This movie did not produce one laugh in me. Not one chuckle. Not even one smile. There were a few grimaces, not coming from being offended by the material, but instead embarrassed for this sad, sad man. Nothing remotely amusing happens in this entire picture. The first third of the movie is a poorly acted comedy film about Andrew before he became "The Dice Man", and the last 2/3rds are even worse as we get into his comedy show at Madison Square Garden. A half hour of pure idiocy, followed by an hour of misogyny...just awful!
The first portion of the film is called "A Day in the Life" and sees Clay walking around acting like a nerd and doing a bad Jerry Lewis impression. The voice he uses is ridiculous and annoying, and I couldn't wait for this portion of the film to end. The acting is bad, and the whole point of this seems to be to stretch out the later comedy routine into a feature length film. In between basically every scene of this, we get "The Dice Man" as he is today with a buddy of his giving commentary about how he used to be. These cut scenes are completely unnecessary, and give the audience no insight into anything, and again, just feel like more filler to stretch out the movie. The performances are too consistently over the top, and the material just isn't funny. It's dumb. The actual story of how he got his jacket is ridiculous, and apparently that leather jacket completely changed his personality in a matter of minutes...Wow! At least we don't have to hear his idiot nerd voice anymore right? Wrong! The nerd voice he uses throughout the first part of the movie is also the voice he uses to imitate ALL women, so get ready to hear it another 30 times...ugh!
The Madison Square Garden comedy section is the worst. His comedy covers the hilarious topics of poisoning birds, torturing flies, pointing out that Japanese people have "squinty" eyes, making fun of the handicapped, telling Mother Goose rhymes with a pornographic twist, and of course, talking about how stupid women are. Many male comedians talk about women, because women elude them, and the men are confused. Mr. Clay on the other hand, seems to see himself as knowing women pretty well, and he has an understanding that women are objects, and that's basically what his routine is based on. He talks about his sex life, and basically says that women are tools for sex. Any character trait women have he ridicules. He tells them to put makeup on because they're dogs naturally...is this funny? It's stupid, closed minded and mean, but is it funny? Not to me. For the last fifteen or so minutes we get away from his women hating jokes to the equally unfunny, but not quite as mean, impressions of people (Which suck might I add), and then he sings a couple of songs. This guy's really cornering the market. Too bad everything he does elicits more shock value than laughs, and the shock value really dies down pretty quick.
Mr. Dice Clay gets up and everyone raises their arms in anticipation for the comedy. The cameras sweep over the audience and we see eager red-neck looking (mostly) men screaming and yelling out for the Dice Man. Understandable, as they're excited to hear his hilarious comedy and how else are they going to react. Then the comedy starts, and they react the same way. Very little laughter and a whole lot of "Yeah!"s and screaming, and fists in the air. And the audience continues this way for the entire duration of this thing. He's telling jokes and they're chanting his name. Shouldn't they be laughing?? I mean, sure it's not funny in the least, but isn't that why they're here? To see a funny comedy show?? Nope, it seems as though they're here because this is the only (somewhat) socially accepted place to come and listen to rants about how women are objects and how stupid they are, and how minorities are morons. They seem to be here because they agree with him and instead of laughing, as one would do when they hear something they find funny or silly, they are shouting for him almost as if to say "You tell it brother!" And we see the audience constantly in the movie. It's really amazing!
The question that this film really raises, as does Mr. Clay's entire career, is "Is he joking?". Is this all a ruse and an extreme parody of the cockiness of men? If it is, nobody would ever know, as he seems completely serious, without any sort of sarcastic wink to the audience letting us know the guy's joking around. Hopefully he is, perhaps he's not, either way this material is based entirely in shock value, isn't funny in the least, and drags on and on. But hey, he's the self proclaimed "King of Cool", so maybe I'm just too square to get this guy. Probably not.
My rating: A Day in the Life segment: * 1/2. Madison Square Garden segment: BOMB. 88 mins. NC-17 for language and sexual jokes.
The first portion of the film is called "A Day in the Life" and sees Clay walking around acting like a nerd and doing a bad Jerry Lewis impression. The voice he uses is ridiculous and annoying, and I couldn't wait for this portion of the film to end. The acting is bad, and the whole point of this seems to be to stretch out the later comedy routine into a feature length film. In between basically every scene of this, we get "The Dice Man" as he is today with a buddy of his giving commentary about how he used to be. These cut scenes are completely unnecessary, and give the audience no insight into anything, and again, just feel like more filler to stretch out the movie. The performances are too consistently over the top, and the material just isn't funny. It's dumb. The actual story of how he got his jacket is ridiculous, and apparently that leather jacket completely changed his personality in a matter of minutes...Wow! At least we don't have to hear his idiot nerd voice anymore right? Wrong! The nerd voice he uses throughout the first part of the movie is also the voice he uses to imitate ALL women, so get ready to hear it another 30 times...ugh!
The Madison Square Garden comedy section is the worst. His comedy covers the hilarious topics of poisoning birds, torturing flies, pointing out that Japanese people have "squinty" eyes, making fun of the handicapped, telling Mother Goose rhymes with a pornographic twist, and of course, talking about how stupid women are. Many male comedians talk about women, because women elude them, and the men are confused. Mr. Clay on the other hand, seems to see himself as knowing women pretty well, and he has an understanding that women are objects, and that's basically what his routine is based on. He talks about his sex life, and basically says that women are tools for sex. Any character trait women have he ridicules. He tells them to put makeup on because they're dogs naturally...is this funny? It's stupid, closed minded and mean, but is it funny? Not to me. For the last fifteen or so minutes we get away from his women hating jokes to the equally unfunny, but not quite as mean, impressions of people (Which suck might I add), and then he sings a couple of songs. This guy's really cornering the market. Too bad everything he does elicits more shock value than laughs, and the shock value really dies down pretty quick.
Mr. Dice Clay gets up and everyone raises their arms in anticipation for the comedy. The cameras sweep over the audience and we see eager red-neck looking (mostly) men screaming and yelling out for the Dice Man. Understandable, as they're excited to hear his hilarious comedy and how else are they going to react. Then the comedy starts, and they react the same way. Very little laughter and a whole lot of "Yeah!"s and screaming, and fists in the air. And the audience continues this way for the entire duration of this thing. He's telling jokes and they're chanting his name. Shouldn't they be laughing?? I mean, sure it's not funny in the least, but isn't that why they're here? To see a funny comedy show?? Nope, it seems as though they're here because this is the only (somewhat) socially accepted place to come and listen to rants about how women are objects and how stupid they are, and how minorities are morons. They seem to be here because they agree with him and instead of laughing, as one would do when they hear something they find funny or silly, they are shouting for him almost as if to say "You tell it brother!" And we see the audience constantly in the movie. It's really amazing!
The question that this film really raises, as does Mr. Clay's entire career, is "Is he joking?". Is this all a ruse and an extreme parody of the cockiness of men? If it is, nobody would ever know, as he seems completely serious, without any sort of sarcastic wink to the audience letting us know the guy's joking around. Hopefully he is, perhaps he's not, either way this material is based entirely in shock value, isn't funny in the least, and drags on and on. But hey, he's the self proclaimed "King of Cool", so maybe I'm just too square to get this guy. Probably not.
My rating: A Day in the Life segment: * 1/2. Madison Square Garden segment: BOMB. 88 mins. NC-17 for language and sexual jokes.