THE ARISTOCRATS

Director: Paul Provenza (Long time stand up comedian)
Starring: Documentary (Penn Jillette does much of the interviewing)

A documentary by stand-up comics, nominally about stand-up comics. The hook on this film is the joke “The Aristocrats”. A family comes into a talent agent’s office and says, “Have we got an act for you!” They proceed to shit, fuck, piss, vomit and revel in obscenity for a while. The agent says, “That’s quite an act. What’s it called?” The answer: The Aristocrats! It’s a so-so joke. Really, I’m sure that Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette just thought that comedians being truly profane for 90 minutes would sell tickets. He’s probably right. I’ve heard that this film is a compelling deconstruction of stand-up comedy, and perhaps that’s true to a degree. We see a hundred different takes on the same material. I don’t know. In the end, I think it’s just a funny movie. I laughed throughout. I found it slightly less funny than a good stand-up routine, but being a stand-up fan, that’s praise on my part. The standout routines include Kevin Pollack telling the joke while doing a Christopher Walken impersonation, Bob Sagat in perhaps the dirtiest telling of the routine, and a hilarious mime routine of the joke. I didn’t find this to be an amazingly enlightening film, but I did find it to be a damn funny one.

Standouts: Kevin Pollack, Bob Sagat, Gilbert Godfried, Billy the Mime.
Blowouts: Although a lot of comedians were flat, I found Jon Stewart to be annoying.

Grade: B+

8/10/2005