Let's hear it then. What are Rain Man's top 3 comedies of all-time?
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Oh, man. That's almost impossible to determine. The top of the top kind of depends on my mood.

There are comedies that are great not because they're hilarious so much as they're delightfully quirky. My top movies in this category are (not necessarily in rank order):

Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Napoleon Dynamite.
Groundhog Day.
Raising Arizona.
The Life of Brian
Young Frankenstein

For pure guffaws, I'd have to consider these.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
The In-Laws (the old one with Peter Falk)
A Fish Called Wanda
Stripes
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.
Galaxy Quest
The Hangover
Vacation (the new one with Christina Applegate)
Trading Places
Coming To America


If I had to pick my top three, I might have to go with Ferris Bueller, Napoleon Dynamite, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But it's really hard to not have Groundhog Day on the list.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some favorites at the moment since this is off the top of my head.

Thoughts? Reactions? What are your top three?
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Jk. It's your list so I won't hate.

I just remember Napoleon Dynamite came out back when I was in high school and quickly became a cult classic. I missed it in theaters so I stupidly decided to just buy it when it came out on DVD thinking there was no way I wouldn't like it given the hype it received. I remember popping it in and just.. not liking it.. at all.

Over time I've grown to appreciate a couple of the jokes (Uncle Rico's throwing motion, anything to do with Kip, and "just make urself a dang case-a-dilla"), but overall I don't think it was a very funny movie.
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But, yeah, it is difficult to narrow it down to a top 3.

Do you give extra points to movies that are funny while also delivering some sort of deeper message like a Groundhog Day or Coming to America? And which movies qualify as comedies? Should I only mention pure comedies? Or would something like Back to the Future qualify as well even though it's more of an adventure comedy?

And now, I'm suddenly reminded of a conversation we had on this topic a few years back about different movie genres.. lol
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OK, OK.. so, gun to my head, top 3 favorite comedy movies..

I'm goinggggg...

Trading Places
Friday
Dumb and Dumber
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I do think part of what imbeds a movie in our minds is how it compares to expectations. I saw Napoleon Dynamite completely blind right as it came out. I'd never even heard of it, and for some reason my wife and I went to see it just because we were in a moviegoing phase. So I had no expectations at all, and loved it as a result.

I think the thing I love most about that movie is that it drives home that we're all the stars of our own stories. He was a guy that you typically tried to ignore or tolerate in high school because he was so weird, but he was living this very full life (in his mind) with all of these different facets to it.
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Yeah, I remember talking about a continuum of pure comedy to comedic (other genre) to (other genre) comedy, and I liked that system.

Groundhog Day is a perfect example in my mind. It's not really a comedy in my mind. It's a movie that has a lot of funny stuff in it, but that's not the purpose of the movie. Yet somehow it's also funny enough to get on my list of great comedies.

I almost didn't put Coming to America on my list for a similar reason. If I think about the plot of Coming to America, it's not a comedy. It's a romance. But it's a romance told in a really funny style.

Same with Back To The Future. I actually think it's an action/adventure movie. I love the movie, and it's funny, but in my mind it's not a comedy.

So I think I actually penalize a movie in my comedy rankings if I think it serves another plot more than comedy. But sometimes it's also so funny that it gets on my top list anyway.
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Trading Places is a masterpiece of modern comedy. I still occasionally say something about the "GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip", even though no one gets the reference any more. I think most people would say that Coming to America was Eddie Murphy's peak, or maybe Beverly Hills Cop, but I think it's Trading Places.

I've never seen Friday. Looking at a plot synopsis, I can see why, because I'm typically turned off by plots that revolve around drugs. But hey, if Harold and Kumar can pull it off, I may have to give Friday a try. And I liked Chris Tucker.

I can appreciate Dumb and Dumber even if it's not near the top of my list. It's in the cateogry of those Leslie Nielson movies where the movie is 100 percent comedy with no attempt at being anything else. I think I prefer a little more meat on the plot bones.

It makes me realize that I have no Jim Carrey movies at the top of my list. He has a lot of movies that I've liked, but none that I've loved, other than maybe Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is a different animal.
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Yep, 100%. I had a similar issue with another on your list in The Hangover. I spent months hearing about how funny the movie was, best thing since sliced bread, yada yada. I also missed that one in theaters so the hype just continued to build.

