http://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/articles.sec-129-1-comedy.html Who's Minding the Mint? is the kind of comedy they don't make anymore: all-star and mad, mad, mad, madcap. It was released in 1967, which is the year that such old-Hollywood projects were put out to pasture by such edgy fare as The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. I'd argue Mint — while pure, cotton-candy fluff compared to those prestige pictures — has aged every bit as well.]]> Following its hilarious Father’s Day, the ’80s-obsessed Canadian quintet known as Astron-6 unleashes another inspired homage/parody in Manborg. Instead of vengeance, sci-fi is the skewered genre of choice. And Manborg is indeed choice.]]> Your first sign that Revenge for Jolly! may not be for you: the dead dog hanging in the protagonist’s living room.

There are more.
]]> In the span of a decade, post-World War II, the comedy team known as The Bowery Boys (née The East Side Kids, née The Dead End Kids) made 48 movies. Up until now, I’d seen exactly zero of them. ]]> In tacking the word “fast” onto each of these three comedy-minded mysteries, MGM wasn’t joking. Not only are the running times of the films brief, but its lead characters rattle through their dialogue like a teenager to pizza.]]> Sporting possibly the laziest, most generic title in cinema history, A Haunted House might as well have been called Scary Movie 5, but I don’t wish to insult Scary Movie 5.
]]> Better than the hit novel on which it’s as faithfully based as budgetary issues allow, John Dies at the End is one of those movies that tries really hard to be a cult movie. In this case, however, the goal has been met; I suspect that, as with most of director Don Coscarelli’s work, from Phantasm and The Beastmaster to Bubba Ho-Tep, we’ll still be discussing this one decades later. That’s not to say it’s without faults.]]> In case there were any question, Dead in France is a black comedy. Take the opening scene, for instance, in which a man takes a fatal fall from a cliff, but not before hitting his head on the rocks several times during the trip, grunting a painful “Oof!” with each knock to the noggin.]]> We’re slipping, America. It look to Ireland to make the best horror comedy in recent memory, Stitches. The subgenre is one of the toughest to pull off — a feat about as rare as finding a four-leaf clover.]]> Coming at the tail end of Hollywood’s innocence, 1968’s How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life is one of those old-school romantic comedies that indulges in such outdated notions that a woman’s place is in the home.]]> My favorite of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries is easily 2000’s Best in Show. While I think it helps to be a theater nerd to appreciate 1996’s Waiting for Guffman in full or a folk nut to opt for 2003’s A Mighty Wind, “must love dogs” is no requirement here. Love man’s best friend or hate him, the humor in Best in Show is less inside-baseball than its brothers. ]]> It’s kind of amazing how far $5,000 can get filmmakers these days, especially when Dustin Mills is in charge of the cash. Having helmed the inventive Puppet Monster Massacre and, less effectively, Zombie A-Hole, he now sets his deranged sights on designer drugs in Bath Salt Zombies. As one could surmise, it, too, sits squarely in the DIY horror-comedy realm. ]]> Now that I’ve devoured Warner Archive’s The Great Gildersleeve Movie Collection, I know who my mom was referring to all those years. It’s irrelevant for your enjoyment of the set, but Harold Peary’s Gildersleeve character proved so popular on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio program, he was spun off into his own show (and eventually TV and these films). ]]> Seven's not a lucky number in the case of Seven Psychopaths, writer/director Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated In Bruges. In fact, the math is all wrong, as I kept waiting for its disparate elements to add up. Unfortunately, it never did. ]]> Any cries of nepotism in the case of Rashida Jones officially can be buried, and the dirt above patted with a shovel for good measure. ]]> Nature Calls finds writer/director Todd Rohal attempting to shoehorn the wonderfully, outlandishly absurd humor of his previous film, 2011's The Catechism Cataclysm, into a vehicle more mainstream. While it doesn't generate ill will, it does not work, try though the cast might.]]> Why Stop Now is a comedy that tries too hard to be a comedy. C’mon, you know the kind: Although grounded in reality, the film presents characters so quirky, they may as well come with signs around their neck to signal their stock roles, i.e. “Precocious Sibling” and “Black Sidekick.” Incidentally, this one fronts both of those examples. ]]> If there's one thing I love more than a good Sherlock Holmes movie, it's a vintage Alan Arkin performance, and 1976's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution provides both. Widely acclaimed upon its release, the film has become somewhat forgotten — here's hoping Shout! Factory's Blu-ray/DVD combo release will help reverse that.]]> I'm drafting a new Movie Rule: If a seemingly innocuous word in a title turns out to double as a character's name, whether used ironically or not, then buyer (or renter) beware. Case in point: The Trouble with Bliss and its questionably named protagonist of Morris Bliss.]]> Meryl Streep is in a rut — not the actress, who's arguably still atop her game in her fifth decade of screen stardom, but the character she plays in Hope Springs. Long married to frowny sad sack Arnold (Lincoln's Tommy Lee Jones, not exactly stretching), Kay feels more like a roommate than a wife. They don't even share a bedroom any more.]]>