I Saw This!! realiTyVgames

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(me) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  Florida governor bad.

One thing we haven't written much about on this blog is realityTV, specifically competition shows.  I know I'm not a huge fan, and I suspect Toasty is similarly averse to the genre.  I think in recent years I've started watching more competition shows than ever, by which I mean, a couple, versus none.  I recall dabbling in early seasons of Survivor and Trading Spaces and American Idol and Project:Runway but at a certain point I realized that these competition shows were just empty calories, and not even all that delicious calories...like eating veggie straws when you could just have had potato chips, or caramel corn, or a fruit salad. I'm feeling peckish and losing the thread here.  In recent years, we've watched all of Nailed It! on Netflix, easily the most entertaining baking competition show out there, because the whole point is bad bakers trying their best, and having fun while doing it.  We've also watched Lego Masters which, given that we're obscenely ridiculous toy people in this household (I'm watching a youtube video about action figure news as I write this), is not that suprising, but I was surprised to find how engaged I was with the show, which is not very much about the personality politics and all about building cool Lego diaramas.

So, we partook in a few other reality competitions in the past couple months... more in such a short time than ever...let's just talk about it....

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LOL Canada - AmazonPrime

I started in on Last One Laughing Canada out of sheer curiosity.  Given that I'm a comedy lover, I wanted to know who from the Canadian comedy scene would wind up on this reality competition show (and would it be funny, or just sad?).  Well, a completely godawful introduction let me know, and, I was quite surprised that I knew everyone involved, save one ( Brandon Ash-Mohammed) and liked pretty much everyone. The crux of the show is putting 10 comedians in a room for 6 hours (edited down to about 3 hours over six episodes) and telling them they can't laugh, or even smile.  The last one left wins a pile of money for charity.  There are rules, but the basics basically is no laughing, no smiling, one warning, then you're out.

The "LOL" formulae was developed from a Japanese game show but now seems to be an Amazon brand which has, currently, 9 different international versions on the streamer, including Australia, German, France, Spain, and India, with a Quebec version forthcoming (surprised there's no US or UK version yet).

With host Jay Baruchel the competing comedians were Drew Barrymore's ex-husband Tom Green, Kim's Convenience co-star Andrew Phung, Whose Line is it Anyways legend Colin Mochrie, Kids in the Hall's Dave Foley, comedian (and ex-pat living in the UK) Mae Martin, "America's Sweetheart" Caroline Rhea, one of my favourite live stand-ups Debra DiGiovanni, The League's Jon Lajoie (whom our dog Taco was named after) and Letterkenny's K. Trevor Wilson joining Ash-Mohammad.

The thing about comedians is a lot of them don't laugh at comedy, they analyze it, they deconstruct it as they see it, like a magician trying understand how another magician's trick works.  A lot of them have a severe poker face.  But the flip side is there's some of those comedians that just love to laugh, so those ones are out almost immediately.

What I wasn't expecting was Tom Green. It's been so long since I have engaged in Green's absurdist shenanigans that I forgot how good he was at that sort of thing.  He got a lot of miles out "delicious cheese sandwiches" (maybe too much mileage). And here he's kind of in his element, just able to be his weird self. Lajoie was easily my favourite competitor, as he had tactics for not laughing, which were tremendously funny on their own.  Mmm. Mmmhmm.  Ash-Mohammad's seductive sunscreen application was something absolutely special to behold, and Mochrie is such a seasoned improv pro that almost everything he does is so good.  Foley seemed to be completely disinterested in the whole thing, even after he was ejected, while Rhea came prepared to laugh, which was kind of the antithesis of the show (rolling out in her teen daughter's wardrobe was a pretty good bit though).

I laughed a lot, and enjoyed spending time with pretty much everyone, and I found the format worked quite well as a competition, really drawing the viewer through from episode to episode, but the unstructured room with hack comedy props is little too malformed for high quality comedy.  The good thing is at 6 sub-1/2 hour episodes it didn't overstay its welcome.

LOL Australia - AmazonPrime 

As I started this post writing about the Canadian version, put the Australian version of Last One Lauging - hosted by Rebel Wilson - on in the background, kind of as an experiment to see if the show would still work even if I didn't know the personalities involved.  I only know a couple of the comedians, mainly host Wilson and absurdist Sam Simmons (who I wrote about here during 2013's JFL42 festival, the one year I deigned to write about stand-up comedy on the blog) but the format proved itself to be just as attractive and entertaining, even if the personalities involved were a bit more alien. 

It's still a fairly funny show, but there's definitely some cultural differences that bubbled up to the fore.  For starters, the Aussies are much more brutal and cutting, like they were treating the room as a place to roast each other, really dig into their careers and, in some ways, let their petty jealousies bubble up to the surface in unflattering ways, that, I guess were meant to be comedy (the thing about roasting is it's only funny if everyone's laughing together, otherwise it just feels mean, and the whole point here is to not laugh, so nobody's laughing).  The Canadians all seemed genuinely respectful of one another, even if they didn't quite know each other.  The elder statesmen, the ones who had gone off to temporarily bigger careers in the States, they were still generally kind to the younger set.  Australia is roughly the same population density as Canada, but where they're situated in the world they're the big English-speaking market (with New Zealand being their Canada), so there's no where to go as an elevation unless you're willing to make the huge leap to the States or UK.  As such it's a tinier, more insular market, everyone knows each other on this show, but there's much more of a competitive spirit between them all.  And throw in $100,000 prize (not for charity, but for the winner) it's certainly a bit more cutthroat.

Another standout in comparison was the Australians' reliance upon dick and bum jokes.  So many bum jokes. I think half the gags here were about bums.  There's got to be some sort of cultural obsession with the ol' hiney Down Under (well, I guess "down under" is basically a butt euphamism as is, so perhaps it makes some sense).  There was quite a bit more lewdness in the Aussie LOL, and maybe an overreliance on cheap theatrics.

It was funny to see that there's a few archetypes that bubble up.  There's the seasoned improv vet, (Mochrie in Canada, Frank Woodley in Australia), the almost-as-seasoned absurdist (Green vs Simmons), the one who distances themselves from it all (Foley vs the almost entirely unengaged Ed Kavalee, making Foley look positively enthusiastic by comparison), the young buck going deep against the vets (Ash-Mohammad vs Nazeem Hussain) and the anti-laugh tactician (LaJoie vs  Dilruk Jayasinha).

