Lunch (2012)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

For the last 40 years, a group of elderly comedy writers and entertainers have gathered to have lunch every other Wednesday. There are some legends and old-timers from various aspects of entertainment. They tell jokes, reminisce about old times, and remember fallen comrades. Monty Hall talks about his history starting from Winnipeg. Arthur Marx talks about his father Groucho. Arthur Hiller talks about his directing most memorably about Paddy Chayefsky. Sid Caesar is a bit frail but he's still very present and does do his foreign language bit. There are quite a few jokes, discussion about Jewish humor and some Irish humor. This is simply a great fly-on-the-wall documentary. Their speech may be a little bit halting now but they are still very sharp.

As a huge fan of all types of comedy, I found this to be like the holy grail. There is no way you could jam this much history, knowledge, experience, wisdom and wit into a few hours. You could literally not ask for more big names in the world of comedy writing, Carl Reiner, Arthur Hiller, Hal Kanter and Sid Caesar have been eating lunch together at the same restaurant on Wednesdays. They talked about the business, current trends, and of course comedy. Times change, comedy changes, the city of LA changes, but the connection and friendship they have will not. These are the men who shaped the style that American comedy was founded on, and it is quite amazing learning about how they did it.

I really enjoyed this film. These men are creative geniuses and it was great to see them all in one place having a good time. Some of my favorites from these writers include: MASH, Different Strokes, The National Lampoon films. So it was great to hear them reminisce about those times. The film not only has footage from the restaurant conversations but also feature one on one interviews with each of the writers. Which I really liked a lot. The personal stories of how they came to be writers, to their stories of their family life. It was all very interesting. I recommend this film to anyone who loves classic TV and movies, it's also just interesting to see how these creative minds think.

"Lunch" is a documentary of a bunch of legendary comedy writers who have a weekly bi-weekly lunch at Factor's deli in Los Angeles. They meet talk about politic, talk about the past and give each other a hard time. In between the filmed footage of the lunch each member is interviewed and their back story is flushed out and their current situation is examined. This was my favorite part of the film. It was kinda sad watching these legends of comedy struggle to find traction in a modern world that has determined them to be over the hill. The great thing is these aren't the type to mope, they get up dust of the computer and continue to write. A must view for anyone who loves the classic comedies. I throughly enjoyed this film!