They Are Only as Funny as the Script

Patrick Goldstein makes some interesting points in his piece about the recent big-screen travails of the “Saturday Night Live” graduating class (“Are These Guys Still Funny?,” Nov. 17). He points out the ample evidence that Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin and Billy Crystal have flopped mightily of late on the big screen.

But in his rush to judgment, Goldstein seems intent on proving his premise that the actors have lost touch with hip young audiences primarily because they’ve gotten old. This despite considerable evidence to the contrary.

Even Goldstein’s supporting argument (“Comedy, like rock ‘n’ roll, is a young man’s game”) makes little sense and won’t until Mick Jagger breaks a hip or Keith Richards is actually as dead as he looks.

The recently failed efforts of the former box-office superstars have a common thread. The movies ain’t funny. They ain’t funny because the writing, the directing and, to a lesser degree, the performances ain’t funny.

The general shortage of successful big-screen comedy may also be due to so many funny writers opting for the small screen. There they are pounding out comedy for geezers like Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Garry Shandling, Rip Torn, John Lithgow, Ellen DeGeneres, Kelsey Grammer, George Segal, Phil Hartman, Bob Newhart and Tim Allen. These old fogies have somehow managed to keep a hold on audiences of acceptable demographics.

Recent box-office hits like “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “The Full Monty,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Liar Liar” (with that hip young star, Jim Carrey, who flopped prior to that in “The Cable Guy”) further show that age or star power isn’t the determining factor, the material is.

JOHN CORCORAN

Calabasas

*

Goldstein’s line, “Comedy, like rock ‘n’ roll, is a young man’s game,” is absurd. Jacques Tati made the funniest movies in France in his 40s, Woody Allen similarly here in his 40s, Mel Brooks, on and on. Come on, what a stupid line. Bill Murray on Tom Snyder in a funny hat telling stories is funnier than any Adam Sandler movie. Stand-up comedy in the ‘80s was rock ‘n’ roll, that’s all. Look where that’s gone. The scene is so bad, clubs closing, that stand-ups are scrambling to get writing jobs on TV.

And his suggestion about what they should do: Change their image? Come on! That’s what makes us love these comedians in the first place, their personas that are unique to the medium of film or TV.

HANK ROSENFELD

Santa Monica

*

The question shouldn’t be are Bill Murray, Billy Crystal and Steve Martin still funny but who is making decisions for them about scripts. They are only as funny on screen as the script allows them to be.

As for Goldstein’s assertion that the torch has been passed to actors like Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and Martin Lawrence, Lord help comedy. When the likes of Murray, Crystal and Martin start to make better decisions on scripts, then you will see how funny these actors can be.

BRIAN COOPER

Burbank