That's Christian Slater, not Christian Bale.

I saw "King of Comedy" with Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis. Man...that film is just painful to watch. I actually had to turn it off a few times and go into the other room. It's not depressing, it's just...well, it is depressing, but it's also really uncomfortable. Everyone in that film is so unpleasant and desperate.

I tend to stay away from commercialized comedies, so the most recent I've seen is "The....(don't remember) of Chuck and Larry',  (the Sandler movie?)

>< Its the most conservative film "for gay rights" I've ever seen.  We support you alternative lifestyle people just...don't kiss in front of us, or show affection in front of us, because 2 men doing that is totally unnatural.

Its sort of like how the Disney movie Luck of the Irish  played on all the stereotypes of Irish culture that could be taken as insulting, the sort of broad sweeping segregation of a different class of humans, only in this case there was only costumed and slurred 'fairies', some acting in the sort of asexual yet flamboyantly effeminate nature that makes the manly men feel 'safe'.

I don't remember much of the movie, considering it was about two years ago I saw it, but I remember the gay black fire man coming out for real, and I think he went into a relationship with the only other gay character given any context in the film, the really flamboyant effeminate nonsexual one.

The only way I'll forgive this movie is if it were a parody of the type of film all dubbed yaoi-fans like to see, where neither of the characters comprising the couple was considered attractive, they NEVER EVER kiss, there is still plenty of female boobage present, and the most romantic relationship is the one between Sandler and the woman he gropes when he is a psuedo homosexual, followed by the words 'icky'.

So when it comes down to it, I'm not really sure which demograph this film was aiming for.

I agree with all Todd Solondz films (Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Palindromes, etc.) being unbelievably unfunny and horrible and dark, but also being really good movies in their dark, absurdist, truthfullness. Likewise with the wonders of Brazil! Just about my favorite film.

I would also add East Is East, which is billed as being a Jimi Mistry-based rip-roaring good time (in the spirit of The Guru or A Touch Of Pink). It's certainly at least half (dark) comedy and has a sort of uplifting ending? But once you get to the beatings, you're sort of wondering why oh why did they say this was funny, why isn't there more Jimi Mistry and when are they going to start having a Bollywood dance scene.

Assuming we can count specific episodes in a comedy series, I would like to nominate what is possibly my favorite episode of Community-- Introduction to Film. After Britta pays for Abed to take a film class (because his father will not allow him to participate in anything that won't assist him in taking over the family business), Abed decides that Jeff and Britta will play the roles of his mother and father. Throughout the episode, he intentionally drives Britta to her breaking point through his passive-aggressive nature, and finally prompts Jeff to tell him that "the wrong person just left." At the end of the episode, Abed shows his very strange, clearly experimental film to Jeff, Britta, and his father-- it's a perfect metaphor for how Abed's mom couldn't deal with her potentially autistic son and left, and how his father always blamed him for it. It's an insanely depressing scene for such a funny show.