2017 Movie Wrap-Up

It's that time of year again! I get to look back on all the movies from this past year that I've seen and give them the one paragraph treatment (some of which deserve it more than others). So let's just jump into it, shall we? We shall.

Movies

The Lego Batman Movie

This may have been my biggest disappointment of the year in terms of how much I thought I would enjoy it versus what I walked away feeling. It was entertaining...enough. I guess. But The Lego Movie set a really high bar for story quality, and this one didn't even match the fun of the Lego Batman Video Game series cut scenes. Two main problems. Will Arnett's Bojack Batman is much funnier as a scene stealer than as the lead. And there's honestly nothing at stake in this movie. The Lego Movie figured it out; horror to a Lego character is being crazy glued permanently to one spot. The destruction of Lego Gotham doesn't mean anything.

Logan

Dear God, I didn't like one single thing about this movie; a sentiment made all the more nerve grating by the fact that everyone in my social circle insists on how great it is. Here's the problem: who do I care about? Wolverine is not a consistently interesting character. In order to crack his shell, he has to be in a fish out of water scenario. In Logan he's in his element, and it's Dark Knight Rises level dreariness. Xavier is waiting around to die, and an obviously bad decision on his part gets an innocent family killed. Laura is completely unsympathetic (that store clerk was only doing his job) and she never needed Logan's help in the first place. I come to the movies to get away from hopelessness, my trending on Facebook feed covers that.

Beauty and the Beast

I've made it no secret that the animated version of this story is not my favorite film, but I wound up quite pleased with the live action remake. The flaws in the original are hammered out to full effect here; the town's idolization of Gaston, the servants' role in their own punishment, a more careful build up of Belle and the Beast's connection, Gaston's more active hand in his own demise. Even Maurice gets a badass upgrade. The songs aren't entirely consistent in quality, but the movie has a lot of life in it. If only Disney would quit with the remakes here.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

The short version: I disliked it less than the first one. I still think the core characters are shallow, and by the end of this second film they've had about as much growth as most get in their first act, but it's still growth. I can't say they got that in their first film. The new characters fare much better. Mantis was a delight. Ego was engaging. Nebula completely won me over, and since she left literally no impression on me in the first film I'm treating her like a new character. I can't really say I felt like my time had been well spent by the end of the movie, but I didn't feel like it was wasted either. I basically watched it because it's part of the MCU, and I didn't mind.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

This movie was passable. It also cost between two and three hundred million dollars to make, which is an uncomfortable price tag for passable. It's better than we'd normally expect from the fifth film in a trilogy, but Jack Sparrow honestly ran aground two films ago and there hasn't been anything new to the series to really call us back to sea. Javier Bardem manages to work in some convincing sneers, and Kaya Scodelario could have made a solid protagonist if the script had bothered to favor her. But Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa really deserved better, and it's evident the film is trying to have fun but not actually succeeding.

Wonder Woman

Everything that needs to be said about this film has been said, and it's all true. It's fantastic, and it's my number one film of the year. No, it's not perfect, but it doesn't matter that it's not perfect. What matters is that it's awesome. Now unfortunately I think we're still raving about the fact that a female led superhero film directed by *gasp* a woman director did so well, when we should honestly be well past the point where those things stand out. But if there's one lesson we've learned the hard way from 2017, it's where we are as a society. We need Wonder Woman. And until we invite her into the real world we have her movie to inspire us.

The House

Did I finish watching this movie? Hang on, let me read the synopsis. No, I think we gave up on this one. I imagine on paper this seemed like a good idea; stick Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell in a movie together about a suburban couple who has to run an impromptu casino in order to cover their daughter's college tuition. But sadly they both resort to standard SNL caliber performances which often don't carry through four minute sketches, much less a feature film. And I really wish comedies would stop reaching for that coveted R rating. If you earn it, that's fine. But shock value doesn't equate to laughs, and this movie (the first half anyway) was tepid on both.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

I have to address the inescapable. Since the dawn of the age of superhero movies, this is their third freaking time trying to get this character off the ground. It's unfair, but that shadow looms over Tom Holland. With that said, this is probably the best Spider-Man movie to date in terms of balance, pacing, emotions, action, characters, and plot. The highs of the past might peak a little higher, but the lows- you know, I'll just let you fill in the end of that thought. In addition to effectively integrating Spidey into the MCU, the movie has an inspired use of Michael Keaton to crack their villain problem. You have a good thing going, please don't screw it up again. Um, one quick question though. Who the hell has been asking for a Venom movie?

