When I was fifteen years old, the world was my enemy. And why shouldn’t it have been? It was 1996. Up until that point, the world had done its best to drag me, sometimes screaming, through metaphorical gutters of the worst kinds of waste. At that young age I had already been half-starved, covered in lice and fleas, abused in the worst kinds of ways. I was a victim, but also a survivor. The constant battling only made me harder, scooped out the soft spots in large chunks so what I was left with was a veritable chitinous exoskeleton, impervious to the outside world.
As a result, when I moved to the middle-class neighborhood in New Hampshire, filled with anxious folks living in high-end mobile homes and manicured lawns – I found myself hanging for a while with the wrong crowd. Both as a response to their reactions toward me, and also as a defense mechanism. I mean, hey – if they teased me about being poor and dirty, why not throw in some good-for-nothing friends, too? I didn’t want to give in to them, to let them have the satisfaction of pushing me toward what they thought was right and “normal”. I only wanted to make them hate me more. I’m stubborn that way.
And so I became a drug runner. It was sort of an accident, at first, but in the end it was something I chose to do on my own terms. Dana was the only black guy in our neighborhood, and probably the nicest guy I knew. But he found himself in the drug-running trade, and somehow even though I listened to White Zombie and he listened to 2Pac, we connected over music. He heard me singing the lyrics to “Real Solution #9” one afternoon on the train tracks when we were walking through a patch of woods we called “Hobo Jungle” and in his laid-back way he told me that it sounded like rap, or that it could be rapped in the right hands, like Tupak Shakur’s. He made me listen to “California Love” on his walkman. At the time, I hated anything that wasn’t alternative music or heavy metal. So I politely listened, but it didn’t gel with me until years later.
Dana invited me to run with him one day while we were walking to the school. He made jokes about being a black guy in a white neighborhood. He spoke in an exaggerated “white guy” voice as if he were on the other end of a Police CB radio.
“Please be on the lookout for a black man walking with a skinny white male. Fire on sight.”
I laughed, and took swigs from my cold can of Surge.
When he asked me if I wanted to run with him, he didn’t outright ask. He just said “Hey, man. Let’s go.” He started running. I tightened my backpack straps and started running with him. We went to the other end of the trailer park, to one of the run down homes where the undesirables hung out and hurt each other with kitchen implements when they were drunk or high. When we got there, he introduced me as “Joe Cool”. I had never had anyone call me “cool” before in my entire life, so I just sort of stood there while Dana exchanged a bag of drugs for a wad of cash. And then we were on to the next house, and the next. Running drugs, and running…literally.
Finally, when we were finished that day, Dana explained to me that he was going to bring the money to a guy named Beaker. I gawked at the name.
“Beaker?” I asked, laughing. “Like Beaker and Bunsen? The Muppets?”
“I don’t know who that is,” Dana said. “They call him beaker because he’s got a big nose.” He mimed a big nose on his face and laughed.
From that day on, Dana and I went on many other runs. I never fully committed,though, and as time passed, I saw him less and less. I never really knew where he ended up, but running with him (in all senses of the word) helped me shed the side of me that was a victim. Dana provided me a framework in which to explore the idea of camaraderie, and to experience friendship. Of course, it took a few more years of getting into more trouble; riding around and doing drugs, breaking and entering, and other bad things for me to figure out who I really was under that chitinous armor I had made for myself. But I finally did it. I finally broke free.
Dana, I believe, was the catalyst for that transformation. Dana, with his racial jokes and befriending of me without caring about who I was, what I looked like, or what I had ever done allowed me to open up to my eventual friends I made before I graduated. I like to think of my time running with Dana for Beaker not as something negative, but something positive – as weird as that sounds. The people who bought the drugs, they were busy escaping into themselves, and paying money to do it. I looked to do the opposite, and I largely succeeded in most respects. I can only hope that Dana eventually outran his chosen profession in much the same way I did, and in all senses of that word.
