Word: stand-up
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...myth that Allen is still the totally nervous, completely incompetent schlep; inept in daily life and in his relationships. Fact is, Allen is as well-adjusted, self-actualized as he will ever be, and, after years of struggle--through analysis and through self-expression in his films and stand-up comedy--he seems relatively at ease and happy. The documentary's only redeeming value is that it presents this other side...
...willingly gives herself up to the irresistible charms of a confirmed ne'er-do-well. The film, in fact, aspires to little more than giving the audience a good belly laugh every 15 minutes or so. Your funny bone is taken good care of, all right, but a stand-up comic can do the same thing in a fraction of the time. Once the chuckling subsides you are left with just another low-budget Western and a vacuous feeling. Vacuous because the film is silly, and vacuous because you have to sit through all the gunfights, the gallows scenes...
Although Jews constitute only 3% of the U.S. population, 80% of the nation's professional comedians are Jewish. Why such domination of American humor? New York City Psychologist Samuel Janus, who once did a yearlong stint as a stand-up comic, thinks that he has the answer: Jewish humor is born of depression and alienation from the general culture. For Jewish comedians, he told the recent annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, "comedy is a defense mechanism to ward off the aggression and hostility of others...
...lips with rice." Mr. Rogers, a takeoff on the dim-but-lovable kiddie show host, says: "Welcome to my neighborhood. Let's put Mr. Hamster in the microwave oven. O.K.? Pop goes the weasel!" Other bit players include Ernest Sincere, a redneck used-car dealer; Joey Stalin, a Russian stand-up comic; Little Sherman, a perverse little boy; and Walt Buzzy, a gay director. Grandpa Funk, based on an old wino Williams once saw in San Francisco, always appears at the end of the show. Clicking his gums and speaking in a raspy high-pitched voice, the old codger explains...
With 16 years of professional stand-up comedy behind him and a movie career ahead of him, George Carlin is living testimony to his own potential in the field of "self-expression...