Comedy movies

What do you think are some of the best comedies that you have ever seen? In particular I'm interested in family-friendly ones. That category can include both ones that kids (and I'm thinking particulary of my good friend's 11-year-old daughter, with whom we often see movies, not anyone younger) and adults would love or ones that kids might not really understand but which are so-called "cleaner." I speak of the latter group with my international student group in mind. Because of the particular nature of the audience, we don't like to show movies with much violence or too graphic of sex. But I'd still be interested to know about comedies you love that aren't so family friendly and that maybe I wouldn't show to those people but might watch on my own. Especially since comedy is my boyfriend's favorite genre and romantic comedy is his second favorite (can you believe a man actually openly saying that he loves romantic comedies?), I'm looking out for fun movies to watch.

Let me start the list by naming a few classic Disney movies I love.

Tonight I just showed my boyfriend North Avenue Irregulars, a movie where this crazy group of church women try to stop the mob from their illegal gambling racket. I think this is possibly the funniest movie I've seen, and a number of friends agree. Cloris Leachmann is the best actress in the movie!

There's also No Deposit, No Return, with Don Knotts, Darren McGavin, David Niven, and Barbara Feldon among others where a pair of kids talk a nice pair of the unluckiest safe crackers into kidnapping them, so they don't have to visit their grandfather (Niven). Since he knows where they are, he doesn't give in, and wildness ensues.

Other non-Disney movies include IQ where Walter Matthau plays Einstein who tries to hook up his niece (Meg Ryan) with a garage mechanic (Tim Robbins). That's so cute!

The Mouse that Roared with Peter Sellers playing three main roles (including the queen). A tiny country decides to solve their economic problems by attacking the U.S. and then surrendering because after the U.S. beats a country, it comes in with aid to that. But instead, the Peter Sellers character messes up and wins!

Paleface and Son of Paleface by Bob Hope and Jane Russell. The second is better because it has Roy Rogers and Trigger in it! Both are wild west movies with Hope's character an idiot. In the first, he is a dentist going out west who gets married to Russell because she is a federal agent who needs a cover to get on the wagontrain. She actually kills the Indians, but he thinks he did and is a great hero. In the second, he is the son of Painless Potter, and she is the criminal mastermind. Rogers is the federal agent, with Trigger stealing the show!

I'll add more as I think of them. Any other suggestions?

Two of my older comedy favorites: The Long Long Trailer with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit.
Cindy

I classic comedies. Things like Arsenic and Old Lace, Harvey, the old Ma and Pa Kettle movies, anything with Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Jimmy Stewart, etc.

You met your boyfriend on-line, correct? How about You've Got Mail. That movie came out right when I started dating Frank. It was one of our first dates. Loved it. I should rewatch that. It's been awhile.

A movie that would be nice for your student group would be The Preacher's Wife with Denzel Washington.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is hilarious, IMO.

My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding would be perfect for our group right now! We have been talking about relationships and marriage, so it would fit in just right! At the end of January, I led a group on intercultural relationships, and for Valentine's Day, we had a discussion on marriage. We got the husband of one of our volunteers, who has been married for 49 years, to come, and they shared about their marriage, and my mom shared (my dad was sick in bed), as did a couple other married volunteers. The students had a lot of questions and said that it helped them a lot to understand things about marriage. One woman from China said that her family never talks about marriage, and she didn't know who to ask her questions of, so she had never been able to learn things about dating or what to look for in potential husband. She said that she was really impressed that people from our group would put themselves out there so much that they'd share the bad with the good too!

Another woman, who has never dated before but is just starting to use eHarmony and really wants to find a husband (I told her you have to have a boyfriend first though!), was really reassured to learn that not all American men expect the woman to get into bed with them on the first date! She is 53 and a virgin and didn't want to have sex on the first date, but thought it would be expected of her. I wasn't in the group because I led the alternative discussion, but I asked my mom to make sure that no one preached against pre-marital sex, a popular topic that Christians have a tendency to preach about, and the philosophy of our international student ministry is that we never preach to the students about anything. If they want to know about Christianity, they can ask, but we don't try to make them follow any guidelines expected of Christians. Usually, the volunteers are pretty good about this, but I was wary about the topic of premarital sex because I know from experience that this can get a lot of Christians going, and I myself have been pretty offended at times, so I can only imagine how someone who isn't even a Christian would feel. My mom said that it started to get out of hand, but she redirected things, so it turned out o.k.

As for other movies suggested, I love Arsenic and Old Lace! I've seen that performed several times too and already have the DVD. I'll have to put that in my list of movies to show the international students. Not only do we have periodic movie nights, but we also have become a lending library to a lot of the students too. One TV series that is becoming HUGELY popular is Monk. They can't get enough of that one. Our psychologist comes back every meeting (which is every two weeks) to return the current season and borrow the next. She's on season six right now, although I think she missed season five because someone else had that one out at the time. It's been interesting hearing her comments on the accuracy of the depiction of OCD and phobias. Though the commentaries say Monk wasn't really even trying to be accurate, she says it really is pretty true to life.

You've Got Mail is a cute movie, but I bet my boyfriend has seen that already, and I've seen it several times, so it would really only be worthwhile watching again if I'm watching it with its being his first time.

Any other ideas?

"East is East" is a warm and hilarious movie, which makes me laugh every time I see it. It is most suitable for multicultural viewers as it is all about misundertandings amongst diffrent cultures in the same household. It is just brillant.
You can have a look at this:http://www.thegreenparent.com/?mov=download_film_east_is_east
or get it from your DVD store.
This film is getting quite old, but the message does not age.
I hope you enjoy it, Vicky.
I can thoroughly recomend it.
This can also be a subject for a very useful discussion.

I remember seeing a movie entitled "The Gods Must be Crazy" back when my kids were small. It was about an African man (in Africa) who stumbles upon a Coca-Cola bottle and thinks it is a gift from the gods. It was suitable for kids but I laughed and laughed. I'm a tough customer with comedies. It really has to be clever for me to like it.

For a movie that's not for kids, I thought Wedding Crashers was very funny. It's a bit risqué.

Watch some fantastic Comedy Movies like get him to the greek and sex and the city.

The old Francis The Talking Mule series of B&W movies are kind of corny. The first one in the series mostly takes place during WWII and has some unkind names for the Japanese, so is not suitable for your international group. You can get them from Netflix; the first two movies are on one disk.

The Princess Bride is one of my favourites. My kids loved The Blues Brothers. Both my kids can recite whole passages of these two movies. "My name is Endigo Mandoa, you killed my father, prepare to die." Even I can remember lines out of Princess Bride although can't spell his name. It also features the six fingered man.

If you can ever find a copy "Clue" with Tim Curry it is my all time favourite. My daughter managed to find a dvd to replace our old vcr, off the tv, copy a while back, I think she had to order it. After watching Clue countless times, it still has the ability to have me in tears of laughter.

I like new age Jim Carry's Mask...............And other Mocking comedy movies.............

Also enything with Audrey Hepburn in it: like Breakfas at Tiffanys, Roman Holidays or
My Fair Lady is a classic - not strictly speaking a comedy but great fun, all the same all good clean fun.