The Aristocrats (2005)

Thanks for the memories!

Must See Movie...

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Paul Provenza and producer Penn Jillette bring an inside joke among comedians to the outside world. There's a family who performs a disgusting outlandish offensive act with their dog in front of a person. After the act, the persons ask what the act is called. They reply "The Aristocrats".It is essentially a bad joke. The reason for the love is that the performer is allowed to come up with the most outrageous inappropriate ideas. Honestly most of the jokes are not funny although it's probably funny for these comedians who have heard it all before. It is insane material that would never be used in any actual act. It's an insight into the world of comedians. The best one is probably Sarah Silverman who incorporates her family as the actual performers. She does it as a naive innocent girl although her punchline is "Joe Franklin raped me". Carrie Fisher does it with her famous parents. Gilbert Gottfried doing the roast after 9/11 is the most compelling piece of story. The DVD commentary adds more background to the comedy and the various comedians.

Um, wow, I feel sort of like the last sane man, I'm reading tons and tons of praise for a movie that essentially is the equivalent of thinking it's funny that penis, rape and incest are clearly defined in a dictionary, tee he, seriously? And for 90 minutes! I couldn't get through it, I was bored! My appreciation for my own time was very offended but jeez, from a political viewpoint, by most, I would be considered an extreme liberal with borderline heathen and hedonistic ideals on freedom and the use thereof, but this?! I'm glad we live in a society where even this garbage can be widely produced, great, fine, but I wouldn't want to watch this at length any more than I would want to watch scenes of staged violence and brutality over and over and over again. The level of immaturity to me and the whole composition of the movie would be like making a movie about a brutal child rape scene and having different directors and different actors portraying it in different ways throughout, if you think that's funny, you'll love this movie. I think the jokes on the public at large, if you like this sort of thing, that's disturbing, if you don't like it, you're a snob? If that's the case I've never been more proud to be a snob, wow, what a great waste of time, surely these talented individuals can find something better to do with their time. This seems like a failed attempt at high art and if there's anything I hate more than high art it's a failed attempt at it.

Many documentaries have fascinating concepts, sometimes because the subject is not well known, or it is an interesting subject, or it is a familiar one presented in a new way.To be sure, having a bunch of great comedians tell why a classic joke is so funny is a great concept (something that Hollywood needs to learn). Therefore it's no surprise that this documentary was green-lighted, especially with all the star comedians who agreed to take part. Unfortunately what came out of this was a complete mess."The Aristocrats" suffers from many problems, many of them by themselves could have tanked the project. First off, having 100 top comedians telling a joke and explaining why its funny may seem like a good idea, but to give each comedian complete attention to do both would make the film run for days on end. On top of that, the statement that 100 comedians were interviewed for this project is a gross over-calculation. There's barely even a quarter of that amount. Even so, giving them all would take too much time, so obviously a lot had to be cut out. This isn't so much the problem, as is how they did it.That leads me to my second point. While the directors may have had good intentions, but they are completely incompetent at making this kind of a documentary. Everything about the editing process is a complete disaster. First off, the clips were cut at more or less random, which makes the film seem incoherent. Second, each of the clips is so short that we don't have a good grasp of what they were saying. Third, most aren't there to even tell the joke, which is supposed to be the most important part of the movie. Those who do are cut off after only a sentence or two, which doesn't even give the audience enough time to get into the joke, and its ten minutes before someone continues with another part of the joke, which makes it incoherent (even if the filmmakers were even able to keep the flow going, which they are not). One of the people interviewed said that the best versions of this joke can go on for hours. Maybe so, but given the qualifications for the joke (which are few), I think at least one person should have been able to tell it from start to finish in an amount of time that could be put into the film uncut.Finally, you'd think that these first class comedians would be able to make anything funny, even a 10 second clip of them explaining why it's funny in the first place. Apparently not. Either that or they were all caught on their bad days. There isn't a laugh to be had in this film. In order for there to be a successful joke, the audience has to be drawn in in some way. But the way this film is put together doesn't allow that.This joke is about being as gross and offensive as possible, and presenting it in a way that's funny. I can get that, but even the comedians that I find funny normally (such as John Stewart or Drew Carey), aren't able to make it funny for some reason (I admit this is partly due to the editing). But there's no momentum, and there is no ability for the viewer to connect with the joke-teller.Trust me, if you want good stand-up, pay the money to see it live. Even the worst comedians are bound to be loads more successful than this turkey.

Now, that I give this any score at all is down to the fact that it is an interesting project. Yes, I know, a bit of a cop out, that word, 'interesting', but what can I say, it surely isn't funny. Well, there are funny bits and for me that was Robin Williams, who told a different joke and the lady who reversed the joke, giving a very angelic scenario an elongated and most obscene title. I also liked the Eric Idle segments but he managed to undermine the whole project by (quite rightly) suggesting that in England we expect the aristocracy to behave this way. It also made me think of de Sade and caused me to ponder whether any of these turgid, self congratulatory pieces measured up to that gentle aristocrat's activities and I concluded in the negative. Whether there ever was any such joke and whether many people find this funny is not as interesting as the obvious fact that so many of those appearing really did get a lot of fun by talking dirty. That some should be as amused as this by simply saying words considered rude or talking of body fluids, rape and child abuse in this way must reflect one heck of a lot of pent up emotion. Maybe a bunch of psychiatrists should contribute to a documentary in response.