Comedy
Noah’s Barks pages relating to the comedy genre, which concerns things that are funny or things that seemingly attempt to be funny.
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The Stanley Parable
What can ‘The Stanley Parable’ teach us about the narrative constraints of video games? That is, if it has anything at all to teach. (read more)
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The Boss of It All
In the overabundance of bureaucratic comedies, Lars von Trier‘s The Boss of It All is predictably irreverent in its predictability. Audience winking and editing ill-suited to this dry humor sabotage a solid premise for an ignoble, possibly pretentious meta goal. It’s more “clever” than funny, but is it really? The satire being as bland as… (read more)
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House
AKA: Hausu House is so fun and unique that I’m almost surprised it hasn’t found major mainstream popularity. I never would’ve heard of it if not for the internet. For how zany and psychedelic the entire experience is, I found parts of it exhausting. It gets better about that as it goes, but the parodying… (read more)
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Scream
Wes Craven’s 1996 seminal satirical slasher stunningly surpasses swathes of shallow, shlocky ‘Scream’ siblings. (read more)
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Young Frankenstein
Oh, no! Young Frankenstein is perfectly good with nothing easy for me to pick on. All I can give this one is that it was a movie almost completely focused on laughs, and I’ve laughed harder. Gene Wilder is phenomenal, yet Peter Boyle almost steals the show. It’s a waste he practically disappears from the… (read more)
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Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Noteworthy for being one of Mamoru Oshii’s first directorial outings, ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ has the classic ‘Urusei Yatsura’ cast trapped in a world of dreams. However, it spends far too much time in reality when it should be dreaming. (read more)
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Hells
‘Hells’ is a Madhouse comedy movie with horror aesthetics going for a larger-than-afterlife feel that’s not unlike the works of Studio Trigger. (read more)
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Geeks’ Video
Studio Gainax’s ‘Geeks’ Video,’ AKA ‘Otaku no Video’ is a self-deprecating mockumentary, and a humorous "exposé" on Japanese subcultures. (read more)
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She and Her Cat: Their Standing Points
‘She and Her Cat’ is a four-minute comedy OVA starring a cat narrating his daily life and relationship with his owner. Mrrrow. (read more)
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Animation Store Manager
Hideaki Anno directed this commercial for Animate, a major media retailer in Japan. Heavily stylized, it’s a progenitor to latter-era Gainax and Studio Trigger’s style. (read more)