Serious dramatic films that come across as comedies

Nell

Breaking The Waves was meant to star Helena Bonham Carter but she got cold....feet. She made the much better Margaret's Museum.

I read the plot of this film on Wiki and nearly barfed.

Lars Von Trier = pretentious misogynist creep

You're not very bright are you OP

R2 Thank you! (and OP as well). Maybe if I watched Breaking the Wind now I would laugh, but at the time I was bored out of my mind. And that fucking hand-held camera gave me a splitting headache. Halfway thru the movie I was looking at anything but the screen. It was a sold out theater, and this film was hailed as being so brilliant it was like the second coming. The only thing about Emily Watson that appealed to me was that she somewhat resembled Rutanya Alda. What didn't I get??? (I have since loved Watson in just about everything I've seen. I did not see Angela's Ashes).

Sometime after on a friend's strong recommendation, I sat in a nearly empty theater to watch Margaret's Museum. I was spellbound. Loved it. Loved her. She'll definitely be up for an Oscar. The film vanished with nary a trace.

What didn't I get??

[quote]You're not very bright are you OP

Intelligent enough to use proper punctuation and sentence structure.

I might get hell for this, but try watching Brokeback Mountain now. Maybe it's because of all the takeoffs since it first came out, but I can't get through it feeling the same way.

All the Hollywood shit about teachers and students, so fake and so shitty.

Brokeback Mountain

I'll admit, I do now always chuckle at Jack Nasty!

Any time Bette Midler attempts something serious, it's a laugh fest. The woman can land a joke with the best of them and she's always entertaining, but she's not a very good dramatic actress at all. She's usually best in smaller supporting roles where she's not required to show a big range of emotions. Even in a show as silly as Hello, Dolly there are some emotional moments in there and she couldn't land them at all.

Will Smith, his dramas are fucking hilarious, such a shitty actor

OP - Been decades since I saw it, but If I remember correctly, it is an indictment on the fucking stupidity of practicing catholics

Dracula (1992 version)

Shit, wrong thread.

Reefer Madness

R15 yet it still works!

That reminds me of another hilariously campy drama/"horror" film, Shadow of the Vampire.

Wins this.

Thread closed!

Mommie Dearest owns this thread!

Because choosing one is like choosing your favorite baby.

SOPHIES CHOICE

It's meant to be a thriller but......

Dead Again is unintentionally hilarious in a number of scenes, especially Derek Jacobi's death scene at the end.

Black Swan

R24 good one. Saw that movie on a flight—what a boring, pretentious piece of shit.

Interiors. I like Woody Allen, but that movie is also a comedy.

So many old potboilers are in this category:

Written on the Wind - Dorothy Malone mambo-ing while her father expires. Rock Hudson trying to look even vaguely interested in Betty Bacall. Those oil wells pumping, pumping, pumping. "A weakness."

Julie - Perky stewardess Doris Day interior monologues us nearly to death as she realizes hubby Louis Jourdan is homicidal. "I had the chilling sensation of being WATCHED. It was ominous. It was strangely disturbing." Oh yeah, and then she has to land a plane by herself because why not?

Midnight Lace - Doris again, being stalked and terrorized in London. No one who has seen it will ever forget her orgasm in the stuck elevator.

Susan Slade - Connie Stevens gets "in trouble" and later accidentally sets her baby on fire and it's hilarious because I'm a terrible person.

So many more...

The Hours - Meryl Streep's 'breakdown' in front of the dish washer was hilarious. R1 great choice there with Nell.

Tree in the wind!

Those ‘80s pseudo-thrillers like “Angel” and “Witchboard” come to mind.

I’m sure they’re even funnier now with the 30+ years time lapse!

HA!

Thirty posts, and not a single mention of me! Proves I was a serious filmmaker all along!

HA!

L'important c'est d'aimer, starring Romy Schneider in her only Cesar-winning performance. It's supposed to be a dark psychological drama but the whole thing is so overwrought and heavy-handed that I actually laughed out loud a few times while watching it. The same guy also directed Possession with Isabelle Adjani, which is equally hilarious (for all the wrong reasons).

eXistenZ - This supposed to be a scary sci-fi thriller. I went to see it with a friend and we could not stop giggling. It was so ridiculous.

[Quote] Those ‘80s pseudo-thrillers like “Angel” and “Witchboard” come to mind.

Haven't seen Witchboard but I hear it's a fun movie.

R33 eXistenZ is very funny. All that licking and fondling holes in peoples backs that looked like assholes. And the plugs inserted into them looked like little cocks. Though typical David Cronenberg weirdness.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? wins every time!

R30- I LOVE ANGEL!!! Totally campy!!! RIP Susan Tyrell

It's kind of obscure and before my time, but I first read about it on DL. The movie "Picnic" I made myself watch it.

