Nov. 12--Recently, the voting members of the Writers Guild of America chose Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," one of the rare instances of a top-Oscar-winning feature, as the funniest screenplay in existence, with "Some Like It Hot" and "Groundhog Day" winning second and third funniest, respectively.
The rest of the Top 10: "Airplane!" (No. 4); "Tootsie" (No. 5); "Young Frankenstein" (No. 6); "Dr. Strangelove" (No. 7); "Blazing Saddles" (No. 8); "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (No. 9); and "National Lampoon's Animal House" (No. 10).
The WGA funny list goes to 101, and naturally there were screwy decisions a-plenty. For example:
"A Fish Called Wanda" at No. 20, ahead of "His Girl Friday" at No. 21?
"The Princess Bride" at No. 22, ahead of the great Preston Sturges comedies "The Lady Eve" (no. 32) and "Sullivan's Travels" (No. 35)?
"The Hangover" at No. 30? Why is it even on the list, let alone ahead of Chaplin's "City Lights" (No. 90) and "The Gold Rush" (No. 94)?
It's the old story: The old movies are lucky to be remembered at all.
If there's heart (along with a few laughs, derisive or otherwise) to be taken from the WGA list, it's in the sheer breadth of what constitutes comedy. There are tone-funny movies; the largely improvised din of "M*A*S*H," for example, compared to the classically well-built scenarios of "Back to the Future" or, miraculously, given how many cooks were in the kitchen, "Tootsie," one of the true post-1980 classics on the list.
Here's the 101. Surely you have an opinion about where they blew it, and what the writers got right. Right?
mjphillips@tribpub.com
