Dark Comedies - Which are your favorites?

Dark twisted wicked funny comedies are so much fun to watch.
What are your favorites in Dark Humor?

Permalink Reply by beeswax on July 20, 2008 at 4:39pm: Fans of Election might also like Tuesday Weld as a "complicated" high school high-achiever in Pretty Poison.

Tuesday plays another high school girl in Lord, Love a Duck.

Fans of After Hours should check out Scorsese's other dark comedy from the same period, The King of Comedy, as well as an even more pitch-black comedy from the After Hours screenwriter, Vampire's Kiss.

Some British ones I like: Withnail and I, the absurdist satire The Ruling Class, one from the "uncomfortable realism" school popularized by The Office, Abigail's Party, and Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, from a Danish director.

Some better-known-but-not-quite-mainstream American ones: Secretary, Nurse Betty, Freeway, Serial Mom.

Among many others.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aces (Chaoshawk) on July 20, 2008 at 6:14pm: Nice, Beeswax! Of your list I've only seen Pretty Poison and Serial Mom, which I had forgotten about. That was a 4 star for me with some of the funniest dark humor I've found. I've thrown all the rest in the queue. I really like British humor - thanks for all the suggestions!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by macroman on July 20, 2008 at 6:37pm: I am so glad NF finally added Pretty Poison to its inventory. I saw that film many years ago and thought Tuesday Weld's performance was great.
One I'd like to add is Sleeper(1972), Woody Allen's prophetic but lighthearteded black comedy about a man who is put to sleep for a couple hundred years and awakens in a police state world where everyone is spied upon and robots have taken over many functions. This is the 1st film that introduced the word CLONING into the US consciousness.
Also Monsieur Verdoux(1947), a Charlie Chaplin antiwar film disguised as a comedy is one of my favorite Chaplin films.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ocontraire on July 20, 2008 at 4:48pm: One of my long time favorites is "Eating Raoul" ('82); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aces (Chaoshawk) on July 20, 2008 at 6:15pm: Ocontraire - (love that nic) I agree Eating Raoul is really good.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by leela42 on July 20, 2008 at 10:23pm: especially with ketchup...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Guy on July 20, 2008 at 6:10pm: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972) is quite funny, but since it's about parents deciding whether or not to euthanise their severely disabled daughter, I doubt it will be out on DVD any time soon.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by beeswax on July 20, 2008 at 6:46pm: Peter Medak, the director of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, also directed The Ruling Class (linked in my post up above). He must have been on quite a roll -- they both came out in 1972.

The one I'm dying to see on dvd (and that I may die waiting for) is Richard Lester's The Bed Sitting Room. (sigh) It's hard to believe my mother and I saw it on broadcast tv sometime in the mid-or-late '70s. We both remember crying with laughter. When friends would talk about how "unprecedented" the humor of the Monty Python tv show was I would try to mention it, always to blank stares of unrecognition. The Pythons themselves would credit the Goons as their forerunners, and of course Lester worked with the Goons on "A Show Called Fred" and "Idiot Weekly" -- and Spike Milligan (Goon Supreme) wrote The Bed Sitting Room.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Guy on July 20, 2008 at 6:54pm: Wow, that sounds wonderful. Maybe someday Netflix will put movies that don't have a DVD release like this one on Instant Watch.
Medak has had to tone it down a bit with his later films, but many times they have an interesting twist. The Krays has a sub-text of Freudian-Feminist-Marxism that is pretty unusual for a gangster movie.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aces (Chaoshawk) on July 20, 2008 at 7:50pm: These sound great. There's a feature on the TMC where we can vote for movies to be released on DVD that aren't already. TMC periodically sends the list to movie distributors. Do a search for the title at www.TCM.com and if it's not on DVD the Vote feature will be on the right of the page.

I voted for both The Bed Sitting Room (has 36 votes) and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (has 13). Here's the page for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg .; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by beeswax on July 20, 2008 at 8:55pm: Nice reminder, CHawk. (Aces? I'm confused.)

There's also some title listings on Amazon where you can plead to the video gods for a release date. Apparently they will pass on your requests to the studios, and email you when/if the title becomes available. Here's the page for The Bed Sitting Room. I like that on the TCM site they tell you how many wistful compatriots have voted with you. Although in some cases it is less than heartening to see those totals.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aces (Chaoshawk) on July 20, 2008 at 10:03pm: Both are me. Either is fine. I'll find that on Amazon. Thanks for posting it.

I just watched Abigail's Party. Uncomfortable realism is the correct description. I enjoyed it a lot and Alison Steadman was brilliant. The director has several more on Instant Watch that I'll check out. The NF synopsis, however, is misleading and had me looking for something that wasn't really there. Thanks for suggesting this.; ▶ Reply to This