Death at a Funeral

Death at a Funeral, a British comedy from director Frank Oz, puts the 'fun' back into funeral. In this classically structured farce, a family gathering at a country house for the funeral of its patriarch experiences a series of mix-ups and misunderstandings which culminate into a disastrous send-off for the old man.

Oz, who was born in England, is no stranger to comedy, having directed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Little Shop of Horrors, What About Bob? and Housesitter, among others. In Funeral, he expertly executes the pacing and timing of this farce in the tradition of the great Ealing comedies, and the results are hilarious.

Oz presented his film to an audience at the Seattle Film Festival this week. He said was pleased that our audience managed to "lose control" of ourselves during the film's climax, even though we managed to laugh through several lines of dialogue.

"You missed several key lines because you were laughing," Oz said, "but you were laughing because you got it." Oz says when he directs he overshoots because he never knows until he screens a film before an audience how much space to allow between jokes to accommodate audience laughter.

Oz said he'd always wanted to be a director of serious films, but keeps coming back to comedies. And with every comedy he says he comes away less sure about what makes comedy work, what makes something funny or not funny.

Oz seemed less inclined to talk about himself or his history with Jim Henson, which was fine. His job was to promote his movie. The event host, in introducing Oz, said that not only were we meeting Frank Oz the director, and Frank Oz a/k/a Fozzie Bear a/k/a Yoda, but we were fortunate to be in the presence of none other than Cookie Monster. Now that's cool.

I could not have agreed more.