Sometimes, I think back about friends I had who are no longer with me. This doesn’t have to have anything to do with death, mind you. Sometimes, as people, we just outgrow each other. You move, you go to different schools, you get married. Those kinds of things happen and are pretty inevitable in life.
One of these friends I had who fits into this category was named Mike. We all knew him affectionately as Mikey.
We met one summer when my mom moved us to Shawmut Street in Lewiston, Maine. We lived in a crappy apartment, infested with fleas and in a bad part of town at the time. We didn’t notice much of that as children, though, only remembering it when we were older and our tolerance levels for filth and waste have gone drastically down.
What I do remember is that I sort of had a crush on a girl down the street named Sandy (who later became my girlfriend after she slipped a note under our door one morning professing her love for me, which everyone teased me about for days). I had heard of this “Mikey” coming over to our new place and introducing himself to my younger brother and sister but I still hadn’t met him yet. Somehow, I found myself engaged in a water-tossing match late one afternoon with Sandy, using water from one of those kid’s plastic swimming pools. It was me against her and her friend and I was losing…and drenched, pinned down as they hurled water balloons and fired Super Soakers at me.
Out of nowhere came Mikey, screaming in defiance and grabbing a frisbee from the ground, turning it upside down like a bowl, and tossing water at the girls with it. They shrieked, running from the unexpected onslaught of the strange boy.
“RUN!” he shouted to me, as if we were in the middle of Vietnam. Laughing in appreciation, I made my escape. He followed and we met up near an old shed, breathing hard. I could hear Sandy yelling at us, her voice fading as we rounded a corner. We stopped to catch our breath.
“Hey, thanks,” I said to him, grinning. “You saved my life.” I was all bones and pale skin and my tee-shirt clung to my torso like a tattered flag of surrender.
“I’m Mike,” he said, offering his hand. I took it and he shook hands with me. He was sort of chubby, and at the moment he was only wearing shorts. His legs were horribly scarred. Later, when we had hung out more, I asked him why and he apparently had seen some potatoes on the stove and tried to reach one when he was a lot younger. The boiling water dropped on his little body and disfigured his skin, forcing him into physical therapy for years.
“I’m Joe,” I said. “We just moved in the other day. I heard about you.”
“Yeah, your family is cool. Do you play games?”
My eyes lit up. “Yeah, Nintendo and Sega. We only have a Nintendo, though.”
“Do you like Ninja Turtles? I have that for Nintendo. Want to come over and play it with me at my house?”
There was almost no lapse in time from when he asked that to when I said yes. An instant friendship was formed that sun-dappled summer afternoon that would last for years. There were sleepovers, video game marathons, movie outings, family gatherings. We each moved to a few different places in Lewiston here and there for a few years, but never anywhere inaccessible for adventurous Lewiston kids to walk to. His parents were Indiana natives who moved to Maine so that Mike’s father, Mike (Yup, same name), could work at the Bath Iron Works. Sharon, his mother, was constantly cooking us food (a stark contrast to my own home) and they both had a long southern drawl and big hearts.
As I got a bit older, though, our mentalities started to diverge. I became interested in girls and in trying to be ‘cool’ and Mikey was still interested in action figures and video games. We hung out with each other a lot, though, and I even started to make him come to the school dances with me so that maybe we could meet girls there. He would always come and we’d just sit in the bleachers, looking at superhero or basketball cards we bought with our food money for the dance, having long discussions as pre-teen boys do about things like who would win in a fight, Superman or Thor?
