For this week's Ranked!, we decided to rank our favorite politically incorrect films. Did your favorite make the cut? Find out below!15. Clerks
14. Porky's
13. The Invention Of Lying
12. Borat
11. Kentucky Fried Movie
10. Dogma
9. Heathers
8. Tropic Thunder
7. Team America: World Police
6. Bad Santa
5. Life Of Brian
In the wake of the would-be Rapture, it seems like a very appropriate time for a discussion of my favorite sacrilegious movie of all time: Life Of Brian. Anyone who knows me even in passing knows that, if a Rapture ever did happen, I'd be one of the ones left behind... and maybe then I wouldn't find this movie so funny. But, since that hasn't happened (and probably never will), I guess I'll just keep on laughing.Monty Python's treatment of God and all things holy has me convinced I'd get along with John Cleese and company just fine. Although both Holy Grail and Meaning Of Life, the other two well-known Python films, deal with religion in passing, Brian is the one that puts the subject front and center (putting it, once again, in the category of movies I can't recommend to just anyone). For a--well, let's just call me a skeptic--there's plenty to love about this movie. From the accidental bestowing of gifts by the Wise Men ("A bomb? What do you want to give a baby a bomb for?"), to the People's Front of Judea (or was it the Judean People's Front?), to the argument between new religious converts as to whether to worship Brian by following the shoe or following the gourd ("All right, I am the Messiah... now fuck off!" "How shall we fuck off, oh Lord?"), to "Always look on the bright side of life" sung by a dozen or so men as they are being crucified, this film is a hilarious, scathing look at just how silly religion seems when broken down to its most basic components. It's great religious and social commentary wrapped in British comedy. (Just ignore the scene with the flying saucer. I have no idea where that came from.)
I suppose if your the religious type, Life Of Brian is not the movie for you. If you have religious friends and family and you don't want to be ostracized forever, don't show it to them. I can definitely see where some people would be terribly put off by it. But hey, we're talking politically incorrect movies this week, aren't we? They wouldn't be politically incorrect if they didn't piss somebody off.--Dave
4. South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut
When I first saw South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, it instantly became one of my favorite movies. I was already a fan of the show, but the movie took it to another level. It had an epic scope, incredibly foul jokes, and it was a traditional musical to boot.But the thing about the South Park movie is how right they got it. It was a film about our culture's obsession with violence and our somewhat lame attempts to try to keep our kids from the evils of the world. When I saw it in the theater, the teen sex comedy American Pie was playing next door. They were carding for that one. Ironically, nobody seemed to care who was going into South Park, which was way more subversive than American Pie could ever hope to be (did you know the markings on the Devil's chest make a penis? Once you see it, you'll wonder how you ever didn't see it).
But that's what makes it great. South Park has a way of condemning something yet embracing it at the same time. It's anti-violence message is coated in a blood-filled orgy of a climax where the USA goes to war against Canada. Set to music. With farts. And think about this: South Park may not the be most outrageous movie on this list, but it's the only one that was both nominated for an Oscar and on AFI's list of greatest movie musicals ever.--Daddy Geek Boy
3. There's Something About Mary
At its heart, There's Something About Mary is a love story. It tells of a guy who falls in love with a girl while in high school and due to circumstances beyond his control, does not end up with her. As a result, he spends the rest of his life pining for her until finally he decides to do something about it.It's also funny, raunchy, and politically incorrect as hell.
The Farrelly Brothers had already cemented their claim to fame in the realm of lowbrow humor at this point in time with Dumb And Dumber and Kingpin. But There's Something About Mary took the crudeness to a whole new level.
