| By Fred Topel
In Theaters November 3
|
You don’t normally think of documentaries as laugh riots. Usually they’re trying to teach you some lesson, and they’re all serious about their grave subjects. But sometimes, they make documentaries about funny stuff, or even use humor to make serious points. Like the real life adventures of Borat, here are 10 of the funniest documentaries out there.
10. An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore is a funny guy. His little animations are cute and he has a perfect deadpan. It’s almost like the environmental crisis is the next American Pie sequel.
9. Block Party - The focus of Dave Chappelle’s documentary was music, but in between each act, he was himself, which means he was hilarious. Spanish Li’l John sticks out in my mind, a much needed reference to his sketch show character now that the show is no more.
8. The Tom Green Cancer Special - I never got to see Tom Green’s opus on his own testicular operation, but just the idea of making that special is awesome. I’m told it lives up to its promise.
7. 20 Dates – Some of this movie is fake, staged scenes performed from a script. But some of the dates are real and the very idea of Myles Berkowitz’s journey in independent filmmaking is hilarious.
6. Bowling for Columbine – While far more emotional than Michael Moore’s previous work, there were still plenty of laughs as he perpetrated outrageous stunts (getting a free gun from a bank!) and trapped people into their own stupidity.
5. Borat - There’s a little bit of fake footage in here too, to make the film flow narratively, but you can tell all of those encounters with the general public are the same real bits he did on the show. It’s pretty outrageous and brilliant.
4. The Aristocrats - One joke, 100 different ways, getting funnier and funnier the dirtier it gets. I still don’t think the base joke is funny, but hearing these guys embellish it kind of makes fun of the ridiculous premise and just shows what diverse geniuses they are.
3. An Evening with Kevin Smith - Very little in life is funnier than hearing Kevin Smith address a crowd. He may have some stories prepared, but he tells them so naturally and improvises with the audience, slipping in self-deprecating and bitingly dirty remarks in there.
2. Jackass: Number Two - It’s hard to imagine a stunt movie where every single stunt is hilarious. There’s not a bomb in the bunch, and it’s actually a well made film editorially and performance-wise. But just the creativity of these stunts is awesome.
1. The Big One - Well, this is the movie that changed my life, so it has a special place in my heart. Michael Moore’s second documentary about corporate downsizing shows what real families are going through in this country, yet each encounter with a company has a satirically biting stunt, and everything he exposes is as hilarious as it is depressing. |
