I was just ruminating on some things while i tried to figure out what to blog about for the start of the week, and i stumbled across something that i have thought a lot about this semester. I just really don't know how much of a stand-up comedian's reception is based on the comedian themselves or the audience/atmosphere of the room. If you look behind the comedians during their performance, you can tell that some of them really have detailed, or very specific backgrounds. But at some point, the general feel of the audience depends on so many things that have nothing to do with the guy/chick on stage. If the audience is feeling just a little off one night, the first joke doesn't go over well, and then everything could collapse from there. Or, you could have a guy sitting in the back with 10 of his friends, cracking jokes for the past over the last hour and the whole comedy club is in a relaxed mood as the laughter has seeped onto their tables, and they are just ready to bust a gut at anything anyone on stage says.
So what do you guys think?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Mandate
Not as in the 48% of people think i should lead therefore i have a mandate to do what i want, but in the two men hanging out now has a new name, Man-dating.
This is something i could write about forever, because it is.... well, if i could tell you why it was in a sentence, that wouldn't exactly be forever. I imagine this is going to take awhile for me to edit while i try to get all of my thoughts in order, so let me know if there are some major screw-ups in the blog. Here are all the reason's why i hate the term bromance, mandate, and broner (when a guy does something awesome, and its like a girl giving you a boner), but don't really hate any of the movies about this man love
At it's heart, it is making fun of guys for being in love with their friends. This in and off itself has two offshoots of anger. Firstly, it is homophobic. It is just the slight indication, covered up with a joke, that the two guys are gay. That for two guys to spend that much time together, there has to be something sexual going on, and that is weird, or laughable, or in the worst cases, wrong. Homophobia and i are not friends, to say the least, and these jokes all have that lean. Secondly, what is wrong with two people loving each other? Jesus thought it was awesome, family is centered around it. But now, in the last few years, this Bromance has taken over, and it's no longer normal to have a best friend. Buddy movies have existed since movies were around, Mercutio and Romeo were as tight as it gets. The Greeks even had a freakin' word for brotherly love, and then people decided that was so cool, they named a city after it. So these two points flow together in that, homophobia used to be way bigger than it is today, but now that homosexuality has gotten it's head above water, all best friends might be gay. Awesome.
I erased the paragraph you are reading right now like 5 times, because it was just vitriol spewed, not coherent points made. But the problem with my argument is that i love these bromantic movies. Pineapple Express, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry and all the apatow movies. Even 40 year old virgin, a movie ostensibly a romantic comedy about an older guy finding love is really just about 4 guys hanging out, being drunk/high and wacky hijinks that ensue, the female lead's lines pale in comparison to lines given to each of the 4 guys. AND THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME. ah, crap, i dont know. post your thoughts.
This is something i could write about forever, because it is.... well, if i could tell you why it was in a sentence, that wouldn't exactly be forever. I imagine this is going to take awhile for me to edit while i try to get all of my thoughts in order, so let me know if there are some major screw-ups in the blog. Here are all the reason's why i hate the term bromance, mandate, and broner (when a guy does something awesome, and its like a girl giving you a boner), but don't really hate any of the movies about this man love
At it's heart, it is making fun of guys for being in love with their friends. This in and off itself has two offshoots of anger. Firstly, it is homophobic. It is just the slight indication, covered up with a joke, that the two guys are gay. That for two guys to spend that much time together, there has to be something sexual going on, and that is weird, or laughable, or in the worst cases, wrong. Homophobia and i are not friends, to say the least, and these jokes all have that lean. Secondly, what is wrong with two people loving each other? Jesus thought it was awesome, family is centered around it. But now, in the last few years, this Bromance has taken over, and it's no longer normal to have a best friend. Buddy movies have existed since movies were around, Mercutio and Romeo were as tight as it gets. The Greeks even had a freakin' word for brotherly love, and then people decided that was so cool, they named a city after it. So these two points flow together in that, homophobia used to be way bigger than it is today, but now that homosexuality has gotten it's head above water, all best friends might be gay. Awesome.
I erased the paragraph you are reading right now like 5 times, because it was just vitriol spewed, not coherent points made. But the problem with my argument is that i love these bromantic movies. Pineapple Express, I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry and all the apatow movies. Even 40 year old virgin, a movie ostensibly a romantic comedy about an older guy finding love is really just about 4 guys hanging out, being drunk/high and wacky hijinks that ensue, the female lead's lines pale in comparison to lines given to each of the 4 guys. AND THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME. ah, crap, i dont know. post your thoughts.
Slapstick- But not the awesome hockey movie
I was reading a classmates blog recently, and i ran into this quote.