Atomic Blonde

This is another one I only got halfway through before losing interest. I mean, yeah, it's an action movie with action in it, but it fails to overcome the fundamental issue with any movie about a spy who's not James Bond. Spies aren't inherently likable. It's a competent spy movie, a bit paint by numbers. I guess the big selling point is that it's a woman in the role that's usually a men only club. Charlize Theron plays the role with all the coldness you'd expect from a real spy, which makes her, you know, kind of boring. Believable yes. But like I say, the movie didn't keep me engaged. We certainly need action heroines, but invulnerability doesn't read as character. May I suggest looking to Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight for an example of a badass you can root for?

Logan Lucky

The previews promised something they didn't deliver on. It looked like we were going to get a caper comedy. Instead we got a caper...what do you call a drama that doesn't really have drama? Just a movie? That exists? We have a caper that exists. It had some good elements. It's always nice when Channing Tatum gives a performance that- well, gives a performance. Adam Driver clearly has a range on him that we haven't seen the full extent of. And Daniel Craig looks like he's having a blast, probably happy to finally have a recognizable role besides that one Stormtrooper that Rey put the whammy on. But overall this movie started at the pace of a casual mosey, and then stayed there. Not a bad movie, but I'm pretty sure I've flipped through more exciting atlases.

Goodbye Christopher Robin

A story, by its nature, isn't primarily concerned with relaying information. It's concerned with telling you something. Hence the challenge with any story based on real events; inevitably accuracy and narrative are going to come into conflict with each other. While I can't authoritatively say this movie is accurate, my guess is that it's probably the case since narrative took so many hits. It seemed like every other scene the film introduced a new element that I was more interested in following than the primary arc, and never got to. Performances were strong. Margot Robbie is clearly going to have a long career. But in the end it was almost like the film version of a well written term paper; solid but not necessarily anything to say. Therefore I wouldn't know who to recommend it to.

Thor: Ragnarok

Tony Stark was the character who breathed a new dignity and gravitas into superhero films, which is why he led off the whole seventeen film and counting MCU. But Thor was the character they had to get absolutely right in order to have any sort of staying power, namely because he skirts the line into preposterousness. Lucky for us that Chris Hemsworth went into acting. Even then, it's been a slow multi-film process to get at his character. But by Ragnarok, we're convinced Hemsworth is Thor, and we've seen what he can do. This is the movie that truly let's us see who he is at his core. It turns out he's noble, and funny, and vulnerable, and able to hold his own against notorious upstagers like Tom Hiddleston and Jeff Goldblum. As for the movie, it comes together more episodic than single thread. But the ride is so much fun you don't mind so much.

Murder on the Orient Express

So how do you remake a classic mystery that damn near everyone already knows the ending to? Simple really, you treat it like a really good drama. This is the strength of Kenneth Branagh's direction; the same guy who gave us Dead Again, which I never get tired of re-watching. As usual the story is about the murder, but this version is equally about the way it affects the great Hercule Poirot and his black and white view on crime. Unlike a typical detective story, our sleuth is clearly changed by the end of his summation. It's unfortunate that not everyone in the all-star cast has enough opportunity to strut their talent, but the older cast members have proven themselves dozens of times over. And they're kind enough to let Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, and Leslie Odom Jr. demonstrate their staying power. Oh by the way, Michelle Titania Eris Sukie Ridgemont Catwoman Mindy Simmons Pfeiffer still has not peaked as an actress. At this point, it's quite possible she never will.

