Why do some film comedies hold up for decades while others seem tied to a very specific point in time?
“Every generation defines what is funny for itself,” Piers Marchant writes in an essay that appears in Friday’s Style section. “And there’s an excellent chance what it chooses will be the antithesis of what its parents enjoyed in their youths.” But some things — like Animal House and Monty Python — are objectively funny, right? Right?
This Friday will also see a few movies drifting into Arkansas theaters, the most promising of which may be the serious, faith-driven Paul, Apostle of Christ, which lacks the “pietistic Sunday-school pageantry” that mars so many movies of the genre. There’s the robot monster sequel, Pacific Rim Uprising, of which the only thing you may need to know is that recent Oscar winner Guillermo Del Toro (who directed the original film) had only minimal input into this one (he’s listed as one of 14 producers) and Steven Soderbergh’s first venture ever into the horror genre Unsane.
(And there’s also the teen romance Midnight Sun that wasn’t screened in time for our deadlines.) And Karen Martin checks in with her weekly Home Movies column.
All in Friday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.