After polling critics from around the world for the greatest American films of all-time, BBC has now forged ahead in the attempt to get a consensus on the best comedies of all-time. After polling 253 film critics, including 118 women and 135 men, from 52 countries and six continents a simple, the list of the 100 greatest is now here.
Featuring canonical classics such as Some Like It Hot, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, Duck Soup, Playtime, and more in the top 10, there’s some interesting observations looking at the rest of the list. Toni Erdmann is the most recent inclusion, while the highest Wes Anderson pick is The Royal Tenenbaums. There’s also a healthy dose of Chaplin and Lubitsch with four films each, and the recently departed Jerry Lewis has a pair of inclusions.
Check out the list below (and my ballot) and see more on their official site.
100. (tie) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese,...
Featuring canonical classics such as Some Like It Hot, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, Duck Soup, Playtime, and more in the top 10, there’s some interesting observations looking at the rest of the list. Toni Erdmann is the most recent inclusion, while the highest Wes Anderson pick is The Royal Tenenbaums. There’s also a healthy dose of Chaplin and Lubitsch with four films each, and the recently departed Jerry Lewis has a pair of inclusions.
Check out the list below (and my ballot) and see more on their official site.
100. (tie) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese,...
- 8/22/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Above: Unused poster design for The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, S. Korea, 2017); designer: Empire Design.It’s been a while since I did one of these round-ups of the most popular posts on Movie Poster of the Day—since the beginning of the year, in fact—but in that time one poster has been liked and reblogged more than 2,800 times, making it the second most popular design I’ve ever posted on the blog. The comp design for Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, which I featured as part of my interview with Empire Design’s John Calvert back in March, is a deserving fan favorite: an exquisite and beautifully realized concept that was shelved only in favor of something even more perfect.The rest of the Top 20 features the usual eclectic mix of old and new (there are six posters for new films in the list, and two new designs for...
- 6/3/2017
- MUBI
Above: 1960s French stock poster for Marx Brothers revivals.This weekend New York’s Film Forum begins a week-long series entitled The Marx Brothers & The Golden Age of Vaudeville which is as good an excuse as any to look at the representation of the greatest sibling comedy team in cinema through movie posters. It has long been a tradition in movie poster illustration to render comedy stars as caricatures—often with oversized heads on small bodies—and Groucho, Harpo and Chico were a caricaturist’s dream. (Zeppo, the straight man, less so, but he left the act after Duck Soup in 1933, and re-release posters for the films he appeared in tend to ignore him, as in the Belgian Duck Soup and the Danish Horse Feathers below). With their distinctive props—Groucho’s oversized greasepaint mustache and cigar, Harpo’s curly blonde wig and Chico’s Alpine hat—the threesome could...
- 9/23/2016
- MUBI
Pat O'Brien movies on TCM: 'The Front Page,' 'Oil for the Lamps of China' Remember Pat O'Brien? In case you don't, you're not alone despite the fact that O'Brien was featured – in both large and small roles – in about 100 films, from the dawn of the sound era to 1981. That in addition to nearly 50 television appearances, from the early '50s to the early '80s. Never a top star or a critics' favorite, O'Brien was nevertheless one of the busiest Hollywood leading men – and second leads – of the 1930s. In that decade alone, mostly at Warner Bros., he was seen in nearly 60 films, from Bs (Hell's House, The Final Edition) to classics (American Madness, Angels with Dirty Faces). Turner Classic Movies is showing nine of those today, Nov. 11, '15, in honor of what would have been the Milwaukee-born O'Brien's 116th birthday. Pat O'Brien and James Cagney Spencer Tracy had Katharine Hepburn.
- 11/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...
- 8/14/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hollywood will come alive with The Sound of Music (1965) this spring as the beloved, Oscar®-winning classic returns to the big screen to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a gala opening-night screening on Thursday, March 26 at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival. Legendary stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer will join Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne at the world-famous Tcl Chinese Theater IMAX to introduce the beautifully restored film and kick off the sixth annual festival, which will run March 26-29, 2015, in Hollywood.
The film is being presented in collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, in celebration of their Golden 50th Anniversary Blu-ray release arriving on March 10, 2015.
The Sound of Music is the story of the Von Trapp family, whose lives are forever changed by the arrival of Maria, the warmhearted young governess who brings joy and music to the Captain (Plummer) and his children. The film earned Andrews her second...
The film is being presented in collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, in celebration of their Golden 50th Anniversary Blu-ray release arriving on March 10, 2015.
The Sound of Music is the story of the Von Trapp family, whose lives are forever changed by the arrival of Maria, the warmhearted young governess who brings joy and music to the Captain (Plummer) and his children. The film earned Andrews her second...
- 1/20/2015
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has landed four film restorations set to make their world premieres during the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival, taking place March 26-29, 2015, in Hollywood. The movies, each from a different era in cinema history, including Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995), Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), William Dieterle’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). The Keaton comedy will be accompanied by legendary silent film composer Carl Davis conducting the world premiere performance of his new score for the film.
