After we got home from a lovely party at Andre’s and Stephanie’s place last night (and by the way, thanks for a great time, thanks for all the scotch, sorry about that glass– I’m not sure if it was Jim knocking into me or if I just dropped it or what– nice pictures, I guess I missed the blood gushing out of the kid’s leg, and there’s nothing like a night of excess to re-start a proper eating and exercise program), we went home and watched The Aristocrats. We rented it Friday and had intended to watch it the night before last, but we were too pooped, and we had originally intended to watch it Sunday or something. But we got home early enough and Andre was so enthusisastic about at the party (and on his blog), we decided to watch it last night.
We were disappointed.
Most of my loyal readers are probably familiar with the basic premise of the movie, but just in case you’re not: the movie is a documentary/comedy about an infamous dirty joke comedians tell each other, in which a family goes to a talent agent, performs some disgusting act (it inevitably involves incest, blood, beastiality, etc., etc.), and then ends with the same basic punchline: “The talent agent asked ‘what do you call the act?’ The man answered ‘The Aristocrats.'” The comedy comes in the middle portion of the joke, and this is where comedians try to out-do each other in terms of coming up with disgusting things that make up the act.
Now, I should point out that I don’t think neither Annette nor I were offended. I mean, we knew what we were getting ourselves into. And I like dirty jokes just fine. But I dunno, to me, this just didn’t live up to the hype.
Don’t get me wrong– it’s definitely worth a rental, and there were moments that were pretty good. And as a documentary, I thought it was pretty effective and interesting, a sort of “behind the scenes” look at the craft of comedy. But I guess I found it more “interesting” than “funny.”
I suppose it’s just a matter of tastes. Andre talks on his blog about how he thought Anchorman didn’t live up to the hype, but I still will sit and watch that when it crops up on HBO (which it does quite frequently). If you ask me, that’s comedy….
The behind the scenes look at comedy is really interesting. It’s like they’re listing a veil or we get to see the man behind the curtain. Listening to them discuss how they tell the joke and why they do it the way they do was fascinating.
Don’t worry about the glass by the way… I thought that was funny. In fact it took me a while to remember that that happened. I was emptying the dish-washer and wondering what happened to one of the glasses. It wasn’t until Stephanie was laughing about it that I realized what had happened.
I think you have it exactly, it was more interesting than funny. I loved the look at the behind the scenes.
And seriously, don’t sweat the glass. Like I said, it was a cheepy, no big deal at all.
sounds like my kinda flick, actually; of course, I am the guy who thought Pushing Tin didn’t have nearly enough geeky tracon chatter in it…