I eventually got a girlfriend and I felt bad that he didn’t have one. He seemed to resent being left behind, and I understood that. Once, I felt so bad that I created an imaginary girlfriend for him, dropping letters in his mailbox from “her” with pictures cut from a magazine of a woman with a bright smile and wavy blonde hair. I told him that she was a friend of my own girlfriend and I had told her all about him and she thought he seemed like a cool guy. He seemed really happy at first so I stuck with the charade for a while. After a time, Mikey seemed disappointed that he never got to meet her in person so I had to come up with a way to get out of it without him knowing it had been me all along and hurting him even worse. I felt horrible, and weird, for leading him along in that way but at that age, I didn’t know any better and I was just trying to help. I was satisfied somewhat when he told me that his long-distance girlfriend had written to him for the last time, saying that she needed to move and that maybe they could write when she got to her new place sometime, but that she needed a break because she really wanted to meet him in person and couldn’t. I acted surprised and gave him a pep talk about how he could get a girlfriend if he needed to because that girl was very pretty and had liked him. To this day I wonder if he ever figured it out.
Fast forward again to when Mikey moved back to Indiana. I was heavily involved in college and work life. I had other friends I hung out with more often than I did him. Co-workers, former college buddies. He still wanted to play video games all day and all night, and I just didn’t have the stamina or interest for that any longer except for a few random times. He eventually started working, though his mental faculties kept him from having a normal job with normal hours. Our time together grew more infrequent.
The last time I ever heard from Mikey, we spoke on the phone. He said he didn’t like Indiana very much and that it was boring. I told him he should hang out with some more people, maybe people he worked with. He gave a noncommittal grunt in response. I told him I was going to be getting married, to the woman of my dreams. I wasn’t sure how he felt about that but he seemed genuinely supportive. He listened to me talk about her for almost an hour.
One thing led to another, and I became involved in my own marriage and my home life and work life. Other friends. Family milestones. My separation and impending divorce. I didn’t think about him a lot during all those times, I must admit. We’d grown too far apart. That connection we’d had as young boys back in that water war with the girls had disappeared with growth spurts and life troubles and years. In some ways, I envied him, thinking that he was just sitting at home probably, eating his TV dinners and drinking Pepsi and playing hours of video games at a time, only pausing to sleep or work. I was concerned with trips to the emergency room for panic attacks in which I thought the end of my life was near, massive nosebleeds from stress, animals and family dying. What I didn’t think of was that I had lost a friend, a friend who’d come to my aid when he saw someone needing help, a friend I’d had for years. For all his childish ways, he was still a good person and in hindsight, I shouldn’t have let that connection go completely. I won’t soon forget our childhood times and friendship and I’m hoping that I can still hear what he’s up to every so often, In any case, he definitely deserved a much better friend than I was to him, at least in the end.
Now, as I’m married (again) to the actual woman of my dreams – I wonder what he’s up to and if he ever found someone to hang out with in boring ol’ Indiana. I hope he has, and I hope his mom Sharon still makes that killer breakfast scramble.
I remember the time when we lived in the big barn in the woods. We slept up in the hayloft with a small black and white television that constantly played old Abbot and Costello movies. We all went to the bathroom in a giant bucket when we needed to, and I remember the cold morning I urinated on a drowned lunar moth – its wings spread across the liquid human waste in a sad parody of flight. I felt sorry for it, even though I was simultaneously scared of its size.
Many of my mornings there were spent in a dirty van that smelled of carved wood, of burned wood, of cigarettes and cigars and cheap beer. The metal floor was covered in sawdust. I was young, but not too young to listen to the grown men talk about the Eagles as one of their songs crackled over the van’s speakers. It was usually cold, snowy. I fetched them things and they showed me how to engrave designs into slabs of wood. They thought of me as a mascot, as a student in woodworking.
In warmer weather, I freely tasted blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries – all wild. My siblings and I sat in rusty old cars covered in weeds and bee’s nests. We scared each other in the dark. We watched Deerhunter on an old VCR in the main house while we ate beans and hot dogs.
A neighbor around my age from up the road often took walks with me, and we did what young boys of the time often did. We shot frogs in the pond with pellet guns. We swam in brooks and streams teeming with fish. We sometimes played video games, but more often than not we instead used our own imaginations. He lived in an old house that always seemed dark with parents who seemed not to love him. I didn’t particularly like going there, so instead we explored.
