Bill Murray - He Sure Can Pick'em

I love subtle humour. Films like Christopher Guests' 'Best in Show', 'Spinal Tap and any Woody Allen (Bullets over Broadway for example) film are genius in their subtleness. I love brilliantly orchestrated slap stick humour like 'Duck Soup' and situational ones like 'Some Like it Hot'. Not to mention animated ones like 'Shrek' and 'The Incredibles'. Humour in film rarely gets critically acclaimed and rewarded. Sophisticated humour remains on the periphery of award shows. No matter, writing humourous scripts is an art form unto itself.

Bill Murray is one of those masters of dead-pan, subtle humour. On SNL, he's best remembered for less subtle sketches (like when he was a lounge singer singing the 'Star Wars' tune) but his movie career has been nothing short of excellent. His choice of scripts is usually impeccable. Watching Murray interpret edgy and difficult scripts has been quite an enjoyable pass time for some. For this, Murray is one of the finest actors in Hollywood. His work in 'Lost in Translation', 'Rushmore'. Groundhog Day, 'Ed Wood', 'Royal Tanenbaums and his latest 'Life Aquatic' proves this. All great and interesting films in their own way and he excelled in each of them.

Who says humour is a lost art form? As long as their are people around willing to write the scripts and as long as there are actors like Murray around to take them on, humour will continue to evolve -for the better.