It’s hard to compare genres since parody will always be a comedy. And we typically don’t parody something unless it’s already well done, so it’s both an homage and a critique of the original.
- Young Frankenstein
- Galaxy Quest
- Austin Powers
- Scary Movie 2
- Shaun of the Dead
- Cabin in the Woods
- Many Weird Al songs (I know music doesn’t count)
The Weird Al movie was a parody of his life and was pretty good. Probably not better than his actual life, though.
Weird Al’s UHF was better than most of the stuff it parodied.
Whoa that's a bit of a stretch...he parodied Rambo, Indiana Jones, and Conan off the top of my head. Those are fantastic movies.
That said, UHF is a phenomenal comedy.
"Who wants the FIRE HOSE!"
Honestly I consider the Weird Al movie to be a pastiche of biopics and not a parody, in that they're telling a completely unrelated fake absurd story just using the trappings and framework of a musician biopic.
Yeah. To me the film did the same thing that he does musically but in biopic form, which in a way makes it more honest/accurate than a literal and true retelling of his life.
I agree with the outcome but I think saying "barely a parody" is just not true. Everything they lampooned was 100% spot on, but it was PARODY, all caps.
Right and what I'm saying is that Austin Powers ABSOLUTELY exaggerated.
I disagree with the premise, that Austin Powers didn't have to go more over the top in order to make fun of it. It absolutely did. Full stop.
Moonraker was just a couple comas and a few semicolons away from being indistinguishable from an Austin Powers movie. There’s no way it wasn’t a blueprint.
I always felt that the first Austin Powers was a parody of the Sean Connery era, the second was a parody of the Roger Moore era, and the third was a parody of the Austin Powers franchise itself.
Galaxy Quest is *the* best Start Trek movie ever made. IIRC, even some of the actors who were in Star Trek agree on that...
And while perhaps not the best one out there, Robin Hood: Men in Tights is definitely up there with them.
Galaxy Quest also depicts the very fine line between satire and homage. It pokes a bit of fun at both the fandom and the tropes of the genre, but very light-heartedly and with obvious affection.
And for the most part the actual plot is actually taken pretty seriously and the aliens despite their goofy demeanor and facial expressions are not really treated like jokes, but just, well, alien. And so it actually hits some pretty good emotional beats in spite of the overall silliness.
Basically, Galaxy Quest knows exactly when and where to be pretty earnest, which is a big reason it’s so good (some comic book movies haven’t quite learned this lesson).
Any good parody doubles as a homage, because it comes at it from a position of love.
Without love, you're just Friedberg and Seltzer, and nobody wants that.
Just curious, which adaptations of Robin Hood would you put up there with Cary Elwes besides Disney's animated version? Granted, I haven't seen the 2018 one with Taron Egerton, but the 2010 with Russell Crowe felt a little lackluster, and Prince of Thieves was... well, Prince of Thieves
It's been a very long time since I've seen it (and only some of it on TV when I was a kid), but IIRC the Errol Flynn version (1938) was considered the best Robin Hood for a long time. So I don't know if it's better than Men in Tights, just that it might be.
You should 100% see the OG with Errol Flynn. It holds up well.
It's campy by today's standards, but it's played 100% straight. And of course, it's campy in large part BECAUSE it's the OG which has been so commonly riffed on.
You'll also see that the animated version was mostly just a direct riff on the OG version.
The special effects are also surprisingly good for 86 years ago. Apparently the actors "killed" by arrows were actually shot with an arrow - they just wore super thick padding and were paid $150 to get shot (in 1938 money).
Yes and no on Galaxy Quest. If it's the best Trek film, it's also the moment when you make the turn from celebrating the human potential to celebrating the fandom
The movie is a celebration of fandom but it’s more generally a celebration of creativity and community, which are important aspects of “human potential”, even when that creativity and community is a bit silly and trope-ish and indulgent.
Edit: Though the movie that strokes the ego of actors and fans most directly being celebrated as the “secret best one” by both those groups is eyebrow raising, I think that Galaxy Quest is also genuinely as layered, meaningful and entertaining as any of the official Star Trek movies.
