The Five Best Comedies You've Never Seen

Like anyone else, I enjoy sitting in a packed theater for the latest blockbuster comedy and pitching in my belly laughs to the roar. I loved "The 40 Year Old Virgin," "There's Something About Mary," "South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut" and "Napoleon Dynamite." I have nothing against big Hollywood. But, having said that, there's something to be said for the brilliant bomb - the hilarious and intriguing comedy that failed at the box office, whether due to poor publicity or distribution, lack of star power or shadows of the simultaneously-released epics.

Remember: "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Napoleon Dynamite" were relatively small films that caught fire thanks to word of mouth. Unfortunately, not all films of the same caliber manage to catch the attention of those who know how to spread the word. As a result, they flounder and disappear, usually to the single-copy video store shelves, nestled between losers like "Big Daddy," "Wild Wild West" and any movie starring Shaquille O'Neal.

So how do you pick a funny but underrated comedy without stumbling headfirst into an hour and a half of "Night at the Roxbury?" Simple. Read the list below and take your pick.

Underrated Comedy #1
"Zoolander," starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson
Okay, okay. I realize that a lot of people have seen "Zoolander," but not nearly as many as I would expect based on its quality. Granted, it's not going to win any awards or show up in a vault of the greatest films of the 20th century, but it's easily as funny as "Starsky and Hutch," and the relationship between Wilson and Stiller is much more fun to follow. If you're among the majority, you've never even heard of "Zoolander." If you enjoyed "Wedding Crashers," "Dodgeball," or "There's Something About Mary," your next rental (or better, purchase) should be this film, in which Stiller and Wilson star as rival male models who are swept into the clandestine world of male model assassins.