Word: funniest
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North By Northwest. One of Hitchcock's funniest, this wondrous film both showcases and lampoons Cary Grant's talents. A bland New York businessman with an overbearing mother--played by an actress the same age as Grant--he gets caught up in international espionage plots. The real guts of the film are its several amazing set-pieces: the whirlwind opening, in which Grant gets whipped into the spy stuff before he can look askance; a black-humor elevator scene, with Grant at gunpoint as his mother pecks over his captors, "You men wouldn't be trying to kill...
Crichton departs from the formula in only one respect: whenever possible, he forces gratuitous cruelty between cliches. Dogs chew rats. A prisoner escaping from Newgate slices up his hands climbing the fence. Connery later strangles this poor innocent in cold blood. The funniest gag in the movie involves a decomposing cat. Nothing new for this butcher. In Crichton's Westworld, the most satisfying fantasies are also the bloodiest--robots blown to bits; one remembers brains being sliced up, organs flung about, dead bodies on dissection tables in Coma; now, Crichton gets his kicks injecting sadism into kiddie-movies. Bleah...
...Couple. The film adaptation of Neil Simon's funniest and most endearing play that isn't too funny and not very endearing. Matthau is a good Oscar--he can play these roles in his rumpled sleep, but Jack Lemmon "acts" too much, and his whine has none of Randall's or Carney's dingy charm...
...most convincing reason for taking notice of the Muppets, however, is that they are funny. In fact, with Laugh-In long gone, theirs is, give or take Saturday Night Live, the funniest show on television. This year the Muppets won an Emmy Award as TV's "outstanding comedy, variety or musical series." A gentle but consistent satirical breeze blows through The Muppet Show and saves Jim Henson's creatures from the grisly danger of being too lovable. Mostly the satire turns inward, joshing show business (the assumption that frames the series is that the Muppets are members of a theatrical...
...once wrote speeches for John Lindsay, knows the inside of a campaign headquarters, and he is probably familiar with idiot candidates as well. Bryan E. Clark is superbly smarmy as the campaign manager, Forbesy Russell is appropriately nubile as the blonde, and Richard Kuss gives one of the funniest performances of the year as a Congressman who enjoys kinky sex and kinkier politics. For long stretches they make you forget that Winning really isn't. - Gerald Clarke