not so funny.

[nevalkarion.livejournal.com]

i would make the case that it is quoting Monty Python's well-known movies- holy grail, primarily, but also life of brian and something completely different- that isn't funny. a lot of the people who quote holy grail nonstop don't even know that flying circus exists and, in my opinion, quoting obscure flying circus sketches can still be funny.

[rbandrews]

Python's humor comes from being surreal and weird. It's great when Python does it, but something can't be surreal any more when quoted word for word forty years later.