Over Thanksgiving, "This is Spinal Tap" was on cable. It is so understated and makes you pay such attention that you realize how rare comedies like that are. Even over the top jokes such as the name Sir Dennis Eton-Hogg are so plain and inhabited so fleeting, so naturally by Patrick Macnee, that you breeze right past them, then recognize them and smile eagerly on a second viewing. Two days later, "Napoleon Dynamite" was on another channel. It came out twenty years after "Spinal Tap," is understated balanced with broad humor, that it became a cult hit, too. Both are longstanding, are favorites of people I know, who can quote many lines from each film. Is comedy, that truly aims to be a comedy with grace notes of humanity, THAT rare? Yes, you betcha.
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