Review of Aries Spears: Hollywood, Look I'm Smiling (2011) by Tim S — 07 Jun 2012

Aries Spears is nothing if not fascinating in the way that he repeats and acts out past comic routines from better comics than him. I'll be honest and say that I didn't care much for Aries Spears: Hollywood, Look I'm Smiling.

If I had saw it in the mid-90's, right around the time when I was 12 or 13 and I was just getting into stand-up comedy, I might have felt differently. The trouble with it is that it feels dated, and we've heard all of this before.

Not to mention that here's another black comic saying how much they don't like racism but yet make fun of other races for nearly half the running time of the show. I laughed a couple of times, mainly at the impersonations, which are what this guy is good at, but overall, I just wanted to shut it off.

I think Aries needs to either just stick to impersonations or work on broader or more interesting material. We've heard all of these things before, and even though the dominantly black audience that was there to see him was all busting a gut and roaring with laughter, I wasn't.

I expect more in this day and age.