The Long Legacy of 'The King of Comedy'

In its time, Martin Scorsese's 1983 picture seemed strange, cruel and off-putting. But now? It's influenced a ton of cringe comedy. I wrote about the film's cultural impact for Cracked.

Some Thoughts on the New Season of 'Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee'

For MEL, I wrote about Jerry Seinfeld, a brilliant comic, and the very mixed feelings I had about the 10th season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a show I've often really liked. (As an added bonus, I rank my five all-time favorite episodes.) You can read the whole thing here.

Remembering Jerry Lewis

In the morning, my Sunday seemed pretty wide open. And then the news broke that Jerry Lewis had died at the age of 91.

For Rolling Stone, I wrote an obituary/tribute. But I also went deep on The King of Comedy, and what Lewis brings to that dark comedy. And then over at MEL, I talked about the phenomenon of Martin and Lewis, and how that duo were a perfect sibling relationship.

So, yes, I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about Mr. Lewis.

Cannes 2013: 'Max Rose' Review

And now, I'd like to present the Worst Movie I Saw at Cannes. That would be Max Rose, the debacle starring Jerry Lewis that will make you wish he'd stay retired. The legend deserves better. My review is up at Paste.

Cannes 2013: The Wrap-Up and the Rankings

The 2013 edition of the Cannes Film Festival has come to an end. I saw a lot of movies and wrote about every single one of them. It was a whirlwind experience, one I'm still coming down from. At any rate, here's a quick one-stop-shopping guide for all my Cannes coverage.

First off, I produced an almost-daily diary from the festival for Backstage. Here are those entries...

Part 1: The Calm Before the Storm
Part 2: The Unlikely Connection Between The Great Gatsby and Heli
Part 3: The Congress and the Future of Acting
Part 4: Avoiding the Raindrops (or, Why I Never Whine at a Festival) 
Part 5: The Race for the Palme d'Or
Part 6: Early in the Morning
Part 7: Robert Redford's Comeback
Part 8: Jerry Lewis' Very Bad Day
Part 9: A Deserving Winner

And now, a ranking of what I saw at the festival. A few of these were seen before Cannes at Sundance or elsewhere. Links lead to individual reviews....

32. Max Rose
31. A Castle in Italy
30. The Great Gatsby
29. Taipei Factory
28. Shield of Straw
27. The Congress
26. The Bling Ring
25. Bends
24. The Immigrant
23. Heli
22. Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian)
21. Grigris
20. Magic Magic
19. We Are What We Are
18. Young & Beautiful 
17. Only God Forgives
16. Bombay Talkies
15. Tore Tanzt
14. Only Lovers Left Alive
13. Behind the Candelabra
12. Sarah Prefers to Run
11. Ilo Ilo
10. Nebraska
9. Ain't Them Bodies Saints
8. A Touch of Sin
7. Venus in Fur
6. Like Father, Like Son
5. All Is Lost
4. The Past
3. Bastards
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
1. Blue Is the Warmest Color

As you can see, I'm pretty much in agreement with the Competition jury about what the strongest films were. As for the reason why I included that photo of jury member Nicole Kidman and jury president Steven Spielberg, well, it makes me chuckle every time I look at it. The man seems genuinely confused (or is it irritated?) by her very presence.  

Cannes Diary, Part 8: Jerry Lewis' Bad Day

You perhaps have heard about the press conference that Jerry Lewis gave at Cannes on Thursday? The business about female comedians not being funny? That was just the beginning of his ignominious day: Folks, I sat through Max Rose, his first starring vehicle in almost 20 years. Sad sad sad. I write about both events in my latest Backstage diary entry.

the king of comedy

This is a newish feature called Blind Spots that I do occasionally on this blog. It'll give me a chance to write about movies or albums or whatever that I missed during their initial run. I'll write them in the style of Consumables and, ideally, this exercise of going back will help me fill in some gaps. I'll write these whenever the spirit moves me.

The King of Comedy
How can you tell that I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool Martin Scorsese fan? The King of Comedy and The Last Waltz are my two favorite movies of his. It's not that I'm opposed to the four Scorsese films everybody else holds up as his masterpieces -- Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas -- but none of them fully works for me. (Their men-are-men pathos can get a little thick for my taste.) Hence, The Last Waltz and The King of Comedy, which are certainly centered around men as well but aren't quite so enthralled with masculinity that it dominates the proceedings. The Last Waltz pops up enough on cable that I feel pretty confident of its greatness, but I haven't seen The King of Comedy in probably 15 years. So I re-watched it, curious how it would hold up...

There's nothing like that uncomfortable feeling of knowing that you initially overrated a movie, but, then again, uncomfortable feelings are this movie's reason for being. There are few films that work so hard to make you actively hate all its characters, particularly its thoroughly unpleasant protagonist: Rupert Pupkin (played by Robert De Niro). But where Taxi Driver (another Scorsese film about a loser driven to take matters into his own hands) always felt like a glorification of nihilism, The King of Comedy seems to know full well that these people (even Jerry Lewis's popular talk-shot host) are all miserable wretches you don't want to emulate. And as opposed to another '70s film I find overrated, Network, The King of Comedy continually grounds its satire of television and celebrity in reality -- frankly, I'd be amazed if some lunatic hasn't tried copying this film's kidnapping ploy to get him- or herself on TV.

Still, this movie isn't as perfect as I remembered. De Niro's string of self-loathing performances with Scorsese continues here, and it's hard at points not to wonder what awful thing he did in his personal life that inspired such a willingness to berate himself in front of the camera. With that said, though, he is playing a character who's an acquired taste, and you have to credit the actor for not worrying about making us love him deep down. Plus, I'd forgotten how well De Niro performs Rupert's big monologue -- you believe that this slimy creep really has some (but not all) of the tools to become a stand-up comedian, if only he could learn to self-edit a little.

Sandra Bernhard in the best of circumstances is a dicey proposition, and a little of her goes a long way here. But Jerry Lewis really is fantastic -- without overdoing it, he conveys the sense of a man who got what he wanted in life and is depressed to realize how unfulfilling a realized dream is. He's only slightly less completely miserable than everybody else in the movie.

And then there's the ending. I'm in the camp that believes that everything after Rupert's arrest at the bar is a fantasy -- it has to be, right? No, in fact it doesn't have to be, which is one of the movie's great strengths -- it makes the case that lowlife freaks become famous all the time for the weirdest of reasons. Just about nothing in Network feels believable in 2009, but The King of Comedy still feels ahead of the curve.