Even comparing the hosts, Wilson was much more passive than Baruchel, who seemed to want to insert himself into the happenings as much as possible. The Canadian version also had some games and special guests inserted into the proceedings which made for a bit more entertainment and sense of structure, where there was little else but chaos in Australia.  

But then Sam Simmons was on the attack from moment one in the show, and didn't let up for anything.  My recollection of him as a live performer was that he would do anything, shamelessly, and his sense of comedy crossed the entire spectrum, but here he was mostly focussed on shock-and-awe.  By the end of the show the room looked like a bodega had exploded, like a rock star's hotel room after a coke-fuelled bender, and most of that chaos could be attributed to Simmons.  His go-for-broke, no shame comedy started minutes into the show as he stepped out from behind the change room curtain, music blaring, to perform a wild dance wearing a leather jacked with over a dozen stretchy rubber dick-and-balls stitched on it, which he then proceeded to tug and stretch and fillate in a manic fit along with the hyper music.  And that's where he started his onslaught.

Just past the halfway point, there fell a spastic sense of desperation among the remaining competitors which only seemed to heighten as more were eliminated.  It was less funny and more interesting from a sociological standpoint, as these people who feed off laughs started going absolutely mental, seemingly for hours going "is this funny?" over and over.  That sort of desperation was only flirted with in the Canadian one, but the same sense of "this is a form of torture" seemed to overcome them as well.

I didn't come out of it with a healthier appreciation for the Aussie comedy scene...there was a lot of weaksauce efforts in that room of unfamiliar personalities, but the few standouts really stood out.  Woodley, Simmons, Becky Lucas, and Dilruk Jayasinha I think were tops for me. 

I don't think I'll give any of the other foreign language versions a try.  Comedy is so much in the delivery and the delivery is shot when you're trying to do it through subtitles.

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Best In Miniature - CBC Gem

Another Canadian competition show, though a lot less calmer and gentler than LOL Canada, and much more in the vein of Lego Masters (and I'm sure all those damn baking shows that other people seem to love), where the production cares much less about personalities and backstories, and instead is much more focused on skills.  In this case it's people who create miniatures, dollhouses and accessories.

There is an amazing amount of skill, experience and creativity involved in miniaturing, and the competitors, ranging from only a couple years to decades of experience, each show their own personality in their art.  The competitors hail from the US, Canada, and the U.K., and they seemed to have some form of on-line presence and be largely familiar with one another through social media, some having even bought pieces off the others.

The first episode's challenge is building a dollhouse and it immediately shows the strengths and styles of each of the artists, but also very, very quickly exposes their weaknesses.  Subsequent episodes feature a mini-challenge, where they have to create a small piece in less than an hour, which they are then judged on by the show's experts (one a miniatures expert, the other a design expert), and then they have a specific challenge working in one of their rooms for up to 10 hours.  Each room has to meet some specific design challenges that are foisted upon them, as well as feel a part of the overall aesthetic of the house.

I was impressed, constantly, every episode by everyone, some more than others, but just agog with how cool and amazing and talented these people are at making such a broad spectrum of items.  While some had specialties, most were still able to adapt and create what was needed even if they weren't intimately familiar with the how to.  Plus as the competitors were winnowed down, the more fine and precise the work got, the more impressive it all was.

I enjoyed this show tremendously, very little of which had to do with personalities, except in how they came out in their art.  It was such a low-stakes, low-drama, competition that it was a soothing, relaxing and utterly transfixing watch.  I would like more, but I may also just watch again.

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Is it Cake? - Netflix

Shows based of memes are maybe not the best idea, and Is It Cake? is a fudging mess of a game show.  The format of the show is so bizarre and kind of so antithetical to the way almost any other competition show is done that I have to wonder if it's just ahead of its time, or if it's really just a train wreck.

Hosted by Saturday Night Live's Mikey Day, the premise of the show is three bakers compete in creating a cake that looks like something else, then each cake is put up on a podium against 5 other non-cakes of the same item, and a panel of three "celebrity" (some are minorly famous, some are like specific famous, and some are just internet famous) guests have to come to consensus in 20 seconds on which one is cake.  

But that's just the high level structure...it gets really, really weird the more you dig into it.

The show starts with 9 competitors.  After a round of "Is it cake?", where a variety of random items on podiums - one of them cake - is displayed, and eveyone gets a chance to choose.  If there's a tie, the fastest answer wins.  Kind of a weird system there.  But then, the winner gets to choose two others from the stable.  They each then choose one of the non-cake items for them to replicate in cake form.  The other 6 competitors just go to a bench on the side and...sit there, for 8 hours, while the three competitors bake and make their fake cake.  So bizarre.

AFTER the judging, if the judges were fooled by more than one cake, the judges then have to pick the winner based on how real the cake looks up close and how good the cake tastes.  Then the winner gets a chance to win some prize money by playing "Cake or Cash" where two items looking almost exactly the same are presented, only one is cake, the other is cash.  If they guess which is cake, they win cash.

The following episode, the winner of the previous episode picks two more contestants (from the pool who haven't already been chosen), they play a round of "Is it cake?" with the random items, pick their item to cake fake replicate and go through it all over again.  It's clunky as clunky can be as far as a competition show goes, and yet, it's kinda stupidly entertaining.  It's absurd they have people sitting around for 8 hours while people bake cakes, but that's what happens.  

The contestants, however, are all rather supportive of each other, and all very into discussing techniques, and approaches, and flavours and whatnot.  It's always nice these competition shows where the competitors really are just happy to trade knowledge and appreciate each others' skills.

Likewise, it's fun watching Day's hacking into things that are - and are not - cake.  And the brief moments of deciding whether something is or isn't cake is still a challenge even though you've just watched 20 minutes of the cake being made, the show edits it enough that when it comes time to guess it's still fun for the audience (but it comes at the expense of getting into finer detail on how the cake was made).

Every episode I couldn't believe I was still watching it, and yet, I wanted to watch more after each episode was over.  It's incredibly stupid (and a HUGE waste of food...where does all that cake Day mangles wind up?) and it's such a silly premise, but I enjoyed it despite myself.