There was a hurricane, once. I ran outside to grab the sheets from the line – my mother shouting to me over the sound of the wind to hurry. I was scared. I’d never seen a hurricane before. We listened to hail on the tin roof and I wondered if we’d die. The next day, a large tree outside had been split in half – yet a small glass lay untouched near its trunk, filled with rainwater.
I remember when I decided to run away from home, setting out on my own into the wild backroads, not knowing where to go. I had told my mother my intentions, and she’d smiled and said “Good. See how far you get.” I was driven back to her jeers by ravenous horseflies and aggressive dogs without leashes. I cried for a long time at the reality of my existence.
What’s strange, though, is how much I remember the night sky. It was my solace and comfort. While the adults listened to rock music and partied the night away around a bonfire, drinking their strawberry daiquiris – forgetting their own lives – I looked to Orion’s Belt, to the Big Dipper. My nostrils filled with the smell of the woods, my ears with the sound of the forest, my eyes with the sight of far-off worlds and vast expanses of cosmos.
The first time I saw Becky Dearborn, I was very intrigued by her. She wore a school uniform, which consisted of a long, muted-in-color tartan or plaid skirt, knee-high stockings, shiny black shoes, and a clean white blouse. She wore an accompanying tie which sometimes varied in color during later times I would see her. Her hair was close-cropped and done up in a bob style, and to top things off she wore a black choker around her neck. She reminded me of Natalie Portman as Mathilda in the movie Leon: The Professional.
I’d been swimming at the local pool with my best friend Tom when his girlfriend Sarah showed up. Sarah was gorgeous – with long, curly blonde hair and what I thought at the time was a very voluptuous body. I never noticed girls like that back when I lived in Lewiston, Maine. Not having ever had much of a real girlfriend due to my social awkwardness, I eyed the two of them from afar and watched them kiss after he brought himself out of the pool. He was lean, muscular, and a far cry from my own skinny, malnourished body. Tom and I were a lot different, and I assumed the only reason he ever hung out with me was because he and I were both outcasts – me because of my outsider status and poverty-stricken background, and he because of his strange personality quirks (he wore a jester hat around town). We both connected through our love of heavy metal music and thrash metal music. He and our mutual friend Chris had bought me the White Zombie album for my birthday the previous fall.
As I began to grow self-conscious watching Tom and Sarah kiss, I averted my eyes. That’s when I noticed Becky standing outside the pool area, behind the fence. Just the right amount of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose. My heart quickened as I scanned her figure, my hungry teen eyes noticing the outline of her body behind the fabric of her blouse and skirt. I had lots of hormones flowing through me, and no outlet for them.
As I stared, her eyes flicked my way, her slender fingers curling around the chain links on the fence between us. Self-consciously, I dived into the pool, trying to make a quick, expert-looking dive, almost as if I hadn’t seen her at all. I’m sure it was far less graceful than I’d hoped, but as I sank to the bottom of the pool, the image of Becky’s eyes remained with me. Her eyes were gorgeous, green, almost blue. I reminded myself that she’d never be interested in a skinny guy like me, though. Especially not someone as poor as I was. I stayed at the bottom for a long time, until I felt like my lungs were going to burst open.
When I finally emerged, Tom was diving back into the pool and the girls were gone. I waited for him to come back to the surface.
“Who was that girl?” I said, still huffing for air.
“Sarah’s friend,” Tom said, wiping water from his face. He spit into the water, away from us. “Her name’s Becky.”
I was silent, digesting this nugget of information, nodding my head, trying to look indifferent, wiping the leftover water from my own face.
“Why?” He finally asked.
I reddened, looked away.
“Ohhhhh…..” he said, smiling. “I get it. Well, she doesn’t have a boyfriend.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned, winking.
I submerged myself again, trying to hide the scarlet rushing through my face.
