Comedies from the 2000s

Dude, Where's My Car?
      2000 | USA | Laughs: 8.0 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 5.5
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After a night of partying, two friends wake up without any memories of what they've been up to. As they start on a quest to find their car, they soon discover that several strange groups are after them. Very cute. (Last viewed: May 2011)

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2 Days in Paris
      2007 | France | Laughs: 8.0 (Laugh Out Loud) | imdb: 6.8
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After an Italian vacation, a French woman who lives in New York and her American boyfriend stop in Paris for two days, enough time for the man to realize there is much he doesn't know about his girlfriend. This plot summary surely doesn't sound hilarious, but this movie make my partner and I laughed consistently. Not only did Julie Delpy star in this comedy, she also wrote it, directed it and edited it, showing great skill in all departments. Apart from the laughs, I found the movie excellent as a whole, which thrilled me for Julie Delpy, whose career I've been following since seeing her in 1986 in a beautiful movie called Bad Blood, never suspecting her of having an above-average brain. In French comedies, Americans are often rough caricatures, and so are Frenchmen in US and UK comedies. In contrast, in this movie, the characters, situations and cultural gaps are genuine, thanks to Julie Delpy who, having moved to the States as a young woman, is bilingual and bi-cultural. If you are remotely interested in both cultures, don't miss this very funny movie. The sequel is more cartoonish but not as funny. (Last viewed: October 2012)

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Grandma's Boy
      2006 | USA | Laughs: 7.9 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 7.0
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A fun dip into the world of the young guys who work for a video game company. An attractive female project manager walks in to get a game back on track, the genius programmer tries to seduce her, and the main tester moves in with his grandma and her roommates. The punchline after the dance game contest gave me a good laugh; smiled throughout the rest. (Last viewed: September 2010)

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Mama's Boy
      2007 | USA | Laughs: 7.9 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 5.2
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A 29-year-old "teenager" lives at home with mom and makes it hard for her to develop a relationship with a charismatic success coach. Another very funny movie with a dismal Rotten Tomatoes rating. But we're measuring laughs here, not whether a movie should belong on the golden list of cultural material approved by New York intellectuals. Apart from its name, this film contains at least one reference to the previous year's Grandma's Boy, whose funniest scene involved the game Dance Dance Revolution: Jeffrey too appears to be a fan. (Last viewed: November 2011)

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OSS 117: Lost in Rio (OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus)
      2009 | France | Laughs: 7.9 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.9
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The second installment to the spoof spy series introduced by OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. This time, agent OSS 117 travels to Brazil in search of a former Nazi. The first hour is very funny. I enjoy that the hero has the shortcomings of a caricature's Frenchman: self-imbued, sexist, vaguely racist and yet charming. As in many movies where the plot serves no other purpose than to animate characters in order to make viewers laugh, the last thirty minutes are a wasteland resulting from the writers' effort to unravel that plot, and could easily be skipped from a comedic standpoint. (Last viewed: October 2012)

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Kenny
      2006 | Australia | Laughs: 7.9 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 7.2
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What? This was not a real documentary?" That's how I felt at the end of Kenny, a film that follows an Australian porta-loo installer and his truck as he travels where his trade takes him: concerts, races, and a sewage equipment convention in the United States. If it feels so real, it is because of the director's uncompromising "Get real, we're all people" message. I will long remember a sample of the film's clever, understated humor—a line of Kenny's ailing dad when he incites Kenny to take the management job he's been offered: "In life, no one looks up to you until you're sitting down." Five stars. (Last viewed: April 2010)

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Duplex
      2003 | USA | Laughs: 7.8 (Laugh Out Loud) | imdb: 5.9
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When a young couple buys an old house, they inherit the elderly lady who lives in the rent-controlled apartment upstairs from theirs. Soon, they realize that this apparently harmless creature has an infinite capacity for wrecking their lives.

