Exploring the intersections of cinema
Alex and Jonathan reflect on 8 1/2 years of recording the Filmlings Podcast. If you're new here, this is an invitation and guide to explore the back-catalog, even though we are not currently recording new episodes. If you've been around, thanks for listening and supporting the show over the years! Keep an eye on the… Continue reading The Retrospective
As we bring our discussion of the history of comedy to the modern day, Alex and Jonathan look at three comedy films from the past two decades: Mean Girls (2004), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), and The Fall Guy (2024). We discuss the facets of wit as a mode of humor, the way wit has… Continue reading Ep 172. COMEDY CINEMA 5: The Wit’s End
Moving from the absurd to the irreverent, today Alex and Jonathan look at three films which encompass a subset of comedy in which the characters are under the influence in some form or fashion: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), The Big Lebowski (1998), and The Hangover (2009). We discuss the glorification and justification of… Continue reading Ep 171. COMEDY CINEMA 4: The Stoners
After the collapse of the Production Code, filmmakers now had the ability to put anything and everything in their movies, so they did. Today Alex and Jonathan discuss three films which take comedy beyond rational proportions and talk about The Producers (1967), Airplane! (1980), and The Mask (1994). We discuss the history of absurdist comedy,… Continue reading Ep 170. COMEDY CINEMA 3: The Absurdists
With the arrival of sound in Hollywood, a new subgenre of comedy arose, so today Alex and Jonathan discuss the history of the "screwball comedies" while looking at Trouble in Paradise (1932), His Girl Friday (1940), and Some Like it Hot (1959). We talk about how screwballs differed from standard romantic comedies, the emphasis on… Continue reading Ep 169. COMEDY CINEMA 2: The Screwballs
To kick off a new series on the history of American comedy films, Alex and Jonathan travel back to the early days of cinema and look at the physical comedy of the early film clowns in Safety Last! (1923), City Lights (1931), and Duck Soup (1933). We discuss the transition from live performances in theater… Continue reading Ep 168. COMEDY CINEMA 1: The Clowns
This course is an inexhaustive journey through some of the major trends in American comedy films from the early days of narrative filmmaking to the present. It should provide both an understanding of where modern comedy comes from, and some useful categories for thinking through different styles of comedy represented in cinema no matter the… Continue reading AN UNOFFICIAL HISTORY OF COMEDY IN AMERICAN CINEMA: Course Syllabus
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