Review of The Aristocrats (2005) by David H — 30 Nov 2008

Good Lord... A seriously boring and uninteresting documentary. What's worse, the film is about as smug as one could possibly imagine; the whole thing feels like a giant friends-only party, since the comedians aren't even named.

The joke itself never improves the more it's told; let's face it, being obscene for no reason CAN be funny, but it's never insightful or even revelatory. The only purpose of this piece of crap's existence, it seems, is to allow certain second-rate, completely half-assed comedians (most of whom appear on those depressingly unfunny Comedy Central roasts -- yeah, further proof that they're complete has-beens, also-rans, and never-weres; for Fuck's sake, Andy Dick is in this movie.

.. enough said). I also love the comedians' lame attempts to raise Gilbert Godfried's notorious telling of the joke beyond what it is -- they try to turn it into a profound statement about the role of comedy.

Now, I found Gilbert's version funny, but purely for shock value. It doesn't say ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING!!!! Thankfully, there are stray funny moments here and there; Lewis Black's segment had me on the floor, for example, and I do like Bill Maher's version (being that I find it a good thing that at least SOMEONE tried to do something different with the damn joke).

George Carlin proves shockingly unfunny here, and Steven Wright proves once again that his delivery is NEVER funny (his version is the lamest of all of them). What's worse, the photography and editing are absolutely atrocious; everything looks like it was shot in a Tornado and then edited at random in a blender.

As a result, this thing tires you out after a mere ten minutes, and it's a ninety minute documentary in which the style NEVER changes... hmm, much like the beyond-stupid Aristocrats joke.