Bo Burnham: Inside

 2021, d. Bo Burnham - Netflix

The pandemic has been hard on everyone, some more than others.  There will be piles and piles of "our COVID year" content pouring out.  We've already covered films like Locked Down and Songbird which use the pandemic and various restrictions applied to it as their setting, but struggle to fully capture the weight of it.  Reality-based productions like the Borat sequel and How To with John Wilson also had the pandemic interrupt their productions, and I think it's only the latter with its eye-on-self lens really got to the heart of it.  Saturday Night Live at Home gave the long-in-the-tooth sketch show a real shot in the arm before vaccines were a thing yet, allowing the individual voices of its creators to shine through in a way they're rarely allowed to do on the show.  It wasn't all fantastic, but it was relatable, and in a way, made being locked down a little easier, a shared experience.

If anything, How To... and SNL show the power of the personal touch, and they highlight that it's not scripted content that's going to tell the story of the pandemic. At least, not right now.

Bo Burnham is this comedy/musical comedy wunderkind, bursting onto the scene in his mid-teens 15 years ago, and if his massive success wasn't already a force to be reckoned with, he recently wrote and directed the multiple award winning Eighth Grade and also directed both Chris Rock and Jerrod Carmichael's latest comedy specials, on top of costarring in last year's Promising Young Woman.  But if his star wasn't already bright enough, Inside is basically Burnham going supernova.

Fitting somewhere between a concert film, experimental documentary, and bedroom recording, Inside is a feature-length comedy set from Burnham using all the tools at his disposal... and Burnham is the Swiss Army Knife of content creators.  For Inside Burnham is performer, writer, director, editor, lighting, sound mixer, stage hand, key grip, best boy, cinematographer, set design, wardrobe artist... just everything.  It's all him, and it's all so, so precise.  

The setup of Inside is that Burnham is going to use his time trapped inside during the pandemic lock down to create content.  This is both that content, and the journey of creating it.  What this would have been were he making it for the stage as a touring comedian, it's hard to say, but it would be very different for sure.  He clearly needed to rehearse his songs before committing them to film, but it's not just playing the music, creating the backing mixes, but it's also his sometimes intricate light shows, or doing a duet with a sock (puppet? no, just a sock), or specific physical movement (not quite dance...), or in-camera effects...or a combination of any of these...and much more.  And there's such precision, it's so abundantly clear that Burnham is a perfectionist.  As accomplished and funny as his songs are, as endearing and entertaining a personality he is, as insightful and thoughtful his commentary is, foremost what stands out is his skill as a director, as the grand orchestrator of all of this. And it shouldn't be something you notice, but it is, because it's such an accomplishment.

It is the content that it's all about.  Creating content.  Made during the pandemic in one room, during a massive shift in our understanding of race and gender and politics, content seemed a tricky thing, especially for, as Burnham points out, a white guy.  What does he have to say about any of it?  Does it even matter?  He struggles with the fact that he has a voice when so many others do not, and in having a voice what is his responsibility with it?  But that's the early worry... that his voice perhaps doesn't matter right now, but also that he has a drive to create content so what should he actually say?

As the pandemic moves on, his beard and hair grow longer (there are stark examples between songs/set pieces of his beard and hair noticeably longer, intoning just how much time and effort went into rehearsing and perfecting each piece) his content starts focusing more on both the personal - loneliness, his mental health - and the existential. 

He has moments of deep depression fueled by anxiety and doubts that wind up in confessionals, where he conveys the most concise but impactful message about suicide prevention:
"..If I could kill myself today and be dead until, like, 18 months from now, I would do it, but, alas, when you kill yourself you're dead forever."
It's a statement that gets to the heart of whatever it is that's troubling and seems inescapable... that the troubles are often temporary.  And that, hell, 18 months from now, anything could happen, things could be so much different, if not better.

He has a brilliant number about the internet, how perfect and yet insidious it is that it exists. He has a super elaborate music video accompanying his song "White Woman's Instagram" that is ready to be memed and thirst tweeted.  His songs often feel like Weird Al's best pastiches, (at one point he draws a ven diagram with Malcolm X on one side Weird Al on the other with himself in the middle), so it's clear the Weird one had a big influence on him, but it's not a crutch he needs to lean on.  His final three numbers are earnest and each kind of wrenching in their own right.  The music in this lead me to believe that Burnham's next big writer/director project needs to be a big budget original musical.  He's got it in him both as a songsmith and a visual stylist.

I know I'm making this sound like a very heavy "comedy" special, but it's also immensely funny, with some supremely silly bits like Burnham doing a "live play" of the Inside video game - press "X" to cry, or Burnham doing a youtube-style commentary on the song he *just* played, which then becomes a commentary of the commentary of the commentary.  But all of it is grounded in the self.  All of it is a deep expression of who Burnham is or what he thinks about the world around him at this time.  

I related to all of it.  At one point Burnham marks the transition from his 20's as the clock hits midnight and he's 30 years old.  I just turned 45 today, as I write this, and despite the 15 year age gap, the thoughts and feelings, the doubts and anxieties about himself and the world are not exclusive to Millennials.  Also the drive to create, but the self doubt that goes into it.  The fact is there are people like Burnham who are so driven they push past it, but then people like me who can't get outside their own head.

It's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant work of art.  We haven't seen anything like this before, a film this personal, this individual, and yet this technically accomplished.  It's not stand-up comedy, it's not a documentary, it's not a bedroom recorded album, it's not a scripted feature, it's all of these things and more. It's a soul laid bare on film, but put there with the express purpose to entertain.  And you get entertained, but you also can't avoid the soul.

JFL42 Comedy Festival 2013

Last year's JFL42 festival of comedy started off on a wrong note with a horrendous delay in getting the festival passes after ordering.  Coupled with the confusion about how the festival works and not having a usable smart phone to effectively check in and reserve shows, there was a lot it had to overcome to make it worthwhile.  What it has was some damn incredible comedeians and the more shows you take in the more value you get out of the festival pass.

It was an easy decision to do it again this year, particularly when discovering the early announced line-up included four of my favourite acts (Mulaney, Kinane, Maron and Burress) with two of the headliners (Silverman and Ansari) vying for my headliner selection.  The ticket ordering process this year went incredibly smoothly, with my festival pass arriving within hours and buying a pass for my wife at the same time required only a couple clicks on a simple "Transfer My Pass" process.  Months before the festival, it had already started things off right.

