Well it's that time of the month again. The staff here at Learning to Stand headquarters have come up with another Top Ten list. May's feature is movies. Here's a fun fact - I write screenplays. I have found that my experience with stand up has helped me become a better screenwriter. I want to be the next Judd Apatow, except able to make it as a stand up comic (*Zing! I totally just did).
There are so many shitty movies out there. Great comedies are very rare. A lot of comedies have great premises then somehow manage to screw it up in the script or filming. It drives me crazy to watch bad movies and I'm one of those assholes who narrates her disgust loudly throughout the movie. But I told you guys not to rent this. Was I right or what?
The following ten movies are, in my opinion, the funniest movies I have ever seen. If I have failed to include a movie you find extremely funny and worthy of the list, please comment.
I had a hard time whittling my favourite funny movies down to 10, but it was even more difficult determining the order to put these films in once I had my top 10, since I love them all nearly equally. So don’t give the order much consideration.
If you haven’t seen something on this list, you need to get on that. The writing in each is so clever and the actors are amazing comedians.
1. Blazing Saddles (1974)
Memorable Quotes:
Bart: Are we awake?
Jim: We're not sure. Are we... black?
Bart: Yes, we are.
Jim: Then we're awake... but we're very puzzled.
---
Hedley Lamarr: Qualifications?
Applicant: Rape, murder, arson, and rape.
Hedley Lamarr: You said rape twice.
Applicant: I like rape.
[Bart, disguised as a Klansman, describes his qualifications as a villain]
Bart: Stampeding cattle.
Hedley Lamarr: That's not much of a crime.
Bart: Through the Vatican?
Hedley Lamarr: [smiling] Kinkyyyy. Sign here.
---
Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
2. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
Memorable Quotes:
[A line of prisoners files past a jailer]
Coordinator: Crucifixion?
Prisoner: Yes.
Coordinator: Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each.
[Next prisoner]
Coordinator: Crucifixion?
Mr. Cheeky: Er, no, freedom actually.
Coordinator: What?
Mr. Cheeky: Yeah, they said I hadn't done anything and I could go and live on an island somewhere.
Coordinator: Oh I say, that's very nice. Well, off you go then.
Mr. Cheeky: No, I'm just pulling your leg, it's crucifixion really.
Coordinator: [laughing] Oh yes, very good. Well...
Mr. Cheeky: Yes I know, out of the door, one cross each, line on the left.
---
Centurion: Where is Brian of Nazareth?
Brian: You sanctimonious bastards!
Centurion: I have an order for his release!
Brian: You stupid bastards!
Mr. Cheeky: Uh, I'm Brian of Nazareth.
Brian: What?
Mr. Cheeky: Yeah, I - I - I'm Brian of Nazareth.
Centurion: Take him down!
Brian: I'm Brian of Nazareth!
Victim #1: Eh, I'm Brian!
Mr. Big Nose: I'm Brian!
Victim #2: Look, I'm Brian!
Brian: I'm Brian!
Victims: I'm Brian!
Gregory: I'm Brian, and so's my wife!
Victims: I'm Brian! I'm Brian!...
Brian: I'm Brian of Nazareth!
Centurion: All right. Take him away and release him.
Mr. Cheeky: No, I'm only joking. I'm not really Brian. No, I'm not Brian. I was only - It was a joke. I'm only pulling your leg! It's a joke! I'm not him! I'm just having you on! Put me back! Bloody Romans! Can't take a joke!
---
[Taking the gifts from the Three Wise Men and pushing them out the door]
Brian’s mother: Er, well, um, if you're dropping by again, do pop in. Heh. And thanks a lot for the gold and frankincense, er, but don't worry too much about the myrrh next time. All right? Heh. Thank you. Good-bye.
[Three wise men leave]
Brian’s mother: Well, weren't they nice? Hmm. Out of their bloody minds, but still.
---
Memorable Quotes:
Borat: I arrived in America's airport with clothings, US dollars, and a jar of gypsy tears to protect me from AIDS.
---
Borat: You telling me the man who try to put a rubber fist in my anus was a homosexual?
---
Borat: Sometime my sister, she show her vazhïn to my brother Bilo and say "You will never get this you will never get it la la la la la la." He behind his cage. He cries, he cries and everybody laughs. She goes "You never get this." But one time he break cage and he "get this" and then we all laugh. High five!
---
Borat: [referring in thought to woman speaking in feminism group] I could not concentrate on what this old man was saying.
---
Borat: The only thing keeping me going was my dream of one day holding Pamela in my arms and making romance explosion on her stomach.
4. Dumb and Dumber (1994)
4. Dumb and Dumber (1994)
Memorable Quotes:
Harry: I can't believe we drove around all day, and there's not a single job in this town. There is nothing, nada, zip!
Lloyd: Yeah! Unless you wanna work forty hours a week.
---
Airport Clerk: Sir, you can't go in there!
Lloyd: It's ok, I'm a limo driver!
---
Lloyd: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?
Mary: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really...
Lloyd: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance... *YEAH!*
---
Lloyd: What the hell are we doing here, Harry? We gotta get out of this town!
Harry: Oh yeah, and go where? Where are we gonna go?
Lloyd: I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called Aspen.
Harry: Oh, I don't know, Lloyd. The French are assholes.
---
[Coming out of the 7-11]
Lloyd: Hey guys. Whoa, Big Gulps, huh? All right! Well, see ya later.
5. Caddyshack (1980)
Memorable Quotes:
Sandy: I want you to kill every gophers on the golf course!
Carl Spackler: Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers, they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key...