Ben Stiller getting his "Frank and beans! Frank and beans!" caught in his zipper on prom night (every guy (and maybe half the women) I know still wince when remembering that scene). The dog. Mary's neighbor. The rest area scene. And the unforgettable hair gel scene. All of this adds up to maybe not the funniest, but one of the raunchiest and most politically incorrect movies ever.--Chag
2. Blazing Saddles
There have been so many times I've tried to work Blazing Saddles quotes into business meetings. There is something about its irreverence that just naturally translates to a business setting, don't you think? Nothing too HR controversial, just the occasional "Is Bismark a herring? or "Excuse me while I whip this out," which inevitably resulted in me getting the fish eye and/or one person bursting out laughing. (And that's how I found the cool people.)Blazing Saddles makes fun of everything! The basic plot is that it's 1874 and a scheming lawyer manipulates the appointment of a black sheriff to a town in an attempt to drive everyone away so he can buy the land cheaply for a railroad development. Sound complicated? That isn't even the half of it. Almost every line is a joke, and you gotta be quick or you'll miss them. It lampoons the Western, race relations, Hollywood, politicians, sexuality, and religion. How do you forget Mel Brooks as a Yiddish Indian? It is gloriously crass, funny as hell, and it's a smart film. It is a comedy that, despite the lengthy and awesome fart scene around the campfire, does not talk down to its audience. (I think Blazing Saddles made fart jokes not only OK but preferred.) It was also significant for the time. It was a film that broke molds but it is still just as watchable today as it was in 1974.
Of course, I cannot even imagine this film without the cast: Cleavon Little, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens. These are people who are funny just standing around, let alone together in a Mel Brooks film. All I can really say is, if you haven't seen Blazing Saddles... what the hell are you doing loitering on a pop culture site? Go rent it right now! And if you don't trust my impeccable judgment in films here is a taste of the dialogue you've been missing:
Sheriff Bart: Mongo was easy. The bitch was inventing the candy-gram. Probably won't even give me credit for it.
[a knock at the window; Bart gets up and sees the same woman who insulted him earlier]
Elderly Woman: Good evening, Sheriff. Sorry about the "Up yours, nigger". I hope this apple pie will in some small way say thank you for your ingenuity and courage in defeating that horrible Mongo.
Sheriff Bart: Well, uh... thank you, much obliged. Good night.
[Bart closes the window and smells the pie... but returns to the window when he hears another knock]
Elderly Woman: Of course, you'll have the good taste not to mention that I spoke to you.
Sheriff Bart: Of course.
Elderly Woman: Thank you.
Sheriff Bart: I'm rapidly becoming a big underground success in this town.
Jim the Waco Kid: See? In another twenty-five years, you'll be able to shake their hands in broad daylight.
--The Weirdgirl
1. Airplane!
"Oh, stewardess? I speak jive."Let's be perfectly clear about something: Airplane! has more good jokes per minute than any movie ever made. It's scientifically proven. They use it during SEAL training to test a soldier's composure should they be faced with an enemy who is particularly hilarious. That's why it's such an elite team: no one gets past that test.
And who'd want to? That shit is still funny 30 years later! And it's not because of how well we all remember the bloated disaster movies of the '70s, although give me The Poseidon Adventure or Towering Inferno on any given night and I'm in for the duration. It's because its creators looked around at everything--and I mean everything--that was potentially mockable and just said, "Fuck it, let's just put it all in." Thankfully, they actually knew how to write and stage a joke, often doing so with such maniacal speed and precision that you weren't done laughing from the previous joke before the next one hit you. (Dear Wayans Brothers: please note in the previous sentence that the most important word is actually "laughing.")
What's remarkable to me about Airplane! isn't just how many good jokes it had, but how they took shots at so many sacred cows without being raunchy or mean. It's the kind of movie I can watch with my Mom, even when the Otto the Autopilot is getting... reinflated. You can't tell me that the NAACP didn't bust a gut at, "Hey home', I can dig it. Know ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap up on you, man!" Or that Catholics didn't get a huge laugh out of the airport announcers arguing over abortions. Or that the leaflet "Famous Jewish Sport Legends" didn't draw a guffaw from the Anti-Defamation League. And I think we can all agree that there's something truly poetic about the shit hitting the fan. The movie has a pitch-perfect ability to identify that one stray, crazy thought that we might have had--"Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit amphetamines," or "He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air... yes, birds too."--and pursue it to that place our collective minds wouldn't let us go to otherwise. And surely we should thank them for that.
And yes, I'll stop calling you Shirley.--CroutonBoy
[images|Blazing Saddles dialogue]
