Marc Maron Podcasting Super Star

Article first published as Marc Maron Podcasting Super Star on Technorati.

Cerebral comic Marc Maron, out with a new stand-up album, This Has to Be Funny, is riding a new wave of popularity as a result of all things a podcast. His twice weekly show, WTF With Marc Maron, soon to go over its 200^th episode begins with a ten or fifteen minute rant about Maron's state of mind, and then features one or more long form interviews, usually although not always with fellow comedians. Guests have included some major celebrities like Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon, and some lesser known—Steve Hughes and Simon Munnery. There are old timers like Jonathan Winters, and newer stars like Ed Helm.

As interview shows go, what makes Maron's podcast stand out is a knack for getting his guests to talk about things other than whatever they are interested in plugging at the moment. You can hear Jimmy Fallon talking about his father in the navy singing doo wop. Australian comic Greg Fleet talks about his habit of borrowing money from all his friends. Bobcat Goldthwait riffs on his brother's taste for shooting animals. Sometimes they are funny, sometimes they are dead serious.

And it is in those dead serious moments that the show is even more compelling. There are the times when his guests are more than willing to talk about some of their darkest moments. Maron, of course is known for his own darkness, a depression he has made a career of sharing with his audiences, so it may not be odd that a guest would be willing to share his melancholy with a fellow sufferer. Whatever the reason, Maron can sure get them comfortable enough to talk.

Check out Episode 190 with Todd Hanson, a long time writer for The Onion. The first of two interviews broadcast together, unlike most of the episodes which are recorded in Maron's garage, is held in a Brooklyn hotel. They talk about Hanson's skill as a dishwasher. They talk about his career at The Onion. They talk about his depression as a younger man. There seems to be something he wants to talk about, but can't quite bring himself to do it. The interview ends, but then some weeks later, now ready to talk about it, he does a second interview. Turns out the hotel has a special significance for Hanson; turns out that not that long ago he attempted suicide in that very hotel—not the kind of stuff you get on The Tonight Show.

Comedy Review: Dan Levy, Congrats on Your Success!

Article first published as Comedy CD/DVD Review: Dan Levy - Congrats on Your Success! on Blogcritics.

Comedian Dan Levy's CD/DVD combo Congrats on Your Success is set to be released on August 16 by Comedy Central. The DVD is made up of his special from Comedy Central Presents, five web videos and seven episodes of his "Laugh Track Mashups." The CD is made up of 15 live tracks recorded at the Comedy Works in Denver in September of 2010 much of which is the expanded, less TV friendly version of the Comedy Central set, and it’s a good thing. It's a good thing it's here. Whoever called the shot knew what he was doing. Levy's TV shot is professional and competent enough—he gets his laughs, and he gets his obligatory applause, but he never seems truly comfortable in front of the cameras. On the other hand, in the Denver set he is full control; he sounds like the comic who was named "Comedian of the Year" for 2011 at the Young Hollywood Awards.

The web videos are more or less sophomoric skits light on acting chops and, unfortunately, laughs. The two best pieces are Stunt Man where a nerdy Levy gets lessons on who how to do a number of different stunts and ends up losing his glasses in a foam pit and Drunks vs. Highs, a reality show satire in which Levy emcees a series of contests between (truth in advertising) a drunk guy and, you guessed it, a happy high guy. The scripted skits are less successful. Blimp Prom sets up as some scattered scenes from a high school horror movie that ran out of finances. Ralphie and Me has Levy playing a young professional with a pet dinosaur. The best of the scripted pieces is At Your Service a satiric promo for a TV show that features Levy as a British butler for a rich African American family. Some, like He Said, She Said which features a date with a babe who sounds just like Levy when she speaks, are developed from his stand-up act. It wouldn't have been a bad idea with some better acting.

The CD set, on the other hand, is a winner. He opens with "My Terrible Cell Phone," a routine he uses on the TV show, but here it has a lively electricity that the TV performance never quite equals, and it's not merely because on the CD he gets to bash the actual cell phone company. This is a comic in control. While the whole set is well done, stand outs include his riff on a friend's pick up routine, "My Friend's Dick Pix," some thoughts on amateur porn in "You Porn" and the two tracks that end the set, "My Roommate Ate My Pot Cookies" and "The Other Dan Levy."

There is a cliché about comedy and delicacy. Material that works one night doesn't work the next. The audience, the comedian, the venue: who knows why. It's not that Levy's jokes bombed on TV. The audience laughed. They were appreciative, but there was something missing. At least for this listener, whatever that was, it wasn't missing in Denver.

