Comedies from the 1990s

Black Sheep
      1996 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 6.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A candidate for the job of Governor of Washington State would be doing really well if it weren't for one huge liability: his younger brother, who is a human wrecking ball. The idea had potential, but I couldn't get past the first half hour. Just not my kind of humor, I guess. (Last viewed: October 2012)

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Airbag
      1997 | Spain | Laughs: 3.0 | imdb: 6.8
      wikipedia | who was involved?

After a bachelor party doesn't turn out as they expected, a group of friends find themselves in all kinds of trouble. Does that sound like a rip-off of Hangover? Possibly, assuming the producers of this 1997 film were able to jump twelve years forward to the future.

The brothel scene was so coarse that I nearly gave up on the movie, but I came back to it a couple of months later and found the rest fairly entertaining and well put-together, even though I didn't laugh. A colorful introduction to modern Spanish comedy. (Last viewed: January 2018)

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Go Trabi Go
      1991 | Germany | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 6.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, an East German family travels to Western Europe on their Summer vacation in the dad's beloved Trabant car. This movie was cute and I'm sure it is replete with significant cultural information, but for foreign viewers who are not in love with German culture there are probably more entertaining things to watch. (Last viewed: April 2014)

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Detroit Rock City
      1999 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Chuckle) | imdb: 6.9
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

Four teenagers must defeat impossible odds to travel to Detroit to watch their favorite band. The cast was good, the plot was tight by comedy standards, the pacing was excellent. I don't think I laughed, but I was definitely entertained. Thumbs up!

(Last viewed: January 2019)

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Friday
      1995 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A day in the neighborhood of an African-American man who has just lost his job and gets caught in a misunderstanding over two hundred dollars a friend of his owes to a dope dealer. Apart from the slow start, I sometimes found it hard to watch because the shrill voices of two of the characters were hard on my ears—but it's a good movie. It's often fun and occasionally funny, but certainly not a laugh-out-loud comedy. More of an interesting watch with strong characters, where the humor makes the drama more bearable, in the footsteps of Do the Right Thing six years earlier. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Heavyweights
      1995 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.7
      wikipedia | who was involved?

A Summer camp where overweight kids normally have a great time turns into hell when a new owner bent on promoting his weight-loss program takes over. I like Ben Stiller when he plays nice guys (as in Meet the Parents), but I don't enjoy his performance when he plays nasty roles, which he too often does. There's nothing wrong with watching this movie once if you're in the mood for light entertainment. The kids are fun and there's a lot of smiling—but no laughing, at least for me. In the Summer camp movie category, Meatballs is probably an upgrade, as would be Wet Hot American Summer. (Last viewed: September 2012)

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Terrorism and Kebab (الإرهاب والكباب‎ / Al-Irhab wal Kabab)
      1993 | Egypt | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 7.6
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Hoping to apply to transfer his son to another school, a man visits a government building where he is greeted by a blind, dumb bureaucracy and at long last loses his temper. When guards try to throw him out, he unwittingly grabs a rifle and turns into the accidental terrorist. Natives of Egypt will probably find this movie funnier than a foreign audience. While I enjoyed the culture and found aspects of it charming, many segments were too long and emphatic for my taste. I certainly smiled, but I didn't laugh. For serious students of the comedy movie genre only. (Last viewed: June 2013)

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Torrente, the dumb arm of the law (Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley)
      1998 | Spain | Laughs: 2.8 (Chuckle) | imdb: 6.9
      wikipedia | who was involved?

An indigent ex-cop with delusions of past greatness enrolls his innocent neighbor in an investigation of a drug-trafficking Chinese restaurant.

This is a 1980s-style movie shot at the end of the 1990s — perhaps a hint that Spain was hanging a few years back at the time.

It's not very funny, it's very crude, but I chuckled a few times. And if you're a student of the genre, I'm afraid that this might be mandatory viewing. On the other hand, who's going to rush to watch the sequels, all rated lower? Not this guy. (Last viewed: December 2018)

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Flirting with Disaster
      1996 | USA | Laughs: 2.6 (Just Awful) | imdb: 6.7
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

The only disaster in this movie is the movie itself, but there's no flirting. When a movie's script is not believable, if that's for the purpose of making me laugh, I don't mind at all. This film's script is loose to the point of falling apart, but it doesn't pull its weight in the laughter department. In the one funny scene, Mel (Ben Stiller) and his wife gently approach two strangers who might be related to Mel, but the two strangers turn into rogues whotry to beat up their two potential relatives. (It sounds violent, but it's not.) The movie is certainly not worth watching for that one scene. Its one redeeming feature, in my view, is that it was probably a crude rehearsal for Meet the Parents, which would come four years later. (Last viewed: November 2011)

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Billy Madison
      1995 | USA | Laughs: 2.5 (Just Awful) | imdb: 6.4
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

To take over the role of his retiring father as head of a major hotel chain, a young man who has lived a life of ignorant merriment must return to school and graduate through the twelve grades in under six months. I usually like Adam Sandler. He can be funny when he's a little goofy, but in this role he has set his goofiness level to over-the-top-and-off-the-charts. It is simply unbearable. At first I thought that perhaps I wasn't liking the movie because it was aimed at kids, but there are too many adult themes for that to be the case. It's just bad. (Last viewed: October 2012)

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The Little Devil (Il Piccolo Diavolo)
      1998 | Italy | Laughs: 2.4 (Just Awful) | imdb: 7.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Since discovering Roberto Benigni in Down By Law in 1986, seeking to relive that "first high", I've remembered him as funnier than he's been in any other movie I've seen him in. This one is no exception. Though it's not a roarer, it does have a few laughs and it's probably the best of the "other" Benigni movies I've seen. Two points in the film's favor are the presence of the one and only John Lurie (who also played in Down By Law) and the photography by Robby Müller, my favorite cinematographer (he shot Down By Law as well as Paris Texas, which also happened to feature John Lurie). To watch only if you're a cinephile with an interest in one of these names. (Last viewed: February 2012)

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The Monster (Il Mostro)
      1994 | Italy | Laughs: 2.1 (Just Awful) | imdb: 7.5
      who was involved?

Italian movie with Roberto Benigni. A weak introduction, good moments as it ramps up, then it gets so crass that we stopped watching. (Last viewed: August 2009)

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Operation Grandma (מבצע סבתא / Mivtza Savta)
      1999 | Israel | Laughs: 2.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 8.1
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Under great time pressure, three brothers must arrange to transport their dead grandmother from the hospital and to bury her at their kibbutz—this is "Operation Grandma", under the supervision of the one brother who is a military man. This kind of plot always has potential, but the acting was poor and the situations not particularly funny. Not worth watching for the few chuckles. (Last viewed: March 2014)

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Go
      1999 | USA | Laughs: 2.0 (Smirk) | imdb: 7.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Three co-workers in a grocery store plan to party on Christmas eve, but everything goes wrong. The movie is split into three parts that follow different characters during the same time frame. The film features a rave party, some undercover cops trying to bust a dealer, and a trip to Las Vegas.

Although this comedy had no laughs in store for me, it was entertaining enough to watch with an occasional grin.

(Last viewed: January 2020)

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Dearest Relatives (a.k.a Poisonous Relations) (Parenti serpenti)
      1992 | Italy | Laughs: 2.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 7.3
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Four siblings and their families converge on their elderly parents' apartment for Christmas. That's a lot of people, and the outcome was way too loud and exuberant for my taste. I'm told the movie has a funny twist, but I'm afraid forty minutes is all I was willing to invest.

(Last viewed: March 2021)

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