comment #1

Eloi Manning says ...

No offence, but are you feeling down at the moment? Yesterday's thing about happiness being an overrated part of life, and now today saying that people who laugh loudly are going to hell.

comment #2

Sabina E says ...

I guess I'm going to Hell

comment #3

Sean says ...

"Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to." -- George Saunders

comment #4

Michael says ...

Will someone tell the Coen brothers to stop making me laugh out loud?

comment #5

BadHatHarry says ...

Here's another example of Jeff accidentally revealing the snotty, elitist contents of his soul. Jesus Jeff, really? Ever hear Terry Gilliam laugh? Or Cleese? Get over yourself already. And Dougherty was probably being ironic anyway.

comment #6

QualityGibberish says ...

Generally, people who try to explain why things are funny have no sense of humor.

comment #7

Floyd Thursby says ...

"the humor being delivered is sharp and scabrous and knowing (as in The Wedding Crashers)."

Please tell me this is a typo? I don't expect anyone to share my sense of humor or any of my tastes, but this movie is hit-and-miss at best.

Speaking of hit-and-miss, anyone else noticed Wells has dropped mezzo-mezzo?

comment #8

Ryansi51 says ...

Jeff knows his movies, but one thing i would never take too much stock in is his sense of what's actually funny.

comment #9

BaxterPeanut says ...

I rarely have laugh out loud moments but a lot depends on your mood. If you're watching a movie or TV show and the expectation is that it's 'supposed' to be funny, then the joke or scenario has to work harder for the laugh and many times falls flat because the target (audience) is geared up and somewhat prepared for the payoff. Some get it right immediately with a big laugh though, say in the vein of a Monty Python sketch/routine vs. the more subtle humor of an "Extras" scene or the british "Office" humor of a Ricky Gervais style of 'witty', 'clever' comedy. That's one of the endearing things about the US "Office" which seems to blend both types of the outrageous and subtle so well.

Now that I've previewed, what a strange comment...

comment #10

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to BadHat Harry: O'Donoghue, Dougherty...what's the difference? All Micks are more or less the same anyway, right?

The rant wasn't about laughing, per se. It was about people who (a) laugh enthusiastically at relatively dumb or simplistic things (i.e., Eloi humor) and (b) laugh too loudly, particularly in bars (and respecially ones that I happen to be sitting in at the time). Groups of four of five are the worst. I don't want to stick my neck out, but one or two others may have complained about this before. There's a line in Randy Newman's "Good Old Boys" about rednecks who "drink too much and laugh too loud." Loud braying/cackling humor over drinks is a universal sign of a cheeseburger-and-onions sports-bar sensibility.

comment #11

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Like a lot of supposed pseudo intellectuals, I suspect Jeff (especially with that New England background of his) has problems with the naked emotional release of laughing or crying out loud.

Me, I love to get caught off guard and find myself genuinely laughing out loud. There was an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (when they opened the restaurant with the Tourette's afflicted chef) that literally had me fall off the couch I was guffawing so hard. My wife to this day thinks I was on something.

comment #12

Michael says ...

@Deathtongue

For me, there have been two episodes of television that have left me ruined: 'The Gang Gets Invincible' from IASIP, with the McPoyle/acid in beer/intro of Greenman, and the Curb episode where Larry takes in the Blacks (inappropriate cake from Funkhauser). I've never laughed harder.

comment #13

Glenn Kenny says ...

Michael O'Donaghue had somewhat bigger fish to fry than "Eloi" who annoyed him in bars. What he meant was that making people laugh wasn't enough: That comedy should have some edge, a didactic function maybe, or at least the intention of disturbing the status quo. But if Jeff wants to enlist the guy in his own personal campaign against the human race, that's his privilege. It isn't as if O'Donaghue wasn't a champion misanthrope himself.

comment #14

Tom Brazelton says ...

Wells' War on Happiness continues...

I understand being annoyed by people being obnoxious in a social setting. But, like anything else, it's about context. To make a blanket statement like "the hottest corners of hell are reserved for people who laugh too loudly" tells me you must be a pretty miserable person or maybe going through some cycle of depression.

Makes me think about that line from The Matrix where Agent Smith says he believes human beings define reality through suffering and misery.

comment #15

Josh Massey says ...

Michael: "I think he took a dump in there." That line, and when DeVito pulls out the gun - yeah, easily the funniest episode of that show, and one of my favorites of all-time.

comment #16

SomeCallMeTim says ...

I believe Mel Brooks said that he was always shooting for moments where you would laugh so hard you might pee in your pants.

Just this weekend while watching UP with my boys, I had to take the 5 year old to the bathroom after the bird ate the balloon and it popped in his throat. Had to make sure his bladder was empty before we watched it five more times in a row.

There's a difference between genuine,uncontrollable laughter and laughter that is forced. If it's genuine, like it was during UP, there is no better sound in the world.

comment #17

Eloi Manning says ...

The LQTM comedy that Wells describes is often the preserve of pompous douchebags. I remember seeing Synecdoche, NY, and several beret-wearing twats chuckling to themselves at extremely unfunny moments, just so the fellow douches in the audience could register that they'd got the joke because of how clever they are. It's like music enthusiasts who sneer at obvious melodies and hooks because it's too accessible, and prefer their music to be lofty and difficult in order to demonstrate their own superiority.

comment #18

George Prager says ...

Sounds like some people didn't get the joke. And there is nothing more pseudo-intellectual than someone calling someone pseudo-intellectual. And were they really wearing berets, Eloi?

