Peter Farrelly

Peter Farrelly, with his brother Bobby, make movies that are incredibly funny, usually at the level of potty humor--but they somehow manage to inject charm, intelligence, and (often too much) heart into most of what they do.

Dumb and Dumber (1994) -- The Farrelly Brothers go all out and use Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels to their full comic potential in this hilarious debut of their talents for using their intelligence to make something totally stupid. (Troy Miller directs the prequel, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.) B

Kingpin (1996) -- Not the funniest of their movies, but worth watching. Often it's more concerned with plot than jokes. C

There's Something About Mary (1998) -- The way out-there comedy of Dumb and Dumber was perfected and refined on this one, giving us even more in the characters to care for while we're laughing at them. When I first saw the Greek Chorus, I knew this was a new kind of comedy. And everything about it is pretty, most especially of course Cameron Diaz who has never looked better and shines with beauty, intelligence, and personality. A

Me, Myself, and Irene (2000) -- The Brothers make Dumb and Dumber version 2.0, which isn't to say that that's bad. All of the jokes are new; they're not simply stating old ones. The movie has the same kind of laugh-out-loud funny that their first movie did (and Jim Carrey). B

Osmosis Jones (2001) -- Once I get past my annoyance that the characters are animated like Disney characters (an annoyance I have with most non-Disney animated movies), this actually works pretty well as a kid/young teen movie, even though the kids have to be pretty knowledgeable about biology to get most of the jokes. The story is average, but that's no big deal, and the cleverness actually is funny instead of just being annoying. C

Shallow Hal (2001) -- Not as hilarious as some of their others, and maybe suffering from "too much heart." Two things I realized while watching this was that (a) the straight-up fat jokes were probably more funny than anything and (b) the Farrellys were pretty stupid for thinking that all fat and ugly people are good-hearted people (and that being good equals working for the Peace Corps or with burn victim kids or feeding the homeless) and that all attractive people are bad-hearted people. Just as shallow a judgment of people as anything else. Also, their only way to represent "beautiful on the inside" was "skinny on the outside," which seemed to defeat whatever purpose they were going after. C