More Favorites: Comedy

I'm not much for the outrageous, over the top antics of Jim Carrey or Chris Farley, and far more prefer outlandish comedy. Sometimes subtle is the key, sometimes not, but I'm here to present three of my all time personal favorite movies of all time. Outlandish can be defined as "conspicuously bizarre," a category into which each of these three can comfortably be sorted.

Comedy is in the eye of the beholder, and in the eyes of this beholder, these are three of the best.

Murder By Death.

The setting of this 1976 masterpiece is relatively simple - a dinner party where the five invitees are caricatures of literary masters who are asked to solve a murder mystery.

The cast is headed by Truman Capote, Peter Falk, and Alec Guinness to name just a few, each playing the role of a famous literary investigator - for instance Sam Diamond (a caricature of the Humphrey Bogart "Sam Spade" character from the "Maltese Falcon") played by Peter Falk and Jessica Marbles (based on the Agatha Christie "Miss Marple" character) played by Elsa Lanchester. Just to add a little more to the "spooky" nature of the movie, Charles Addams drew the introductory credits.

At midnight, a murder will happen with a million dollars to the person who can solve it. The story rides through twists and turns, ending with a most interesting whodunit.

My all time favorite quote: The Truman Capote character "Lionel Twain" insists he is the "number 1" crime solver, to which Sam Diamond replies "You look like number 2, if you know what I mean..."

Beetle Juice.

Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Michael Keaton star in this "haunting" tale from 1988. The long and short is that two otherwise normal people occupying a home are unhappy that a new family is moving in. Baldwin's and Davis' characters just don't have the wherewithal to get the new family to change their mind and sadly, as ghosts, without wherewithal they have to have someone do their bidding. Michael Keaton's "Beetle Juice" is brought in to do the job. Now, they find he's a bit too over the top and move in to stop him.

My all time favorite quote: When asked what his credentials are to help scare off the interlopers, Beetle Juice responds, "Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT..."

Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

1975. Arthur, King of the Brittons, is on a quest to assemble a following of knights to complete his round table, and is subsequently directed by God to find the Holy Grail. Through twists and turns through historical events and eras, encounters with French soldiers, Black Knights, and strange bridge keepers - among others - the knights religiously keep true to their quest for the grail.

The movie was put together on the smallest of budgets - £229,000, a little more than $100,000 at the time. The result was the inevitable creative use of resources - coconuts instead of horses, less than optimum choices for location, for starters.

My favorite quote comes from Dennis, the peasant in response to Arthur telling him how he became king, "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony." I love that line so much, I referenced it in the title of a piece I did following the NBA draft.