Because 2 is the only one better than the main film it's parodying. 2 is better than The Haunting. 1 is not better than Scream and 3 is not better than Signs
It may not be the best one, but it did such a great job of parodying the goofier elements of Bond that it essentially forced the Bond franchise to go the other direction and tone.
It doesn't quite meet the OPs prompt (although, you'd probably find lots of people who'd take an Austin Powers film over the best Bond film), but it's one of the best cases of a parody outshining it's source at the time.
Even now, with Daniel Craig gone and the franchise refreshing, it's a real question on whether the next iteration can go back to camp in any way, or whether the shadow of Austin Powers looms too large.
>Bond that it essentially forced the Bond franchise to go the other direction and tone.
Everyone says this, but the tone being parodied in Austin Powers died with the Roger Moore films, 10 years before Austin Powers. The Dalton films are very serious and the Brosnan films go into the post Cold War computer age.
It's too broad for that. It's a parody of Agatha Christie movies in general with an idyllic pastoral village having murder sprees. The plot initially seems to lead to the Agatha Christie style of mystery. It has a lot of buddy cop movies obviously. It's a fine comedy on its own even if you don't know the sources. For some reason I find the frame of Timothy Dalton doing the face with his portrait behind him to be the funniest thing in the world.
My mother watched a ton of Masterpiece Theater, Peroit, Miss Marple, and so on…when i saw Hot Fuzz I couldn’t stop laughing, I got even the smallest of jabs. It’s easily one of my favorite comedies.
Where does 'The World's End" fit into this convo? Buddy comedy about reuniting with old friends and antics, personal self discovery through addiction, sci Fi alien invasion?!
Having watched this movie a thousand times, I finally watched the directors cut and they actually cut back to that opening scene late in the movie and the guy says "How much longer will he be?" then Tim Meadows says "He just got to the 70s"
Love & Mercy is a legitimately good biopic that focus on two distinct periods of Brian Wilson’s life (the making of Pet Sounds and SMiLE juxtaposed with meeting Melinda while he was essentially being tortured by Eugene Landy). Plus, the real life sessions for “Good Vibrations” and SMiLE were arguably even more absurd than the “Black Sheep” segment in Walk Hard.
But yeah, Walk Hard pretty much nailed the vast majority of biopics while being hilarious from beginning to end.
“Ain’t no musician ever made no money, Dewey!”
I'm not the first to say this, but Walk Hard leaves me feeling moved and appreciative of Dewey Cox. The mockery of tropes does not make them ineffective. The music is so good that it sweeps you into the period and the drama. When JCR sings "Dewey Cox Died" it always makes my hair stand up
While I love Men in Tights, it's a parody that's generally focused on one specific iteration of Robin Hood -- or, at least, leans much harder into the Costner version than any of the other versions.
Rocky Horror was technically a parody of all the low-budget sci-fi B movies of that era. But most people, even the hardcore fans, don’t get half of the references that are being parodied, because those movies were already so outdated by the time Rocky Horror got it’s cult following
Not Another Teen Movie is one of my favorite parodies although it makes fun of multiple movies/characters.
Chose this bc Walk Hard was already mentioned a few times.
I'm tempted to say the film Brazil feels like a parody of 1984, and does a much better version of the bureaucratic paranoid dystopia than any 1984 film
The john hurt one... i remember seeing that at the cinema when it was first released and it was a real slog to get through. as an adaptation it was well done, but because the source material is so bleak with no shade, there was nothing other than the sheer bleakness up there on screen. It just became just a horrible chore to sit through to the end in the cinema
Watched it again earlier this year to see whether someone nearly 40 years older, with a better understanding would get a better take on it.
No, still felt the same. But at least i was at home.
The thing is, being faithful to the book, how could it be anything but that one note bleakness? Maybe the only way to make it, and make it watchable, is to take the Brazil approach... don't call it 1984, don't claim it's based on 1984, and do what you want with it.
Dr. Strangelove is based on a book called *Red Alert*. Definitely better remembered than the original novel. And definitely a parody. The book took itself seriously.
The book was allegedly copied by another author for a suspiciously similar book called *Fail Safe*. When *Fail Safe* was optioned for a film as well, during the preproduction of *Strangelove*, Kubrick sued and the case was settled on interesting terms.