Over the next couple of weeks, Tom arranged his hangouts with me and coordinated them so that his girlfriend, Sarah, would be there – and also so she could bring her friend Becky along. It worked out for him because he got to hang out with me as well as Sarah, but he was also entertained by my interest in Becky because he’d never seen me pine over a girl before. With increasing frequency, the four of us hung out during any available moment.
One lazy afternoon during a hangout at the park – I got to know Becky a bit better. She told me she didn’t consider herself extremely religious, but her parents were devout – almost extreme – and they rarely let her outside, especially after her curfew – and they especially didn’t like boys around. Especially poor boys with bad families. Long after Tom, Sarah, and Becky had left the playground, I sat in silence and thought. I had to make a move. I was still ignorant about such things, but even I could see the signs. They were all there.
One day soon after, I found myself working up the courage to ask Becky out. I was shaking all over. I’d told Tom about it and he was ecstatic, telling Sarah, who obviously told Becky. And so it was known what my intentions were, and when I planned to do it. This information did not help me in my endeavors. Everyone knew, everyone was ready, everyone except for me.
They were at Sarah’s, and Tom walked with me to her trailer on the outskirts of the park, trying to offer support. My first wingman ever. My legs were wobbly and my heart thumped in my throat. The two girls were in the window at the forefront of the trailer, Sarah’s parents gone for the day. As we approached, I looked at the sky, at the ground, at anything – trying to appear nonchalant. But Becky was staring at me, Sarah was staring at me – two women, two pretty young women – and here I was goofy as ever. Thin. Unkempt. Ridiculous. I felt like I wanted to be sucked into the vacuum of space, away from the situation.
I made small talk and stared up at Becky through the screen window as Tom jumped off and back onto a gardening area over and over again with impatience. My throat tightened every time I thought about uttering the words to Becky. She and Sarah occasionally glanced back and forth at each other, smiling. They knew I was scared shitless. But it was now or never.
“Becky,” I said, clearing the air.
Silence. She looked down at me. “Yes?”
There was more long, uncomfortable, excruciating silence as I battle with myself to find words.
“Will you go out with me?”
As the question tumbled awkwardly from my lips, I regretted it immediately. A hot rush of embarrassment flowed through my chest and into my face and limbs. I quivered involuntarily. She would obviously say “no” – and then she and Sarah would laugh at me, at my attempt to be with someone pretty when I was so unattractive and lame.
“Yes,” she said. “Took you long enough.” She beamed at me through the screen of the window.
Tom punched me in the arm. “Congratulations, man!”
From then on, Becky and I had solo visits with each other, which happened mostly at her trailer. No boys were allowed so I would have to talk to her in hushed tones from beneath her window, and I thought of myself as Romeo from Romeo and Juliette. The moonlight would be shining down on me and my bike and we’d whisper to each other about life, about our dreams, but it all just felt temporary. Occasionally I would have to hide as her father or mother knocked on her door, listening to their conversations, secretly knowing I would most likely never pursue much more with her.
Eventually, because I was still awkward and didn’t “move in for the kill” – Becky broke up with me. It was a few weeks into our relationship, and because I was so socially awkward and because I had lingering problems from being molested as a child, I never made any “moves” on her aside from hugging. I had no context for what was acceptable and when to do certain things in a normal relationship. I sure didn’t want to make her feel the way I had felt when I was involuntarily touched, and so I just basically never touched her. I was devastated.
Months after we broke up and time had passed, I would be riding my bike through the neighborhood and would sometimes spy a boy underneath her window. Another Romeo, maybe even a Lothario. But Becky and I, we would make eye contact, she would look away, I would carry on. It was like we’d never met.
Even though that first foray into dating for me ended in disaster, it was actually a win for me. Not only had I overcome my anxiety in a big way by asking her out (though I still had much work ahead of me in that department), but I had also managed to get a pretty girl to say “yes” to me and not just make fun of me for my looks as had sometimes happened in the past. It was the beginning of my long journey to accept who I am today. For that, I am grateful to Becky, and to my very, very awkward teenager self.
