Now Playing: THE ARISTOCRATS
THE ARISTOCRATS is the most foul, profane film I've seen in a long time. Maybe ever. It's also blisteringly funny and, yes, even educational as an insider's look at how comedy works and how comedians think. Unlike the good COMEDIAN, which examined how comics like Jerry Seinfeld prepare for their standup act, THE ARISTOCRATS takes a look at one joke from the perspective of dozens of the finest comic minds in the world (Albert Brooks, Seinfeld, Bill Cosby, and Robert Klein are notably absent).
The joke is legendary among comedians, who rarely if ever tell the joke onstage as part of their act. Rather, they use it to entertain each other as a sort of folk tale that passes along from generation to generation. Kind of like the Uncle Remus of jokes. As is mentioned in the documentary, the art of the joke comes from "the singer, not the song". It's structured like a piece of jazz, to be riffed and improvised to the artist's content. All the comedian needs to do is begin and end the joke the same way. It's the filling that's the point.
The joke begins more or less with, "A man walks into a talent agent's office." He tells the agent he has an act. The agent says, "OK, you've got two minutes. Show me what you've got." The punchline--eventually--is the agent asking the name of the act, and the man answering, "The Aristocrats." In between these bookends, the joke teller embarks on a pathological, scatological litany of grossness intended to make the audience's ears bleed. No bodily fluid, no taboo, no sexual act, no vocabulary is verboten. The point is to describe the most tasteless, bizarre, disturbing act possible, usually involving shitting, pissing, bestiality, incest, you name it.
Director Paul Provenza and co-producer Penn Jillette, well-known comics themselves, took their cameras all over the country, recording famous comedians of all ages telling the joke, relating when they first heard it and who told it to them, and their philosophy behind its humor. Some just tell it straight out. Some, like Larry Storch (F TROOP) and Hank Azaria, use funny accents. Kevin Pollak does it with a Christopher Walken impression (the DVD extras include a clip of him doing it as Albert Brooks, which might be the most fucking brilliant piece of video on the entire disc). Sarah Silverman tells it as if she were one of the Aristocrats and claims she was raped as a little girl by talk-show host Joe Franklin. Richard Lewis says the joke is "a piece of shit." Chris Rock not only doesn't tell it, he doesn't appear to see the point of it. It sounds strange coming from the softspoken Rita Rudner. One highlight is Tommy Smothers telling it to his brother Dick, who amazingly has never before heard it and doesn't think it's funny. Martin Mull tells a different joke using "Aristocrats" as a punchline, which I appreciated because I recognized it as the "Bongo Bongo" joke that I heard back in the 1970's and have never heard anyone else besides me tell in the decades since.
Some of the bigger names pissing, shitting and fucking all over this joke in the film are Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, George Carlin, Drew Carey, Paul Reiser (extremely funny), Jason Alexander and Don Rickles. It was fun seeing older comics like Phyllis Diller, Chuck McCann (also really funny), Rip Taylor, Eric Idle, David Brenner, and Shelley Berman going at it. Also appearing: Bill Maher, Allan Havey, David Steinberg, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Dom Irrera, Larry Miller, David Steinberg...pretty much anyone who's done standup on THE TONIGHT SHOW anytime within the last thirty years.
The biggest laughs are reserved for Bob Saget (who did a similarly sick and hilarious guest shot on ENTOURAGE recently), whose inventively sick rendition would make the heads of his FULL HOUSE fans explode, and Gilbert Gottfried, who told it a couple of weeks after September 11, 2001 at a Friars Club roast and brought the audience to its knees with laughter.
THE ARISTOCRATS is dedicated to Johnny Carson, who reportedly loved the joke and was a friend of sorts to nearly everyone in the picture. Dana Gould tells the joke with a funny Carson impression that feels appropriate.
The movie was released unrated--it certainly would have gotten an NC-17 from the MPAA--and it isn't for prudes. It is essential for students of comedy and for those who aren't afraid of bad taste.
Posted by Marty
at 9:38 PM CST
THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER is one of the more unusual films I've seen lately. Originally released in Europe in 1974, it's an Italian/Hong Kong co-production, a rare combination of the western and martial arts genres. Probably influenced by the David Carradine TV series KUNG FU, THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER is an entertaining kung fu western with a strange concept, one that is unique to the best of my knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that someone else has used it.
After more than a week on vacation, I've had the opportunity to watch some batshit-crazy movies. Part of the thrill of watching Crappy Movies is knowing that, every once in awhile, I'm going to come across something so obscure and bizarre that it almost turns me off contemporary films for good. Certainly there's nothing being made today, be it independently or at the major Hollywood studios, that could duplicate the strangeness of 1963's THE YESTERDAY MACHINE.
Another "poof" and Crandall and Sandy appear in the workshop of Professor Ernst von Hauser (Jack Herman), a Nazi who escaped the fall of the Third Reich and is continuing his experiments more than twenty years later in the basement of an abandoned old house in Texas! Astonishingly, Crandall isn't surprised to see von Hauser, since Partane had miraculously just told him a story of invading a concentration camp at the end of World War II and seeing the results of von Hauser's time experiments. What a coincidence.
I haven't found confirmation online yet, but a poster on the DVD Maniacs forum has announced the death of filmmaker William Allen Castleman, who directed three exploitation movies during the 1970's and produced and scored several more. I've seen two of his three films as a director: THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ZORRO, which is an overlong but fun softcore sex adventure, and JOHNNY FIRECLOUD (he also made BUMMER!, which is paired with FIRECLOUD on the Something Weird DVD).
What was a very obscure action movie that played briefly in drive-ins in the mid-1970s and has hardly been seen since is revealed by Something Weird Video's DVD to be a thoughtful, absorbing drama with action overtures. Directing a screenplay by Wilton Denmark, whose credits range from the sleazy low-budget western CAIN'S CUTTHROATS to teleplays for THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, Castleman crafts a surprisingly mature morality play that goes bounds beyond what was surely called for. Sure, the exploitative elements are there, such as gory revenge, nudity, and rape, like you'd expect in a Friedman film, but in between are some heady characterization and fine performances. Canary in particular is marvelous as the complex sheriff, torn between doing what he believes is right and following Colby's orders in order to protect his secret. He was a recognizable TV actor at the time, due to his supporting role as Candy on BONANZA, and has since played twins on ALL MY CHILDREN to great acclaim. His performance in JOHNNY FIRECLOUD is very strong and provides the somewhat talky finale with some power.
Maybe you have to be an Albert Brooks fan to appreciate his films. There's no question that Brooks' films--as a writer and director, not necessarily as an actor for hire--are acquired tastes. With the exception of DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, which never played in the town I was living in at the time, I've seen all of Brooks' films theatrically. I believe the arrival of a new Albert Brooks comedy is a special occasion; after all, it occurs only about every five or six years.