Justice League

I kind of liked Batman Five Superman. Sure the Martha thing was silly, but I think people have been unnecessarily harsh on it overall. With that said, I thought Justice League was even better. Perhaps not where we want it to be (truthfully, we're fans, we don't know what we want) but the franchise is moving in the right direction. Steppenwolf was decent enough, and at least a step above the majority of Marvel's Phase One and Two villains. The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg were all a lot more likable than I was expecting. And Henry Cavill finally owned his role as Superman. My past criticisms about Zack Snyder still hold, but out of all the working directors in Hollywood I think I've seen the most growth from him. There were a lot more good things here than bad. So listen nerds, quit being bullies. We're better than this.

The Disaster Artist

I'm assuming you've experienced Tommy Wiseau's The Room; if not, I can't help you in this one paragraph review of a different film. So let me skip to James Franco. I'm happy to be wrong about this, but Franco strikes me as one of the cool kids. I don't mean that as a compliment, just a categorization from someone who grew up as anything but. For whatever reason, Franco seems like a cool kid who has a bizarre attraction to being a misfit. It would explain his draw to completely-detached-from-reality Wiseau. But unlike Franco's past attempts to infiltrate the world of misfits, he does a thorough job here. It's inevitable that The Disaster Artist gets compared to Ed Wood, a similar concept about a passionate director with limited-to-no talent and the fruit of their labors. Whereas Wood's problem was that he was best suited for radio drama (a flavor that translated poorly to film), Wiseau's obstacle is a chronic lack of understanding human behavior. This film about a film succeeds in humanizing Wiseau in a way the man himself never could. Early buzz is that the film is an Oscar contender, and I quite agree; James Franco may very well have earned a director's nomination. But for acting, that accolade goes squarely to his brother James for his portrayal of actor Greg Sestero, the audience surrogate caught between Tommy's world and our own. And kudos to the ending. While Ed Wood was kind enough to omit the part where people treated the director as a joke in favor of a fabricated happy ending, The Disaster Artist embraces the reactions as a vital element to what makes the bad movie something so special.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I loved it. Are there flaws? Yes. Do they matter? Honestly no, not to me. There were some things that could have been handled better (Laura Dern's character, Finn's sidequest, where the hell Lando is), and the sequel trilogy still hasn't given us that ONE iconic lightsaber battle on par with Darth Maul and "No, I AM your father", but this movie did everything a Star Wars movie needs to. It advanced it's own arc, challenged the overall mythology, and showed us a few things we hadn't seen before. I think at this point Rey has proven herself every bit as much iconic as my childhood action figures. Right now, this movie has edged out A New Hope as my second favorite Star Wars film. I'll need a few months to decide how exactly it compares to Empire.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Ginny and I went this morning to an early showing, and it was the perfect movie to end a really horrible year on. Even better than the premise and the funny lines, the characters were legitimately likable. The jock, the nerd, the princess, and the bookworm (Scooby-Doo minus the dog) get trapped in a sentient video game that just wants friends; kind of like a Tron version of The Breakfast Club. The bulk of the fun in any body switching movie is watching the actors pull off the multiple layers of credibility. The Rock's charm as a Hollywood star is his refusal to take himself seriously, but he's quite adamant about treating the high school kid inhabiting him with respect. Kevin Hart is clearly in his element, and Jack Black has been waiting his whole career to play a teenage girl. But it's Karen Gillan who really shows off her range, always presenting both the Lara Croft expy and the terrified girl inside her simultaneously. In the end I found myself wishing to spend more time with the characters outside of their game. But less is more and the movie is best left sequel-free; the short but sweet jewel of the Jaguar's Eye that it is. Jumanji!

The Ghosts of Christmas Specials

Ebenezer Scrooge! You suck! Just thought I'd drop by to remind you. I mean, yeah, you've changed your miserly ways, built a few hospitals, supported the local humane society and all that jazz, but you still suck! And why? Well, I'll tell you.

You see, you have forsaken Christmas once again by embracing it too much. I know that doesn't make any sense, stop looking at me like that! I'm talking about sacrificing quality for quantity. Have you looked at the Christmas specials in your Netflix cue? What on earth have you been watching? Saccharine, that's what. Flimsy plots that barely tie together acapella renditions of "Jingle Bell Rock", people throwing their careers away for a single kiss in the snow, and 101 ways to derail Santa's whole racket with one poorly timed appearance at the North Pole (haven't we all just wandered in there?). These aren't Christmas specials. These are Christmas mundanes.