Without that awkward first step into the world of dating, into the world full of complexities involving the opposite sex, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have learned certain lessons, I wouldn’t be married to the wonderful and beautiful woman I now have the luck of being able to call my wife. Becky and I were never meant to be, but we were probably meant to be for that short period of time in the mid-1990’s, and that summer when I started my long journey of self-discovery. I look back on that time with some embarrassment, yes – but also with the knowledge that even me back then could work up the courage to go for something or someone I really wanted. That’s what’s really important, and it’s something I try never to forget about myself.
Well, we’re right in the middle of summer and at the theaters right now, people are lining up to see their favorite summer blockbuster action films. I love action films – and you can see my Top Ten Favorite Action Films right HERE – but I think one of my favorite genres is Comedy. Whenever my wife and I sit down to watch a movie during dinner, or whenever I want to wind down for the night if I’m by myself, I pop in one of my favorite comedy films. Just like the rest of the other Top Ten lists on my blog (you can see the entire list under the Categories tab on my main page, under Top Ten), this list is numbered for the purposes of this post, but in reality the films sort of fluctuate up and down on the list from time to time. Yet, overall, this list stays pretty much the same over time, consistently, which is how I know that they’re actually my top ten. Does that make sense? I hope so.
Let’s get to it!
10: HIGH FIDELITY (2000)
PLOT: Rob Gordon (John Cusack) is just an average Chicago record store owner (and compulsive list maker) who happens to be going through a break up with his girlfriend, Laura (Iben Hjejle). As his two employees, Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black) attempt to cheer him up on their shifts at Championship Vinyl, Rob sifts through all of his past relationships to examine his all-time top breakups in order to make sense of his current situation and hopefully make things right.
WHY I LOVE IT: High Fidelity is really, truly, one of the all-time top underrated comedy films. The reason why it’s so low on my list is that, technically, it’s a romantic comedy. While I think rom-coms are fine, in general they don’t really have the same amount of laughs for me. However, I guess being a guy and having failed my own share of relationships made me identify with Cusack’s character, Rob, in a way that made all the laughs really hit home. On top of that, Jack Black gives one of his usual manic performances as Barry, and even Tim Robbins shows up as a foil to Rob as he tries to get into the pants of Laura. Honestly, if you have not seen this movie, please do yourself a favor and watch it. You won’t regret it, especially if you love Cusack. Also, I can’t help but note that Rob would love being on a list of top comedy films.
09: TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (2004)
PLOT: When the anti-terrorist organization known as Team America discovers that Kim Jong Il (Trey Parker) has a secret plan involving weapons of mass destruction, they enlist the help of actor and rising Broadway star Gary Johnston (Trey Parker) to infiltrate the terrorist’s ranks and discover what’s going on. With the help of the team’s financier, Spottswoode (Daran Norris) and his newfound teammates Chris (Matt Stone), Sarah (Masasa Moyo), Lisa (Kristen Miller), and Joe (Trey Parker) – Gary must use all of his training to save the world from Kim Jong Il’s dastardly plans.
WHY I LOVE IT: Though the entire film consists of puppets and props, the clever use of practical effects combined with an insanely funny script deliver this film up into the higher reaches of the comedy pantheon. Matt Stone and Trey Parker bring their South Park talents to this hilarious jab at American politics and military oversteps in the civilized world. All the music bits (I used to own the soundtrack on CD) and especially the hilarious vomiting scene are what keep this quirky film in my top ten. It rises slightly above High Fidelity almost solely because it’s not a rom-com, but lags behind others on this list because it’s almost more of an animated film than an actual feature film. Still, there’s not a time I’ve watched this that the jokes have become old.
