Showing posts with label Spoofs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spoofs. Show all posts

The Comedians

I mean the directors, not the actors, though some of them were both.

In Hollywood, the first guy that comes to mind is Woody Allen. He made several good films, one as recently as a couple of years ago. Most of these had wonderful humour, mostly about human relationships, but also a lot of other things. Sometimes dark humour, but very witty. And delivered with deadpan expressions. A genius.

A very different kind of humour (in your face, slaspstick) is to be found in Mel Brooks' films. Usually spoofs on something (Silent Movie was about Hollywood itself), I still remembers scenes from films of his I watched many years ago-Blazing Saddles (spoof on Western Cowboy movies), History of the World (about major events in history), To Be Or Not To Be (on Hitler), and a Star Wars spoof called Spaceballs. I remembered the last again while watching The Martian recently.

Closer home in India, directors of good comedy were Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Both masters of situational humour, they made between them, great films like Chupke Chupke, Chhoti Si Baat, Shaukeen, Gol Maal and Naram Garam. Angoor by Gulzar was another great comedy. Though not known for comedy, Satyen Bose's Chalti ka Naam Gaadi with Kishore Kumar was an excellent romantic comedy. So was Padosan, directed by Jyoti Swaroop. Mehmood's role in it was immortal, on of the best ever.

What Got You Here...

I think there is a book titled 'What Got You Here Won't Get You There.' I thought that would be obvious. An Apple phone with GPS is now needed to go anywhere. But that makes me think- this is dangerous territory, as you know. I am now imagining all kinds of spoofy titles for books that could be written; if push comes to shove, I may write some of them myself, while the grey cells are still functioning. Be prepared for the following titles then.

Why Men Clean Their Cars and Women Their Homes, by Dr. Jobless Jones, Ph.D.

How to Unfriend People who Send you Candy Crush Requests, by Hail Carnegie

How Jobs Cleaned up Windows, by his ex-Cleanup Consultant

How Pepsi Uncovered Coke's Secret Formula, by a former chief of the KGB

Enemies, by the scriptwriter of Friends

The Cosby No-show, by the Five Find-outers

How to Kidnap Schoolchildren, by The Organization

The Highs and Lows of Oil Prices by OPEC

That Sinking Feeling, co-authored by CEOs of Spicejet and Malaysian airlines

Wedding in Chennai

 Went to Chennai for a few days, after quite a while. I used to attend a December conference at Great Lakes Institute for a long time. This ...

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