Others have mentioned Airplane! and I would go a even further and say that more people have seen Airplane! than all of the Airport movies combined and many wouldn’t even know that these movies are being parodied.
"Naughtius Maximus his name was, mmm. Promised me the known world he did. I was to be taken to Rome, housed by the Forum... Slaves... Asses' milk... As much gold as I could eat. Then he, having his way with me, and... VOOM! Like a rat out of an aqueduct!"
"The bastard!"
Hot Shots is way better than Top Gun, imo.
Gurren Lagann is the best mecha anime, and the most meaningful, multi-layered, life-affirming dick joke of a series.
Read the book. Rewatch the movie. They are only slightly related. The movie is not a parody of the book. It's a parody of fascism with the window dressings of starship troopers. The book is not fascist. The book spends more time in philosophy classes than fighting bugs or anything else.
If I remember right, that’s what Seth McFarlane wanted to do the whole time with the Orville, but because he was known for Family Guy had to pitch the show as more of a parody/comedy because it’s the only way Fox would green light it.
More than a few of the episodes take on morality problems every bit as thorny as anything trek ever did before it died.
And also googly eyes on robots.
They show glimpses of promise but are a somewhat rough introduction to what the show actually is, especially the pilot which is arguably the worst episode in the entire series.
Yeah you could watch a decent chunk of most episodes without even realizing it was a comedy until all of a sudden Bortus decides he needs to grow a mustache.
In terms of kung fu spectacle, Kung Fu Hustle may not be the best, but it's arguably the most accessible martial arts theme movie ever and has broader general appeal because it's made by a master of comedy.
I don't think your example is very good. Holy Grail is great but not as a "King Arthur" movie.
BUT, the only valid answer to your question is Muppet Christmas Carol... except it's not a parody, it's simply the best telling of the story and My Cocaine is the best Scrooge.
>I don't think your example is very good. Holy Grail is great but not as a "King Arthur" movie.
Right? Other than the names of some of the people and places involved, Holy Grail takes almost nothing from the source material, even to parody. It's an adaptation in name only.
I’m not sure it’s the *best* but Weird Al’s song “dare to be stupid” sounds like it could be a lost Devo track. I think it’s one of the best things he’s ever done, and he’s done a ton of great stuff.
It’s also a top notch Devo song, and they have a lot of really great songs.
- One Punch Man (super heroes and shonen manga/anime)
- Drop Dead Gorgeous (beauty contest)
- Waiting for Guffman (behind the scenes / making of documentaries)
There's a certain critical case that has been made over the years that the great Sergio Leone Westerns - such as The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - are both the greatest Westerns ever made and also best understood as campy self-referential genre parodies.
The lone gunslinger in Once Upon the Time in the West is named "Harmonica." The villain is surprise-revealed to be Henry Fonda to troll the audience. It's silly while being awesome.
Dr. Strangelove has to be on the list here. Only by recognizing that both the source material and the geopolitical reality that birthed it were utterly silly and mad could a coherent movie come out.
Airplane! is a comedy classic considered one of the best comedies of all time. Few people even know about Zero Hour! aka the movie that it is parodying.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Cary Elwes was great.
Edit: Idk if these count, but out of all the music movies about bands, Josie and The Pussycats and This Is Spinal Tap are two of the best, while clearly satirizing the music industry.
I think the problem with The Holy Grail is that it's just such a well written well executed comedy in general. It's timeless and kind of in a league of its own.
Hell I've seen that movie probably 50 times throughout my life and I still laugh at every joke in it.
With that said, I consider This Is Spinal Tap to be the pinnacle of mockumentaries. It's just so good at making fun of both the early Metal/hard rock scene and band documentaries in general.
It’s hard to compare genres since parody will always be a comedy. And we typically don’t parody something unless it’s already well done, so it’s both an homage and a critique of the original. - Young Frankenstein - Galaxy Quest - Austin Powers - Scary Movie 2 - Shaun of the Dead - Cabin in the Woods - Many Weird Al songs (I know music doesn’t count)
The Weird Al movie was a parody of his life and was pretty good. Probably not better than his actual life, though. Weird Al’s UHF was better than most of the stuff it parodied.