What wasn't so great this year, however, was the scheduling, partly my fault but also a problem with the organization of the acts.  There was a bit of bunching of the bigger names towards the end of the festival, overlapping at the same time, which was problematic and caused me to miss out on two favourites, Hannibal Buress and Maria Bamford (there were midnight show options for each on Thursday and Friday nights, but not much of an option with work and kids.  As well, there didn't seem to be as many name acts this year as there were last year, and it was very close to the starting date when the last half of the 42 were revealed.  There were a lot more hosted events, which I guess is fine, but I didn't think to investigate them until deep into the festival.

So committed to the festival this year were we that I called in my mother to fly in to watch after the kids.  We only had four nights booked when we asked initially but we took advantage of the in-house babysitting and jumped on a couple of extra shows.  I matched my show attendance from last year (8 shows) but packed even more extracurriculars with my wife into the week.  Where she only saw three shows plus the headliner last year (Louis CK), she caught all the shows with me this year and it made for a far better festival experience.

Here's a few brief recaps of the shows:

Mark Little and Kyle Dooley (opener Todd Graham) - September 20, @The Comedy Bar, 7PM
I didn't know what to expect.  I love Picnicface, the sketch ensemble of which both are members, and Little is a great stand-up in his own right (saw him last year), so I had hopes they could deliver something entertaining.  And it was something, all right.

Todd Graham was an inspired choice for opening act.  He has a quiet, reserved delivery, with dry punchlines and methodical pacing led to a slow laugh build-up (often to the point of uncomfortably awkward), but ultimately quite funny.  Little and Dooley follow Graham on stage with a stark counterpoint, kicking over the mics, crunking to some hardcore hip-hop and screaming like they're wrestlers from the 1980's WWF.  The aggressiveness was disarming, like shocking your skin by jumping in the snow out of a sauna, bracing but it wakes you up.  They don't let up from there.

Little and Dooley construct a loose, free-flowing narrative about attending their high-school prom that takes dozens of diversions that seem improvised (and to a degree are) but are still an important part of the overall structure.  There's a third member to their team in the booth playing music queues and interfering with the proceedings causing Little and Dooley much hilarious consternation (as the unseen third man, he's brilliant and every gaffe or interruption led to comedy gold).

Little and Dooley's irreverent production was jam packed with so many clever elements and funny bits that my mind overloaded.  A section of the show found Little becoming so irate with the errors from the sound tech that he starts ranting, his rants at first repeated by Dooley, then Little starts speaking for Dooley (which Dooley also repeats) before stepping out into the crowd, doffing his shirt, taking glasses from various audience members and piling them all on one audience member as a "glasses totem".  It's hard to effectively describe, but certainly a memorable live experience.

The overall show was so amazing that my wife and I had every intention of returning for an additional viewing but scheduling conflicts interfered with that plan.  Definitely the right way to start off our festival, an easy highlight.  My biggest hope is that one of the performances was captured on video as there's so much in there I would like to witness again.  I wonder if much of it was the live setting (I'm quite sure of it) but I also believe that it would translate well to home viewing.

Jerrod Carmichael (opener Mark Forward) - September 20, @The Comedy Bar, 9PM
 I've heard him as a guest on Comedy Bang Bang a couple of times and heard a few short sets he's done.  Carmichael is a new-ish comic that's garnering a lot of attention, and the kid has some definite comedy chops as well as charm to spare. . What he doesn't have is a solid 45 minute set, and thus it felt more like a workshopping appearance and less a refined headliner.  His attempts to engage the crowd weren't received well.  He basically just asked two or three times if anyone wanted him to riff on anything, and the only reply he got was "Rob Ford" (eliciting major groans from the crowd), but once he learned he was the crack-smoking mayor, his eyes sparkled and he went off.  Carmichael can riff, I'll grant him that, but while full of promice, overall the set was a scattershot work in progress.

Opener Mark Forward was great.  Forwards a Canadian pro, with a solid roster of odd material (including an opening conceptual piece about monitoring his phone for news about his grandmother which had a great payoff).  I got the sense he could easily have pulled a headliner set.

Sam Simmons - September 23, @The Drake, 7PM
"In Australia, all comedy is like this".
What a delightfully odd place that must be.

Simmons I caught on a Jon Dore hosted Just For Laughs alternative program earlier this year.  I didn't catch his name at first but upon seeing a clip while looking for shows at the JFL42 site, I immediately recalled how much I enjoyed him.  His hybrid stand-up/prop comedy/performance piece ebbs and flows between self-effacing, self-aggrandizing, hyper-sexual, off-beat, way-off-beat, outright bizzare, conceptual, clever word play, silly word play, groan-inducing wordplay, audience interaction, odd-ience interaction, audience berating, conversations with himself (pre-recorded), and things with food.  Lots and lots of food.  It's a little more than an hour of weirdness pummeling the audience, with an 80-to-20 hit to miss ratio, and a lot of those misses Simmons can turn into hits with his self-effacing or audience-berating tactic ("Fuck you guys, that was brilliant").  Simmons has no shame, even when he's pretending to be ashamed.  There's running bits throughout the show, with the Old El Paso Taco Kit playing a major part right up until the epic taco-crushing finale.  A decidedly entertaining and unique experience.

Marc Maron (opener Andy Kindler) - September 24, @Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 7PM
I've been listening to Maron once or twice a week, almost every week for four years.  His podcast, WTF, has reached over 400 episodes now, and each episode he engages in a one-sided conversation about his life and what's going on.  Maron's not just a comedian to me, he's a friend, a dear friend, someone whom I care about, yet I've never met.  I had only heard him perform shorter sets, seeing them on youtube or Comedy Central programs, but it was only early in the year when I received all four of his stand up records that I ever heard him as a full act.  But listening to him over those four albums is to hear him evolve as a person, not just as a comedian, and a lot of the stories and jokes were familiar to me in one form or another as he reshapes them on the podcast in rants or conversations (often he retells them in a "I have a joke about that with X as the punch line" way).  It's great stuff, but at the same time, knowing Maron so intimately -- as all his regular What The Fuckers, What The Fuck Buddies, What The Fuckanadians etc do -- is to worry about him and hope his show goes well (he had just had a bomb set a week or two before his JFL42 appearance so that was fresh in my mind).

