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Tea Party Comedy Show

This weekend I was featuring at Magooby’s Joke House in the greater Baltimore area.  I emphasize “greater” and “area” because if you are thinking an urban crowd (a/k/a Omar, Bodie and the rest of the cast of The Wire) would show up you would be mistaken.  There were four shows.  The two shows Saturday were my kind of crowd and I was very happy with my sets.  But Friday offered many lessons in comedy and life, which is why I will share those with you now.

Friday April 9, 2010 – 830 pm Show

First show demographics  2.5 people of color, including myself (.5), 160 white people.  50% of the crowd was over the age of 48.  This would not damn me because I have been pleasantly surprised by crowds with not so different stats before, but this crowd would be an animal that I have never had before.  If the show were a children’s book it would be called “Where’s Negro?”

My second bit of the night was this:

So Sandra Bullock’s husband cheated on her.  Let’s just be honest – if you marry a tattooed man-whore and he goes out and sleeps with a bunch of whores that have tattoos, can you really claim to be surprised?  (Laughter) And come one Sandra – 46, no tits and expects to keep a man in Hollywood? (Silence with start of murmuring)  How arrogant Sandra!  You obviously made a deal with the Devil to win an Oscar of Meryl Streep and now it’s time to pay the price. (Silence broken by a couple of boos).

My girlfriend had warned me about making any jokes that got near the star of The Blind Side, which is treated by white people in Maryland with the same reverence that Hoosiers is treated with by rural basketball players in Indiana.  But one of the decisions I made with these shows this weekend was that I was going to do my best to not compromise a lot on the road.  I have the material to do NYC rooms and road rooms, but who I am as a comic is closer to the NYC material and I need to make crowds meet me a little bit more so at least my reputation will start to be based on who I really am as a comic and not just on an ability to be Jay Leno-ish one night and then more personal and edgy when I feel safer doing so.  But this crowd obviously loved Sandra Bullock because she saved a big black dude from eternal damnation, etc.

They probably would hate my short film, The Blind Side 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_oK6EPc6QA

My 5th bit of the night:

I took Megabus here tonight… I can’t take Greyhound anymore because it is like travelling with Hollywood celebrities – Hey there’s Precious (HUGE LAUGHTER), there’s a creature from Avatar and there’s that dude from that old movie Mask (laughter almost completely dies).

My comedy can sometimes be conservative, but it does not necessarily mean I want the support of fringe conservatives.  Another parallel is when I watch Jim Norton perform comedy.  I think the guys is absolutely brilliant, but he is also dirty, which draws a lot of fans to him that I don’t like.  He may tell a joke involving the words “pussy” and “cock,” but it is also brilliant comedy in there.  Some of his fans get it and some of his fans I think just get off on the usage of the words “pussy” and “cock.”  I feel the same way about some of my jokes that maybe take more conservative angles on abortion or entertainment or religion.  I want comedy fans to appreciate the comedy and thought in the joke, not necessarily to take it as an endorsement or a statement for a certain group.  Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, so the real point is to not bring all your agendas to the show and just laugh if it is funny.

However, when I heard the all white crowd almost cackle at the Precious reference what I heard was, “Yeah, that fat black bitch is gross.” Which of course, she is but that is not the point.  This crowd was so sensitive to a millionaire white lady who helped an exaggeratedly helpless black man, but not to an impoverished obese black teenager.  You laugh at both or you laugh at neither in my book.

My final exchange of the evening:

I know you may not like this, but I’m not being political when I say I like Obama-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Hey – great I just turned the show into a Tea Party rally –

a few laughs and some claps

Your closing act – Sarah Palin (joking)

Applause Break

I eventually got to my Obama bit and it went over well enough, but I was startled to be what amounted to a Tea Party rally.  I genuinely don’t understand people who are Sarah Palin fans.  I understand (diminishing every day), but disagree with many Republicans, but Tea Party people are from another planet to me.  Booing Obama, but an applause break for Sarah Palin, who is that magical combination of stupid and increasingly smug/arrogant the more money that gets thrown in her face for “speaking” engagements.  But that also explained why my comedy went over so poorly at that first show.  I was performing for a Tea Party.  Because I like the owner of Magoobys and enjoy playing there I will not connect the dots, but if you have read my blog I think you know what other “R’s” I associate with Tea Partiers besides Republican.