So that's why I'm here, to warn you that you need to cut that out if you really want to save your soul or something. And with that in mind, I've taken the liberty of assembling the usual lot. Tonight you will be visited by three specials that did it right. Listen to them. Watch them. Do what they say. Or your chain, which I forgot to mention earlier, will be longer than mine. What chain is that, you ask? It's the one where you make ten copies of this letter and send them anonymously to strangers so you can experience good luck, and if you don't you'll single handedly ruin everything! Yep. Global warming is all on you. Merry Christmas!

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

To start with, this episode is very funny. Every MST episode has some good laughs, but occasionally you get one that strikes the right balance of having a bad movie that's intriguingly watchable on its own paired with a running commentary that's pretty damn solid from start to finish. Martians is one of those gems that you can show to a non-MST fan and at the very least get them to understand why people rave about the show (even if you don't convert them).

But what really makes this episode stand out is the flavor of the host segments. If you don't know, MST is a show identified by its biting sarcasm. Sentiment isn't really a concept that has any room in the intentional cheapness of production and the team's refusal to take anything about itself seriously. Even when Joel Hodgson left the show, or either time the series ended, you never really felt anything about the characters. You weren't meant to. The show was wit, not heart.

Which is why Martians is unique to the show. Somewhere between Crow's Christmas wish that he gets to decide who lives and dies and Tom Servo's suggestion that Santa was killed in Viet Nam, Joel pauses to reflect on whether or not they've become so jaded that the spirit of Christmas has been lost to them. And then Gypsy (good luck getting that name in the final script today) silently presents a manager scene with no facetiousness and no punch line, before going to commercial. It's quick, and they don't big deal out of it, but it may be the most poignant acknowledgement of Christ since Linus recited the Gospel of Luke.

To the best of my understanding, the MST veterans are predominantly Christian. I am as well. Perhaps you aren't, and I'm not remotely bothered by that. But if you celebrate something around the time of the cold and the shortening of days, I do hope it has a meaning for you. Whatever it may be. Even if you don't know what that meaning is, I hope you get to experience it some time this season. The Grinch never figured out exactly what Christmas meant, but simply accepting the possibility of a meaning was enough for him to feel a joy he hadn't felt before. And for MST, a mere moment of reflection among an hour and a half of one-liners speaks volumes.

The Bells of Fraggle Rock

How about a Christmas special that never mentions Christmas (if you factor out the wraparound segments)? Fraggle Rock was a brilliant show that set out to end war, and would damn near succeed if world leaders would take the time to listen to their inner songs. Gobo is the most level-headed of the Fraggles, approaching things like magic with a certain scientific mindset that he developed purely on his own accord.

As the Festival of the Bells approaches, Gobo finds himself experiencing a crisis of faith that he can't quite describe as such. Being the only Fraggle who can't accept the story behind the festival at face value, he declares that he'll be able to prove the existence of the Great Bell; something that he thinks will restore the festival's significance that has slipped away from him.

The takeaway is ultimately left ambiguous. Does he become a believer again? Does he accept comfort in the story as metaphor? And who exactly is this particular story meant to reach? I wonder what would happen if an agnostic told this story to a group of children. Which elements would be emphasized?

Christmas can be a frustrating time for people prone to wanting spiritual answers. My experiences with most churches is that if a conversation about doubt is even permitted to begin, it's cut off by a traditional non-answer like "Well, you just have to have faith," which appeases the one who was never comfortable with the question in the first place while pushing away the one who's asking.

The bottom line here: some people simply cannot do things the easy way, their inner song dictates they try to observe the invisible. From a purely goal-driven perspective, the pursuit is futile. But experience teaches the lessons it has, not the ones you expect it to have. And that feeling we refer to as 'the Christmas spirit' only pokes its head in when we stop listening to our own voices and just hear what's around us.