But Jesus, what I forgot is that Maron is a fucking professional comedian, a 30 veteran of the industry, and seeing him on stage is to see a master at work.  He is incredible.  Within seconds of him arriving on stage you could tell he was loose, poking fun at his opener and friend Andy Kindler (more on him at the end), and he was ready to get into it (he followed that up with a brutally funny physical impersonation of his friend and fellow comedian David Cross).  Maron is a professional talker.  He has bits and his bits are incredible.  He's managed to hone his bits into a form where they don't sound like bits, they sound like conversation, and so when he's not in his bits you can't really tell he's riffing.

This was the first time I've seen Maron perform an hour that's wholly fresh to me.  I was thinking that because of his podcast that I would have known all the jokes or knew where he was going but I was absolutely swept up by seeing someone so capable of working a crowd and engaging them both as friends and potential enemies.  I love Maron, so there's total bias in this write up, but he absolutely killed and I was just floating by the end of the show.  It was like I finally got to put a face and physicality to that disembodied voice that rings around my earholes so often (Maron's also taller and more handsome than I had pictured).

Now Andy Kindler, on the other hand... well, I was immediately soured when he was announced and took the stage as opener.  I don't like Kindler for all the reason's he seems so completely aware about why people don't like him.  He's opinionated but in a manner that makes him seem bitter and envious.  His act is free of jokes, save for some Vaudevillian one-liners he likes to toss around knowingly, otherwise he's just got this shtick of being a jaded bottom-rung Hollywood type and completely self-denegrating.  He gets his laughs from his sad-sack self-awareness (he acknowledged the warm crowd at length and discussed how this was his best show ever, despite the fact that it was only a lukewarm crowd), but it wears thin very quickly.  His anger and vitriol towards specific individuals or organizations or movies or programs in Hollywood seem to have no other viewpoint than "I don't like it because it's successful", leading to no jokes, just hate.  The best thing to come out of Kindler's set was the end...no not that tired joke, but Maron's poking fun at him.  For all the jokes Kindler makes at his own expense, within a minute of being on stage Maron topped those two or three times over.

John Mulaney (opener Sean Patton) - September 25, @Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 7PM
If there was one act I could not miss this year, John Mulaney would be it.  His "The Best Meal I Ever Had" is my all-time favourite stand-up routine for a few years running.  His two albums, The Top Part and New In Town are comedy classics, the product of an affirmed comedic voice, one that seems to be getting better with age.  Mulaney's an expert storyteller, a gifted wordsmith, and he has mind-mouth coordination like few others.  His bits waver from funny to stitch-ripping hilariousness.  He entered the stage expressing that the evening would include a lot of new material, but if that was actually true, none of it was evident (except at one point where he declared "That's staying in the act!").  It seemed as polished a routine as either album, and whether it's just the confidence he has on stage or just general quick wit, there was nary a lull in his hour-long set.

Mulaney closed the show with a sister piece to "The Best Meal I Ever Had", which was a story called "The Best Night I Ever Had", about the time he was 8-years-old and met Bill Clinton.  The story takes a few necessary diversions (as most of his stories do) but it all builds an incredible picture that puts you right into the scene with young John as your avatar.  There's a moment in the story where Mulaney notes that the fundraiser where he would meet Clinton was held at the same ballroom that you see at the end of the Fugitive.  He drops a few notes of description, pauses for a moment to gauge the audience, then proceeds with the story, only to backtrack and detail more descriptors, not of the ballroom, but of the scene from the Fugitive.  He then pauses, assess the audience, then proceeds with the story once more, only to stop, backtrack and go off on a very intricate, 2-minute, obsessively detailed description of the climax of the Fugitive.  It's an applause worthy feat that sets a peak for the Clinton story that doesn't let down.

I was unfamiliar with his opener Sean Patton, but his set was entertaining, and I like his style, which was enough for us to fill in our Thursday night 9:00 gap with his headline performance.  More on him shortly.

Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - September 26, @The Dakota Tavern, 7PM

Okay, I know it's not a JFL42 show, but it could have been.  Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet were the house band for the Kids in the Hall, which makes them a part of comedy history and certainly helped in endearing them to me as one of my favourite bands of all time.  The Shadowy Men, a not-quite-surf-a-billy threesome disbanded in the early 90's and after the death of bassist Reid Diamond were destined to be a band for the history books.  With their first album Savvy Show Stoppers reissued on vinyl last year, Shadowy Men reformed with Sadies frontman Dallas Good (if you're going to replace someone named Reid Diamond, only someone named Dallas Good can fit the bill), who played with Diamond and drummer Don Pyle in their post-Shadowy effort Phono-Comb.  The reforming was a three show event which led to a few more smaller shows last year, and a surprise residency during September this year at the Dakota Tavern.

This was my third Shadowy Men show in two years and where the first time was a quasi-religious experience (so many emotions from my youth came flooding back, as well having one of my best friends from high-school and adulthood there with me who lives on another coast, experiencing this live performance we never thought would happen... it was miraculous), this third time matched the second in a smaller, far more intimate venue with a hundred other devotees of old, and a few new.
The Shadowy Men rip through their repertoire at breakneck speed, one song leading into another, into another, into another...six or seven in a row without a pause.  I love the music and know the songs intimately, (though, through the years the names of the tracks have begun to escape me).  It's like a warm audio hug, just utter pleasure listening to Brian's guitar sing and watching his hands move, seeing Don's sweat over his drums and dropping a few pithy comments at rare intervals when he speaks.  I noticed I haven't paid much attention to Dallas Good in the past (since Pyle is the voice of the band, and Connelly is the spotlight, the bassist is easy to overlook), but I made a point to focus on what's going on with the bass this time.  Knowing that Good is playing Diamond's original bass I have to wonder just how much that particular instrument is integral to the band's sound.  The bass is so prevalent in the songs but also so overshadowed by Connelly's amazing hands that one so often wants to attribute signature moments in the songs to Connelly's guitar.

They played two sets, Connelly blowing out his amp at the end of the first set, causing a delay for the second, and thus causing us to miss out on its latter half as we had another place to be.  Still, absolutely amazing, every time.  I've had Shadowy Men songs running through my brain ever since.  I love it and will never tire of it.

