I like this thread.

Well, these aren't recent, but they are personal favorites.

In Bruges: This movie shifted between downright hilarious to very depressing. I love this movie and the script so much. This is by far the best movie I've seen with Colin Farrell, and was a great cast overall. It has a dreamy scape to it, and it's divided between those sequences, and the realism as well. I recommend it. (I also spent lots of time learning the main piano theme for it.)

Wristcutters: A Love Story: I wouldn't really consider this a comedy in general, but it definitely was fun for me. When this came out I fell in love with it. Basically, it has the kid from Almost Famous grown up in it. He commits suicide because of depression for his girlfriend, and instead of going to heaven or hell, he goes to limbo. It's just like Earth, it's just a little bit worse. They play around with it, and this has another fun, quirky cast too.

The Royal Tenenbaums: Overall, I'm a sucker for Wes Anderson films. This has always been one of my favorite movies as well. I wouldn't fully consider it dark or depressing, but it has it's moments, and it depresses me while making me laugh my ass off. Put it this way, if you like one Wes Anderson movie, you'll more then likely like the rest of them.

Sideways : I'm not totally obsessed with this movie as my family was when it came out, but when I actually saw it with a group of friends I really enjoyed it. I liked the entire style of the directing and the script, and found it also to be kind of moving too. in a mid life depressing crisis sort of way.

That's it. I'm sorry I wasn't too descriptive on them, but I'll probably edit this later to look more presentable.

The most depressing moment in a comedy I've ever seen is the end of Blackadder Goes Forth. It just...it's pure gallows humour. You're laughing even as you're crying, because the really terrible thing is? That's probably how it was in real life. People just making the best of a very, very bad situation.

...Peep Show is also probably a fair example, though it's not so much depressing as painful. Which isn't to say it's not funny, because it's bloody hilarious. It's depressing because OMFG THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE ARE REALLY LIKE. AND WE'RE PATHETIC. ^___^ One of the best examples of it is here. Poor, poor Mark...

That is way beyond cool that you got to see that in school.

minervana wrote:

Title is self-explanatory.

For me, the most depressing comedy I've seen recently is "Idiocracy." Everyone on earth is an idiot except for Luke Wilson, who himself is pretty average. Even though the movie made me LOLIRL, I started thinking of how there's something of a grain of truth to it.

The saddest/funniest moment was when Luke Wilson goes up to some people on the street and asks them something in normal English like "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" and they call him a fag. So sad

True. Sadly I of can kinda see it as a dire waring.

Razara wrote:

Despite having every dramatic event in the book, I find Scrubs more depressing than Desperate Housewives, because while Desperate Housewives often has victims who deserved it on some level, Scrubs repeatedly focuses on the death of innocent people, over and over. It's always sad, but they manage to even it out with hysterical humor.

My sentiments exactly. Scrubs has been one of my favorite shows for as long as I can remember, but it never fails to bring a few tears to my eyes. At one point, I composed a list of all the saddest episodes.

Pfft wrote:

Although it's not exactly "recently", I have to mention Terry Gilliam's Brazil here since it's one of my favourite movies of all time. It is set in a future totalitarian bureaucracy, and it's hilarious but extremely bleak. The hero of the story gets by in his life by not making any waves, having as little contact with the world as possible and instead sit around day-dreaming. Then he meets a girl, falls in love at first sight, and actually starts caring about something, at which point his life promptly goes to hell.

I've seen bits and pieces of that movie! I didn't really pay attention, though, since the time I saw it I was watching it for a class in high school.

I LOVE Brazil. One of my fav movies of all times.

I also love Desperate Housewives and Scrubs. Guess I'm just a sucker for things are funny and dark.

"You are no longer invited to the funeral. In fact, there will be security guards at the funeral, and those security guards will have sticks. And if you so much as set a foot inside the sanctuary, they will be told to beat you with those sticks."

Bree has to be one of my favorite characters of all time. I adore how she embraces this image that everyone these days loathes, then completely sticks by it despite every second of criticism or adversity. Also the irony that she's an incredibly strong resilient woman that dons this facade associated with subservience and passivity.

By the way, if all of the characters in DH that die deserve it, then why the hell hasn't Gabrielle been hit by a car? Seriously. Lynette and sometimes Susan are almost killed every other episode, and they took away poor Edie. Just off Gabrielle. Her every episode annoys me. If it weren't for her dynamic with the more lovable Carlos, I'd skip her parts completely.

Pfft wrote:

Although it's not exactly "recently", I have to mention Terry Gilliam's Brazil here since it's one of my favourite movies of all time. It is set in a future totalitarian bureaucracy, and it's hilarious but extremely bleak. The hero of the story gets by in his life by not making any waves, having as little contact with the world as possible and instead sit around day-dreaming. Then he meets a girl, falls in love at first sight, and actually starts caring about something, at which point his life promptly goes to hell.