Comedy Review: Mark Maron-This Has to be Funny

Article first published as Comedy CD Review: Mark Maron - This Has to be Funny on Blogcritics.

Anyone who still had doubts about the significance of podcasting in the age of the internet has only to look at what has happened to the career of navel gazing comic Marc Maron. Resurrection may or may not be too strong a word, but reinvigoration is probably much too weak to describe what WTF? With Marc Maron the twice a week interview podcast he's been hosting for almost two years now has done for him. It's not that he wasn't successful before, certainly he had almost a cult status that had many talking about his comic genius, but as listeners to his podcast know genius is just another way of saying unsuccessful with the larger audience: too smart for the house.

And Maron is smart—smart and funny. Which attribute is more important for a comedian is clear, but if one is essential, the other is a welcome option. If you listen to his podcast, you can hear him discussing semiotics with Michael Showalter, Australian aborigine superstitions about the didgeridoo with a Greg Fleet, and absurdist comedy with British comic, Simon Munnery. But he's just as comfortable talking about the Borscht Circuit with Richard Lewis or the Rolling Stones and Doo Wop with Jimmy Fallon, and people are comfortable talking to him. Over and over again he finds his guests revealing the kind of personal information you would never expect to hear in this kind of public forum. Just listen to his interview with Todd Hanson still available on iTunes. It is a combination that has garnered him plenty of praise and plenty of new fans.

So, it's not strange that he take the moment to parlay some of that success with the release of his fourth CD, a live performance recorded last year at the Union Hall in Brooklyn, on August 9^th. This Has to Be Funny is a stand up set that mixes his patented dark soul searching with a dollop of social commentary. He talks about his current successes and his self destructive urges which are bound to surface, albeit in the most colorful of language. Maron fans are of course familiar with his favorite four letter work, and are likely to be offended if it were not thrown in liberally. The thing is that whether he is ranting about his ex­-wife giving birth or texting while driving (of course in the Maron universe, it's he that's doing the texting), he has got the audience in the proverbial palm. And who knows what else he might have had in that palm.

In a set that includes thirteen tracks there are big laughs and smirks. After all everything on the CD, as advertised, has to be funny. For me Maron is at his best in the longest piece on the set, "The Creation Museum," a classic satiric rant on the conflict between religion and science. A former host on Air America, although he was sure canceled a number of times, his particular point of view is not difficult to guess. "Earl's Rooter" is a laugh out loud anecdote about the comic's return from a trip to some intriguing drain problems. The bit builds to a really unexpected climax. It is a button to die for. "Dating Agressively" is an insane commentary on his love life, and "A Situation In My Head" focuses on the impossibility of explaining himself to others.

Take an hour or so to listen to one of Maron's podcasts. If you like it, you'll love This Has to Be Funny. It has to be funny and it is.

Movie Review: Tied to a Chair

Article first published as Movie Review: Tied to a Chair on Blogcritics.

Tied to a Chair, Michael Bergmann's zany comedy which has picked up a number of awards from some of the lesser film festivals opens April 22 at the Big Cinemas Manhattan in New York City. Among the awards garnered are Best Feature Film at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival and Best in Festival from the Heart of England International Film Festival. Written and directed by Bergmann whose other films include Milk and Money and Trifling with Fate, the film stars Bonnie Loren as Naomi Holbrooke, a seemingly scatter brained middle aged American housewife who leaves her British husband to pursue her dream of an acting career, a dream she abandoned when she married.

In a complicated plot that leads her from London to Cannes to New York in pursuit of a part in a movie being shopped around by one hit director Billy Rust (Mario Van Peebles), she gets herself involved with a murder investigation, some local mobsters, and a terrorist plot. And although when the movie begins she is portrayed as a clumsy inept housewife who can't even manage to use a microwave without starting a fire, as the story progresses it turns out not only is she an expert mechanic, she is also a champion stunt driver, a pilot, and quite an effective amateur anti-terrorist agent. Very much a screwball comedy of the kind you think of when you think of a Lucille Ball or Goldie Hawn, Tied to a Chair is a film where no matter how often the heroine seems to be making a mess of things, she manages to make everything turn out alright in the end, and remain a loveable clutz throughout. This is Loren's movie. If you buy into her character, you will buy into the movie; if not, well there isn't very much else. And while she may well be the best thing in the film and she did win the best actress award at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, she is no Lucille Ball. It is a bit much asking her to carry the film.

