Satire
Noah’s Barks pages relating to the satire genre. The parody genre is distinct from satire by its tone. Parodies have affection for their subject, while satires are intended as a critique of their subject.
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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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Scream
Wes Craven’s 1996 seminal satirical slasher stunningly surpasses swathes of shallow, shlocky ‘Scream’ siblings. (read more)
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RoboCop
I don’t believe in perfection in art. The only point in attempting it is to just raise the standards for perfection even higher. But if you forced me to pick some movies I think come close to perfection, RoboCop would be near top of the list. The fact that this movie tries so many things… (read more)
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Repo Man (1984)
1984 seemed a bit early for a retro ’70s movie, but only the post-punks with their newfound cynical self-awareness could influence one of the most hilarious comedies of the ’80s. A neon-green radioactive ooze pervades and perverts Repo Man into absurdity beyond definition, because every character is too stupid to bother to define it. This… (read more)
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Big Trouble in Little China
Anyone else sick of the nerd brigade wanting to believe a ridiculous action movie couldn’t be better crafted than any third-rate drama? Big Trouble in Little China is a riot; a stupid movie that’s brilliantly directed. Notice how the opening scene plays up American Kurt Russell as a hero while he’s shown to be more… (read more)
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They Live
The capitalist invaders in They Live aren’t exactly subtle, but they sure are funny. Camp even by John Carpenter standards, They Live is more for the converted: some great action, and even more comedic trope-poking than usual. Carpenter has made more fun movies however, mostly due to the sizable stretches of They Live where Roddy… (read more)
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The Double
The blatant humor is at first concerning but soon after not at all distracting due to the central perspective being that of a hopeless cynic who thinks the world’s out to get him. Of course, it’s actually just him. Besides being funny, The Double makes its old themes poignant by the rest of its sheer… (read more)
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Cul-de-sac
Polanski viewed the seminal Repulsion as a stepping stone to this forgotten, bizarre black comedy he intended to be a hit. For all its quirky and amusing antics and characters, Cul-de-sac bears the distinctive mark of a Polanski film in that he psychologically traps his characters and invites us to observe how they respond. There… (read more)
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Trainspotting
Comes a little too close to glorifying drug-induced hedonism, but Trainspotting saves itself eventually when it reveals its true, satirical nature. Leans a bit too much on playful comedy and not enough on drama for me, but anyone who knows or has known people in real life that are like the characters in this movie… (read more)
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The Hudsucker Proxy
The only reason I can think of why The Hudsucker Proxy isn’t seen as one of the better films from the Coens is because its spitfire dialogue is so fast and witty that it’s easy to miss a ton of the humor. Yeah, this is funnier than Fargo, and the set and color design is… (read more)