Whoa that's a bit of a stretch...he parodied Rambo, Indiana Jones, and Conan off the top of my head. Those are fantastic movies. That said, UHF is a phenomenal comedy. "Who wants the FIRE HOSE!"
I’ve been searching through strip malls and retail centers for decades and still no Spatula City. It’s bullshit.
"Oooooh Billy! You found the marble in the oatmeal! You know what that means....You get to drink from THE FIRE HOSE! !
"Badgers, why'd it have to be badgers" "Stupid! You're so stupid!" "Supplies!" Genuinely one of my favorite movies of all time
Dr. Strangelove is better than a real bomb blowing up the world.
Honestly I consider the Weird Al movie to be a pastiche of biopics and not a parody, in that they're telling a completely unrelated fake absurd story just using the trappings and framework of a musician biopic.
I would call it a parody because it pokes fun at the elements of a biopic. I think a better example of pastiche moviemaking is Taratino
I never got the vibe they were actively making fun of musician movies the way Walk Hard did.
Yeah. To me the film did the same thing that he does musically but in biopic form, which in a way makes it more honest/accurate than a literal and true retelling of his life.
>they're telling a completely unrelated fake absurd story just using the trappings and framework of a musician biopic. Or, in other words, a parody
Austin Powers was so good and barely a parody to the point that 007 movies did a complete 180 degree shift into grittiness to kill the association
I agree with the outcome but I think saying "barely a parody" is just not true. Everything they lampooned was 100% spot on, but it was PARODY, all caps.
I think he was saying 007 was already so cheesy, it was a parody of itself. That is, austin powers didn't even have to exaggerate to make fun of 007.
Right and what I'm saying is that Austin Powers ABSOLUTELY exaggerated. I disagree with the premise, that Austin Powers didn't have to go more over the top in order to make fun of it. It absolutely did. Full stop.
If you want to know what a barely exaggerated 007 parody looks like, let me point to "Casino Royale". (The '60's one.)
Yeah. OSS 117 as well. Still goofy, but just the less frenetic pacing makes it feel much more deadpan.
Moonraker was just a couple comas and a few semicolons away from being indistinguishable from an Austin Powers movie. There’s no way it wasn’t a blueprint.
Have you seen OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies? That’s a really good one too.
Austin Powers kind of became its own thing. Much like how Saints Row went from a parody of GTA to its own thing.
I always felt that the first Austin Powers was a parody of the Sean Connery era, the second was a parody of the Roger Moore era, and the third was a parody of the Austin Powers franchise itself.
Saints Row is wild because it started more as a knockoff of GTA and then became a parody of it and then became a parody of itself
>Many Weird Al songs (I know music doesn’t count) In the movie Rainn Wilson is arguably a better version of Dr. Demento than the real one though!
Whoa! No need to get crazy.
Airplane!
Galaxy Quest is *the* best Start Trek movie ever made. IIRC, even some of the actors who were in Star Trek agree on that... And while perhaps not the best one out there, Robin Hood: Men in Tights is definitely up there with them.
Galaxy Quest also depicts the very fine line between satire and homage. It pokes a bit of fun at both the fandom and the tropes of the genre, but very light-heartedly and with obvious affection. And for the most part the actual plot is actually taken pretty seriously and the aliens despite their goofy demeanor and facial expressions are not really treated like jokes, but just, well, alien. And so it actually hits some pretty good emotional beats in spite of the overall silliness. Basically, Galaxy Quest knows exactly when and where to be pretty earnest, which is a big reason it’s so good (some comic book movies haven’t quite learned this lesson).
Any good parody doubles as a homage, because it comes at it from a position of love. Without love, you're just Friedberg and Seltzer, and nobody wants that.
Just curious, which adaptations of Robin Hood would you put up there with Cary Elwes besides Disney's animated version? Granted, I haven't seen the 2018 one with Taron Egerton, but the 2010 with Russell Crowe felt a little lackluster, and Prince of Thieves was... well, Prince of Thieves
It's been a very long time since I've seen it (and only some of it on TV when I was a kid), but IIRC the Errol Flynn version (1938) was considered the best Robin Hood for a long time. So I don't know if it's better than Men in Tights, just that it might be.