There is a large cast of characters, but most of them are simply stereotypes. There is a Jewish accountant for the mob, a mob boss who is funding a movie for his girl friend to star in, a washed up film maker looking to sell out for a buck, a gaggle of inept Arab terrorists, and a couple of semi-competent Keystone Kop clones that need a ditzy middle age blonde to do their jobs. Moreover too much of the acting is artificial and stagey. Too often the actors seem to be doing little more than mouthing lines; they rarely get into the character. They are actors playing a part. Even a veteran like Van Peebles doesn't manage to make his character come alive.

At the least Bergmann keeps the film moving at the kind of rapid pace that a film like this demands if it's going to keep the viewer from thinking too much about the probability of what is going on. Instead of wondering about a strange woman showing up to give our heroine a hundred dollar bill at an airport when her cash card won't work, we are given an inventive comic car chase to watch. Instead of smirking over an improbable audition in a director's hotel room, we can laugh at Loren clumping about bound to her chair. There is always something new to get your attention and distract you from the comic book nature of the action. There are some well done special effects, and some nice location shots in New York City, but nothing so spectacular that it can make up for the film's inadequacies. While it is true that there are some laughs scattered about through the film, more often than not the humor gets lost in the cliché character and the pedestrian performance.

DVD Review: Cedar Rapids

Article first published as DVD Review: Cedar Rapids on Blogcritics.

Cedar Rapids, Ed Helms' first effort after the success of The Hangover, is now available on DVD in what is advertized as a "The Super Awesome Edition." And while "Super Awesome" may be a bit of a stretch, "Awesome" doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. If it didn't get the same kind of box office success as The Hangover, Cedar Rapids is certainly a pleasant enough comic romp with a stellar cast, and there are laughs aplenty for an hour and a half in front of the small screen.

Helms, in a part made for him, the kind that he could probably mail in with his eyes closed, plays Tim Lippe, a small town insurance agent who is delegated to attend a business convention in Cedar Rapids as a replacement for his agency's hot shot agent who has died under embarrassing circumstances. Lippe is a good natured innocent. He may be having an affair with an older woman played by Sigourney Weaver who it happens was his teacher when he was twelve, but he is truly in love. She, on the other hand, is only interested in playing around. In his naiveté, he is clueless and clueless defines his character throughout the film. He arrives at the motel in Cedar Rapids and runs into a prostitute (Alia Shawkat) who he takes for ordinary young girl. He doesn't drink; he carries his money in money belt under his clothes, and (to make sure his character is absolutely clear) he wears "tighty whities." Cedar Rapids may not be the den of inequity that Las Vegas is, but for the likes of Lippe it will do just fine.

In Cedar Rapids he is joined as roommates by Dean Ziegler a loud, hard drinking cynic played with panache by John C. Reilly and Ron Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) an upright gentleman and the first Afro-American Lippe has ever met. Anne Heche rounds out what seems to be the requisite quartet of characters in these kinds of films as a foxy married insurance agent out for some extra marital fun at the convention conveniently named Joan Ostrowski-Fox. Wilkes, if not the naïve innocent that Lippe is, is perhaps the one character in the film portrayed as an honorable person. Ziegler and Fox, while not exactly models of virtue, at least demonstrate that not all immoral behavior is equal. They may be engaged in sinful behavior, but they are good natured and true to their friends. This in contrast to characters like the president of the insurance association and the owner of Lippe's agency, played respectively by Kurtwood Smith and Stephen Root who are shown to be hypocritical babblers and dishonest to boot. Cedar Rapids paints a world in which a prostitute or an adulterous may well turn out to be more admirable as a human being than a pious pretender.

The plot which centers on Lippe's need to win the prestigious two diamonds award for his agency is less important than the set pieces he and the rest of the crew run through as he learns what the world is really like. There is a trip to a raunchy meth party where Rob Corddry shows up as a tattooed thug and Lippe gets his first taste of drugs. There is a bit of clothed and unclothed dipping in the motel pool. There is an assortment of convention activities: breakfasts, talent shows, scavenger hunts. There is, of course, a scene with Helms interrupted on the commode complete with appropriate aromatic references. All of these give Helms the opportunity to trot out his cute duck out of water persona, a persona he plays with masterful strokes, while the others wink and nod at his innocence.

"The Super Awesome Edition" includes deleted scenes and a gag reel. There are also short interview segments about the meth party scene featuring Corddry, a scene where the quartet joins in with a Lesbian wedding party which features the film's writer Phil Johnston, and a look at Mike Pyle rehearsing for an Irish clog dancing routine he does at the convention talent show. Finally there is one hell of a funny insurance company advertisement parody, "Top Notch Commercial." All is all, Cedar Rapids makes for a nice evening's entertainment.