I tried to write this yesterday but the whole piece got deleted. I spent several paragraphs waxing philosophic about my love for film comedy before listing my 13 favorite funny movies of the decade. Then, just before it was to be published, I hit something I wasn't supposed to on the keyboard and wiped out all my work. That is a sequence that could come straight from a Hollywood comedy. My reaction to it could also be the stuff of pictures, but it could only be included in an R-rated feature. I don't feel well and I want to get this post done, so I'm just going to list the movies that I thought were funniest during the 2010s.
HONORABLE MENTION: The Other Guys, Easy A, Hot Tub Time Machine, Goon, Pitch Perfect, Seven Psychopaths, Silver Linings Playbook, This Is The End, We're The Millers, At World's End, The Heat, Neighbors, The Lego Movie, Spy, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Trainwreck, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call, Girls Trip, Logan Lucky, The Big Sick, The Disaster Artist, Blockers, Longshot, Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4, Hobbs & Shaw, and Dolemite Is My Name.
THE 13 FUNNIEST MOVIE OF THE 2010s:
13. Booksmart (2019)
Every generation has their coming-of-age movie and Booksmart is the one for the current gang. Snarky with heart and features two outstanding lead performances from Kaitlyn Deever and Beanie Feldstein as two overachieving high school seniors looking to have one big blowout night on the eve of their commencement. Raunchy mayhem ensues.
12. Horrible Bosses (2011)
Three guys (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis, and Charlie Day) have had enough of their abusive and exploitive bosses, so they do what anyone would do in their shoes: hire someone to coach them on how to murder those bosses. Unapologetic slapstick.
11. Game Night (2018)
Watch it because it will make you laugh, but also because the plot is ingenuous. A group of friends gather for game night and end up in a wild night of mystery and intrigue. You think you know how it's going to end, but you don't. A scene involving a Faberge egg is brilliantly staged farce. Plus, Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are dynamite comedy team.
10. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Each movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels like its own unique sub-genre. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a '70s espionage film. Ant-Man is a heist caper. Guardians of the Galaxy is a space opera. Thor: Ragnarok is a Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road" picture featuring Thor and The Hulk. Some groused that this movie was too silly, but I found it a delight from beginning to end.
9. Good Boys (2019)
Kind of a Superbad for those awkward middle school/junior high years. Three sixth grade boys decide they need to grow up and learn about the world before they attend their first kissing party. Raunchy and sweet, Good Boys captures that time in life perfectly. Also, it has not one, but two genuinely hilarious sight gags.
8. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
This is my favorite MCU picture. Goofy to the bone, Guardians of the Galaxy is much more in line with how I like my sci-fi. Don't get me wrong. I like hard sci-fi just as much as the next guy, but Guardians of the Galaxy delivers laughs and adventure.
7. Keanu (2016)
After the end of the brilliant sketch show Key & Peele but before the remarkable vision of Get Out, Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele dropped this spoof of Liam Neeson action pictures. The pair play buddies bent on rescuing Peele's baby kitten Keanu from a drug lord. It's sharp and witty and shows off the comedic skills of both performers. Watching them morph between different types of characters - sometimes within the same scene - brought to mind Eddie Murphy.
6. Deadpool (2016) and Deadpool 2 (2018)
Ryan Reynolds was born to the play the smart-ass, fourth-wall breaking "merc with a mouth." His screen persona fits seamlessly into this bizarre world of a vigilante assassin who knows he's in a comic book picture. Profane and snarky and loaded with one-liners. I'm including the sequel with this entry because it is equally funny and includes one of the absolute funniest cameos since Bill Murray in Zombieland.
5. The Nice Guys (2016)
This was originally intended as a pilot for HBO and all I could think about while watching it was "what might have been." I would gleefully tune in every week to watch enforcer-for-hire Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and worst detective in the world Holland March (Ryan Gosling) help out a new client. Gosling's physical comedy is a revelation that fits perfectly with Crowe's deadpan straight man routine. This one is pure gold and I want my sequel.
4. Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (2010)
A common slasher movie trope is the group of college kids partying in the woods who end up hunted by murderous rednecks or hillbillies or inbreds. Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil inverts this by giving us two rednecks (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine, both hilarious) as a couple of good ol' boys whose casual weekend in their cabin is upended by college students who believe the pair wants to murder them. The gore is Grand-Guignol filtered through the lens of Chuck Jones animated short. Cabin In The Woods may have expertly deconstructed the horror movie in its own brilliant way in 2012, but Tucker and Dale did it first and funnier. The woodchipper scene alone made me almost wet my pants.
3. Bridesmaids (2011)
A hilarious and heartfelt look at female friendships, Bridesmaids is a chick flick married with a rauncy Judd Apatow buddy comedy. The script by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo is insightful and nuanced and the performances of the ladies are top notch. Wiig especially shines in two scenes of physical comedy that would make Lucille Ball proud. At its core, though, is the relationships between the characters. All of the comedy is born from the tension and unease of planning your best friend's wedding.
2. 21 Jump Street (2014) & 22 Jump Street (2016)
21 Jump Street blindsided me. The meta humor and self-aware jokes about reboots and remakes sucked me in right away, but it was the chemistry between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as cops who go undercover at a high school that ultimately made it and its equally masterful sequel comedic nirvana for me. They riff like an old-school comedy team who have been working together for years.
1. What We Do In The Shadows (2014)
Interview With A Vampire meets MTV's The Real World in this mockumentary from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (who would go on to make Thor: Ragnarok). We follow a group of vampire flatmates around the city and get a look at their daily (nightly) lives. The humor ranges from dry and subtle to outrageous and farcical. The opening scene depicts a hilarious house meeting that delivers big laughs and never lets up from there. When people ask me to recommend to them a comedy they probably haven't seen, this is one the one I point them toward.
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