Comedy has got to be the most difficult of genres to make. When do you decide a movie is funny?

When Will Ferrel’s in it. Most of the time.

When it has a fair share of humor that gets me to laugh, otherwise it simply becomes stupid.

Recently, it’s movies that stray from the mainstream formula. Will Ferrel movies got old so they aren’t as funny anymore.

I prefer something quirky, less obvious as such I suppose. I don’t find slapstick comedy funny for the most part.

I’m into dark humor, satire or whatever. What makes a good comedy to me, is connecting with someone’s misery. I particularly love the movie Happiness as my all time comedy.

When it makes me laugh. That’s when it funny. I don’t need to laugh too much but it has to have at least a few good jokes in it to be funny. Trivial jokes are not that funny, I may laugh but I don’t consider them to be that fun.
For instance I like stand up comedy but I don’t laugh to much at it because they have to many obscene jokes in them.

I was thinking about “The Other Guys” before I read the details, and I think it is one of the funniest movies to come down the pike in a long time. What makes it work for me is that hardly any or perhaps none of the jokes are cliché, and the elements of improv are fairly seamless compared to say “Talladega Nights,” which I thought was a total dog. It seems a trend to give improv treatment to scenes before rolling the cameras now, so that there’s still a tightness to whatever one migh call a script these days.

There was a great article in “Wired” about quantifying humor, and the subject of the article boiled what is “funny” down to benign violation. Benign action isn’t funny, and violation isn’t funny, but when you combine the two, that’s what makes it funny. That’s the best and most reliable definition I’ve come across.

I would also go with “if it makes me laugh”, but I tend to enjoy verbal humor and subtlety more than physical humor.m Marx Brothers, Pink Panther, Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, etc.

When I laugh and it was not because of some variation of a fart/penis joke.

I have many movies that make me laugh but the one that was surprised me was, Rat Race. There are some movies I find funny only because I’m in a particularly silly mood I guess.

The movies that are comedic standards are the Monty Python ones. I love when writers can put together intelligent witticisms and point out the irony in life.

I like a theory of humor that it springs from surprise.
So if you’ve seen a bunch of Will Ferrel, it seems stupid instead of funny, if it’s your first Will Ferrel then you may be cracking up.
On the other hand I can’t explain that I still laugh at the movie “Idiocracy” every one of the several times I’ve seen it.

Originality, subtly and unpredictabilty (and The Big Lebowski.)

I don’t find a lot of movies to be funny. The last comedy I loved was probably The Hangover.
Most comedys are amusing for one viewing, but not for repeated viewing. That’s what made the Big Lebowski so magnificent. I watch that several times a year.

I must cry with laughter & almost piss my pants at least once, otherwise it’s simply smile humour. Which is what polite society likes to call, cockin a wrong un!

@zensky Couldn’t agree with you more! ‘The Other Guys’ is hilarious!!

Looks like I must add to Netflix list: “The Other Guys”