Not necessarily the best movies ever made, but these are twenty of my favorites, in no particular order.  Each post for the next twenty days will feature a brief discussion of one film (though one or two days will have multiple posts to make up for absences). 

Post 3: Father of the Bride, Part II (1995 dir. Charles Shyer)

There is an inexplicable albeit miraculous chemistry between Steve Martin and Martin Short. Their combined comedic brilliance just works. The highlight of this film is watching them work together as foils for each other’s character. Steve Martin, the high-strung middle-aged father-to-be blocked against Martin Short, the tightly wound accent heavy interior designer, creates hilarious tension.

Carefully observe their physical comedy together in the scene after Steve Martin passes out from the Vastnik (v-a-t-s-n-i-k). Short carries him, drags him, even pushes him like a train (“Atcheson-Topeka”), all with no real accoplishment. But their characters have been so well established that the interplay becomes funny, despite the emergency circumstances (Martin’s wife is in labor, and so is his daughter).

The film provides the usual, comforting innocence and privilege often associated with the films of both Charles Shyer and his then wife/producer Nancy Myers. Myers would go on with her own very succesful career as a film director, continuing to work with Diane Keaton. Keaton is also comedy gold in this film. The whole cast works so well together that I welcome rumors of a Bride, Part III.

But, without a doubt, the one scene that always gets me uncontrollably laughing happens immediately before Short carries, drags, and pushes Martin’s unconscious body around the living room floor. George Banks (Martin) sits at the kitchen table, having just taken TWO of the aforementioned international, though as of yet not FDA approved, sleeping pills. He quietly states, “Please pass the rolls” and then passes out. Martin’s delivery of that very line is so perfect, so well executed, and so funny I chuckle even just now thinking about it. When a film can get an audience to laugh at a line as simple as “Please pass the rolls” then something is just plain working.

Poor George Banks. Franck’s (Short) repsonse is just as good: “He took them both! Two Vastnik is like, ‘Bye, George! See you next Thursday.'” This is a fun, warm-hearted, perfectly cast film. It is a joy to watch and one of my favorites.