The cast is terrific, starting with Ben Stiller in a similar character to his role in Meet The Parents. I hadn't laughed at a comedy so heartily in a long while and will be adding this movie to my favorites list.

(Last viewed: October 2014)

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OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (Le Caire, Nid d'Espions)
      2006 | France | Laughs: 7.7 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 7.1
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Many American movies poke fun at the French, as do many British comedies. But few people in the English-speaking world suspect that the French are perhaps the best at making fun of the French. OSS 117 tells the adventures of a boorish, culturally-insensitive spy on a mission in Cairo. In many comedies, the laughs peak early. OSS 117 starts slow but ends strong. On the "goof" side, I was surprised to hear the actors count in Moroccan Arabic rather than Egyptian Arabic (jouj for "two" instead of itnayn). If you enjoy this movie, run to the sequel. (Last viewed: November 2010)

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How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
      2008 | U.K. | Laughs: 7.5 (Laugh Out Loud) | imdb: 6.4
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Hired to write gossip pieces for a New York glam mag, an Englishman gets the idea that his job is to expose the celebrity baloney and soon rubs most of his workmates the wrong way. This was the funniest British movie I had seen in a long time. There were no long hard laughs but lots of short ones. I'd be happy to watch it again soon. (Last viewed: October 2015)

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Cado dalle nubi
      2009 | Italy | Laughs: 7.5 (Laugh Out Loud) | imdb: 6.4
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This is the fourth of Checco's movie that we watched. Even though the machine-translated subtitles were awful, it made us laugh the most, perhaps because it was the most raw. The movie follows a not-so-young man from the South of Italy who moves to Milan (in the North) to try his luck as a singer. The script cashes in on the stereotype of ignorant southerners vs. snobbish northerners, and it works. (Last viewed: September 2017)

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Along Came Polly
      2004 | USA | Laughs: 7.5 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.0
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On his tropical honeymoon, an insurance man gets cuckolded by his "perfect bride". Back in New York City, he bumps into a former classmate and falls for her despite her bohemian lifestyle, at odds with his obsession for computing risks. This is a very funny movie featuring Ben Stiller in his classic Meet the Parents persona. It was also the first time I saw Jennifer Aniston in a role of any substance. I will gladly watch it again. (Last viewed: November 2014)

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Starsky & Hutch
      2004 | USA | Laughs: 7.3 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.1
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Ben Stiller makes a great Starsky. I don't know if Owen Wilson makes a great Hutch, but he makes a great partner for Ben Stiller in this homage to the classic 1970s cop TV series. The series' formula was action with a smile. Here, the ratio has been inverted: the film is definitely a comedy, though it sports an entirely bearable drug-deal-plot as an excuse to see the two comedians do donuts in their gorgeous red-and-white Gran Torino. (Last viewed: November 2011)

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Mean Girls
      2004 | USA | Laughs: 7.2 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 7.0
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A sixteen-year-old who has been home-schooled in Africa enters a high-school in the States. All of a sudden, she must adjust to a world where the nicest smile is often used to cover the meanest intentions. The plot is nothing special, but it's a fun watch—I smiled a lot and laughed a few times. (Last viewed: December 2013)

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Ghost Town
      2008 | USA | Laughs: 7.2 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.7
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After dying for a few minutes during minor surgery, a selfish New York dentist starts to see ghosts who pester him to help them with their unfinished business. One of them leads the dentist to grow fond of his ex-wife. I liked this movie a lot. The story was good, it was well put together and it made me laugh. Ricky Gervais does not always work for me, but he did a great job, as did the other actors. (Last viewed: October 2013)

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Road Trip
      2000 | USA | Laughs: 7.1 (Laugh and Smile) | imdb: 6.4
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A college road movie that is not completely crass despite some nudity and an adult video tape at the core of the plot? Yes, it's possible. A college student travels cross-country with his friends to retrieve a tape that was erroneously sent to his long-distance girl-friend. The story is well told, and it's much more funny than it is raunchy. (Last viewed: October 2012)

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