Sean Patton (opener ?) - September 26, @The Comedy Bar, 9PM

This was a blessing.  Patton's opening set for John Mulaney was good, but it didn't imply how great Patton was a headliner.  The undersized crowd at the comedy bar spoke volumes as to how criminally below the radar Patton is flying, but judging by his uproarious, often shocking, often dark, often jubilant set, he's slated to appear all over that radar very soon.  Patton kicked off his act by sermonizing the crowd, then launching into his deep impression of Christian comedy, which at once is painfully unfunny, and conceptually hilarious in execution.  Patton then launches forward into a masterclass on storytelling, interspersed with some straight up jokes and aces crowd work.  His storytelling, an exaggeration of his own life, is filled with dark spots but presented with an affirmative nature so that it never drags too deep so as to take it out of comedy (though it threatens a few times in his closing story about his 12-year-old naive indiscretions).  He wavers in and out of hinting at a southern Nawleans drawling accent, and on occasion plays fully into it as a character type.  He knows his material and can command a stage, he's got a refined voice and he's ready for the next level.  His subject matter may not be to everyone's taste, and he likes to fuck with the audience's trust just enough to perhaps be off-putting to some, but overall should definitely break him out.  It was a revelation, one of my new favourite comedians.

His opener (whose name I've forgotten, but probably for the best) was a bit of a mess on the other hand.  Her act was a shambles, with punchlines flying out without jokes and jokes without punchlines.  Often repeated was "I don't know what I'm saying" which may not be a bad catch phrase if she's able to say a lot of hilarious non-sequiturs in a manner that seems like she doesn't know what she's saying.  Unfortunately it came across as her not actually knowing what she's saying, far too often.  It was continually unfocused and unrefined, there was a lot of senseless cursing and at times unbridled anger that seemed to have no direction.  Somewhere in there is a voice that has a unique perspective but judging by this performance it's a ways away from being found.

Kyle Kinane (opener Rob Mailloux) - September 27, @The Mod Club, 7PM

If there was a highlight of the festival, it would be Kyle Kinane.  I've been a fan of Kinane since he appeared on the Nerdist's first Comedians You Should Know showcase (episode 51) and he's only gotten better.  His first album Death of the Party found a not-so-young-but-still-young Kinane presenting his unique dark hilarity in a refined state, but his second album, Whiskey Icarus revealed the genius that was hiding from that first album.  Like Mulaney's set this year, Kinane has a new hour that seems polished and ready to go to press, his voice so strong that he fills every moment with a nugget of brain joy uniquely his own.

Comedy can be about telling jokes, but the best comedians are storytellers, those that can take even the smallest moments, like throwing out a handful of change, and turning them into epic reveals about the human psyche and making them relatable, as well as spinning them so cleverly on their previously unknown axis that they build in how funny they are.  Kinane this hour bares his soul, yet somehow in the most reserved way possible.  He's crying out about how lonely and damaged he is while contrasting it by doubling over his audience in laugher.  Kinane has a gift of riffing, able to talk and hit upon particular words that even if you miss two-thirds of what he's saying it's still going to perpetuate your laughter.  He has a bit about gay porn which is funny, but only crescendos when he starts expounding upon a scenario he's never seen but would like to see.  Though it's unlikely I'm ever to hear "butt-to-butt" out of the context of this joke, if ever I do I'll likely collapse in giggle fits.  His "butt-to-butt" riff sustained for so long that I nearly threw up from laughing so hard.  It's a good thing I didn't eat dinner before I went.

Kinane, even moreso than Mulaney, has one of the most unique voices in comedy, strictly speaking timbre and tone here.  The only other comedian who can make me laugh so hard just by talking is Buress (still sad I missed him).  Kinane's set was a gift, a treasure trove of turns of phrases that are so odd, yet sharp that you want to swirl it in your ear, rattle it around your brain and slide it out on your tongue again and again.  You will want to develop your own Kinane impersonation because half of the hilarity is in the delivery.

Rob Mailloux was the dark and tortured opening act.  Steeped in material from his seemingly very painful personal life, Mailloux talks about being adopted and his own anorexia as well as about horrifying medical maladies.  He's able to inject enough humour to make them palatable but they're still too shocking and too bleak of subject matter (and obviously still all too relevant to Mailloux) to fully transcend in the same way Maron or Bamford deal with their demons on stage.  His act is really good in foundation but it's still too much of a gut punch to be considered enjoyable.

Aziz Ansari (opener Kyle Kinane) - September 27, @The Sony Center, 10PM

In 2005, whilst visiting New York City, I bought 3-disc comedy compilation called Invite Them Up, a weekly premiere alternative stand-up showcase presented by Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale.  It was a concerted effort on my part to discover more comedy, having then-recently found David Cross and Mitch Hedburg and realizing I liked this stuff.  On that compilation the stand-out sets came from two sources, one Demitri Martin, the other Aziz Ansari.

In that set, Ansari talked about a senator who compared gay marriage to bestiality, particularly with box turtles, and postulated that this senator was really into turtles.  He also had a delicious rip on Kanye West whose music he loves, and whose personality he's fascinated with, and speaking Tamin in a brief encounter with M.I.A.  Ansari's dive into both pop-culture and political arenas was just what I was looking for and he became a fast favourite well before his major turn on Parks and Recreation and his subsequently awesome comedy albums.

This time around Ansari is laser focused, a singular topic in mind...that of, err, being single.  His new set is part comedy, part culture study, as he walks through all he's researched and learned and observed on single life, dating rituals as they compare to other countries and other eras.  It's evident that Ansari is growing up, and despite being a successful actor and comedian he's still trying to figure out some aspect of life.  It was surprising to witness a whole act without a single story about Kanye, but also kind of refreshing to watch him interplay with the audience and build upon that freewheeling in his act.  It was a strangely intellectual yet no less enjoyable.

What I learned though was that a multi-thousand seat theatre, like the Sony Center, isn't the best way to view comedy.  Particularly after coming off of seeing Kinane in a few hundred seat room, it was interesting to see him repeat much of the same material in a much bigger room, on a much grander scale.  The comedy doesn't play as well, though still amazing, and I've figured out that, at least for me, it's the space.  The laughter doesn't fill the space of a big theatre like it does in a smaller setting, the laughter needn't drown out the comedian, but they should have to fight to keep pulling you back in.  For stand-up, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre is probably the largest venue that can house it without destroying the sense of intimacy.  Ansari has gotten used to working crowds the size of the Sony Center and has built an act that's meant for such a space.  At the same time, it doesn't have nearly the same impact as Kinane's Mod Club set or Mulaney or Maron's Queen Elizabeth Theatre set.

