"Do not make permanent decisions on the basis of temporary emotions."
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Kicking off The Christmas Season: Stiller in Die Hard 12?
Harrogate and Oxymoron have stuggled throughout 2006 to define the nature of Stiller's revolutionary comedy. Mayhap this tear-jerkingly funny clip can help us get there....
I don't know if this gets us any closer to identifying the nature of the comedy that you say Stiller and Ferrell pioneered, but this shit is funny. Stiller does a great Bruce Willis.
I have to admit again, however, that I don't know that this "style" of comedy is much different than anything that came before it. It's just a different era of comedy, one whose heavy hitters simply speak to the twenty-somethings of today. It seems to me no more revolutionary than the SNL comedy of some twenty-five years ago.
But to say it's no more revolutionary than SNL 25 years ago, you realize, is to pay it a very high compliment. Why cannot we say that both are historical moments witnessing shifts in the genre?
Well, this discussions is going to continue until we're dead and gone, and then hopefully be continued between little Miss Oxymoron and little Mr. Harrogate, and on into a future where cars fly and Buffalo teams win championships. But at least for now we are able to agree that, as you sayeth, "this shit is funny."
Yes, I understand that saying it's no more revolutionary than SNL twenty-five years ago is still saying that it's revolutionary and that it's its own thing. But that's not what I meant. But re-reading my statement now, it's clear that that's what I said.
Let me try again: The Stiller-Ferrell-type comedy seems no different from the SNL comedy of Chevy Chase, Jim Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, which was revolutionary in the seventies. It seems to me that this "new" style of which you speak is not really new. It's recycled, which is not say that it's not good. The new stuff is hilarious, but I don't see it as necessarily innovative. It's the same thing but with a new cast of talent. That we haven't had such talent perfoming this sort of comedy in a long time merely gives the appearance of something new.
5 comments:
"Paper or plastic, you son of a ... ?"
I don't know if this gets us any closer to identifying the nature of the comedy that you say Stiller and Ferrell pioneered, but this shit is funny. Stiller does a great Bruce Willis.
I have to admit again, however, that I don't know that this "style" of comedy is much different than anything that came before it. It's just a different era of comedy, one whose heavy hitters simply speak to the twenty-somethings of today. It seems to me no more revolutionary than the SNL comedy of some twenty-five years ago.
But to say it's no more revolutionary than SNL 25 years ago, you realize, is to pay it a very high compliment. Why cannot we say that both are historical moments witnessing shifts in the genre?
Well, this discussions is going to continue until we're dead and gone, and then hopefully be continued between little Miss Oxymoron and little Mr. Harrogate, and on into a future where cars fly and Buffalo teams win championships. But at least for now we are able to agree that, as you sayeth, "this shit is funny."
Yes, I understand that saying it's no more revolutionary than SNL twenty-five years ago is still saying that it's revolutionary and that it's its own thing. But that's not what I meant. But re-reading my statement now, it's clear that that's what I said.
Let me try again: The Stiller-Ferrell-type comedy seems no different from the SNL comedy of Chevy Chase, Jim Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, which was revolutionary in the seventies. It seems to me that this "new" style of which you speak is not really new. It's recycled, which is not say that it's not good. The new stuff is hilarious, but I don't see it as necessarily innovative. It's the same thing but with a new cast of talent. That we haven't had such talent perfoming this sort of comedy in a long time merely gives the appearance of something new.
So then rather than a "revolution" we could perhaps find more secure rhetorical ground in referring to it as a kind of "renaissance"?
Yes, a rebirth of the classics.
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