Sandy: Not golfers, you great fool! Gophers! The *little* *brown*, *furry* *rodents* -!
Carl Spackler: We can do that; we don't even have to have a reason. All right, let's do the same thing, but with gophers -!
---
Danny Noonan: I planned to go to law school after I graduated, but it looks like my folks won't have enough money to put me through college.
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.
---
Ty Webb: I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.
---
Carl Spackler: I smell varmint poontang. And the only good varmint poontang is dead varmint poontang, I think.
6. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Memorable Quotes:
Austin Powers: I shagged her rotten, baby, yeah!
Vanessa Kensington: Did you use protection?
Austin Powers: Of course. I had my 9mm automatic.
Vanessa Kensington: You know I meant, did you use a condom?
Austin Powers: No, only sailors wear condoms baby.
Vanessa Kensington: Not in the '90s Austin.
Austin Powers: Well they should, those filthy buggers. They go from port to port.
---
Dr. Evil: The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.
---
[Filling out a form]
Austin Powers: Name? Austin Danger Powers. Sex? Yes please!
---
Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers: Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin... we won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!
---
Dr. Evil: I like to see girls of that... caliber.
[Pause]
Dr. Evil: By "caliber," of course, I refer to both the size of their gun barrels and the high quality of their characters... Two meanings... caliber... it's a homonym... Forget it.
7. Anchorman (2004)
Memorable Quotes:
Veronica Corningstone: Take me to Pleasure Town.
Ron Burgundy: Oh, we're going there.
---
Veronica Corningstone: Mr. Burgundy, I'm a professional, and I would like to be able to do my job.
Ron Burgundy: Big deal. I am very professional.
Veronica Corningstone: Mr. Burgundy, you are acting like a baby.
Ron Burgundy: I'm not a baby, I am a man. I am an anchorman.
Veronica Corningstone: You are not a man. You are a big fat joke.
Ron Burgundy: I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.
---
Ron Burgundy: Oh Audrey - I look like hell! I got bags under my eyes. What's that? Well if you were a man, I'd punch you. Punch you right in the mouth. That's bush. Bush league. YOU HEAR ME? AUDREY! LOOK AT ME! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Alright?
---
Ron Burgundy: I wanna say something. I'm gonna put it out there; if you like it, you can take it, if you don't, send it right back. I want to be on you.
[Veronica turns and walks away]
Ron Burgundy: Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I... I wanna be on you.
---
Champ Kind: I will smash your face into a car windshield, and then take your mother, Dorothy Mantooth, out for a nice seafood dinner and never call her again.
Wes Mantooth: Dorothy Mantooth is a Saint!
Ron Burgundy: Hey, let's leave the mothers out of this.
8. Super Troopers (2001)
Memorable Quotes:
[First lines]
College Boy 2: No, man, I'm just saying... I'm sayin', if-if you own beachfront property, right, do you own, like, the sand and the water?
College Boy 3: Nobody owns the water. God owns - it's God's water.
---
Mac: Oh, c'mon, we're like the sons you never had.
Captain O'Hagan: If you were my son, Mac, I would've smothered you by now.
Mac: Smothered me in gravy you big dirty man.
---
Farva: Hey, let's pop some Viagras and issue tickets with raging, mega-huge boners.
Thorny: You know, Farva, only you can make a dark man blush. And no, we're not doing it
---
Captain O'Hagan: I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says, " Shenanigans."
Mac: Hey Farva what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
Farva: You mean Shenanigans?
Mac: OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Thorny: OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
[As they hand the Captain their pistols]
---
Thorny: Littering and... littering and... littering and smokin' the reefer.
---
Thorny: I'll give you the fat guy for Foster. And uh, how about that stupid guy for Rabbit.
Ursula: Well, you're going to have to be more specific, they're both kind of fat and stupid.
---
Mac: Your mother should've swallowed you, Rando!
9. Airplane (1980)
Memorable Quotes:
Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine Dickinson: A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.
---
Ted Striker: It's Lieutenant Hurwitz. Severe shell-shock. Thinks he's Ethel Merman.
Lieutenant Hurwitz: [singing] You'll be swell, you'll be great. Gonna have the whole world on a plate. Startin' here, startin' now. Honey, everything's comin' up roses...
Ted Striker: War is hell.
---
Rumack: Can you fly this plane, and land it?
Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.
---
Captain Oveur: Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?
---
Rex Kramer: [talking to Steve McCroskey] Our only hope is to build this man up. We gotta give him all the confidence we can.
[To Striker]
Rex Kramer: Striker, have you ever flown a multi-engine plane before?
Ted Striker: No, never.
Rex Kramer: [to McCroskey, with the microphone still on] Shit! This is a God damn waste of time! There's no way he can land this plane!
10. Groundhog Day (1993)
Memorable Quotes:
Phil: I'm a god.
Rita: You're God?
Phil: I'm a god. I'm not *the* God... I don't think
---
Buster Green: If you gotta shoot, aim high. I don't wanna hit the groundhog.
---
Phil: I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters.
[Ralph and Gus snort]
Phil: *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get *that* day over, and over, and over...
---
Phil: So, did you sleep OK without me? You tossed and turned, didn't you?
Rita: You're incredible.
Phil: Who told you?
---
Rita: Why would anybody steal a groundhog?
Larry: I can probably think of a couple of reasons... pervert.
---
Phil: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.
---
Rita: You're missin' all the fun! These people are great! Some of them have been partyin' all night long! They sing songs 'till they get too cold and then they go sit by the fire and they get warm, and then they come back and sing some more!
Phil: Yeah, they're hicks, Rita!