I know what O'Donoghue is talking about. "Funny" isn't funny. I went to see BEST IN SHOW with my girlfriend. I didn't laugh once. At MIGHTY WIND, I was a poker face. I have laughed at KING OF QUEENS episodes. The comedy of recognition is funny. Bob Balaban saying that he had to wear a helmet when he played chess as a kid is funny on paper, but not really that funny. When Woody Allen's sister tells him that her blind date went to the bathroom on her, I laughed. "When it bends, it's funny, when it breaks it's not funny." THE NAKED GUN move was just a series of scenes of things breaking. Not funny. Weird Al's UHF is pretty darn funny. REPO MAN is funny. WITHNAIL AND I is funny.

comment #19

ElstonGunnAICN says ...

Hmmm. Maybe it's not better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.

comment #20

YRG says ...

@Deathtongue-- I guess it's a difference in sensibility that determines what you find funny, as I didn't find the Tourette's chef laugh-out-loud funny, but the episode where Larry's father tells him his mother is dead or the episode where Larry hears the audio of a porno in the lobby of his father's nursing home, and walks into his father's room to find it blasting from the TV, those had me on the floor. IASIP's Dennis and Dee's Mom is Dead, when the guys use a suggestive flyer to entice men to their upcoming party and The Gang Gets Taken Hostage brought the belly laughs as well. Also, any scene in Extras with Stephan Merchant is funny.

comment #21

Gordon27 says ...

"and that LQTM humor -- i.e., laughing quietly to myself, Wes Anderson-type humor -- is a far richer vein. "

That's certainly not what Michael O'Donoghue was talking about. I have very little doubt that Mister Mike would hate Wes Anderson. His whole thing was about using humor to make people uncomfortable, hopefully (in the end) making them think as well (but I'm not really sure that was a requirement of the form). He was most definitely not saying that being funny but not making you laugh out loud is enough.

comment #22

lipranzer says ...

Coincidentally, we were playing THE MONEY PIT at the store today, which is where Tom Hanks does that really long, loud laugh when his bathtub falls to the floor.

Loud laughing never bothered me. Loud talking, on the other hand...

comment #23

MartinBlank says ...

Del Close once said something to the effect that comedy is when two incongruous ideas combine to produce a third, new idea that shocks people into fresh awareness and therefore laughter, or at least the good kind of cerebral laughter that O'Donoghue was most likely talking about. Classic O'Donoghue example: the Vietnam war + a Baby's First Whatever book = the infamous NatLamp piece "The Vietnamese Baby Book," with such entries as "Baby's First Shrapnel."

(Oddly, Close and O'Donoghue never worked together, though Close said they got on famously.)

comment #24

Phatang! says ...

I'm the type that generally prefers the LQTM movies. But I wouldn't trade any of them for early Woody Allen. There's are no films that have enriched my life more than those. Pure joy.

comment #25

mtgilchrist says ...

seriously, phatang! the shot of allen's face when he comes out of the orgasmatron in sleeper made me lose my shit. and while there are certainly different types of humor and different ways to laugh about and at things, it smacks of elitism to assign any sort of moral or intellectual value to one over another. for example, there are a lot of people who laugh "at" how pathetic they think napoleon dynamite is as a character, but the point of the humor in that film is, exactly as you suggest, jeff, a degree of self-recognition in terms of wanting or going after something that eludes you, or being picked on, or whatever else - in other words, laughing with the film. (and i'm not defending the film necessarily, but it's as good an example as any.) jackass is often as base as humor gets - in part two, one of the best comedies of the last two decades, guys get hit in the face, one after another, by a steam-loaded boxing glove, and that's one of the tamest gags - but there are few things more satisfying than embracing the utter stupidity of what those guys are doing to themselves and laughing your balls off. being happy or enjoying something isn't a sign of mental weakness, but arguing that other people are stupid just because they don't appreciate something the way you do is a sure sign of insecurity. i mean, who cares if people think a fart or a dumb joke is funny if you don't?

incidentally, in your description of humor above, when you say it's "self-directed and self-reflective," who are you referring to? the teller of the joke or director of the movie? or the recipient who hears it? i'm not sure who or what you mean by that.

comment #26

Gaydos says ...

Michael O'Donaghue vs Preston Sturges, who argued for the redemptive power of laughter in one brilliant scene in "Sullivan's Travels." You see the downtrodden, impoverished hopeless men in a labor camp laughing their asses off at film bufoonery and Sullivan discovers that making comedies that reach the human spirit and elicit laughter isn't a calling to be dismissed.

And that's not easy to say with false teeth.

I'm with Sturges on this one.

Also, somehow I can't picture Wells in a pair of tasseled loafers and a monogrammed shirt and suit one size too small quietly chirping a tightly suppressed Andersonesque mirthbubble from his pinched lips.

Even Jane Birkin says the key to staying beautiful is "laughing out loud every day."

I'm chortling snot out my nose as I write this, but I'm still not as beautiful as Ms. Birkin.

But I can try.

comment #27

BadHatHarry says ...

@ Wells
Just saw a Michael Dougherty exhibit, so had a brain cross -- my apologies to my fellow micks everywhere.

The rest of your reply only confirmed my point about the snottiness and elitism of your comment. Really, why do you hate "common" people so much? Rude and obnoxious is one thing, railing about laughter is just humbuggery.

Tangentially, why is it that the most vociferous defenders of "free" public health care policy tend to be misanthropes, I wonder?

comment #28

BurmaShave says ...

Wells, you have my undying affection for sighting Good Old Boys. I'm glad that's at the center of your ethos.

"College boys from LSU. Went in dumb, came out dumb too."

comment #29

BurmaShave says ...

Also ITS ALWAyS SUNNy IN PHILADELPHIA is one of the only laugh out loud things around right now. Slays me consistently. Pepe Silvia Pepe Silvia!