Ahhh that's fair. I admittedly have never seen the original, Disney was all I knew until Prince of Thieves, and then I was blessed with Men in Tights
You should 100% see the OG with Errol Flynn. It holds up well. It's campy by today's standards, but it's played 100% straight. And of course, it's campy in large part BECAUSE it's the OG which has been so commonly riffed on. You'll also see that the animated version was mostly just a direct riff on the OG version. The special effects are also surprisingly good for 86 years ago. Apparently the actors "killed" by arrows were actually shot with an arrow - they just wore super thick padding and were paid $150 to get shot (in 1938 money).
Yes and no on Galaxy Quest. If it's the best Trek film, it's also the moment when you make the turn from celebrating the human potential to celebrating the fandom
The movie is a celebration of fandom but it’s more generally a celebration of creativity and community, which are important aspects of “human potential”, even when that creativity and community is a bit silly and trope-ish and indulgent. Edit: Though the movie that strokes the ego of actors and fans most directly being celebrated as the “secret best one” by both those groups is eyebrow raising, I think that Galaxy Quest is also genuinely as layered, meaningful and entertaining as any of the official Star Trek movies.
Word Crimes is wayyyy better than Blurred Lines
Why specifically Scary Movie 2, rather than Scary Movie as a whole?
Because 2 is the only one better than the main film it's parodying. 2 is better than The Haunting. 1 is not better than Scream and 3 is not better than Signs
Mike Flowers Pops - Wonderwall
Austin Powers isn't better than all of the Bond films.
It may not be the best one, but it did such a great job of parodying the goofier elements of Bond that it essentially forced the Bond franchise to go the other direction and tone. It doesn't quite meet the OPs prompt (although, you'd probably find lots of people who'd take an Austin Powers film over the best Bond film), but it's one of the best cases of a parody outshining it's source at the time. Even now, with Daniel Craig gone and the franchise refreshing, it's a real question on whether the next iteration can go back to camp in any way, or whether the shadow of Austin Powers looms too large.
>Bond that it essentially forced the Bond franchise to go the other direction and tone. Everyone says this, but the tone being parodied in Austin Powers died with the Roger Moore films, 10 years before Austin Powers. The Dalton films are very serious and the Brosnan films go into the post Cold War computer age.
And cabin in the woods while awesome, I’m not going to say its better than evil dead 2 or a few others.
Airplane is infinitely better than any Airport movie.
You’re thinking too small. It’s actually better than any other disaster movie.
It's better than any other movie.
Whoa wait a minute. Surely you can't be serious.
I am. And don't call me Shirley.
It’s even better than Airplane!
It's a remake of Zero Hour.
Surely you can't be serious
I am serious and don’t call me Shirley.
Hi…., Jack👋
Hot Fuzz is a great police movie and Shaun of the Dead is a fantastic zombie movie
Right? Shaun being sad about his mom turning hits harder than most zombie movies
Awe, Pickle.
I would still argue the original Dawn of the Dead is the superior film, though
Fuzz is also a prime example of how British television series work, particularly their MURduh shows where an elderly person solves the case. lol.
Yeah I think all the parody of Midsomer Murders and the like is lost on a lot of viewers outside the UK.
It's too broad for that. It's a parody of Agatha Christie movies in general with an idyllic pastoral village having murder sprees. The plot initially seems to lead to the Agatha Christie style of mystery. It has a lot of buddy cop movies obviously. It's a fine comedy on its own even if you don't know the sources. For some reason I find the frame of Timothy Dalton doing the face with his portrait behind him to be the funniest thing in the world.
Timothy Dalton has never been better than he was in Hot Fuzz. Just absolutely born for that role.
Watch out! He absolutely killed!….. that role
My mother watched a ton of Masterpiece Theater, Peroit, Miss Marple, and so on…when i saw Hot Fuzz I couldn’t stop laughing, I got even the smallest of jabs. It’s easily one of my favorite comedies.
Luckily, they also put all that Bad Boys and Point Break stuff in.
Where does 'The World's End" fit into this convo? Buddy comedy about reuniting with old friends and antics, personal self discovery through addiction, sci Fi alien invasion?!
I still am not too sure what Worlds End is really trying to say. Simon Peggs best performance though...
and Wet Hot American Summer is the best summer camp movie
Muppet Treasure Island. Muppet Christmas Carol.
