Review of The Aristocrats (2005) by Markb. — 06 Sep 2005

"Comedy is not pretty," said Steve Martin famously, and even though Martin himself doesn't appear in this 89-minute encyclopedic analysis of all you'd ever want to know plus much that you don't about the world's dirtiest joke, The Aristocrats certainly proves his point.

Suffice it to say that, if you were one of those folks that were offended or disturbed by Me and You and Everyone We Know's delicately handled subplot involving the 6-year-old and the cybersex website, then you have no business being within a 6-block radius of any multiplex showing this! The joke itself, involving a family introducing a unique new act to a talent agent, isn't much, and isn't supposed to be: it's simply the Oreo cookie that each individual comedian fills with his or her own brand of--well, given how many different types of bodily fluids and semi-fluids are spewed, swirled and sloshed around in most versions, I don't suppose that "cream filling" is the most apt of metaphors, is it? Incest, bestiality, necrophilia and various other sorts of less than sterling human behavior are all in a day's work here; The Aristocrats is proudly trumpeted as a film with something to offend everyone, and personally I was doing just fine until Andy Dick described a "strawberry sundae".

(Congratulations, Andy, both for tipping my personal scale and for living up to half your name!) To call this movie "uneven" is to either miss or belabor the point; it's a given that some comics tell the joke funnier than others, but how funny you find individual renditions will probably depend on your liking of the comedians involved.

(For me: George Carlin, Paul Reiser and Michael McKean si, Rip Taylor and Carrot Top no way, Jose!) It also goes without saying that the best variations on the story are the most unique, original or imaginative: particularly the card trick, the mime act and the Amish version (which was completely clean, but drew one of the biggest laughs from my audience).

Paradoxically, I laughed harder at some of the good stuff than I did maybe at any movie since South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and yet must stop short of a full recommendation because the very concept of the movie is problematic: it kills the joke by explaining it to death.

Far too many jump cuts, overdubs and other editing tricks get in the way of the enjoyment (what's the point of intercutting between two top-ranked comedians telling the joke the exact same way, anyway?); this is one of the only movies ever made where I desperately wanted the filmmakers to nail the freaking camera to the ground already! Nowhere is this more evident than in Gilbert Gottfried's post-9/11 Friars Club performance, which is repeatedly described as brilliant, hilarious and cleansing.

..but the problem is, directors Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette keep interrupting Gottfried's footage to cut back to people telling us how great his version was. Consequently, and obviously through no fault of his own, Gottfried loses all momentum and I honestly didn't see what made it so special.

Sadly, if I were to retell this movie as an Aristocrats joke, it would go something like this: "A family walks into a talent agent's office. They tell him, 'Wait 'til you see our act!' The agent asks 'What is it?' Halfway through, the agent falls asleep.