Oddly enough on the 1030 pm show that same night – the Precious joke got near silence because about half the crowd was black.  That did not anger me as much, but it still angered me a lot because the joke is funny and the same way the Tea Party crowd let their cruel humor run rampant on Precious, the second crowd decided, as if they were a liberal arts college in the northeast, that they would let me know how attuned to the plight of poor and sad people they are and would not laugh.  The second crowd was overall 100 times better than the first crowd, so one annoyance did not break an otherwise good show and good crowd, but I still thought I should mention it lest a Tea Party Comedy member read the blog and comment, “See he’s letting all the African-American Nig-ers get off without any complaint.”

Overall it was a fun weekend at Magoobys (3 out of 4 shows a success – previous lessons of shaking off bad shows quickly came in handy), but just another reason for me to hate the Tea Party.  Before it was just business, but now… it’s personal.

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Oscar Breakdown & Predictions

If you read this blog regularly you should know that the first thing I hope (and certainly expect) from the 2010 Oscars is a prominent role for the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling ” in the pre-show hype fueled montage.

My biggest hope is that during the Oscars someone comes out and says, “By the way, The Blind Side is actually not nominated for Best Picture.  That was a big joke.  And also, An Education was extremely boring and we apologize for nominating that so congratulations 500 Days of Summer and The Messenger – you are actually nominated for Best Picture.”  Not going to happen, but here are my predictions for the major awards and what should occur (within the realm of possibility):

BEST PICTURE

I would be OK withany of the following winning in descending order of preference: District 9, Up In The Air, Inglourious Basterds, Up, Precious, Avatar, The Hurt Locker.

I think Inglorious Basterds is going to win in what I will call the “Norah Jones Strategy.”  In 2002, the Best Album Grammy went to Norah Jones despite The Rising by Bruce Springsteen and The Eminem Show being nominated.  I think voters split on Eminem and Sprinsgteen leaving a plurality to Norah Jones.

The Hurt Locker has a lot of momentum and Avatar is the most financially successful film of all time.  But I think people who put The Hurt locker first would not have Avatar second and I do not think people that vote Avatar first would have The Hurt Locker second.  But those voters who put either of those first could very well put Basterds as their second choice.  And since Quentin Tarantino is a Hollywood favorite and an original I think he could pick up some small percentage that think it is time he won a big prize so I am putting my money on Inglorious Basterds to edge out Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

Best Actor

Jeff Bridges is going to win the Oscar that Mickey Rourke should have won last year.  Jeff Bridges is a really good actor and it will be nice for him to win.

I would vote for Clooney for Up In The Air.  It was his best acting job yet and finally fulfilled all the love that Hollywood had bestowed prematurely on his high brow films (which were generally sort of boring  -Michael Clayton, Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana were all overrated, relatively boring movies, but Hollywood loves the high school quarterback who also hangs out with the geeks and that has been Clooney for the past decade).  And the look that Clooney gives his lady friend when he meets her at her house was one of my favorite acting moments of the year.

Best Actress

This is a two horse race.  Meryl Streep was great in Julie and Julia and this is her 134th nomination. She has won twice, but I think it is time she get another win.  She is like the Michael Jordan of actresses – she should win the MVP every year, but doesn’t because some obscure actress did something obscure and artsy or some pretty actress got fat, or naked, or sassy. And with that let’s discuss the other best actress front runner – Sandra Bullock.

Sandra Bullock was a B+ in The Blind Side, which was good because the movie was a C/C-.  But other than a benign racism that is sweeping the country (“Hey, we voted for a black guy, we like movies where white people save black people – damn we are awesome white folk!”) I do not understand why Meryl Streep is not guaranteed a third Oscar.  If you need ant other reasons not to root for Sandra Bullock and/or The Blind Side please watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_oK6EPc6QA

So I am going to go with what is right and say Meryl Streep over Bullock.

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Waltz from Inglourious Basterds might be an even bigger favorite than Heath Ledger last year.  What a great performance – he is the front runner and deserves to be.  He was so good that the Academy is considering granting him a Polanski (“a pass for a rape of a minor based on high quality work”).  I enjoyed Woody Harrelson in The Messenger and must admit I did not see The Last Station yet, but am glad to see Christopher Plummer nominated (in my mind his lack of a nomination for The Insider is still the biggest snub I can remember).

Best Supporting Actress

Mo’Nique in Precious. Also a no-brainer.  The most raw performance I think I have ever seen.  Her motivation may have come from the fact that Mo’Nique’s husband has a hairy leg fetish, which probably means he is on the down low.  That would make most women pretty angry, but Mo’Nique took it to another level. The only thing that may detract from this for Academy voters is that the film is very black in both mood and casting.  It is sort of the Anti-Blind Side.

Best Director

Without ten nominees to thin the voting, this will be between James Cameron (Avatar) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker).  I enjoy the fact that they were married and that I think James Cameron bounced.  That will make it even more painful if she has to lose to him, which I think she will.  The breadth and technological advancements and sheer volume of time spent on Avatar should give it to Cameron.

