Although I panned “Tammy,” my review did open with the line, “Like Lou Costello, Groucho Marx, and Jack Benny, Melissa McCarthy can’t not be funny.”
Some commenters took issue with that comparison, but it was sincere.
Whether you like Melissa McCarthy’s style or not, she is one of the most naturally funny people to come along in a long time.
She’s honed and fine-tuned a comedic style that just needs the right film vehicle.
The first act of “Tammy” (which actually is funny) has more laughs than what I’ve seen come out of Fey’s combined career.
In the New York Post, Kyle Smith rightfully declares McCarthy the “true queen of comedy” and dismantles the horribly overrated Tina Fey:
Fey may be witty and cute and sophisticated (and improv-trained), but it’s McCarthy who makes you laugh: Note the element of force involved. When Melissa’s up to bat, you’re the baseball.
How did Fey get to be so overrated? Easy. The culture arbiters think she brought down Sarah Palin. Then she seized the opportunity to secure a political perch for herself as America’s Lite Comic Feminist. …
“The definition of ‘crazy’ in Hollywood,” Fey declared in “Bossypants,” “is a woman who keeps talking after no one wants to f - - k her anymore.” Bemoaning the objectification of women is a strange stance for someone who inexplicably took her shirt off in a classroom in “Mean Girls.” (But I’m sure that scene was all the screenwriter’s fault.)
Fey is worth some $45 million, and she wants us to feel angry-sorry about how oppressive being a woman is.
Think hard about how she earned the title of comedy’s No. 1 lady. One good celebrity impression in one pretty good sketch. A TV show nobody watched. Two gigs hosting the Golden Globes — one of which was lame.
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