I finally watched it on DVD and I'm like.. "... That's it?"

In fairness, that one actually has really grown on me since that moment. That's one I'll pretty much always turn to if I find myself channel surfing.

OK, lots of thoughts here:

I agree that Trading Places was the peak and it holds a special place in my heart. Just something about it. It's so perfect. Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop are classics in their own right. Hell, I also loved The Golden Child, Boomerang, and Life. 80s/90s Eddie Murphy is in the Hall of Fame, for sure.

So.. fair warning. Friday is definitely a "black comedy" and I don't mean that in the classic sense. I'm black myself, I grew up around black people so the humor from the culture is all good to me. I know it's just not everyone's bag of tea. At any rate, I think it's great, as are the sequels Next Friday and Friday After Next. Ridiculous plots, classic characters, big name actors, extremely quotable (you've probably heard the expression "Bye, Felicia" at some point within the last 5 years or so- that line came from the original Friday). It's got everything I look for in a comedy.

You're right about Dumb and Dumber. I'd generally give extra points for "more meat on the bones", but sometimes I just like to put on a movie and laugh and I'm not sure any movie does that better than Dumb and Dumber. That 90s Jim Carrey had a direct line to my funny bone. Ace Ventura, Liar Liar, The Mask, The Cable Guy- all great.
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Yeah, I was skirting that matter, but honestly it makes the movie a bigger risk if I didn't grow up in the culture to understand the underpinnings of the humor.

But this makes me laugh, because I wonder if it's part of why I like Napoleon Dynamite so much when you're meh on it.

You grew up in a black culture, and I grew up in a rural yokel culture. That's what Napoleon Dynamite is built on, so I really identify with it. Maybe I'm off base if you also grew up in a yokel culture, but there'a a whole lot of Napoleon Dynamite that I recognize from my youth, so the humor really resonates with me.
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Did you get around to watching Everything Everywhere Al At Once? May be right up your alley. I enjoyed it.
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Funny story. I was on a long flight a couple of months ago, and I randomly found it on the airline screen as part of a list of 150 available movies or so. I'd never heard of it but thought the concept looked interesting. I started watching it, but was kind of distracted and figured that I needed to be focused on it given some of the in-depth explaining that was happening. Then a big martial arts fight happened, which I'm not into, so I gave up on it. I figured it was just some direct-to-video Asian movie so I thought no more about it.

Out of the blue, my wife mentioned this weekend that she wanted to see it, and said that it's getting very good reviews. I had no idea, because I'd just blundered into it. So I may have to give it another try.
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More or less so than 'Black Knight'?

My buddy and I went and saw that in the theater and man, that was an experience. My friend and I were just laughing our asses off at these poor classically trained Shakespearian actors with their over the top received pronunciation accents just being the butt of all these god-awful Martin Lawrence jokes.
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Funny you mention it, my mom is actually white as the driven snow from Smalltownville, OH (her high school graduating class had like 16 people) and my dad's from DC so I dabble in both cultures.

Napoleon Dynamite definitely gave me more rural Iowa vibes than rural Ohio vibes. Sounds like a small difference but I feel like there is something to be said there.

I'm going to shoot straight with you, the Friday franchise probably won't be up your alley, but I will stand by my claim that they're very entertaining comedies and maybe your life will be a wee bit enriched having stuck your toe in the culture lol

Ha- have you never seen any of the Fridays, DJ? I'm shocked. I thought you were like mid-to-late 30s, figured that one would have been in your catalog.

I haven't seen Black Knight in years so it's tough to remember all of it, but the entire cast of Friday is either black or Hispanic. Like, they literally don't even leave the neighborhood during the movie so I don't think a white person gets a single second of screen time in that movie. Whereas, Black Knight is kind of the opposite based on my memory. It's basically a black dude telling jokes around a bunch of 1500s white folk.. so I guess I'd have to imagine Friday leans a little more into the black humor..? Though I will say that Chris Tucker's humor definitely seems to be a bit more mainstream than Martin Lawrence's so maybe it's the opposite.
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