I might go for Tarantino or Reitman (Up In The Air) with my vote. Which I don’t have.  But Avatar is pretty hard to deny.

Best Animated Feature

Up.

The only thing that would make me madder than a Blind Side victory in any category would be Fantastic Mr. Fox winning here.  I think Wes Anderson films are incredibly irritating, though Mr. Fox was relatively enjoyable.  But Up’s first 15 minutes alone crush the competition.

A moment of silence for Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, which was ignored and not even nominated.

Best Adapted Screenplay

I think Precious should and will win here because form what I have heard the original text is written in the first person and might pose a challenge to make into a quality film, which they did.  However, the hilarious and extremely clever In The Loop, as well as the most original film of the year, District 9 would make me happy as well.  Fu-k An Education.

Best Original Screenplay

Inglourious Basters should win and almost definitely will win.  Part of me is rooting for Up though. It is about time Pixar got recognized for being the most consistently original and great film studio.

Best Score

I genuinely can’t remember any of the scores, so here is my list of my favorite scores of all time (shut up Star Wars fans):

1) The Last of The Mohicans

2) Brokeback Mountain (the score literally could have been called “sad and lonely cowboy”)

3) Chariots of Fire

4) Hoosiers

5) Rudy

Alright – there it is a comprehensive list of the categories you care about.  If you want incessant humorous commentary by me during the Oscars – check out www.twitter.com/JLCauvin

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Blind Sided By The Oscars & Some Early Predictions

When I looked at the Oscar nominations only a couple of things startled me. One was Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs not being nominated for Best Animated Feature.  Another was seeing Christopher Plummer getting nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Last Station.  I have not seen the movie (one of the very few among nominees that I can say that about), but it just brings up angry thoughts of 10 years ago when he was snubbed for a nomination for his portrayal of Mike Wallace in The Insider.  And there was good news – District 9 was nominated for Best Picture.  However, besides the excruciatingly mundane An Education getting nominated, there is an egregious error among the best picture nominees.  The Blind Side.

The Blind Side is an average movie. It has some good moments for sure, but it abounds in awful old and new Hollywood cliches.  It has the sassy southern white woman, which is now the female Oscar equivalent of a man playing a mentally handicapped person – automatic Oscar nomination.  She has a reticent daughter, but a spunky and fun son who says such cute and witty things for a little kid!  And most importantly it has a poor black person in dire need of white people’s help.  Now I know this is based on a true story, but even the subject of the film, Baltimore Ravens lineman Michael Oher said in a NYT article, “I wish they hadn’t made me look so dumb.”  His coaches also remarked on how bright he is and h did make the Dean’s List at Ole Miss.  But perhaps if Michael had been portrayed smarter at first it might have looked more like… gulp.. affirmative action – and that is not as feel good for America.

I have seen almost every best picture nominee in the last 30 years and unequivocally The Blind Side is the worst by a lot.  I am not saying it’s terrible.  Most movie critics already did that.  I am saying it is like seeing a C+ student make the Honor Roll.  I have received some comments about how opening up the Best Picture category to 10 nominees led to this.  I disagree.  Although I think they should have stayed at 5, there were better movies than The Blind Side.  That is like saying if there had been ten nominations a few years ago then Coach Carter would have been nominated (that was a trick- of course it would not have been.  not only was it a mediocre film, but that was a black man – Samuel L Jackson helping minority kids – not a white woman!).

Perhaps this was the Academy’s concession for nominating Precious, a gritty, depressing book at the plight of inner city African Americans.  They watched Precious and were like, “Wow that was good, but sort of sad – quick nominate a feel-good, whites-helping-Negros-movie before we feel compelled to actually do something constructive.  Quick do we have anything?  The Blind Side? FINE!”

Predictions:

Mo’Nique and Christopher Waltz in the supporting actor categories.  No one else should even show up.

Best Actor – Jeff Bridges.   I would vote for Clooney if I had a vote (I thought his performance was finally the one that Hollywood has pretended for the last ten years that he has delivered.  In Up In The Air he actually delivered it – funny, subtle and awesome).  But Jeff Bridges has all the momentum and has had a quality and varied career.

Best Actress – I’d take Meryl Streep, Precious (she was really good) or even Helen Mirren because she’s very good looking for an old lady, but Sandra Bullock seems to be a lock. Yikes.  I think I’d pick Precious.

Adapted Screenplay – District 9 was the most original film of the year (barring technical originality of Avatar), but I will accept all (included In The Loop which is hysterical) except for An Education – what a fu-king bore, except when it seemed to inject bizarre out of place humor.