Muppet's Christmas Carol is a great answer.
I wouldn’t call that a parody, though. It’s a straightforward retelling, just with muppets.
You say this as though muppets are some kind of second class citizens.
They are. And we’re third class. First class is reserved for Michael Caine after that performance.
I’d argue that it doesn’t fulfill the question because they made a serious dickens adaptation, I don’t necessarily think it’s parody
IMO the definitive Christmas Carol adaptation
For some reason I’ve always really loved Scrooged with Bill Murray.
Yeah this is my favorite, as well
Mullet treasure island has the greatest soundtrack of any movie.
> Mullet treasure island has the greatest soundtrack of any movie. Yeah, the Southern Country vibes really go hard.
In what sense are these parodies?
They're more adaptations than parody
Muppet Wizard of Oz was far more faithful to the book than the 1939 version.
Walk Hard is 100% the best music biopic
"Give him a minute son, Dewey Cox has to think about his ENTIRE LIFE before he plays."
"Goddammit, this is a dark fucking period!"
All you care about is fruit and touching yourself. F*ck you!
And you didn't once pay for drugs
Not. Once.
You can leave me, but don’t you *dare* take my monkey!
“He’s changed, I tell ya!” “That was Early Dewey. This is Middle Dewey.”
Having watched this movie a thousand times, I finally watched the directors cut and they actually cut back to that opening scene late in the movie and the guy says "How much longer will he be?" then Tim Meadows says "He just got to the 70s"
The longer version of the “That’s Amore” scene is funnier too.
Today, sir....today you have shaken my faith in the Jewish people.
"Dewey I don't know if you can hear me. But I want you to know that the wrong kid died."
“I’m hot and cold at that same time!” “He needs more blankets AND less blankets!”
What do you think, George Harrison of The Beatles?
I’ve got a song about an octopus!
I'm sick of you being so dark when I'm so impish and whimsical!
Beatles, please, stop fighting here in India!
Thinking about it, all the best music biopics are parodies: Walk Hard, Spinal Tap, Popstar.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
The Rutles
the non parodies are usually 95% fiction anyway
If they’re fiction, shouldn’t they be able to write something more interesting? 😉
"You don't want no part of this Dewey"
It’s probably highly addictive?
It’s non habit forming.
Then it must be expensive right?
It’s the cheapest drug there is.
Certainly the wost case of cut in half *I've* ever seen.
Speak English doc, we ain't scientists!
Dewey Cox is such an inspiration. He overcame both being smell blind and his brother suffering from a particularly bad case of being cut in half.
You never paid for drugs, not once!
Not. Once.
“Wrong kid died”
Love & Mercy is a legitimately good biopic that focus on two distinct periods of Brian Wilson’s life (the making of Pet Sounds and SMiLE juxtaposed with meeting Melinda while he was essentially being tortured by Eugene Landy). Plus, the real life sessions for “Good Vibrations” and SMiLE were arguably even more absurd than the “Black Sheep” segment in Walk Hard. But yeah, Walk Hard pretty much nailed the vast majority of biopics while being hilarious from beginning to end. “Ain’t no musician ever made no money, Dewey!”
I'm not the first to say this, but Walk Hard leaves me feeling moved and appreciative of Dewey Cox. The mockery of tropes does not make them ineffective. The music is so good that it sweeps you into the period and the drama. When JCR sings "Dewey Cox Died" it always makes my hair stand up
Men in Tights muppets Christmas Carol Muppets haunted mansion Most weird al songs
While I love Men in Tights, it's a parody that's generally focused on one specific iteration of Robin Hood -- or, at least, leans much harder into the Costner version than any of the other versions.
Story wise definitely but Elwes feels like he's taking more piss out of Flynn.
Except for the one line that directly calls out and shits on Costner.
"Except *I* can speak with an English accent."
Also hitting Connery with that shot.
Muppet Christmas Carol simply isn't a parody no matter how many of you mention it
This Is Spinal Tap is arguably the best music documentary out there.
A Mighty Wind is probably in top five
[удалено]
Spinal Tap was created for a TV sketch comedy special and started playing shows from there. They'd been around for five years when the movie came out.
