COMEDY FILMS MORE ENTERTAINING THAN FUNNY

1) MODERN PROBLEMS (CHEVY CHASE)

A lot of times, those particular comedy films that don’t provide constant sidesplitting/laugh out loud moments are just what the doctor ordered…  Sometimes side-splitting hurts, and isn't very fun or funny... So, during particularly lonesome afternoons or pallid sleepless nights, you just want a movie with a humorous baseline that doesn’t make you have to react in any particular way i.e. motion pictures that aren’t that funny but still entertain… So let’s begin with:

Chevy Chase is a loves-truck air-traffic controller who, after getting nuclear waste spilled on himself, gains powers to manipulate elements and human beings, and not in that order… Relying on physical gags and special effects, Chase wields his usual butter finger schtick but lacks the glib humor that worked in CADDYSHACK and FLETCH.. Yet it's still fun seeing the tables turning for our likable underdog...

2) CLUB PARADISE (ROBIN WILLIAMS, PETER O'TOOLE)

The promo picture of musical Jimmy Cliff, comedic Robin Williams and dramatic Peter O'Toole is proof this is a unique film, at least in the casting… Robin Williams is a retired fireman turning a shabby tropics hotel into a "resort"… Not many laughs but it's a nicely developed story, especially when the hotel fills up with guest-stars, all misled into paradise whilst experiencing hellish conditions...

3) SPIES LIKE US (CHEVY CHASE, DAN AYKROYD)

The first John Landis comedy that wasn’t hilarious, this homage to the Hope/Crosby ROAD TO flicks has Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd as expendable government agents sent into the Middle East and ultimately Cold War Russia… Although it’s hard to tell which is the straight man and who’s supposed to be the nitwit, SPIES is an entertaining adventure as they go from one dire situation to the next...

4) GUNG HO (MICHAEL KEATON)

In this underrated Ron Howard venture, Michael Keaton plays a small town big talker who manages to get a Japanese company to buy out a dying car factory in his home town... Havoc ensues as the American and Japanese workers square off… It's great seeing Keaton with his back against the wall, fighting with his wily charm to make everything, and everybody, work despite the constant odds...

5) VIBES (JEFF GOLDBLUM, CYNDI LAUPER)

Pop icon Cyndi Lauper is damn cute, and watching her traipse around New York and South America with Jeff Goldbum (along with Peter Falk as a fortune seeking con man) is decent lightweight time-filler viewing, that is, if you just wanna have fun…

6) PATERNITY (BURT REYNOLDS)

The tagline/poster, with Burt Reynolds looking like Uncle Sam, pointing forward with the words HE WANTS YOU TO HAVE HIS BABY, is the funniest thing about this filler rom-com during the mustache star’s box office peak… Burt is relaxing, charming and cool, as usual... And the lovely Beverly D'Angelo makes a worthy love interest...

7) FOR LOVE OR MONEY (MICHAEL J. FOX)

This revamp of THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS is a much more laidback outing where the laughs might be fewer but the unrequited love story between Michael J. Fox, as a hotel concierge, and a gorgeous yet down-to-earth perfume sales girl is a lot deeper and more realistic than SUCCESS and with intriguing results for our kindhearted, dealmaking hero, pulling favors and odd jobs for the rich guy the dream girl he loves, loves…

8) TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT (ROBERT HAYS, ART CARNEY)

Known mostly for the singalong country theme song, this is a decent working class comedy starring Robert Hays as a corporate clone returning to his roots where a big beer company buys out the factory employing his pals (including David Keith and Tim Thomerson)… Hays learns that no matter how expensive the suit, his heart's still made of gold: the frothy kind...

9) STRAIGHT TALK (DOLLY PARTON, JAMES WOODS)

Before Dolly Parton vanished from the film scene, she was still cute and energetic in this underdog comedy about a hick town dance instructor who winds up a popular radio shrink/doctor, falling in love with a reporter out to expose her real identity… Completely banal and predictable but one helluva guilty pleasure...

10) 1941 (JOHN BELUSHI, DAN AYKROYD, ROBERT STACK)

After JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, Steven Spielberg, still a young man, was doomed to fail with this big budget everything-goes World War II extravaganza that mixes so many elements the projector gets indigestion… But John Belushi as a crazy pilot in the air, and Dan Aykroyd as a crazy Sergeant on the ground, are both fun to watch along with an all-star cast, running around like headless chickens... Yet it's great to see them under the camera-wielding FX-driven direction of a master filmmaker who, despite playing too many cards, still pulls off an amazing visual spectacle...

Spielberg seems to be going for a wacky Apocalypse Now sequence... The Do Lung Bridge Carnival destroyed, again...

One of the coolest fonts neon green for Modern Problems which is as you know...

The CITIZEN KANE of Comedy Films More Entertaining Than Funny... VOLUME ONE... Stay Tuned....

 "Take a woman like your kind... To find the man in me..." Did Modern Problems inspire The Big Lebowski?

Here's an example of two straight men/two wacky guys rolled into two tall straight-goofy SPIES LIKE US stars