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For JFL42 next year, some recommendations:
- Doug Benson for the whole week, doing stand-up, doing Doug Loves Movies, and doing Benson Movie Interruptions.  I would go to every single one.
- Deborah DiGiovanni I haven't seen do stand-up in some time, and I miss her.
- Kristen Schall and Kurt Braunohler
- Ron Funches
- Jonah Ray
- Kumail Nanjiani
- Headliner suggestions: Flight of the Conchords, Tenacious D, David Cross, Mindy Kaling, Joan Rivers (seriously)

...I've got more (I'll add them for posterity later).

Catching Up: Comedy!(?) by Comedians!(?)

Shakes the Clown (1991, Bobcat Goldthwait) - netflix
Sleeping Dogs Lie (aka "Stay"? 2006, Bobcat Goldthwait) - netflix
Let's Go To Prison (2006, Bob Odenkirk) - netflix
Jeff, Who Lives At Home (2012, Mark and Jay Duplass) - netflix
Sleepwalk With Me (2012, Mike Birbiglia) - netflix

I had originally planned to sit down and watch all four of Bobcat Goldthwait's films, which would also include World's Greatest Dad and God Bless America, but the latter hasn't shown up on Netflix yet to complete the non-quadrology and I kind of got side-tracked.  It's definitely not that I disliked Goldthwait's films, because I enjoyed them, or, at the very least, found them enjoyably curious.  I should note here that there is a clear distinction in storytelling and maturity between the two films, obviously 15 years does a lot to change a man's perspective.  I've heard that the two films of his I haven't seen are more consistent in tone with Sleeping Dogs Lie, which was pretty emotionally heavy for a comedy, and I don't cotton to investing that much emotion in my entertainment, given my regular emotional fatigue by end of day.  But I'll get to them both at some point.  Because, as I said, Goldthwait, if not making great films, is making interesting films.


Shakes The Clown is kind of infamous to me, as it got name checked quite explicitly by Kevin Smith as an influence on him for Clerks, and I was downright obsessed with Clerks and Smith for about a decade or so.  Shakes was sold by Smith as a provocative, sometimes filthy, nasty bit of filmmaking (or that was my impression of how he sold it) so I shied away from it for this long.  Imagine my surprise to find that the film itself isn't all that provocative, or filthy-nasty, but the character of Shakes, played by Goldthwait kind of is.

The film is a cult favourite, and I can see why.  The world of Shakes the Clown is unlike any other, one where it seems like half the population are clown school graduates or drop outs, or worse, Rodeo clowns.  They're revered and despised in equal measure, like a race of humans all their own.  Goldthwait seeds in a lot of racially-inspired elements to the script, without actually ever trying to make a commentary on race or racial issues, which is kind of inspired.

The main thrust of the feature is that Shakes thinks he should be the biggest clown in town, hosting the local cable clown show on TV, and the truth of the matter is Shakes is the best clown in town, when he's sober.  But since Shakes has his demons, his chief nemesis, Binky, steals his thunder, and conspires to keep him down.

It's an off-beat, oddly-paced but inspired bit of storytelling, with fun performances from some of Goldthwate's comedy contemporaries like a more than palatable Adam Sandler, Robin Williams, Julie Brown and future Spongebob Tom Kenny.  Bobcat's direction does what it needs to do, totally servicing the plot and never getting in the way.  He actively avoids the obvious jokes, almost fighting against the comedy, keeping it almost in the vein of a hardboiled suspense drama, but most definitely not.


15 years later, Sleeping Dogs Lie finds Goldthwait exploring a provocative little nugget to its fullest dramatic extent, where it could very quickly have veered into gross-out comedy territory.  It's spoiling nothing to say that the film centers around Amy (in a wonderfully understated comedic performance from Melinda Page Hamilton) who, in a fit of boredom or some other off-kilter sense of whimsy, orally pleasured her dog in college.

The conceit right there is more than enough to turn most people off from this film, but that reaction is the exact thing the film itself explores.  Amy's quite ashamed of this decidedly socially-unacceptable thing she did, and it colors almost her entire waking existence.  It's a disgusting secret that festers in the back recesses of her brain, something she knows she can't trust with anyone.  But she's in a committed relationship with John, about to take the next step into marriage, and she's debating whether she should be totally honest with him or if it will drive him away (or if not being honest will drive him away).

Goldthwait expertly builds up this tension in the first act, as Amy musters up the will to tell John, in as much as the couple drive up to visit Amy's highly conservative parents to tell them the news of their engagement, and are still forced to sleep in separate bedrooms.  John is forced to bunk with Amy's brother Dougie, a die-hard stoner and terminally unemployed, prone to playing experimental musinc on his keyboard at 3am.  Whilst having a rendez-vous in the garage, Amy finally concedes to telling John her secret, unaware that Dougie was in the rafters.  It explodes from there into some of the most intense drama as Amy's life atomizes before her.  The air is out of the canister and there's no way to force it back in.

The second act is all fallout, while the third act is a quasi-romantic comedy that deals with Amy's new relationship, her severed familial ties, and reflecting upon the lessons she's learned about the power of an idea.  While it's not the best looking movie (it's quite cheap looking in many respects) and Goldthwait's direction rarely extends beyond serviceable, the story itself, once you get past the set-up is a rich exploration of human emotions, falling heavily into the dramatic reflection thereof, but is otherwise balanced with a lighter touch.  I quite admired Goldthwait's focus on the human side of things, rather than strictly looking for comic moments.  (And it has one of my favourite Brian Posehn appearances ever, as one of Dougies stoner friends).

While Sleeping Dogs Lie had a solid critical reputation preceding it, Let's Go To Prison is universally panned.  I remember when it came out in theatres back in '06, I was keen, after all here was a movie from Bob Odenkirk (I loved Mr. Show) and starring Will Arnett (I was deep into my Arrested Development obsession at that point), but, again, it was getting terrible reviews and it barely lasted 2 weeks in theatres, even in Toronto.  I was fine to let it drop.

