Love these old movies but sometimes the pacing is just… difficult.
Many of these older films start extremely slowly, and build. Some just stay slow. I get that its a taste/ style/ expectations thing, but boy oh boy it can be tough. Some of the old cheech and chong films suffer in the same way. Same with some of the Mel Brooks films (history of the world really suffers from this).
One exception (or at least I give it a hall pass) is Airplane!, which starts out slow, even very slow, but is also seemingly intentional with its slowness, only to rise into a chaotic chorus by the end. They really leaned into the use of pacing for how they structured the film, and it does work, even if its still slow in the beginning.
A lot of the comedies from this era feel like a bunch of sketches stitched together rather than a cohesive story. I recently rewatched Fast Times at Ridgemont High and it had the same feel.
True, like they write the jokes before they write the plot. It’s why kids comedies feel so forced, because they are limited with what they can do, both with regards to appropriateness, and knowledge/intelligence of the audience.
I think that’s a good observation. I always felt like Holy Grail went downhill quite significantly after the first hour or so. Up until that point the narrative is fairly straightforward and the humour is consistent, but then they get to the animated montage time skip bit and everything after gets a bit boring. Most of the cast exits the film abruptly, the sets all look the same, and the ending undermines everything that happened up until that point. Which I guess is the joke, but The Life of Brian found a much better balance between satirical and absurdist humour and telling a cohesive story beginning to end.
Love these old movies but sometimes the pacing is just… difficult.
Many of these older films start extremely slowly, and build. Some just stay slow. I get that its a taste/ style/ expectations thing, but boy oh boy it can be tough. Some of the old cheech and chong films suffer in the same way. Same with some of the Mel Brooks films (history of the world really suffers from this).
One exception (or at least I give it a hall pass) is Airplane!, which starts out slow, even very slow, but is also seemingly intentional with its slowness, only to rise into a chaotic chorus by the end. They really leaned into the use of pacing for how they structured the film, and it does work, even if its still slow in the beginning.
A lot of the comedies from this era feel like a bunch of sketches stitched together rather than a cohesive story. I recently rewatched Fast Times at Ridgemont High and it had the same feel.
Even now, a lot of comedies are like that.
True, like they write the jokes before they write the plot. It’s why kids comedies feel so forced, because they are limited with what they can do, both with regards to appropriateness, and knowledge/intelligence of the audience.
I think that’s a good observation. I always felt like Holy Grail went downhill quite significantly after the first hour or so. Up until that point the narrative is fairly straightforward and the humour is consistent, but then they get to the animated montage time skip bit and everything after gets a bit boring. Most of the cast exits the film abruptly, the sets all look the same, and the ending undermines everything that happened up until that point. Which I guess is the joke, but The Life of Brian found a much better balance between satirical and absurdist humour and telling a cohesive story beginning to end.