Kingpin (The Farrelly Brothers, 1996)

This week, The Vulgar Cinema is focusing on the work of the Farrelly brothers, some of the finest comic filmmakers of the last 20 years. I'm first up with a post on one of my favorite broad (but deceptively smart) comedies, Kingpin. I've seen the film a half dozen times and laugh at every gag every time, but I also gain more and more appreciation for its solid visual craft, which backs up grotesque sight jokes with exceptional timing and blocking that at times has the touch of a well-assembled silent. I also find more and more to love about the subtext hidden in plain sight, which uses the broader joke of bowling being the central sport to dig into how we as a society place a value on sports achievement for the stardom it provides. Bowling is merely a quick path to riches in this film, but the joke is less funny when one swaps the game back to "baseball" or "basketball." Dumb and Dumber was funny but surface-level, but Kingpin points to how deep the Farrellys could go when they pleased, laying the groundwork for There's Something About Mary and The Heartbreak Kid. But Kingpin remains my favorite.

Fuller thoughts can be found at The Vulgar Cinema.

The Heartbreak Kid (1972) vs. The HeartbreakKid (2007)

Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid is such an overwhelmingly black comedy that I cannot think of another movie to even approach its level of discomfort until Scorsese made The King of Comedy a full decade later. Charles Grodin has never been better nor more excruciating, and May's improv-based style allows the situation to grow even more unsettling as characters morph into human beings that break away from the limiting perspective of Grodin's obliviously manipulative protagonist. It is one of the best comedies of all time.

But so, to my surprise, is the Farrelly brothers' remake of the film, which trades the complex character interactions of the original for their trademark gross-out humor. There's Something About Mary contained an unexpected critique of misogyny, and The Heartbreak Kid takes it even further. Ben Stiller turns his usual bumbling but "lovable" character on its head, making him out to be a monster who uses women without remorse in pursuit of his own stunted ideas of self-fulfillment. Grodin's Lenny got married just to get laid, but Eddie gets married to prevent his lover from going off to pursue her own dreams. If the comedy of the film is lighter, the tone is no less savage.

My full comparison of the two films is up now at Spectrum Culture.