May in quarantine means it’s time for a brand-new Film Pigs Podcast! We’re going lighter this episode and talking about our very favorite comedies, because who doesn’t need a laugh these days? All your other favorites are here, too: news, movie jail, a bizarre line reading, fun ‘n’ games, and so very much more!
Three favourite comedies off the top of my head would be three Edgar Wright movies, HOT FUZZ, THE WORLD’S END and SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD. I think Wright is as precise and gifted a visualist as David Fincher, but obviously in very different milieus.
I’m glad Skelton mentioned DEFENDING YOUR LIFE. It’s my favourite Albert Brooks movie. I’m fascinated by a story told by former AICN critic Drew McWeeny, who was an usher in the early ’90s at a cinema that held a lot of test screenings. He really was at the coalface of Jack Valenti’s reign of terror, and it’s where he learned to hate the process, and helped expose and ridicule it later when at Ain’t It Cool News.
But one day the movie being screened was the first cut of DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, and according to McWeeny there was a whole 15 minutes at the beginning of the film that really set up Brooks’s character and his whole day before he gets killed.
The screening did not go well, and it culminated in Brooks and David Geffen standing in the theatre lobby, almost nose-to-nose, screaming at each other about whether to cut that first 15 minutes out. Which, of course, they ultimately did. And as far as I know that footage has never been seen since.
Criterion should take a break from releasing every Japanese movie ever made and dig that shit up.
#ReleaseTheBrooksCut
Honestly, LOST IN AMERICA and DEFENDING YOUR LIFE are pretty interchangeable with me. If we had done this podcast last month it probably would have been on top. Two perfect comedies.
I almost would have expected Stee to pick MODERN ROMANCE, since he wrote the greatest bitter-sweet romantic comedy of this generation with YOU’RE THE WORST.