Patrick Stoner welcomes your questions about movies and the men and women who make them. Send your questions to pstoner@whyy.org.

Here's the current question and answer...

Do you see any differences in this year's films so far compared to last year's?

Funny you should ask, and funny is the answer as well. So far, 1996 is stacking up as the year of the film comedy. Consider: how many good comedies were there last year? If you stretch the definition of the category a bit, you have Babe, To Die For, The American President, and Get Shorty. You could add others (Congo was the funniest film of the year--unintentionally), but you must admit that it was not a good year for comedies, and almost all of them came in the last six months of '95.

Now, take a look at this year so far: The Birdcage, Flirting With Disaster, Fargo, Sgt. Bilko, and A Thin Line Between Love And Hate, in my personal order of favorites. Soon to join the group will be The Truth About Cats And Dogs (where we learn that Uma Thurman can be funny without being Tarantino-scary), Celtic Pride (where we learn the Dan Aykroyd can act as broadly as Daniel Stern), and Spiehard (where we learn that Leslie Nielsen is still crazy after all these years). This is putting aside the brainless comedies aimed at the dumb and dumbest among us, although a couple of those come close.

If this were to keep up (and Whoopie, Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey, among others, all have films coming up in the next couple of months), this would slant 1996 into the comedic lane. It's been quite a while since comedies have been so dominant, so it's worthwhile noting what may be a resurgence.

I know, I know. Comedies have a long and lucractive history in Hollywood. Of course. I'm not talking about the big picture when I note the recent dirth of good comedies, but rather a snapshot of the last decade. Compared to the more distant past, comedies have been relatively scarce--blockbuster exceptions aside.

I suspect the reason for this is the great change that took place in the greenlighting of films in the eighties. Two major factors encouraged it: the explosion of video rentals and the power of us baby boomers. Consider the target audience of the seventies--young teenagers, primarily male. They bought the tickets, often more than once for their favorite films, and Hollywood--always looking at the bottom line--sank its money and the quality of its comic movies to the level of a fourteen-year-old boy. Having been one of those myself, I realize just how low that taste can go, and you can run a computer search on the number of films aimed at adolescent fantasies, but I think you know what I mean without bothering.

Hollywood is like an ocean liner: it doesn't turn quickly, and it's really expensive if it bumps into anything while changing course. There was a gap between the reality of that teenage dominance and what in politics they would call New Audiences. Once Hollywood discovered that an older audience was there and eager to spend money, both directly at the box office and later at the video store, the target was changed--or, more accurately, the arrows were now aimed at several different targets. The slapstick, childish comedies continued to be made, but more sophisticated, adult-oriented ones began to emerge.

I think what we're seeing now is the culmination of a long, slow turning of America's biggest, most successful ship. Now, the screenwriters are in place, the money people are on board, and a new generation of standup comics supply the talent to make all of it work. I expect to see more--and, hopefully, better comedies for the rest of the decade. Keep an eye out for them.

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