It's so well done though, it's also on my list of favorites. I wrote an anaylsis paper about it my freshman year. It's so mind bending, as depressing as it is I'm always entranced by how well it is put together, as an artistic expression, that I can watch it over and over. Even if the plot is bleaker than Kafka.

Welcome to the Dollhouse was billed as a comedy, but I find nothing funny in watching a poor girl struggle for love and dignity. Nothing at all.

SexingTouga24/7/365 wrote:

That is way beyond cool that you got to see that in school.

minervana wrote:

Title is self-explanatory.

For me, the most depressing comedy I've seen recently is "Idiocracy." Everyone on earth is an idiot except for Luke Wilson, who himself is pretty average. Even though the movie made me LOLIRL, I started thinking of how there's something of a grain of truth to it.

The saddest/funniest moment was when Luke Wilson goes up to some people on the street and asks them something in normal English like "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" and they call him a fag. So sad

True. Sadly I of can kinda see it as a dire waring.

It's true. I've met some people who say "I don't read" like it's a matter of pride. WTF?

Awesome username by the way.

minervana wrote:

SexingTouga24/7/365 wrote:

That is way beyond cool that you got to see that in school.

minervana wrote:

Title is self-explanatory.

For me, the most depressing comedy I've seen recently is "Idiocracy." Everyone on earth is an idiot except for Luke Wilson, who himself is pretty average. Even though the movie made me LOLIRL, I started thinking of how there's something of a grain of truth to it.

The saddest/funniest moment was when Luke Wilson goes up to some people on the street and asks them something in normal English like "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" and they call him a fag. So sad

True. Sadly I of can kinda see it as a dire waring.

It's true. I've met some people who say "I don't read" like it's a matter of pride. WTF?

Awesome username by the way.

Thanks and welcome to the jungle.

So the classification of  Borat I am a little confused over. If it was not funny then what was it...a cultural clash/exploration?

I don't find Robot Chicken funny. I find it tasteless, tactless, and offensive. It makes fun of all the wrong things in disturbing ways. I also hate Family Guy because it seems to support stupidity and ignorance at times, as well as having a some thinly veiled misogyny.

Although satyr, maybe we have a different sense of humor? I found the novelty of Borat highly amusing, and some people completely deserve to be made fun of. And what's more, Cohen was the subject of most of the comedy, which I thought was a nice touch. It did get tiring at the end while he was chasing Pam though.  As for Big Bang Theory, how do you find it depressing? It's highly curious, everyone else I know loves it.

Syora wrote:

I don't find Robot Chicken funny. I find it tasteless, tactless, and offensive. It makes fun of all the wrong things in disturbing ways. I also hate Family Guy because it seems to support stupidity and ignorance at times, as well as having a some thinly veiled misogyny.

Although satyr, maybe we have a different sense of humor? I found the novelty of Borat highly amusing, and some people completely deserve to be made fun of. And what's more, Cohen was the subject of most of the comedy, which I thought was a nice touch. It did get tiring at the end while he was chasing Pam though.  As for Big Bang Theory, how do you find it depressing? It's highly curious, everyone else I know loves it.

Ha ha, we can agree to disagree -- I love Robot Chicken -- though I can agree with you that it's not exactly tasteful!

I liked the parts of Borat that Baron Cohen's character really was the subject of the comedy of!  The part at the beginning about how his Kazakh village has "The Running of the Jew" was hilarious, an effective satire of racism.  What I object to is the abuse of non-actors, people who don't have comic personas and aren't getting paid big bucks to be made fun of.  These people had Borat thrust into their laps, presented without warning or as an immigrant learning about America.  Only after they'd exposed their shock or disgust or chauvinism or some other hilarious reaction were they let in on the joke (at their expense).  The staff of Borat claims that everyone who appeared signed consent forms.  Maybe that's even true, though some of their "stars" have denied it.  But I don't know if you can really call it informed consent when the consent form is waved in your face at the moment of your humiliation, with Baron Cohen (in my imagination) going "come on, can't you take a joke, it's just a joke," and you don't get to see how they're using the footage until you've already signed to show what a good sport you are.  Undoubtedly some of the victims were better-humored than I am and signed the consent form with a genuine chortle, but many were not and have sued.  I don't think anyone who lives out of the public light "deserves" to be personally made fun of on the big screen -- no, not even drunken racist frat boys.  But that probably says more about me than it does about Borat.

Big Bang Theory is better.  The reason I find that one depressing is that it's making fun of its target audience and they love it.  At least they aren't personally used on screen, though.