From
MoviesToConsider
Here's a list of movies that tickle programmers, with their (programmerly) commentary on them):
Laugh 'Til You Pee in Someone Else's Pants:
- Airplane! - routinely tops "funniest movie of all times" lists, and routinely places in "best movies of all times" lists. It will ruin the entire gritty self-important melodramatic 1970s big-star disaster flick genre for you. "You can let yourself out the back. There's juice in the fridge."
- {Both the good gags and the bad ones will stick in your mind forever.
- God of Cookery - Steven Chow's mind boggling Hong Kong style Iron Chef.
- Fierce Creatures - John Cleese (et al from A Fish called Wanda). In order to make a profit a (former) petting zoo must house only fierce creatures. Excellent British-like humor.
- ThePrincessBride
- The Adventures Of BuckarooBanzai Across The Eighth Dimension it works because logic
- btw "don't pull on that u have no idea what it connects to" is within the realms of reasonable internal anatomical variations ...
- AustinPowers (oh behave!)
- DrStrangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- OurManFlint
- UHF (WeirdAl's movie)
- MysteryMen is fun -- and just as you would expect
- Martha meet Frank, Daniel, Lawrence - An excellent British comedy with a neatly twisted plot.
- ThisIsSpinalTap - the original fake Rockumentary. More quotable than any MontyPython movie, and more cameos than I can remember.
- SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut - brilliant. The BillGates scene alone is worth the price of admission, but any movie that makes you root for Satan has got it on the ball.
- MontyPythonAndTheQuestForTheHolyGrail - The opening credits, alone, are funnier than most comedies. This movie is most insightful silliness.
- BringingOutTheDead (also Gripping and Moving)
- Darkstar First feature by JohnCarpenter. Definitive SF parody. "congratulations, you have chosen to clean the lift. Please stand clear of the explosive bolts."
- WagTheDog Political satire with Robert Di Niro and Dustin Hoffman
- Scary Movie
- Raising Arizona an early Coen Brothers film. Wacky funny, but pales in comparison with The Big Lebowski
- The Big Lebowski a hilarious bowling film by the Coen Brothers. Every time you think you know where it's going, it heads in another direction completely.
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen Brothers take on a jail break. Very funny and a great soundtrack.
- The Pink Panther Strikes Again (uneven, but the "questioning of the estate staff" scene is rather hilarious and perhaps worth the price of admission, alone; many other amusing scenes, just a little more tiredly acted than the former) http://www.rabbitw.com/wavs/panther/clous004.wav
- Dogma (Don't miss the cameo by Betty Aberlin of MisterRogersNeighborhood!)
- ClerksMovie (anything by Kevin Smith except Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Goddammit, that was terrible.)
- TheGodsMustBeCrazy Starts off with very dry humour, but had me rolling in the aisles later. Some (Bill Cosby) thought it was racist, but that's pretty narrow-minded.
- Mad adventures of Rabbi Jacob Slapstick
- Dumb & Dumber?
- The American Astronaut B&W, very absurd.
Religious:
For Adults Of All Ages:
- The Iron Giant <-- a brilliant lampoon of the ColdWar hardware fetish (trivia bit: based on 'TheIronMan', a book by Ted Hughes, who was British Poet Laureate and Sylvia Plath's husband.)
Wait for Cable:
- Charlie's Angels A helplessly camp big-screen adaptation of that popular TV show, The Power Puff Girls.
- I disagree - this is a wonderfully funny, while campy (sor of like StarWars, or maybe SpaceBalls in that, eh?) movie definitely worth renting.
Don't Listen to the Critics:
- Chasing Papi this poorly-named tidbit was widely panned as a bad sitcom full of latina stereotypes, like watching Telemundo or Univision. I find those comedies insipid and I found this a delightful antidote. It sets up all the typical tired "cat-fighting over a hunk" themes and twists them to attempt to show character development. "Attempts" being the operative word, but the ensemble acting (yes, real ensemble acting & not clever editing) and the minor pratfalls between the major attempts are a scream. During a moment of reflection on one woman's life story we see an insert of another woman listening intently. But her toy dog picks that moment for an enormous yawn.
- What's Up Doc? Screwball comedy and great UFH Saturday-afternoon movie fair. Yes, the gays like it too, because it has a young nubile 30-yo Barbra Streisand stealing every scene, one by one. And who's under the tarp on the piano?
Cult Classic:
See It On Video:
- Dune [DuneTheMovie] (best if you read and liked the books)
- There's Something About Mary