08: NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (2004)
PLOT: In the small Idaho town of Preston, oddball teen Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) tries to get through his day-to-day school life despite his even odder family and wacky schoolmates. When Napoleon befriends the new kid, Pedro (Efrem Ramirez), he finds himself helping Pedro run for class president. In the meantime, what to do about his meddlesome Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) and his internet-hogging brother Kip (Aaron Ruell)?
WHY I LOVE IT: We can all identify with Napoleon in some way and that’s certainly part of the draw for this 2004 film. What Napoleon Dynamite does really well, though, is produce comedy in lots of subtle and unexpected ways. What brings this film above the others for me is just that. It’s a comedy, but without being too over-the-top. The characters are really where the film shines, producing endless one-liners people still spout today – especially with Rico, Kip, and Napoleon himself. However, it falls behind some of the other films on my list because it’s a little too low-key, and many people miss its humor, meaning people generally either love or hate this movie. Still, it’s one of my favorites and I rewatch it at least once a year, in general.
07: AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (1999)
PLOT: In a dastardly scheme to render Austin Powers (Mike Myers) powerless, Dr. Evil (Mike Myers) sends some of his agents to the 1960’s to request the aid of the portly Fat Bastard (Mike Myers) in stealing Austin Powers’ mojo. In order to get his mojo back, Powers must travel back in time to the swingin’ 60’s, and is helped in his quest by the sexy and fiery Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham).
WHY I LOVE IT: Though it’s a sequel, The Spy Who Shagged Me is one of the rare cases in which the sequel is better than its predecessor. The jokes land more often and with better results, the characters are more interesting, and the cinematography and special effects are much sharper and flashy. Though I still like the other two films in the trilogy, this one will always be my absolute favorite. Mike Myers is at top-notch here, playing three different characters with the same comic energy and succeeding. Heather Graham is delightful, and even Will Ferrel shows up in a cameo as the hilarious Mustafa. This is all the hilarity and more of the original Austin Powers jammed into one slick package. Let’s hope that the rumors about a new Austin Powers movie are true!
06: NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE (2001)
PLOT: “Plain” Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) is the object of ridicule at John Hughes High School, with her paint-covered overalls and her dorky glasses. When popular football star Jake Wyler (Chris Evans) seems to take an interest in her, she is suspicious. She should be, however, because little does she know that Jake has taken a bet to transform Janey into prom-queen material by the time prom rolls around.
WHY I LOVE IT:Not Another Teen Movie is a hilarious send up of several different films including the following: American Pie, American Beauty, Bring It On, Clueless, She’s All That, Road Trip, Can’t Hardly Wait, 10 Things I Hate About You, Never Been Kissed, and even the 1980’s classic The Breakfast Club. As far as a spoof film goes, it’s really top-notch, and the laughs don’t stop all the way through. There are lots of cameos from actors like Molly Ringwald and Paul Gleason (both from The Breakfast Club) and the main cast, including Chris Evans, Chyler Leigh, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, and Mia Kirshner all do a great job in their respective character archetypes. I would highly recommend this to anyone, especially if you’ve seen most of the movies it’s spoofing. Even without seeing the original films, the main story is stitched together well and provides a great sendup of teen movies in general, so really anyone can enjoy it.
05: THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998)
PLOT: Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller) met the love of his life, Mary Jenson (Cameron Diaz) way back in high school. When he accidentally mucked things up, they both moved on. Now, living in Providence, Rhode Island as an adult man – Ted can’t stop thinking about Mary. When he hires a private detective named Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) to find her, Pat falls for her too, prompting Ted to take matters into his own hands.
WHY I LOVE IT: Ben Stiller is hands-down one of my favorite comedic actors of all time. In There’s Something About Mary, we get to see Stiller do some of his best work. This movie has some great charm, some very great jokes (the truck stop, anyone?), and even a musical number. While the story somewhat gets lost in the tangle of characters, the characters themselves more than make up for that. The Farrelly Brothers really struck gold with this film, and it’s definitely one you must own on Blu-Ray.
