I’m sure today will be full of commentary about last night’s Academy Awards show. Though I’m not nearly qualified to comment on dresses worn by the actresses, I will ask this one question that many in the comedy community asked previously…why doesn’t the Academy recognize funny? They recognize all other achievements in film, drama, foreign, animated, and shorts. But why is it that when it comes to comedy time and time again people aren’t rewarded for their humorous moments in film?
It’s not that comedy is “easy” per say, when a funny movie turns out to not be, well its painful. In fact, I would make the argument that comedy is the toughest type of movie to make because so much rides on it just being funny. Take a movie like Avatar or Tron 2 for example…many critics used phrases like visually stunning to describe these films, even if they weren’t thrilled with the story or plot, they somehow managed to make the film still appealing. What do critics do when a movie isn’t funny? Most of the time, the only things a comedy has going for it is the funny, so a lot is riding on the actors to make it work. We all know when it does, and we all know (unfortunately) when it doesn’t. Read the rest of this entry