The folks at the A. V. Club recently put together a “top 50 best comedies since 2000” list.  Like most lists, its an interesting read, particularly if it helps you see how your own tastes have changed over time.  It’s also interesting to be reminded of the places you’ve lived over the course of time the list deals with.  Some thoughts:

I think it’s great that Josie and the Pussycats wound up at #48 on the list.  It’s a much better movie than audiences gave it credit for.  It harkens back to the days of The Matrix, Fight Club, and Memento for me, particularly in its subversiveness, which the A. V. Club list points out.  Still, I’m not sure how ha-ha funny it actually is.  It embraces and subverts “everything Archie” quite nicely, really.

The remake of Ocean’s Eleven comes in at #41.  I prefer Ocean’s Twelve, myself.  Julia Roberts gets the best moment in that one.

One of my all-time favorite movies, I ♥ Huckabees, comes in at #38.  It’s one of the first movies that I loved while living in Hawaii.  What a wonderfully odd philosophical journey that Jason Schwartzman’s character goes through.  Like the article mentions, it’s the last “odd” movie by David O. Russell (recently of Joy).  This is one of those movies that I liked so much that I bought the (special edition) soundtrack.  “How am I not myself?” indeed.

Punch-Drunk Love comes in at #33.  That might have been my first Adam Sandler movie.  Saw it in Fort Worth and loved it.  It’s a sad kind of funny.  Kind of like The Mexican, which  sadly, did not make the list.  The beautifully biting Young Adult comes in at #30.  I was surprised at how dark the movie went and that I went along with it.  Ghost World, which is ranked at #26 that feels like an artifact from a million years ago.  I saw it because it was a comic book adaptation (that I had not and have not read).

One of my favorite movies of the last five years, What We Do in the Shadows, is ranked at #26.  From New Zealand, the story follows four vampires trying to make their way in 21st century Wellington.  It’s told as a documentary that centers around an upcoming annual gathering of the creatures of the night.  All of the vampire mythology is on display (like mind control and entry issues) to great effect.  Even now, I crack up a but just thinking about the adventures of Viago and friends.  The movie’s creator is starting work on the third Thor movie.  After that, we’re supposed to get a look into the world of werewolves.

Hard to believe that one of the movies from earlier this summer made it to #19 on the A. V. Club list.  I was one of the only people laughing throughout the viewing of The Lobster that I caught at Dole.  It’s a great, if not utterly fantastic, look at a culture that ask but deifies marriage (to the detriment of singletons).  Don’t get me wrong: the movie is tragic on almost every level.  It’s not one I’ll be showing around anytime soon.  But it’s one that sticks with you long after the screen frustratingly cuts to black.

It was pretty cool seeing all of Edgar Wright’s work on the list (and quite high up, really).  Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, the one movie sans Simon Pegg, was ranked at #9.  I remember seeing that one at Dole and my group of friends being divided straight down the middle in terms of how great (or horrible) the movie was.  Wright’s “Cornetto’s Trilogy” showed up scattered through the fifty: The World’s End at #31, Hot Fuzz at #13, and Shaun of the Dead at #5.  Having just watched it again recently, I can say that Shaun of the Dead holds up really well, both as a zombie movie and as a comedy.  I really like Wright’s sensibility with the screen and with creative ways of storytelling (cuts and repetitions can work wonders with a story).  After rematching Shaun, I revisited both seasons of Spaced, which are a great look at early Wright.

Lots of great movies on the list.  Lots that I haven’t seen.  A few that I’ve tried to watch but couldn’t quite get into.  A few movies that you might think would make the list but didn’t (Just Friends?).  I do wonder if they’ll get around to giving the same treatment to animated movies.  I just saw The Secret Lives of Pets, and it was pretty funny.  It would be interesting to see how various studios (Pixar included) mix together when viewed through the lens of comedy.

If you haven’t already, you can check out the A. V. Club’s comedy list here.