Kim Novak as the hometown beauty queen looks like a 30 year old horse and William Holden as the sexy danger drifter has his shirt unbuttoned like your grandpa on a hot night. And they dance s e x y together and it's hilariously weird. Because he's supposed to be her ticket out of town and she looks like she could build her own railroad. He looks like a free ride in the boxcar. The whole film is not ridiculous, it's just so miscast and amped up. Rosalind Russell does some hysterical AND hysterical overacting too. What was PicNic all about really? It's too hot to fuck.

Blue Jasmine kinda owns this thread too.

Picnic was a hoot.

Who wanted to see old Rosalind Russell desperate and crazed for cock?

R40 = Ethel Merman

Fatal Attraction

Jagged Edge

Oh god. We had one of those moments, years ago, stoned and could not stop laughing so we had to leave.

The Cotton Club. I know everyone was supposedly high as a kite while making this and it showed.

At one point the guy, I think it was Richard Gere, anyway he was throwing this girl around the dance floor in some representation of an "energetic" dance number and it was too fucking funny for words. She was flung with great force! I The whole thing was an epic disaster.

This reminds me of my favorite Absolutely Fabulous episode a Small Opening. Saffy writes an earnest biographical play of her tortured life. Midway through it, (at 5:25) the actors are convinced that it’s really a comedy since everyone is laughing. Saffy remains oblivious.

Whore

L'Année dernière à Marienbad

R27 All Sirk melodramas have sinister wit.

Sirk tends to be hilarious. I second Written on the WInd. But number one hilarious movie is Love Story. I remember laughing with my friends when we went to see it, while people were actually drying. So bad, so hokey. And, of course, the great non-actress, Ali McGraw!

R39, you beat me to it.

I enjoyed it, but it was too much.

^^^Crying not drying, though who knows?

Wasn't Blue Jasmine supposed to be sorta funny, though? It seemed like a few bits were meant to be funny like when she's done talking to that woman on the plane and the woman tells her husband "I have no idea who that was." and when Jasmine gives the really earnest dark speech to those kids and they're just looking up at her like she's insane. That movie has a pretty dark wit.

This is technically a horror film but I cackled until my stomach hurt throughout The Prodigy (2019).

All Woody Allen, even the most serious, is tongue-in-cheek. Its the only way to make it through is more pretentious offerings.

Men Behind The Sun (1988). The death scenes are unintentionally hilarious due to the bad over the top, melodramatic acting and low budget cheesy special effects. The English over-dubs make it even worse, lol.

Possession with Isabelle Adjani. Her subway freakout is legendary, but the rest of her (and Sam Neil's) performance is equally insane. They both bug their eyes, twitch, wave their hands about, scream, shriek, and trash about for all two hours. It's fucking exhausting.

I hope, for Adjani's sake, they only did one take of this. I don't see how one could keep that up take after take. Come to think of it, maybe it is brilliant in its own way.

Strangeland starring Dee Snider. It is so ridiculous and stupid, i've never laughed so much at a horror movie. It came out in the 90's. Years later after such bad reviews Dee tried to say it was a parody. Yeah right. it was a stupid movie.

The Happening

The Wicker Man (the remake with Nicholas Cage)

Both of these had me in hysterics.

R42 is M.

[Quote] The Happening

I just....who on earth thought Marky Mark would make a great science teacher?? It was bad enough he played an astronaut in Planet Of The Apes.

The bigger problem with The Happening is Zooey Deschanel's godawful performance.

I love you R55.

Sllence of the Lambs - takes the cake. Campy as all hell

The Exorcist

Laughed my ass off at that piece of shit.

Glitter.

Out of Darkness starring Miss Ross.

I saw BLUE VELVET in a theater when it first came out and thought it was terrifying. I've seen it since then on tv monitors, and on a tv, the movie seems laughably silly to me. I don't know what makes the difference. Maybe it's me and if I saw it again in a theater, I'd laugh at it, but I doubt it. I don't know what accounts for the difference....Kafka's writing is like this - it's terrifying when you read it to yourself, but if read aloud in a group, everyone laughs their ass off at it.

Creator.

It was about cloning or something. Virginia Madsen’s near death scene at the end was hilarious.

That Dingos Ate My Baby movie Meryl made.

[quote]The Wicker Man (the remake with Nicholas Cage)

And, Thread Closed...

MAHOGANY (75) is a fabulous laff riot!

Wild Things is one of the funniest pseudo-thrillers ever. Right up there with Showgirls.

I laughed during all of Just Between Friends with Christine Lahti and Mary Tyler Moore.

This man has an Academy Award.

Wild Things always struck me as trash that knew it was trash. There was a nice trend of that in the 90's with stuff like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Single White Female. They're all well made and well acted, but it seems like everyone is having too good of a time to be taking it too seriously.

IT is supposed to be scary but I thought it was hysterical. When he does that dance I laughed my ass off. I can't wait to see the sequel.

I know Forrest Gump is supposed to have comedic moments but I laughed at all the dramatic ones. My favorite scene is when he starts to run and his leg braces fall off. I howled.

Cinema's greatest unintended comedy is always "Suddenly Last Summer." There is not another one like it.