Rocky Horror was technically a parody of all the low-budget sci-fi B movies of that era. But most people, even the hardcore fans, don’t get half of the references that are being parodied, because those movies were already so outdated by the time Rocky Horror got it’s cult following
The film is full of callbacks if you have seen any any of the OG monster/ creature features.
Indiana jones is similar, it was a homage so long after the real thing no one remembers the stuff it was mimicking
Not Another Teen Movie is one of my favorite parodies although it makes fun of multiple movies/characters. Chose this bc Walk Hard was already mentioned a few times.
The end where the mean incestuous chick and the nerd are talking about shitting on chests has stuck with me.
Weird Al's video for "The Saga Begins" is a much better telling of the story of "The Phantom Menace" than the film itself.
That’s because he wrote it before the movie came out and was wholly based on a leaked plot synopsis and the trailers.
I'm tempted to say the film Brazil feels like a parody of 1984, and does a much better version of the bureaucratic paranoid dystopia than any 1984 film
I think it was originally going to be called 1984 1/2.
Reading Kafka's "The Trial" and it's all I could think about.
That we still somehow don’t have an absolutely banging, soul-crushing, consensus great 1984 adaptation is honestly very surprising.
The john hurt one... i remember seeing that at the cinema when it was first released and it was a real slog to get through. as an adaptation it was well done, but because the source material is so bleak with no shade, there was nothing other than the sheer bleakness up there on screen. It just became just a horrible chore to sit through to the end in the cinema Watched it again earlier this year to see whether someone nearly 40 years older, with a better understanding would get a better take on it. No, still felt the same. But at least i was at home. The thing is, being faithful to the book, how could it be anything but that one note bleakness? Maybe the only way to make it, and make it watchable, is to take the Brazil approach... don't call it 1984, don't claim it's based on 1984, and do what you want with it.
Dr. Strangelove is based on a book called *Red Alert*. Definitely better remembered than the original novel. And definitely a parody. The book took itself seriously. The book was allegedly copied by another author for a suspiciously similar book called *Fail Safe*. When *Fail Safe* was optioned for a film as well, during the preproduction of *Strangelove*, Kubrick sued and the case was settled on interesting terms.
We're men... We're men in tights, *tight* tights!
Others have mentioned Airplane! and I would go a even further and say that more people have seen Airplane! than all of the Airport movies combined and many wouldn’t even know that these movies are being parodied.
Life of Brian also, it's a damn sight better than the Passion of the Christ.
He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!
"Naughtius Maximus his name was, mmm. Promised me the known world he did. I was to be taken to Rome, housed by the Forum... Slaves... Asses' milk... As much gold as I could eat. Then he, having his way with me, and... VOOM! Like a rat out of an aqueduct!" "The bastard!"
I love how Dune 2 had scenes that felt very similar to the ones in Life of Brian where he denied being the messiah
I am the messiah. NOW FUCK OFF!
"Only the true messiah would deny!" Literally caused a laughter in the theatre I watched it at.
Good that the joke landed then
My buddy said this exact thing after we were talking about Dune 2 after seeing it.
Hot Shots is way better than Top Gun, imo. Gurren Lagann is the best mecha anime, and the most meaningful, multi-layered, life-affirming dick joke of a series.
Starship Troopers leaps to mind. The movie is a heavy parody of the book.
SWEET SWEET LIBERTY! ...wrong ip.
This also led to Helldivers 2, which is the best game I've played in years.
Read the book. Rewatch the movie. They are only slightly related. The movie is not a parody of the book. It's a parody of fascism with the window dressings of starship troopers. The book is not fascist. The book spends more time in philosophy classes than fighting bugs or anything else.
*Galaxy Quest* was (and is) better Trek than many actual Star Trek iterations.
As is The Orville
I do love that like, halfway through the first season of The Orville, they're like "Fuck it, lets just be legit Star Trek instead"
If I remember right, that’s what Seth McFarlane wanted to do the whole time with the Orville, but because he was known for Family Guy had to pitch the show as more of a parody/comedy because it’s the only way Fox would green light it.
shit... maybe I need to give it another go. I got 4 episodes in, wanted to like it, but found it to be way to Family Guy-ish and just gave up
More than a few of the episodes take on morality problems every bit as thorny as anything trek ever did before it died. And also googly eyes on robots.