Earlier this month, TCM announced that the theme for the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival will be History According to Hollywood:
The Old West. Medieval England. Ancient Rome. Hollywood has found endless inspiration in re-creating historical moments and bringing to life the heroes and villains of the past, creating a form of time travel for audiences through the ages and around the world.
Earlier this month, TCM announced that the theme for the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival will be History According to Hollywood:
The Old West. Medieval England. Ancient Rome. Hollywood has found endless inspiration in re-creating historical moments and bringing to life the heroes and villains of the past, creating a form of time travel for audiences through the ages and around the world.
- 11/3/2014
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
‘Dracula’ 1931 actress Carla Laemmle dead at 104 (photo: Carla Laemmle ca. 1930) Carla Laemmle, a bit player in a handful of silent movies and at the dawn of the sound era — e.g., the horror classics The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Dracula (1931) — and a niece of Universal Studios co-founder Carl Laemmle, died on June 12, 2014, at her Los Angeles home. Laemmle, who had reportedly been in good health, was 104 years old. Born Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle on October 20, 1909, in Chicago, Carla Laemmle was less known for her movie work than for having survived most of her contemporaries and for her family connection to the Universal mogul — her father, Joseph Laemmle, was Carl’s brother. ‘Dracula’ actress was a member of Carl Laemmle’s ‘very large faemmle’ "Uncle Carl Laemmle, Has a very large faemmle," once half-joked poet Ogden Nash, in reference to Laemmle’s penchant for hiring family members. As Laemmle’s niece,...
- 6/13/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Chaplin may have enjoyed being regarded as the premier film artiste and the silent era's great artist for much of the 20th century, but everyone knows by now that he was a winkingly clever, crass, desperate populist compared to Buster Keaton. Though only moderately successful in his heyday, and ruined with the coming of sound, Keaton has emerged unchallenged as the greatest American filmmaker that the silent era ever produced.
These are old films, but they're Vermeers compared to comedies made half a century or more since, even "Steamboat Bill Jr." (1928), roundly dubbed an okay Keaton, not a peak work, but now restored and released in a lavish set from Kino that begs for reconsideration.
Today, this quaint, precise, epic entertainment, crafted in the strange transitional phase between the silent era and the struggling years of the first talkies, seems like a necessity, a gust of relaxed maturity and reason...
These are old films, but they're Vermeers compared to comedies made half a century or more since, even "Steamboat Bill Jr." (1928), roundly dubbed an okay Keaton, not a peak work, but now restored and released in a lavish set from Kino that begs for reconsideration.
Today, this quaint, precise, epic entertainment, crafted in the strange transitional phase between the silent era and the struggling years of the first talkies, seems like a necessity, a gust of relaxed maturity and reason...
- 7/5/2010
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
Coming hot off of the heels of Janus Films picking up the rights to the Charlie Chaplin catalog, it looks like Kino is set to bring to DVD and Blu-Ray one of Buster Keaton’s, Chaplin’s silent counterpart, most legendary films, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Several months back,
Kino leapt into the world of Blu-ray with the Buster Keaton film, The General.
Kino International released a press release this weekend announcing that the film is set to come to DVD and Blu-Ray, with some really excellent special features. Included in the release will be three different musical backing tracks in the form of two scores (one organ and one piano) as well as a complete score by the Biograph Players, as well as a documentary on the making of the film, a stills gallery, a musical montage of stunts and pratfalls, and two recordings of the folk song, Steamboat Bill.
Kino leapt into the world of Blu-ray with the Buster Keaton film, The General.
Kino International released a press release this weekend announcing that the film is set to come to DVD and Blu-Ray, with some really excellent special features. Included in the release will be three different musical backing tracks in the form of two scores (one organ and one piano) as well as a complete score by the Biograph Players, as well as a documentary on the making of the film, a stills gallery, a musical montage of stunts and pratfalls, and two recordings of the folk song, Steamboat Bill.
- 5/16/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
By Matt Singer
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, Ifc.com will be paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about the odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties in which baseball players have played themselves. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
"Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" (1937)
Directed by Charles Reisner
As Himself: Joe DiMaggio
Game Summary: This mostly tepid musical revolves around a bunch of mobsters who take over a record company and then use their muscle to convince a bunch of popular acts to play for them, which precipitates musical performances in the film from Gene Autry, Cab Calloway and Louis Prima, who actually performs on a working merry-go-round planted on the middle of a nightclub dance floor. DiMaggio's in the wrong place at the wrong time; he shows up late to a radio show...
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, Ifc.com will be paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about the odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties in which baseball players have played themselves. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
"Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" (1937)
Directed by Charles Reisner
As Himself: Joe DiMaggio
Game Summary: This mostly tepid musical revolves around a bunch of mobsters who take over a record company and then use their muscle to convince a bunch of popular acts to play for them, which precipitates musical performances in the film from Gene Autry, Cab Calloway and Louis Prima, who actually performs on a working merry-go-round planted on the middle of a nightclub dance floor. DiMaggio's in the wrong place at the wrong time; he shows up late to a radio show...
- 4/4/2008
- by Matt Singer
- ifc.com
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