When Stand Up Stood Out (2003)

You won't be disappointed!

Strong and Moving!

Strictly average movie

Great Film overall

As someone who WAS there, this film is merely a compilation of old video, brief talking heads, and the pure chance of a reunion concert. Something DID happen in Boston at this time, but the director missed it by a mile. Instead he built a film around the footage he had, instead of doing the real work of a documentary. The focus on Lenny Clarke exemplifies this laziness. There was the most old footage of Lenny, so Lenny gets a lot of play here, that should have gone to others with far more talent and impact. The women get short-changed, as do the Emersonians. Before there were comedy clubs, there was improv, and except for Denis and Steven Wright, none of these drunken hacks could have created anything but the testament to chemical courage this film documents. The director missed the chance to illuminate the perfect storm that was Boston in those years. Instead he wallows in nostalgia instead of linking how those years rewrote comedy AND punk music, just as Greenwich Village did in the 1960's. Perhaps someday a filmmaker will correctly connect the dots, and link Boston '75 to '85 with the earth shaking cultural changes that we not only witnessed, but managed to live through!

REspose to the review prior to this titled: "The Rise and Fall of Boston Comedy." This review is disqualified. The writer simply doesn't get it mostly because he's from the UK. This film is a fabulous chronicle of how the Boston area and specifically two little places helped to spawn a business boom and provided a boost to comics everywhere in the US. Prior to 1978 there were two places in the US to really do stand-up. N.Y. and L.A. Boston was not on the map. Yes, Chicago had 2nd city but as an individual art form, L.A. and N.Y. were it. It chronicles the rise and fall (and follies) of local comics and many that went on to much acclaim and continue to work very successfully. Of course the local guys aren't well known. D'oh! that's why they're local. But they plug away and continue to make money, albeit less than the more famous brethren, but they're still at it. If this dies in May of '78 like the founder of the comedy connection expected, half these guys would be doing construction or dead.The 16mm/Beta or VHS cam shots by someone are fantastic. The bit's are still hilarious (this guy's country brought us Mr. Bean and Benny Hill. Yes, yes they brought us Python too and we **all** thank them very much.)I had forgotten Lenny Clarke's show on TV38 (Yes, I am from the Boston area and was a high school freshman in 1978) My 14 yr- old laughed at every old bit and I cringed at the language halfway in but *******She laughed in the right places!!********and I did not have to explain **Anything!** See This Movie!!! (but not with your 14yr old.)

From a comedy junkies point of view, I found this movie to be insightful. I did not discover the magic of comedy until the late 80's, early 90's and have been hooked ever since. I have seen all of the comics featured in this film and was lucky enough to be in that Ding Ho for the reunion. Having worked behind the scenes from 1990-1993 for Boston Comedy in Alston, I had heard the stories about the Ding Ho and Play It Again Sams, I would pine to hear more to know these comedian's more, so to have a chance to view the old days as portrayed in this movie was treat. I had no idea that all of these talented maniacs would make it as far as they did. This was my first job out of college, working in Alston in basement so I was not thinking beyond the fact that I needed to find a job that was above ground. The honesty and the way the comics were so candid about their jealousy was fantastic, because that was how I viewed the scene during my brief tenure. When I entered the scene it was over-saturated with the folks getting stage time who were NOT talented. The comics in this movie are the rocks of Boston Comedy. I continue to go to Giggles and attend every Comics Come Home Show. I loved When Stand Up Stood Out and will recommend it to all.

Fran Solomita's documentary WHEN STAND-UP STOOD OUT chronicles the rise of the Boston stand-up scene in the late seventies and early eighties, a period that produced such talents as Dennis Leary, Steven Wright, Don Gavin, Janeane Garofolo, Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Colin Quinn and Solomita himself. It follows the scene's conception, at a crummy little Chinese restaurant called the Ding Ho, to Wright's first appearance on Carson's TONIGHT SHOW, to the mainstream success comedians like Clarke, Leary and Garofolo have enjoyed, while confronting issues of inter-comic jealously, bitter rivalries, drug and alcohol excesses, and the elusive specter of fame. The film is constructed competently, and features some really eye-popping moments (the comedian who bashes a heckler with his guitar), but it never really feels like more than a slightly longer BEHIND THE MUSIC or TRUE Hollywood STORY. Since the director is a buddy of most of the subjects, the viewer feels like an outsider on an inside joke, robbing the film of it's objectivity. The major issues (the drugs, the jealously) are dealt with in brief montages, so most of the film is dedicated to showing early (and admittedly funny) clips of the comedians performing, and no real insight is made. Ironically, WHEN STAND-UP STOOD OUT really needs to stand out more.