The reason it's fun to ride in a one horse open sleigh is because you're fully invested in the journey as you're experiencing it. The Christmas party at the home of Farmer Gray will happen when it does. For now, just jingle. And commit to doing it all the way.

ALF's Christmas Special

It's probably nothing more than coincidence that all three of these specials involve puppetry. Although if there really is anything to it, I guess I would argue that puppets are inherently more human than human. They have no poker faces or repressing workplace etiquette. Ulterior motives don't exist unless they show up in the character's voice or mannerisms. In that regard, a puppet will naturally be more honest than any of us will. And I guess that makes them the ideal catalysts for Christmas tales of any sort of emotional weight.

So ALF. Some people may not know; he was a brown puppet alien character from an eighties sitcom of the same name (it stands for Alien Life Form). After crash landing on earth he winds up in the care of the Tanner family, trying to find ways to integrate himself into daily life without being discovered by the government.

In the Christmas special, ALF pushes the Tanners about as close to their breaking point as his performer allegedly did in real life to the production team, and they order him out of the cabin they're staying at for the holidays. The alien gets stuck in the back of the cabin owner's truck, which is full of toys destined for a children's hospital. ALF soon finds himself posing as a Christmas toy to a little girl named Tiffany.

He intentionally blows his own cover sooner than you'd expect and asks her for help getting out of the hospital so he can return to the Tanners. It's kind of a tear jerking moment, because Tiffany was clearly bonding with what she thought was a stuffed animal for her to keep. But not to worry. That moment gets completely overshadowed by the kick in the gut you receive when you find out she's also terminally ill, and this is going to be her last Christmas.

Not kidding here. Tiny Tim undoubtedly got cured and grew up to be a key activist in the fight against starvation. Tiffany gets no Christmas miracle here in this eighties sitcom. In the end, the Tanner's come to spend Christmas with her in the hospital, and that's nice enough. But the episode makes it clear that she's not going to live. It aired thirty years and five days ago, and I'm still about to lose it just thinking about her.

Luckily we have a much needed bit of ALF-ish hijinks when the furball gets stuck in an elevator with a pregnant woman and has to deliver her baby himself (which is apparently not that hard to figure out, if television is to be believed). It's a welcomed palette cleanser and a return to Christmas special form, as the normally selfish ALF gets to be the guardian angel for a stranger in need. And it makes the episode's Act III mood swing feel all the more like a drop kick when ALF witnesses the aforementioned cabin owner one step away from committing suicide. What the f**k happened in 1987 to take us down this road?

Christmas comes at a time when our side of the world is literally heading into a dark place (or technically, just as we're coming out of it). It's odd to me that Christmas specials rarely go as dark as this one does. Many people hurt during the holidays, and because of the reflective nature of winter that pain seems to make itself known in different ways. Contrary to popular belief, the suicide rate is actually at a low point around Christmas (April being the high), but it certainly doesn't mean the pain isn't there.

We all carry things that hurt, and the older I get the more I notice what kind of stress the holidays put on us. It's like, bringing joy to the world is such a gritty determination for us that we easily lose sight of how to experience it. Maybe what we should be doing instead is granting ourselves some time to mourn. Every one of us had at least one connection last Christmas that we no longer have now. I wonder what would happen if we allowed ourselves a chance to be sad, instead of trying so hard to be happy. Maybe, just maybe, the Christmas spirit is something we need, not something we can make or buy or binge watch.

Merry Christmas, and may God bless us every one.

How to Fail at Humor -A Survival Primer

Claiming something isn't funny is a difficult claim to support, especially when people are laughing. Concepts regarding humor are ambiguous at best. As the world changes, or the people in it change, humor adapts. There are many jokes which are mean spirited, offensive, and/or damaging that still make certain groups laugh in certain situations. So for me to call said "joke" unfunny is only partially correct. It's unfunny to me, and possibly to anyone with a basic understanding of human integrity. But there are always going to be assholes who laugh at inappropriate things, some of whom make very comfortable salaries doing so. That's a topic beyond the scope of my ability as a blogger.

