Crawling through the huge catalog of movies on Netflix to choose what to watch can often take longer than just watching the flick. With that in mind, we dig around for you and come up with ideas for what to click today. Here are 6 classic spoofs to add to your queue.
Hot Fuzz
Let’s get this right out of the way. After director Edgar Wright took some spoofy jabs at the zombie genre (and oh so right), he turned his attention to action and delivered one of the best ever made. Starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, both of the former, they play cops in a quaint English village that is absolutely up to its necks in trouble. Ticking off a whole host of clichés and giving them the proper Wright wringing, this is one fun time at the movies. Yarp.
Tropic Thunder
The war film is not an easy genre to poke fun of, the subject material naturally a little tricky to get laughs from, though some have done it well, including this outing from director/star Ben Stiller, who assembles a great cast in this ribbing of classic Vietnam-era films. With Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. full of great laughs throughout, it’s none other than Tom Cruise who up and walks away with the movie, his turn as a studio executive a surprising bend in the road for the actor, proving the man does comedy as well as he does action.
Masterminds
The heist movie has sort of evolved into an out of control beast that features a now dyed-in-the-wool set of standards from a ragtag team of misfits who spend much of the film crafting an elaborate scheme to the daring attempt that sees all sorts of hurdles to over come, often with a splash of shootouts. With director Jared Hess‘ very dry and very funny Masterminds, he plays right into the conventions and then turns it all on their ear. Starring Kristen Wigg and Zach Galifianakis, this might not be for everyone, but for those who get it, will be a real winner.
Tucker and Dale Vs Evil
One of the most underrated comedic treasures in movies today is Alan Tudyk, a chameleon of sorts who can do great work on camera and even better work as a voice artist. Here, he joins Tyler Labine in a send up of cabin-in-the-woods horror thrillers with jarringly funny results as they play a couple of country bumpkins in the woods encountering party teens who get all the wrong impression of who they are. This is smart and dead on. Don’t miss it.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
You might not think of John C. Reilly as a leading man, and you’d be exactly right, which is why this twist on musical biographies is so darned funny. Following the titular Cox as a musician who morphs his music to suit the times, like a Forrest Gump on guitar history, this is an absurd comedy with a genuinely terrific line of jokes on the genre that hit on target every single time. Reilly is perfectly cast (and is great behind the microphone), making this easily one of the best parody films ever made.
The Cobbler
Okay, hold on. I know what you’re thinking. An Adam Sandler movie? And a ‘serious‘ one at that. Well, I submit that this critically-panned bomb was entirely misunderstood, mistakenly taken at face-value rather than for the subtle jabs at one of the most popular genres in modern cinema: the superhero movie. While Deadpool gets right in your face about, The Cobbler is a sly origin story that pretends it’s not, making this – under the spoof microscope – a much better movie. Read more why.