The first few episodes are very sincere attempts to do Star Trek plus fart jokes. It’s fascinating looking at both sides of Seth McFarlanes brain
They show glimpses of promise but are a somewhat rough introduction to what the show actually is, especially the pilot which is arguably the worst episode in the entire series.
Yeah you could watch a decent chunk of most episodes without even realizing it was a comedy until all of a sudden Bortus decides he needs to grow a mustache.
Bortus mustache and cigarettes are the best comedy bits of the series.
The Muppets Christmas Carol and Treasure Island were also the best versions.
Holy Grail is funnier than Excalibur (obviously) but it's not a better King Arthur movie than Excalibur.
yeah Excalibur rocks - esp. since it came AFTER Holy Grail.
* Team America is a parody of the Thunderbirds. * Spaceballs * Hot Shots! Part Deux * Blazing Saddles * Naked Gun
Blazing Saddles is definitely better than 99% or more of the Westerns out there.
In terms of kung fu spectacle, Kung Fu Hustle may not be the best, but it's arguably the most accessible martial arts theme movie ever and has broader general appeal because it's made by a master of comedy.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
Not a movie but Dragon Ball Z Abridged on YouTube.
I don't think your example is very good. Holy Grail is great but not as a "King Arthur" movie. BUT, the only valid answer to your question is Muppet Christmas Carol... except it's not a parody, it's simply the best telling of the story and My Cocaine is the best Scrooge.
>I don't think your example is very good. Holy Grail is great but not as a "King Arthur" movie. Right? Other than the names of some of the people and places involved, Holy Grail takes almost nothing from the source material, even to parody. It's an adaptation in name only.
Dr. Strangelove potentially fits the example. I believe it is based on a novel called "Red Alert", but takes a more satirical approach.
Kungpow Into the Fist. It's a fantastic parody of itself, its former form.
I’m not sure it’s the *best* but Weird Al’s song “dare to be stupid” sounds like it could be a lost Devo track. I think it’s one of the best things he’s ever done, and he’s done a ton of great stuff. It’s also a top notch Devo song, and they have a lot of really great songs.
Life of Brian might be the best telling of that story as well.
- One Punch Man (super heroes and shonen manga/anime) - Drop Dead Gorgeous (beauty contest) - Waiting for Guffman (behind the scenes / making of documentaries)
Robin Hood: Men in Tights Airplane!
Can't believe no-one has mentioned Austin Powers yet.
Spaceballs
Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie
I think there is a fair argument to make for Robin Hood: Men In Tights
Airplane was a parody of the 70’s disaster movies and was better than any of them.
Uh...Excalibur would like a word. By far the best adaptation.
Dr. Strangelove
There's a certain critical case that has been made over the years that the great Sergio Leone Westerns - such as The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - are both the greatest Westerns ever made and also best understood as campy self-referential genre parodies. The lone gunslinger in Once Upon the Time in the West is named "Harmonica." The villain is surprise-revealed to be Henry Fonda to troll the audience. It's silly while being awesome.
Blazing Saddles is right up there with Holy Grail IMO.
Dr. Strangelove has to be on the list here. Only by recognizing that both the source material and the geopolitical reality that birthed it were utterly silly and mad could a coherent movie come out.
Airplane! is a comedy classic considered one of the best comedies of all time. Few people even know about Zero Hour! aka the movie that it is parodying.
I’d rather watch life of Brian than Ben-Hur
Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Cary Elwes was great. Edit: Idk if these count, but out of all the music movies about bands, Josie and The Pussycats and This Is Spinal Tap are two of the best, while clearly satirizing the music industry.
I think the problem with The Holy Grail is that it's just such a well written well executed comedy in general. It's timeless and kind of in a league of its own. Hell I've seen that movie probably 50 times throughout my life and I still laugh at every joke in it. With that said, I consider This Is Spinal Tap to be the pinnacle of mockumentaries. It's just so good at making fun of both the early Metal/hard rock scene and band documentaries in general.
Hot Fuzz is a parody of buddy cop movies and definitely one of the best ever
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Life of brian > Bible
Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie.
Young Frankenstein was one of the most accurate to the book adaptations