Instead, I'm here to discuss the merits of joke telling; the inner rhythm and timing that makes a joke succeed or fail. Everyone has a sense of humor, but not everyone can tell a joke. I've known many people who are convinced they have great senses of humor because they've found a small panel of humor buttons to push repeatedly. And yes, they may be getting laughs from their peers, but they still fail at humor. My goal is to explain why. To you who are reading this, I hope you come away with a new appreciation for the complexity that is humor, or at the very least confirmation of what you've already figured out.

Let's look at some examples of failure.

1. "That's what she said".

May as well start with the most obvious one. This is the commoners version of "The Aristocrats", with its punch line that brings nothing to a joke that has already run its course. You know the ritual. Literally anything that can be taken as a sexual innuendo, something as simple as "This is hard!", is followed by a near automatic response of "That's what she said."

First of all, the joke doesn't even work on its own; you have to have already heard it to get it, otherwise you're looking around the room trying to figure out which 'she' is being quoted. But the heart of the problem is that this joke requires absolutely nothing out of the person who says it. No cleverness. No creativity. It's merely a line said on cue, like the person who says "Who's there" after being given the traditional "Knock knock" setup. I mentioned earlier the concept of pushing a button. Humor requires effort. There's no effort in pushing a button. But the "that's what she said" joke tellers are trying to take undeserved credit, as if it's unexpected that the doorbell keeps ringing every time they press the buzzer.

Automatic response humor is never funny. Here are a couple of non-innuendo examples that come to mind. One, you've just told an actual joke. It may not be a particularly funny one, but it's recognizable as a joke with at least a minimal amount of effort behind it. Someone in your audience responds, not with a laugh or even a groan, but by deadpanning the onomatopoeic phrase "ba dum tsss". They're only acknowledging they get that you've told a joke, but clearly don't find it funny enough to give you a real reaction and are trying to one-up you by implying your joke wasn't funny. (A justifiable exception here is when someone accidentally tells a joke without realizing it, and the "ba dum tsss" draws attention to it. Inclusiveness is the key).

A second example is a misuse of riff humor in daily life. Picture this: you and your passenger have just gotten out of your car. Doors shut. Lock. Keys still in the ignition. A spoonful of stress wells up in you and spills out of your mouth. "Damn it!" you mutter. "Janet," your passenger responds. Now all you can think about is your tightening fingers around the throat of someone who, until that moment, had been dear to you. Mystery Science Theater 3000 gets a pass on this, as they write around nine hundred jokes for an hour and a half; even the lame ones are acceptable. And (this is the point) the movie isn't in that moment with them. It can't respond to the needling or ill-timed thoughtlessness.

Automatic response humor is thoughtless. "That's what she said" is the worst offender because it combines thoughtlessness with the easiest, most obvious joke in the adult lexicon, "Gur! That could have been taken more than one way! Huh huh!" I encourage everyone, the next time one of your co-workers responds to anything with "that's what she said," to outwardly fly off the handle. "What?! WHO said that? That is inappropriate workplace conversation! I want names! Of everyone who has ever undermined this company's integrity!" Yes, you'll look like a dumbass, but it's worth it to smother out this monster.

2. "That sounds like a personal problem. That's all I'm saying."

This is practically the same situation, although personal problems range from sexual to psychological. So I can at least grant that it's a step up from "that's what she said" in versatility. I knew a girl who I'm going to call Fred, because that's obviously not her real name. This whole phrase became Fred's mantra in group conversations. Being around her was the equivalent of being at a taping of Full House with a guaranteed reaction from the audience. It didn't matter what the set up was, anything could sound like a personal problem to her. "My throat's sore, I'm having trouble swallowing," and "I can't make change for a dollar," are on two very different points of the logistics spectrum, but either one could be followed by "that sounds like a personal problem" *laugh track* "that's all I'm saying" *precisely same laugh track*.

Two things going on here, and I'm going to work backwards through them. "That's all I'm saying" has no meaning. Fred just wanted twice the laughter for one joke, and she knew she could get it by cueing the audience. "That sounds like a personal problem" as I mentioned is similar to "that's what she said". But there's a subtle difference.

