the CGI likeness of Ray Winstone in BeowulfBEOWULF

In 1977's Annie Hall, there's a scene between Woody Allen's Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton's Annie in which the title character mulls over her adult-education options:

 

ANNIE: Does this sound like a good course - "Modern American Poetry"? Or, let's see now ... maybe I should take "Introduction to the Novel."

ALVY: Just don't take any course where they make you read Beowulf.

 

Thirty years later, I'm not sure I'd want to take a course where they make you see it, either.

Colin Firth and Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones: The Edge of ReasonBRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON

I have a friend who does a bit based on a seminal Laverne & Shirley gag. In nearly every episode of that sitcom, one of the titular characters would say, "There's no way this situation could get worse!" or "What's that smell?" and Lenny and Squiggy would cluelessly burst through Laverne's and Shirley's door; if someone around us says something like "That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen!" my friend will mime a door opening and exclaim, with perfect greaser-nerd cadence, "Hello!" That gag is pure sitcom-honed irony - that is, obvious irony - and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the follow-up to 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary, is like a continuous loop of that Lenny and Squiggy routine.