Original Screenplay – I think I’d go with The Hurt Locker or Inglorious Basterds, but I will guess that Basterds takes it.

Best Director – James Cameron or Quentin Tarantino – I think Cameron just for the scope and technical achievement of Avatar.

Best Picture – I’d pick District 9, but would be ok with Inglorious Basterds or Up In The Air.  However I feel that it will be between The Hurt Locker or Avatar.  Avatar in a close one.

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The Ten Worst Movies of 2009

People often ask to start with the bad news when given a good news/bads news option and this blog will be no different.   Besides, the worst movies will provide more humor than the best movies of the year.  For me it as also easier to come up with the list of 10 worst movies than the ten best.  Here they are,

10) Year One.  Jack Black, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd and Harold Ramis, to name a few, decided to take off from being successful and funny and make this terrible movie, which, like many liberal comics in New York, showed that making fun of the Bible does not necessarily make you as funny as George Carlin.

9) Friday The 13th.  It came out early this year, but was strong enough it in its shi*tiness to stick around.  This was actually the first horror film I have ever seen where the acting was actually better than the film.  That is like watching a WNBA game and saying, “Man these girls are awesome, if only they had better coaching to take advantage of their skills and athleticism.”

8) Funny People.  This film is here, not so much because it was a terrible movie (it was not), but because I have not been misled by a marketing campaign for a movie this much since I thought I was going to a sports movie called Jerry Maguire.  Late night show hosts and bloggers seemed to all be in on the scam – this was a movie that would show what being a comic is really like.  Instead it showed the audience what the lives of chubby, unfunny, overpaid Jewish guys is like.  It could have probably been called Goldman Nut Sachs (as a tribute to the genital humor that also abounds in this movie).

7) Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Needless to say this was the #1 movie of 2009 in terms of financial success.  Racist robots were apparently the cure for the summertime blues of Obama fatigue.  This was also the worst movie experience of the year for me since I sat next to a guy who talked so much during the movie that I think he was conjured up in a stereotype machine invented by the Wayans Brothers a la Weird Science’s creation of Kelly LeBrock.

6) 2012.  The biggest disaster film of the year not starring Tiger Woods (I am almost done making Tiger jokes).  The effects were weak and at 2 1/2 hours long, the film was about 2 hours and 27 minutes too long.

5) The Proposal.  In a year where 500 Days of Summer showed how good a romantic comedy could be, this film showed how bad they could still be (and people ate it up).  Puritan sexual mores and too much religious fervor are some of the things that people point to to show how unenlightened America is compared to some of its less powerful, but equally Disney and McDonald’s craving European allies.  I think looking at the collective grosses of Sandra Bullock’s movies make the case much more strongly.  (I have not seen The Blind Side yet, but am looking to get a free ticket, which will allow me not to financially support a great white hope story that looks terrible).

4) X Men Origins: Wolverine.  My hopes ran high a year ago when I saw The Dark Knight for the 432nd time.  Perhaps people would demand higher quality action films.  And the trailers for this film looked promising.  What was delivered was the worst thing from Australia since Yahoo Serious.

Let’s take a breath here and recognize that the next three films are even dangerous to say out loud they are so bad.

3) Antichrist.  Here is the review I posted on Facebook after seeing this film:

I wanted to see this movie based on the preview, despite mostly bad reviews. Upon seeing the movie, here is who should see this movie:
1) Want to see a montage in which Willem Defoe sexually penetrates (shown) an actress while his character’s son (approx 4 yrs old) falls out a window to his death.
2) Want to see a fox eat its own wounds (take that Fantastic Mr Fox)
3) Want to see Willem Defoe receive a handjob and then ejaculate blood.
4) Want to see a woman self-circumcise herself.

If you have answered yes to more than one of these questions (I appreciate morbid curiosity in small doses) then please de-friend me. 🙂

2) Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  One of the surprise hits of the year and that is what made me watch it.  However whenever something that I am initially skeptical about generates popular success (Mamma Mia! the musical, The Fast and The Furious to name two) my initial skepticism is always correct.  This may be the greatest example of this in pop culture history.  It seemed to have the quality of a student film, but with far less quality work on the part of the actors.  A movie of truly devastating crappiness.  To paraphrase the Dude from The Big Lebowski: “Well, you finally did it America, you’ve killed fu-king comedy.”

drum roll please

1) Amelia.  Perhaps Amelia Earhart knew this movie was coming, because I would disappear too if this bag of sh*t were attached to my name.  Hilary Swank and Richard Gere both producing the worst film of their careers (yes I am counting The Next Karate Kid).  And here is the worst thing I can say about a movie.  This was not only worse than Paul Blart, but was worse than last year’s worst film – Twilight.  ‘Nuff said.