"That's what she said" is the mantra of people who have never tried to understand humor, i.e. people who aren't, and never will, be funny. "That sounds like a personal problem" is an actual joke. It's not a good one. In fact, it's an incredibly lazy one. But it is a joke. And it illustrates a curious phenomenon in the spectrum of humor, namely how the way an audience perceives the jokester has an effect on their reception of the joke.

Fred was the 'funny friend', and it took her a certain amount of Monty Python recitations and spotlight hogging to achieve that status. And having been established as the 'funny friend', Fred no longer had to try so hard to get laughs. Fred was well liked. You were used to laughing when she spoke, so in essence all she had to do was cue you. "That sounds like a personal problem" was your cue. It's effective in certain circles, and it's dreadfully lazy.

I haven't seen Fred in at least a decade, so for all I know she may still be getting laughs with the minimal effort. But I expect she at least has encountered a higher class of humor on more than one occasion, made up of people who notice immediately that she's not bringing her A-game. That group only gives courtesy laughs to children. Adults who deal out the "that sounds like a personal problem" card are met with blank stares. If you've ever tried doing standup, that reaction is worse than being heckled. It's eerie. Especially coming from people who understand humor better than you. When you get those looks (and you'll intuitively know) take them seriously. That's your crossroads. You need to decide if you're going to swim with the bigger fish or go back to the comfort of your little pond. But the bottom line is, you're failing.

3. "You're very punny! You deserve a 'round' of applause."

One of my college school mates only knew these two jokes, and they were told often, and always in succession. The 'round' of applause (if I need to point it out) was accompanied by the visual aid of golf clapping in a longitudinal air circle. Get it? Of course you do, because you're not three.

Generally speaking, puns are not funny. Now if you knew me in my teenaged years, you would be correct in screaming "hypocrite" at me right now. I was all about puns in high school and college. Hell, it was the only way I knew how to connect most of the time. Were they funny? Generally no. Did anyone ever think to mention that to me? Oh, you bet! Ask yourself if it stopped me. Go on. You know the answer.

Here's my defense of puns. It's not about being funny or not, it's about a phase. Particularly in adolescence when you're figuring out who you're going to be for the rest of your life, your awful pun phase is the wax on/wax off exercise that trains you to do real karate down the road. You're learning a skillset without realizing it.

One, you're experiencing what it feels like to lose your audience. Watch any late night comedian, you'll catch them at a moment where they lose their audience. But they have a whole arsenal of ways to dance back into the hotspot. Every single one of them got that skill through years of failing.

Two, you're training your brain to think like a comedy writer. If I say "there was a meltdown at the plant", you're automatically processing the alternate definitions of the words in the sentence to see if there's a surreal way of putting them together (instead of asking if everyone got out all right, you horrible person). Wordplay is the stew mix of comedy. Too much of it may give off the wrong flavor, but it's an indispensable ingredient.

And three, you will eventually get one that lands. Your audience (and if you're still doing puns, 'audience' means peers) who normally takes joy in chastising you like Charlie Brown's classmates are suddenly covering their mouths and turning their eyes away so as to deny that this one time you said something that was actually funny. On purpose. You're cooler than they are.

This is the moment when one of them plays an egregiously amateur move by trying to connect with your hard work by calling you 'punny' and topping it with their handography. Um, no. You're not funny. And the fact that I was just now, doesn't grant you the privilege of riding my coattails. You're only emphasizing the fact that you will never pull off what I just did. Because you haven't failed as many times as I have.

4. The exclamation point

Let's just start with an example. Pretend I'm submitting my author's bio for The Carousel, because I'm sure by now that book is more than fifteen percent done. "I was partially inspired to write the book in 2008 while working at the library, regularly walking past rows of fiction authors and thinking how amazing it would be to have my name among them. At that point I only got a few chapters in before temporarily shelving the project. If there's one thing I learned at the library, it's how to shelve!"

*sigh* It's okay, you can grind your teeth. I know I am.

To be fair, written humor has two immediate disadvantages to the more familiar spoken format. You have no control over timing, and no inflexions. From that perspective, I understand why people try on the exclamation point for punch line 'punch'. So much of humor is nuance, and the typed word is sorely limited. I don't think there's a really good solution forthcoming.