Recently, while listening to one of the many comedy-centric podcasts (probably WTF or Nerdist, or perhaps Sklarbro Country) I heard Thomas Lennon (a veteran of cult comedy like the State and Reno 911, as well as a frequent podcast guest) promoting his new book (with writing partner Robert Ben Garant) "Writing Movies For Fun and Profit" in which he details how to get a script made in Hollywood (throw your ideals and your artistic morals out the window, be willing to do whatever the studios ask, and follow the paycheques).  Having written junky but popular fare like the Night at the Museum, they know what they're talking about, but Lennon mentioned when they first started they had a script they loved, and everyone who read it loved it, but nobody wanted to make it.  That film was Let's Go To Prison, which obviously did get made, and probably shouldn't have.

The film stars Arnett as a wealthy trust fund kid, never having any responsibility in his life, and no respect for anyone.  Dax Sheperd is a career criminal, having been practically raised in the prison system, put before a Judge who saw him as the worst in humanity and an example to set for society.  The judge was Arnett's father, and in his most recent release from prison, Sheperd would finally have his long-thought-out, much-planned revenge on the man who destroyed his life.  Only problem is the Judge died in the intervening years. So he picks Arnett as the subject of revenge, sets him up for a fall which takes him to prison.  But Sheperd can't just let him go and be left to the system, he has to see Arnett fall, if not partake in it further.  So he basically commits a crime, gets caught, pleads guilty and sends himself back.

As I think about the set up, on paper and in premise, I could see the grounds for comedy.  But where it goes from there, straight to lockup, it's far too dark and far too depressing to be funny.  Lennon and Garant's script, Odenkirk's direction, the actors involved all try to make rape jokes and toilet wine and vicious beat downs and shankings and intense racism and human suffering funny, and poking around only one of those bitter subject could you probably find a vein to mine, but altogether it's just way too much.  Only Chi McBride as Arnett's woo-ing rapist manages to evoke any laughter in the entirety of the film.  McBride is a comedy secret weapon.  He's not generally know for his comedic work, but here, and in Odenkirk's other disrespected (but far, far funnier) The Brothers Solomon, McBride is the hands down highlight, playing starkly against his massive and imposing figure.

There's a lot of terrible films out there that deserve to be forgotten, Let's Go To Prison, frankly is a waste of time, money, talent, space (digital and real), resources and everything about it.

The Duplass Brothers are the inadvertent creators of the oft despised Mumblecore cinematic movement, based largely on their first two films, The Puffy Chair and Baghead, largely improvised films, shot on the cheap (with a quasi Dogme-95 aesthetic).  Though Mumblecore is quite derided, it's acknowledged that the Duplass' are quite handily the masters of the form, having since pushed the basic structure to comparatively larger-scale productions with name brand actors like John C. Reilley, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei in Cyrus and here with Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Sussan Sarandon in Jeff, Who Lives At Home.

Given how emotionally charged Cyrus was, I was expecting a bit more of the same out of Jeff, investigating the emotional side of having a grown offspring or sibling still occupying your space and the effect it has on the family dynamic.  Basically, I was expecting more of the "At Home" part of the title to be relevant.  But the Duplass' abandon the idea of exploring an idea for instead solely exploring the characters in the film.  Segel is the titular Jeff, unemployed once again, still living at home, constantly stoned, just barely capable of looking after himself.   Jeff is given one task, to go to the home reno store and buy some glue to fix a closet door shutter, and he sets off with that goal in mind.  But high, and fixated on the synchronicity of life and the meaning of the movie Signs, he gets detoured quickly.  Meanwhile, his estranged brother Pat searches for fulfillment not from his wife (the always awesome Judy Greer) or building a family, but by giving the appearance of success, the immature prestige of owning a fancy sports car.  Their widowed mother, Sharon, long single, searches for her own sense of fulfillment, her own sense of moving on with her life by way of a secret admirer at work.

Jeff and Pat collide, and their sibling dynamic puts them at odds instantly.  Pat's life starts careening out of control, and it's Jeff's rather zen like belief in the meaning of signs that indirectly and in an entirely serendipitous fashion, that actually starts to straighten out Pat's downward spiral.  Their story collides with Sharon's in an appropriate fashion.  The more these happenstances occur, the lighter the touch of the film seems.  It's almost whimsical, but not quite that twee.  Jeff, is decidedly inoffensive and becomes quite charming, ending in a sweet and rewarding fashion.  It's surprisingly earnest, a comedy in tone more than ever in jokes and punchlines.  This is a film that's rooting for its characters, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say "uplifting", it's definitely a film that start out cold and ends up comfortingly warm.

Goldthwait and Odenkirk are near-legends in the comedy industry at this point (though neither really for their directing talent) while Mark Duplass is quite solidly shoring his foundation as a multi-talent (and a gifted comedic improviser as seen on FX's The League).  This final film comes from yet another comedian, one less experienced before (or behind) the cameras.  Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk With Me is an intensely personal and hilarious story which Birbigs has worked into multiple formats over the years.  It started as a one-man-play, became a book, a recording of the show was released on CD and, thanks to his exposure on the highly popular radio program This American Life, it's now a movie (co-produced by TIL's host Ira Glass).

Birbigs (as he's known to his friends and fans) has this material down pat, and despite having no previous directorial credits, he has a very assured hand here behind the cameras.  His confidence with the story he's telling must have tempered any anxiety he might have had, as the film not only tells the story incredibly well, but the little flourishes Birbiglia puts in throughout, such as the driving narration and the dream sequences intercut with reality are quite brilliant.

There's a relatable intimacy to Birbigs' story, about being in a relationship that just isn't working for him despite every indication that it should, about being unhappy with his current station in life and reaching for any opportunity that can even marginally advance it, about being so stressed out by these things that his subconscious starts manifesting physically, and dangerously so.

I've read the book, and I loved it.  I've heard Birbiglia's live performance and it's just as good.  This film measures up equally well, and I adore it.  It's thoroughly Birbiglia's tale (only, for some reason, names are changed, most distractingly for me, as a fan,  was his inexplicable change of his own to Pandamiglio) and it's true-life nature, as well as Birbiglia's storytelling skills, make it fascinating and often hilarious.  It offers an  astute comedy about relationships falling apart, as well as a look inside the difficult world of a working stand-up comic, as well as a bit of psychological exploration.  It's a rich and deep story that is deceptively simple, in part due to its highly refined nature.  I can't recommend it enough.