Too much of everything

To me, this movie is perfection.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

As a break from long form narrative, I have been watching a lot of films of standup comics. It is one of the most puzzling things I have done recently. Nothing tells you more in a short time about someone than what they find funny. Part of that is the structure of the humor, the core of what I've been studying. But it is worth remarking that some component is what we want to believe is funny. Some of that is physical group dynamics; we join in groups in order to laugh. A related affiliation is incorporated into the humor -- race and class comedians exploit this. Sometimes you leave just feeling dirty afterwards by the association.I think Chris Rock brilliantly exploits this by alternately seducing us into joining a group and then allowing us to make fun of ourselves for doing so. Izzard works with a quite different sort of humor. I think I will characterize it as similar to Rock, but instead of joining a group, he tricks us into joining a narrative or reminding us of a narrative we already joined. Then instead of directly making fun of it or us, he takes it seriously to an extreme. This allows us to think we are laughing at him rather than ourselves, removing that barrier of ironic self-loathing. Underscoring this is his persona as a self-hating, ugly transvestite. Being a successful standup comic must be one of the hardest, most fragile things you can do. If you can do it and have the audience leave actually feeling better -- well, that is a gift.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Hilarious hardly begins to describe this one of a kind genuine tour-de-Star-Wars-force (Luke: how strong? Vader: the strength of a small pony), in which, being the master he is, he doesn't even break a sweat, ingeniously sparing himself mascara leakage.. -and that's with almost 2 hours of whirling his way thru history, its birthplace, Europe, and more.From Heimlich's middle-of-the-night, "I've invented a maneuver!" to the British Empire's "..do you have a flag..?" and ancient deadbeat gods, "Jeff! The God of Biscuits!" and many more, this is fish-flop-on-the-floor-to-jumpstart-your-lungs funny.And I confess to having passed on this video dozens of times over the years, seeing as a British transvestite standup, vogueing on a chair, is one longshot of a rental after all, especially one going back 10 years now. And yet, the material is not only timeless but almost oracular, turning present day into nothing more than an amplified, funnier/sadder version of where we were at a decade ago, although come to think about it, that may just be a coincidence.

A bit of Trivia b/c I can't figure out how to submit Trivia: In the backdrop of this performance, one of the images isGeorge Serat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" painting (seen best in chapter 18), this painting is the subject of a Sonheim musical Sunday in the Park with George.A bit of Trivia b/c I can't figure out how to submit Trivia: In the backdrop of this performance, one of the images isGeorge Serat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" painting (seen best in chapter 18), this painting is the subject of a Sonheim musical Sunday in the Park with George.

I wish I could laugh again as much as when I saw this show for the first time. I have not done so ever since.The strange thing is, I find myself laughing almost as hard after watching the show again, and again. Eddie Izzard is cultivated, is poignant, is a man of the world. He is deft talking about politics and yet feels no need to "engage" in political discussion. He is above that. I would contrast him to George Carlin, who uses his comedy to try and convince people about his ideas, and does not seem to enjoy the fact that he is trying to entertain.Funniest guy on Earth