Alonzo Bodden – Who’s Paying Attention (2011/E1 DVD) + Colin & Brad – Two Man Group (2010) + Whitney Cummings – Money Shot (2010/Image DVDs) + Jonathan Winters – Final Approach
(Uproar/MVD CD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ (CD: B) Extras: C/C-/D/D Concerts: B/C/C+/B-
If Comedy
in movie theaters and TV will not work, maybe actual comedians can pull off
more humor and we got lucky enough in the following cases.
The best
of the four is the DVD of Alonzo Bodden
– Who’s Paying Attention (2011) in which the stand-up comedian attacks
apathy like few (read not enough) comedians are from politics to the news, to
the housing crisis to the way people just let more and more things slide these
days without saying enough or doing anything about it. The program sometimes be comes borderline
profound as he remains surprisingly sharp, witty and carries the concert from
start to finish better than most such program s we have looked at in the last 8
years of this site. I hope Mr. Bodden
becomes the next big breakout comedy star.
Extras include an Interview, Photo Shoot and four bonus routines.
Colin & Brad – Two Man Group features Colin Mochrie and Brad
Sherwood from the overrated Whose Line
It Is Anyway? TV show and this disc offers up more of the
embarrass-into-audience-participating-comedy that was never funny to me and is
more tired than ever. This runs a long
67 minutes and I was expecting something different and it was boring. At least it is not totally stupid. Extras include an interview with the duo and
Dos & Don’t of Improv.
Whitney Cummings – Money Shot (2010) is the sole female entry
on this list, but she holds her own in a sometimes crude-languaged performance
that still manages to generate some giggles and good points, though she
sometimes goes overboard. I thought she
was so good and had such a solid center of insight, that she allowed some
things to backfire and work against her natural talent, but this is worth a
look and I will be curious to see what she does next.
Last but
not least is the genius of Jonathan
Winters – Final Approach (Uproar/MVD CD), with Bob Shaw interviewing 12 of
Winter’s many (seemingly endless) characters which he does not just
impersonate, but actually becomes them.
This can make the performances entertaining, but Winters always has an
ironic darkness to his work that is always haunting and captivating. This is an interesting disc that shows once
again why he is one of the all-time giants in the field. I just wish it were longer.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the DVDs are new 1080i HD shoots and they can look
good, but also have their detail issues, motion blur and color limits. Video Black can be weak too. They also all have Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo,
save the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Colin,
but that is really stretching out the basic sound.
- Nicholas Sheffo