Here's the thing though, let's examine the Muppets. The Muppets are really funny. And they're really emotional. And with few exceptions, their expressions are limited to mouth closed and mouth open. Jim Henson himself always warned incoming writers that the puppets could do about ten percent of what they needed to do, but they managed to overcome those obstacles. With a certain amount of creativity, solutions present themselves. Maybe not all-purpose solutions, but there are usually ways to work up an arsenal of workarounds.

Hopefully in this blog I've made you smile at least once. Assuming so (I have such a high opinion of myself), then that at least proves it's possible to crack the challenges of the written word. And if I haven't connected with you, why don't you do a Google search for Jack Handey? That should get the point across.

Not every joke works in every format. You can't really 'tell' a sight gag. Likewise, I'm sure you've read many a children's joke book containing such attempted zingers like "Q: What's the best time to go to the dentist? A: Two thirty (tooth hurty)". The fact that the joke requires a parenthetical explanation only emphasizes the incompatibility of the outlet.

In the case of the exclamation point, it only draws attention to the lack of 'punch' in the punch line. Now I'm not talking about dialogue, where characters are raising their voices for whatever reason; exclamation points are often vital in conveying that nuance. But in cases where you personally are the omniscient narrator, your exclamation points for comedic support turn you into Fozzie Bear, and your reader into Statler and/or Waldorf. Don't do that to yourself.

5. Anything on Saturday Night Live that has been said more than once

Ah, catch-phrase humor. I think every successful comedy writer has a tolerate/mostly hate relationship with this concept. Here's what happens. Comedy writers go to work for the establishment, because it keeps them off the street. In SNL's case, that establishment is NBC. By its nature, comedy is anti-establishment. And by their nature, successful members of the establishment got that way by having literally no understanding of what makes a joke work. To the executives, if people are quoting their show it means they're watching, which in turn means the show is succeeding. So the memo comes down to the comedy writers "Insert more catch phrase humor". And the writers begin their decade-long love affair with cocaine. By the time "Well isn't that special" and "I love it! I love it! I love it!" reach the audience, they're dead weight.

Now to be fair, a lot of the experience of laughter is social. If I start a "cheeseburger, cheeseburger" chant and people join in, I've activated a temporary community. We've all seen that sketch, and we're agreeing that we liked it for whatever reason. I'm not hurting anybody per se, but I'm also not being humorous.

Now let's look at the class clown. I've never known a class clown who was actually funny. They were always good at convincing the class that they were, but the truth is they weren't. There was no cleverness, no wit, not even any sense of timing. They were just loud. Their whole shtick was disruption, and everything in their catalog was a combination of obvious dirty humor and a parroting back of verbal memes from whatever happened to be popular at the time. They got laughs, certainly. But they never got respect. And never will.

Of course, respect might not be necessary for you to make a comfortable living doing cheap jokes as obnoxiously as possible; I'm sure Hollywood is always on the hunt for the next Jim Carrey. But my gut tells me that here in the age of Youtube with its leveled playing field, you're really going to accomplish nothing by being lazy with your humor.

Nobody can teach you how to be funny. Part of it is an X factor that simply wires your brain to think like an adult child. The rest comes from a lot of trial and error, blank stares, and projectile soda cans. But my best advice, if you're interested in nurturing your natural talent, is figure out what isn't funny and don't do that. It should be enough to keep you pointed in the right direction, assuming you're somebody who cares enough to want to experience legitimate humor.

I think that's the key, caring. Caring enough to risk not being funny, in exchange for a deeper connection to that world of "I was really funny today!". Laziness is never funny. Desperation is never funny. Vulgarity is rarely funny, and considering how common it is, I'd encourage you to steer away from it entirely in favor of something fresh. Always try to be better. Comedy is fleeting, and the moment you feel like you've made it is when it soars off without you.

To paraphrase the old inspirational quote, shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you'll wind up in the cold vacuum of space, frozen and suffocating. And if you can survive that, you've got what it takes to handle comedy.