Word: humorous
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although Jews constitute only 3% of the U.S. population, 80% of the nation's professional comedians are Jewish. Why such domination of American humor? New York City Psychologist Samuel Janus, who once did a yearlong stint as a stand-up comic, thinks that he has the answer: Jewish humor is born of depression and alienation from the general culture. For Jewish comedians, he told the recent annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, "comedy is a defense mechanism to ward off the aggression and hostility of others...
...money traveling around the country to interview top comedians and give them psychological tests. So far, he has tested 76 Jewish humorists, including Milton Berle, George Burns, David Brenner, Sid Caesar, David Steinberg and Mort Sahl. Most, he says, were ambivalent about their Jewishness and compulsively turned to humor to ward off their private demons. As Joan Rivers told Janus, "If I were marching to the ovens, I'd be telling jokes all the way." What makes them funny, says Janus, "is their pain...
...INDEPENDENTLY produced film made on a shoestring budget, Girl Friends has a very professional look about it. The film has many touching and amusing moments, and it portrays life in Manhattan with realism and a smattering of humor. But verisimilitude does not a plot make, and Girl Friends suffers most from a one-dimensional story line, even if the line is quite nicely trimmed...
Girl Friends. Independently produced and directed by Claudia Weill '68, it's a pleasant but lightweight portrait of a young woman photographer in New York. She's a nice Jewish girl with a great sense of humor (your mother would love her), but unfortuantely the movie is a little short in the plot department. There are some great cameo roles by well-known actors, however; Eli Wallach as the 60-year-old rabbi she has a brief affair with is one of the best. It's short and sweet, and, all in all, a fairly innocuous way to spend...
...What? You were in the States all summer and you didn't see this movie? What's the matter with you? Anyway, this is what you might call a very funny movie, if you can manage to disengage your refinement and prepare yourself to laugh at some incredibly sophomoric humor. This is the ultimate college frat movie, complete with sex jokes, beer jokes, dope jokes, preppies jokes, and just plain dumb jokes. Nevertheless, this story of a renegade frat at an uptight early-'60s college is a good way to spend three bucks and a couple of hours...