 

 

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The Good, The Bad and the Mo’Nique of the…

The Golden Globe Nominations (voted by the Hollywood Foreign Press) were announced today, which displayed some good judgment in parts and in others displayed why Jerry Lewis and David Hasselhoff were such international superstars.  As a movie addict who has seen or will see all or nearly all of the films nominated (I’m already close) here’s my recap of the good and bad of today’s nominations.  Contrary to my usual I will start with the good:

The Good

1) Meryl Streep is a beast.  2 more nominations bringing her total up to 1,895 career nominations.  She proves that in Hollywood if you are talented, dignified and your name is Meryl Streep you will not be forgotten as an actress after 38 years old.

2) Matt Damon getting nominated for Best Comedy Actor in The Informant.  He was incredibly funny in this movie without being a goofy caricature.  Between the Bourne series, The Informant, The Departed and his cameo on Entourage he has completely erased my annoyance with him from the late 90s as a Masshole in Good Will Hunting (great movie, but I blame the Red Sox and Williams college for my aversion to that accent).

3) Woody Harrelson for best supporting actor.  He was a beast in The Messenger.  But he should lose to Christopher Waltz from Inglorious Basterds.  That dude’s performance was the Heath Ledger of 2009.  Minus the Olsen twins fu-king and overdose.

4) Jeff Bridges nominated for best actor in a drama.  I have not seen Crazy Heart yet, but it looks like The Wrestler, but instead of wrestling, he plays country music.  Sort of like in 30 years when I star in a movie called The Comedian.  Jeff Bridges is a really underrated and versatile actor and although I think he will finally win for playing some racist grandfather when he is 80 years old (think “Driving Mr. Daisy”) it is nice to see him nominated.

5) 500 Days of Summer and Up In The Air getting lots of nominations.  2 of my top 10 movies of the year.  The best Clooney movie ever (finally all the love struck geeks in Hollywood have a legit reason to praise him instead of “loving” his dramatic (boring) movies of the last few years – Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Michael Clayton – all good, all overrated).  500 days of Summer is the best romantic comedy/drama I’ve seen.

6) Animated movies.  Really strong category.  2 of my top ten of the year are in this category – Up and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Really really great stuff in the animated category – and how long til a porn spoof title: Slutty with a Chance of Tiger’s Balls?

The Bad

1) Eastbound and Down shutout.  I shouldn’t be surprised that the foreign press didn’t nominate it if the American Emmys didn’t, but to see shows like Entourage and Glee (that show has been on a steady decline – with the exceptions of Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch – from the first episode.  However it has found it’s niche market – gays and girls – sort of like Britney Spears, so it plays to them, but to an annoyingly goofy level that its first few episodes did not have).

2) Two nominations for Sandra Bullock is  two too many.   One for The Proposal – one of the worst films of the year and one for the Blind Side where she combines two of Hollywood’s favorite shallow things – Julia Roberts (an impression of her from Erin Brockovitch) and the benevolence of whites helping blacks be their best.  Admittedly I did not see this movie, but that is because I could not stop puking during the preview.

3) The Messenger is not nominated for best picture.  I thought it was the better of the two war dramas (The Hurt Locker was very good, but I thought the Messenger was better).  Brothers is melodramatic and simple and uses musical score the way one would if they were walking a child through what emotions should be felt during different situations.  Not in the discussion.  But Tobey McGuire’s over-the-top bug eyed performance got an undeserved nomination (speaking of which, why didn’t Bill Paxton get nominated for his hilariously paranoid performance in Aliens back in 1986?)

4) Hung.  Thomas Jane got nominated for best actor in a comedy, making it the first time anyone could consider Hung a comedy.  This was the most disappointing show of 2009 and generated approximately .4 laughs per episode.

5) No nomination for Paul Rudd.  Since the Golden Globes have a specific category for musical/comedy it is extra disappointing that his hilarious, seemingly effortless and incredibly realistic performance in I Love You Man was not recognized.

The Ugly

1) Mo’nique – I don’t like her very much and I can see her being a real diva (just look at the unnecessary apostrophe in her name for starters) once she wins an Oscar, but her performance in Precious on a scale of 1-10 was a 12, to quote one of Tiger Woods’ skanks.

2) Television Actress Nominee Anna Paquin – she’s just not that pretty and I want you to know that I know that.  For God’s sake when Michael Strahan watches True Blood and even he goes, “Damn she needs to fix those teeth.”