Warped Romantic Comedies?

[Palanan]

Ordinary romantic comedies are a dime a dozen, and usually too tepid and predictable to endure.

Can anyone recommend some deviously clever exceptions to the rule? Intelligent, offbeat, and bent like a pretzel?

.

[thorgrim29]

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is pretty good, and I watched Crazy Stupid Love on the plane a month ago and I liked it.

[Giggling Ghast]

Warm Bodies? A romantic comedy with zombies?

[Pex]

Death Becomes Her

Minor spoiler - this also fits "bent like a pretzel" in a literal request.

[Kantaki]

Shaun of the Dead. A romantic comedy with zombies.
Mord ist mein Geschäft, Liebling.

[Grinner]

Stranger than Fiction. An IRS agent begins hearing his life being narrated. The narrator turns out to be an author struggling to finish her latest novel; she only writes tragedies.

[An Enemy Spy]

500 Days of Summer. Not sure that it qualifies as a comedy but it has it's funny moments.

[Zrak]

500 Days of Summer and Death Becomes Her are both good suggestions. I wouldn't really call Forgetting Sarah Marshall "warped" or even particularly offbeat; like most Apatow projects, there's a thin unconventional veneer over a movie that's ultimately almost aggressively normal.

In terms of things that haven't yet been mentioned, the recent They Came Together is a fairly straightforward satire of romantic comedy tropes livened by a generally charismatic cast. Better Off Dead is basically what would happen if a normal '80s John Cusack vehicle was hit by a truck of surreal absurdity on its way to the cliché store. Classic screwball comedies and especially comedies of remarriage usually end up pretty offbeat, even in their earlier incarnations; It Happened One Night, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Topper, The Awful Truth, and even sort of O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

[tomandtish]

"The War of the Roses" (Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner) is a black comedy look at when the romance turns to hatred.

[GloatingSwine]

Grosse Point Blank?

[dps]

The Whole Nine Yards.

[Fri]

Zack and Miri Makes A Porno?

Also, is this limited to movies, or book, comic, anime can work?

[LaZodiac]

Leon: The Professional

[Ranxerox]

Zombieland

[CWater]

Wedding Daze. That was a weird one, not at all what I had expected from the trailer.

Basically, two strangers that just met decide to marry. But the movie gets way weirder than that. Not sure it's a very good one though, even as a comedy, but it's... atypical at least. Defitinely 'warped' as the OP requested.

[thirsting]

Intelligent, offbeat, and bent like a pretzel?


Scott Pilgrim vs The World!

[Bhu]

Most of Pedro Almodovar's catalog.

[Zrak]

Most of Pedro Almodovar's catalog.

And how!

Can't believe I forgot to mention these.

[Pokonic]

Hannibal? .....

[Ebon_Drake]

Punch-Drunk Love. Probably the only time I'll ever recommend a movie with Adam Sandler in it.

[Ravens_cry]

Grosse Point Blank?
Ooh, yes!:smallbiggrin:

[Iruka]

While I wouldn't call them 'warped', the novels by John Green usually add a twist to some of the common romantic comedy tropes. I especially liked Paper Towns.