Something Fun for Friday

This weekend we will be in Louisiana visiting my family. As you can imagine, we are thrilled to have a break from all the stuff going on at our house! Every October for the past 11 years we have had a collective birthday party for our guys. My brother, husband, brother-in-law, and a family friend will all be serenaded with the Happy Birthday song. The party is nothing spectacular considering they’re all adults now. The youngest, my brother, turned 22 this week. We usually get together and eat good food, enjoy a cookie cake (my sister tries to mix up the design each year), and play some games. Occasionally if the weather’s nice we spend some time outdoors. This weekend is looking great, so we’re having some of my mom’s wonderful hamburgers on the grill.

So, after a stressful week and with my brother on my mind, I decided that today I’d leave you with a list of my top five funny movies. Now before you get excited let me explain that you might not necessarily love these movies. You may watch them and think I’m nuts. Most of these are movies that my brother loved when he was a kid. We must have watched them hundreds of times. We’ve quoted them for years and they still make us laugh. These are the movies I can pop in when I need a guaranteed belly laugh!

Without further ado, I present my list of movies that have kept us entertained for years:

1. Three Amigos
This movie was born in 1986, the same year as my little brother. I was 9 years old. I don’t remember the first time we saw it but it became a classic at our house. Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short; the Singing Bush, My Little Buttercup, and El Guapo. Somehow it never gets old!



2. Home Alone/Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
I remember when the first Home Alone movie came out. I was invited to go to the movies for a friend’s birthday party and when I found out what we were seeing I was so disappointed. I couldn’t see myself enjoying a movie about a kid keeping burglars away from the family home using all kinds of cute tricks. And I was right, I didn’t love it. A couple of years later the second movie, Lost in New York came out and it became one of my brother’s favorites. I ended up giving them a second chance and now I love them! The second one is our favorite. Tim Curry's character leaves us in stitches.

3. Tommy Boy
When I first saw Tommy Boy, I was in high school and my sister and I went to see it at the theater with a friend. What I remember most is that she and I laughed so hard that we were practically rolling in the aisle! Our friend… not so much. Eventually our brother saw it and appreciated it as much as we did. The David Spade/Chris Farley combination was pretty fantastic.


4. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
This was the second Ace Ventura movie but definitely the funnier. Jim Carrey was my brother’s absolute favorite for a long time and the rest of us became fans too. When Nature Calls has no shortage of fun one-liners. “Your request is not unlike your lower intestine: stinky and loaded with danger.” We still often break out in the Slinky song or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Jim Carrey style.

5. Dumb and Dumber
I know I’ve already listed a Jim Carrey movie but like I said, he was my brother’s favorite. Dumb and Dumber is one of those movies that I occasionally catch on TV and end up sitting and watching even though I own it on DVD. In my family, any time there is a list of things going wrong for any one of us, we always add "our pets' heads are falling off," to the end of it. It usually lightens the mood.


I hope you all have movies like these – that may not seem hilarious to everyone but they are to you because of the memories they evoke of fun times spent with loved ones. My brother is all grown up now and his comedy tastes are a bit more “refined.” He’s into the Stooges, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Peter Sellers, and the Marx Brothers. He has graduated to the classics in his “old” age. He’s no longer interested in the ultra-silly, ridiculously goofy kinds of comedies we grew up watching and I must admit that makes me a little sad. It’s a little strange that such silly movies can also be sentimental to me. When I left home for college in 1995 my brother was 8 years old. Sometimes I like to pretend he’s still that little and waiting for me to come home on break so we can giggle at a crazy movie.