Comedy is a Man in Trouble

Alan Dale is an almost completely cool guy who "knows what really matters:

1. structure
2. structure
3. structure
4 virtuosity
5. sex
6. violence
7. music
8. [reserved]
9. [reserved]
10. ideas"

Well, he knows what really matters in movies. His book, Comedy is a Man in Trouble
is a brilliantly insightful and stunningly erudite discussion of slapstick and other kinds of physical comedy from the silent era to the present. His essay,
What We Do Best: American Comedies of the 1990's manages the ultimate high-wire balance -- serious scholarship with a sense of humor about itself. What keeps him from being completely cool? For some reason he has decided to stop teaching and become a tax lawyer. But he's still seeing movies and, thankfully, still writing about them. Beautifully.

Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies