A fish-ful of pounds (and other singular creatures)

Hi everyone! We can consider this article as a continuation of those “Five remedies for sadness” released several weeks ago. Today we are going to concentrate on a film which, in 1988, revitalized the comedy genre: “A fish called Wanda”.

There is something that distinguishes this film from many others: surely, the charisma of the four main actors and their brilliant and hilarious performances. But, let’s start with the beginning.

Mythic John Cleese (along with Graham Chapman, the two most outstanding members from Monty Python) dumped his acid sense of humour in a story about burglars, and he decided to offer it to a filmmaker (Charles Crichton, who hadn’t shot a movie since the late 60’s). Cleese succeeded in putting pressure on the producers, and (along with Crichton) wrote the final screenplay. They opted to dispense with the dark surreal humour from Monty Python’s stage, and they also impregnated the absurd situations with more dramatic likeliness. And the bet was complete, because they Continue reading A fish-ful of pounds (and other singular creatures)

Five remedies for sadness

Probably there are as many types of humour as there are people. Our sense of humour is like a fingerprint: it identifies us and represents us socially; it singles us out. We can think of it as a collage of circumstances that we try to match with our personal values. Due to this fact, we tend to remember comical situations and gags that fit us somehow. It’s almost an aesthetic matter (intangible, but aesthetic).

Today I would like to show you some pieces of my particular collage. This will be a movie scenes’ collage, featuring five –in my opinion- memorable moments. Continue reading Five remedies for sadness