"It takes a lot of confidences to do that over and over again. Granted, the Three Stooges are supposed to be characterized as stupid, but with stigmas like today, that stupidity would carry on to the real life person as well. (Ex: Daniel Radcliffe = Harry Potter, more likely Harry Potter = Daniel Radcliffe and he will never be able to escape it!!!!!)"
If i took it out of context too much, the point she was trying to make was type-casting happens now, so how could anyone transcend slapstick to work on other things. But what grabbed me was the thought of a modern day slapstick movie. Now i know that slapstick i still very much a part of hollywood, but not even close to what we see in W.C. Fields, whose work could be considered drawing room humor compared to the Three Stooges.
But i shot down my own argument anyway. Graphics and sound do next to nothing for slap-stick. If you want to watch the three stooges, you just do, you don't need something you can "relate" to in a modern setting. And we now have tv shows like America's Funniest Home videos, viva la bam, etc. to satiate our desire to watch someone get hit in the head with a ladder by accident. But the most damning argument against a modern slapstick movie i could come up with is, "who would play the parts?" Buster Keaton was an amazing blend of athleticism/grace/style/ingenuity that needed to be practiced an insane amount. Slapstick was fresh off the heals of vaudeville, where people honed these skills and the best could translate to the big screen. Now, where do we find people even semi-trained to be bother actors and acrobats?
What do you think, is it possible, even plausible, for chaplinesque slap-stick to make a return to the silver screen?
Pun
This is my least favorite pun of all time:
i was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger, and then it hit me.
"It takes a lot of confidences to do that over and over again. Granted, the Three Stooges are supposed to be characterized as stupid, but with stigmas like today, that stupidity would carry on to the real life person as well. (Ex: Daniel Radcliffe = Harry Potter, more likely Harry Potter = Daniel Radcliffe and he will never be able to escape it!!!!!)"
If i took it out of context too much, the point she was trying to make was type-casting happens now, so how could anyone transcend slapstick to work on other things. But what grabbed me was the thought of a modern day slapstick movie. Now i know that slapstick i still very much a part of hollywood, but not even close to what we see in W.C. Fields, whose work could be considered drawing room humor compared to the Three Stooges.
But i shot down my own argument anyway. Graphics and sound do next to nothing for slap-stick. If you want to watch the three stooges, you just do, you don't need something you can "relate" to in a modern setting. And we now have tv shows like America's Funniest Home videos, viva la bam, etc. to satiate our desire to watch someone get hit in the head with a ladder by accident. But the most damning argument against a modern slapstick movie i could come up with is, "who would play the parts?" Buster Keaton was an amazing blend of athleticism/grace/style/ingenuity that needed to be practiced an insane amount. Slapstick was fresh off the heals of vaudeville, where people honed these skills and the best could translate to the big screen. Now, where do we find people even semi-trained to be bother actors and acrobats?
What do you think, is it possible, even plausible, for chaplinesque slap-stick to make a return to the silver screen?
Pun
This is my least favorite pun of all time:
i was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger, and then it hit me.
Idiocracy
The movie was great, there is no getting around it. I laughed time and again at the way they attacked such a simple premise. This idea feels like vignette. Get the point across, knock it out of the park, wrap it up in about 10 min. (a great example of a movie like this is called me and the big guy, (). but they managed to string a whole feature length film out of the one joke. Frito and the gang just kept finding new ways to make the same joke in a new way, and kept it funny. But as i thought about it, i realized, what if you don't like the joke? what if you don't buy the premise, or think it wholly lacking in comedic value? Then there is nothing in it for you, and the movie became torture. I know the old adage, you can't please all the people all the time, but most movies manage to find a bit of middle ground. So here is where i turn to you, fair readers, and ask a bit of a question. What other movies/shows/broadway hits were like this? I can think of Arrested Development off the top of my head, but i am sure there are more that i just am not thinking about right now.
Pun Time:
Two silk worms started a race because they were arguing over who could move faster, it ended in a tie
Pun Time:
Two silk worms started a race because they were arguing over who could move faster, it ended in a tie
So, 8 posts ain't awful, right?
Ok, so maybe i flamed out a bit with this whole blogging humor class thing, but that's just what i wanted you to think. It's because i believe the best possible way to evaluate humor is over time. BOOM! see what i did there? Alright, so i guess i am going to have to make more of an effort to stay on top of the whole letting people know my thoughts on class thing. Also, this is kind of an announcement that i will be doing a stand-up routine for the end of the year project. I would love to get a couple of people in the class to hear it early to give me some feedback, so if you are interested just leave a comment. Thanks
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