04: ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY (2004)
PLOT: In the wild world of newscasting in the 1970’s, there is one man who tells it like it is (at least as long as it’s on a teleprompter); San Diego’s Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrel). When an enterprising woman journalist named Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) begins to rise to Burgundy’s level, Ron starts to worry about his job and so do the other guys from the news office. With a lot on the line, the news team must try to up their game if they want to stay relevant.
WHY I LOVE IT: Will Ferrell is really what holds this movie together. Though it’s chock-full of great scenes, great characters, and great actors – the story is sort of disjointed and inconsistent, which is why it’s not in my top three. However, the reason it’s above the others on this list is because it’s not an animated film, it’s not a spoof, and it’s not subtle. Anchorman is really just comedy at its best, and it can hold it’s own.
03: THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN (2005)
PLOT: Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) is a nerd who is passionate about almost everything; Video Games, Karaoke, Painting Miniatures, Comic Books, and Action Figures. With all those hobbies, he’s just never had the time to have an actual girlfriend. When some work friends hear of Andy’s plight, they take turns trying to get him laid in a series of zany misadventures. However, through all the insanity, Andy sets his sights on a businesswoman next door named Trish (Catherine Keener).
WHY I LOVE IT:The 40 Year-Old Virgin is almost the perfect film. Steve Carell is perfect as everyone’s favorite virgin, Andy – and lots of comedic all-stars round out the rest of the cast, including Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, and Jane Lynch. The film delivers lots of humor that could actually happen in everyday life, which puts it one notch above all the rest of the films listed before it. The reason it falls behind the other two entries is the slower pace. With scenes like the one in which Steve Carell is waxed (for real) – this movie deserves multiple re-watches over the years for me. If you can quote this film by heart, you are immediately someone I would like to be friends with.
Brothers
02: ZOOLANDER (2001)
PLOT: When male model extraordinaire Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is eclipsed by his rival, the enigmatic Hansel (Owen Wilson), he goes into modeling exile until a world-famous designer, Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrel), wants to work with him. After Zoolander is invited to a day spa, he is brainwashed by Mugatu’s right-hand woman, Katinka (Milla Jovovich), into trying to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Only a plucky young reporter named Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor) stands in Mugatu’s way.
WHY I LOVE IT: Originally meant to be just a sketch for the 1996 VH1 Music Awards, Ben Stiller has gotten a lot of mileage out of his character Derek Zoolander. With a silly premise, Zoolander is one of those films that is intentionally “dumb” but which matches that knowing tone with lots and lots of jokes and gags that work. From the rivalry between Zoolander and Hansel, to the brilliant portrayal of Mugatu by Will Ferrel, there is so much going for this film, at least in my book. And the cameo by David Bowie is the icing on the cake. I guess the reason this isn’t in my number one spot is because it’s so “dumb”.
01: STEP BROTHERS (2008)
PLOT: Two thirty-something grown men, Brennan Huff (Will Ferrel) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly), are forced to live together when their single parents fall for one another and end up moving in together. As the two “boys” mend fences with each other, they destroy everything around them with their immature hijinks.
WHY I LOVE IT: To me, Step Brothers is the perfect comedy film. It’s got the right amount of smart comedy and dumb comedy mixed together. There’s hardly a single moment in the film that feels off balance, and the casting is amazing. Both Reilly and Ferrel do a much better job in this film than they did in Talladega Nights, and you can tell the entire cast and crew must have had an absolute blast shooting the movie. There will be no other movie that is so quotable, at least in my opinion, for some time to come. From the “Boat” rap, to the epic front yard fight, Step Brothers is pure comedy gold. My wife and I love the movie so much, we each got it for each other on our first Christmas together. The movie is now “our” Christmas movie.
Well, there you have it. My Top Ten Favorite Comedy Films. If you have your own list, or any suggestions, please feel free to drop a line in the comments. As always, I will leave you with some honorable mentions.
Away With Words 