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Funny flicks support serious cause

Comedy Movie Marathon brings old favourites and new favourites to the big screen What: Comedy Movie Marathon Where: Village 8 Cinemas When: Sept.

Comedy Movie Marathon brings old favourites and new favourites to the big screen

What:

Comedy Movie Marathon

Where:

Village 8 Cinemas

When:

Sept. 18-21

Heart wrenching dramas may win the best picture awards at the Oscars, but our favourite movies are the ones that make us pee our pants laughing.

This weekend the Village 8 cinema had better break out the waterproof slipcovers. Thursday through Sunday the theatre will be hosting the Blockbuster Comedy Movie Marathon, in conjunction with the Comedy in the Sky Whistler comedy festival. Two screens have been set aside for a continual stream of classic comedy fare.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

kicks off the marathon with a 7 p.m. showing this Thursday. Following the So-Cal classic at 9 p.m. is Slap Shot , the Paul Newman flick about hilarious hockey goons fighting a losing battle in a rust belt industrial town.

The rest of the roster offers everything from golf comedies to British humour. The theatre will screen films between noon and midnight on Friday and Saturday and from approximately noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

While the movies contain some of the funniest scenes ever to grace the silver screen, there is a serious cause underlying the event. Proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to avalanche relief and rescue initiatives in B.C.

Tickets for single screenings cost $4, with a four-day VIP pass available for $15. Check out www.comedyinthesky.ca for more information. Call the Village 8 Cinema info line at 604-932-5833 for show times.

Look for the following flicks:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Directed by: Amy Heckerling, 1982

Fast Times

shows us the world according to teens in early 1980s Southern California as they go about their materialistic lives and deal with sex, drugs, boredom, the mall, fast food and whatever. The film is a guppy pool of future stars that are fun to spot, and features a hilarious performance by a young Sean Penn as stoner surfer-dude Jeff Spicoli.

Best Line: "I shall serve no fries before their time!" – overly enthusiastic fast food employee Brad Hamilton

Slap Shot

Directed by: George Roy Hill, 1977

Paul Newman stars as Reggie Dunlop, aging player-coach of the Charlestown Chiefs, a two-bit hack hockey team in the two-bit hack minor leagues. When the team’s owner announces his decision to sell, the Chiefs step up to become crowd-pleasing goons, spurred on by the Hanson Brothers, a trio of hulking bespectacled players with childlike intelligence who "put on the foil" before they take the ice. Hockey fights galore iced with Paul Newman’s incomparable charm – no Canadian can resist this movie.

Best Line: "This young man has had a very trying rookie season, with the litigation, the notoriety, his subsequent deportation to Canada and that country's refusal to accept him." – announcer Jim Carr

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Directed by: John Hughes, 1987

Two of the greatest comedic actors of all time, Steve Martin and the late John Candy, team up in this road movie about two travelling salesmen, one white-collar, one blue-collar, thrown together in the quest to get home for Thanksgiving during a winter storm. Martin plays the perfect anal-retentive scowl to Candy’s gregarious buffoon.

Best Line: "We'd have more luck playing pick-up sticks with our butt-cheeks than we will getting a flight out of here before daybreak." – Del Griffith

Wayne’s World

Directed by: Penelope Spheeris, 1992

Extraordinarily likeable headbanger duo Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, played by Saturday Night Live alumni Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, are offered the too-good-to-be-true chance to up the production value of their basement cable television show. Along the way they fall in love, play road hockey, and lip-synch Queen’s entire Bohemian Rhapsody while driving in a Gremlin.

Best Line: "We’re not worthy!" – Wayne and Garth

Happy Gilmore

Directed by: Dennis Dugan, 1996

Golf and hockey come together in this Adam Sandler film about a dopey but likeable hockey player with a killer long drive, who takes up golf in order to win enough money to buy back his beloved grandmother’s house. Sandler’s characteristic stupidity is all forgiven during a scene where Happy picks a fight with Price is Right host Bob Barker, in a cameo as himself.

Best line: "If I saw myself dressed like that, I'd have to kick my own ass." – Happy Gilmore

National Lampoon’s Animal House

Directed by: John Landis, 1978

The definitive college movie of all time, Animal House pits a fun-loving party fraternity against an anal-retentive, cadet nemesis fraternity and an unsympathetic faculty. Most unforgettable in a cast of unforgettable characters is the late John Belushi as house ogre Bluto.

Best line: "I think this situation absolutely requires that a really futile, stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!" – Otter

The Blues Brothers

Directed by: John Landis, 1980

Belushi scores again paired with fellow Saturday Night Liver Dan Aykroyd in this film that’s one part buddy-road-pic, one part musical, and one part religious epic. Some of the best car chase scenes ever filmed and a supporting cast of musical legends from Godfather of Soul James Brown to Aretha Franklin.

Best line: "Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail us now!" – Elwood Blues

Monty Python and Now for Something Completely Different

Directed by: Ian MacNaughton, 1971

A collection of sketches from the infamous British troupe’s earliest years, linked together with Terry Gilliam’s iconic animation sequences. The Pythons take on the upper class, the police, the government, the media and lumberjacks with enduring absurdity and silliness.

Best line: "Thank you, thank you, Conrad Poohs and his exploding teeth! A smile, two fangs, and an ‘excuse me!’" – emcee

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Directed by: Jay Roach, 1997

The first of the wildly successful spy-spoof movie series that brought words like "shagadelic" to the office water cooler. Featuring star Mike Myers in a collection of roles including hero Powers, nemesis Dr. Evil, and disgustingly obese Scottish henchman Fat Bastard.

Best line: "Oh, behave!" – Austin Powers

The Full Monty

Directed by: Peter Cattaneo, 1997

A likeable cast made this British flick about a group of men resorting to burlesque to deal with the economic and emotional toll of chronic unemployment in blue collar Sheffield a huge hit. Robert Carlyle does an about face from his role as psychopathic Begbie in Trainpotting to star as a well intentioned, down on his luck, dad.

Best line: "Anti-wrinkle cream there may be, but anti-fat-bastard cream there is not." – Dave

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Directed by: Trey Parker & Matt Stone, 1999

Fans of the adult cartoon series know South Park’s creators aren’t afraid to make fun of anything. Unbridled by television standards, the movie lampoons Saddam Hussein, Winona Ryder, Canadians, Brian Boitano, the Baldwin brothers, the clitoris and the prince of darkness himself, all in the form of a classic Broadway musical performed by cardboard cutout-style animation. Exactly.

Best line: "So what would Brian Boitano do if he were here today? I'm sure he'd kick an ass or two, that's what Brian Boitano'd do!" – Kyle & Stan

Movie facts from Rottentomatoes.com, quotes from Internet movie database (imdb.com).