I have to confess that I'm typically not a big fan of comedies. I know that's akin to proclaiming, "I don't like fun!" but many of the comedy films I've seen through the years have done well if they can get a single laugh from me. I outgrew all the toilet humor that seems to dominate much of the comedy landscape these days, and I think the parodies like the "Scary Movie" series are just plain lazy. It takes no creativity at all to take a joke that we're all tired of (Tom Cruise jumping on a couch or any "Brokeback Mountain" reference) and place it in a film with no context to the surrounding scenes. It's like these filmmakers aren't worried about telling a story at all, they just want to get to the next Bush-is-stupid joke. Comedy is about timing and delivery, not someone drinking urine by mistake. Having said all that, when a movie like Hot Fuzz comes along, it reminds me how difficult comedy is to do and how well it can work when done correctly. "Hot Fuzz" skewers the buddy-cop genre from a place of love rather than filling up on current events jokes and Jay Leno monologue that will ultimately make the movie unwatchable in two years.
Hot Fuzz: Blood, Bullets, and Laughs