You know the kind of movie that is shockingly and hysterically funny the first time you see it? You laugh so hard other people in the theater start to look at you instead of the movie (okay, that only happened to me once). Then you watch it again and since you're not surprised anymore it's slightly less hilarious. For me, it's movies like Austin Powers in Goldmember and Jackass: The Movie. This is not a critique of those movies; I love them and I watch them. I still even recommend Jackass constantly.
But there is another kind of comedy, a much rarer breed. A movie that is funny the first time, to be sure. Yet, the more times you see it, the funnier it starts to get. Little jokes you didn't see the first time (or second or third) now show up like some comedy gnome altered it between viewings. Normal scenes are even funnier than overtly comedic ones.
In my own experience, the perfect example of this kind of movie is Mars Attacks! I didn't even like it the first time I saw it. I had very high expectations a a longtime Tim Burton fan and found the movie, well, odd and not quite funny. Then a year or so later I watched it again on DVD. And caught repeats on HBO. And caught later repeats on TNT. I have probably seen it a dozen or so times now (only limited by the fact that I have yet to actually buy the DVD) and I literally find it exponentially funnier each time I see it. I have formulated a ridiculously simple equation:
(Mars Attacks!)(Number of Viewings) = humor factor.
No comments:
Post a Comment