sunhee turned me on to this no-frills, stripped-down comedy on hbo and i spent the last two days catching up on the 6 episodes shown so far. this is from louis c.k, a writer on letterman, conan and the chris rock show–and also the writer of the chris rock spin-off, and the greatest film ever made, pootie tang. it is very, very good. very simple premise and setup: working class couple in shitty apartment with young daughter work out gender, marriage and adulthood issues. friends, co-workers and neighbours show up every once in a while. the writing is very good, and the performances, especially by the supporting cast, are perfect. well, c.k is the weak link in the acting department but it doesn’t really hurt the show, which while “real” in many ways–their apartment, their possessions, their milieu, everything fits their circumstances–it is not really after realism in the delivery. the show is quite theatrical and stagey, and the diy feel of the sets and the hyper-articulate dialog both nail the class context and highlight the artifice. that said, there’s a certain irony about a working class comedy about a couple not always making it from check to check airing on hbo.
perhaps this should go in one of our “small pleasures” threads but it is worth a discussion in its own right if more people are watching it. lots of interesting stagings of the issues stated above, plus also race. oh, and incredible amounts of obscenity. and full-frontal ugly male nudity. how can anyone resist, you might ask. well, strangely most critics seem to be–the show has received tepid to negative reviews. i can’t fully fathom this except to think that there may be a critical backlash in progress against the whole “refusal to grow up/man-boy” genre that’s making so much money these days. but i think it is a mistake to slot this show in that genre. anyway, more on this last bit if someone else watches and responds.
No HBO, so I’ve not seen it, but I did read some angry reviews of it in the LA Times’ calendar letters section yesterday: A terrible Honeymooners rip-off, crude, poorly acted and written, and Louis CK the worst of a bad bunch on the show.
I’m inclined to agree with Arnab and Sun Hee that it’s probably quite good. Then again, this is coming from affluent homeowners with a dog napping by the hearth.
I have however seen Pootie Tang, and it is a tremendously good movie.
louis ck speaks very frankly to the onion’s av club about the failure of lucky louie. seems like it is out on dvd–you should all watch it.
and mauer, we now have two dogs napping by the hearth. and both are trained to kill hungarians at first whiff.
so, did anyone else ever get around to watching this? (having just mentioned it in the eastbound and down thread, i thought i’d check.)
We loved this show, the both of us, after watching it on Arnab and Sun Hee’s rec. And I’ve since watched Louis CK’s similarly-toned, similarly-inclined-to-approach-race-and-gender-and-class-with-vicious-wondrous-blunt-honesty stand-up acts, including the most recent one.
That last stand-up is dedicated to George Carlin, a connection that seems a little off at first, but really makes sense in other ways. Carlin was quite cerebral, working the vein of a language problem — how shit didn’t make sense. And while his rage was always visible, it was also channeled, sublimated in the precision of language games. Louis CK, on the other hand, seems quite likable and offhand, and then he’ll start riffing off of a point, and his rage will build (at deers, at the stupidity of saying “the n-word,” at his kids) — and suddenly he’s asserting the most wonderful foul bit of humor (I’ll fucking jerk off right into that cat’s face). Carlin seems orchestrated and detached from the rage; Louis CK is fully inside it. But they share a deep delight in the idea that foul or inappropriate language is a lovely tool for uncovering honesty.
I’d recommend the stand-up; some slack bits, but enough astonishing moments to make it more than worthwhile. But the show… yeah, it was great–I think a real treasure building, and then abruptly shut down.
I loved the show, and I must say that ‘Eastbound and Down’ doesn’t seem anywhere near as funny or as clever. It is pretty much one joke, repeated over and over. Maybe it will grow on me. But ‘Lucky Louie’ got funnier as the season went on, and funnier every time I re-watched episodes. The racial politics is clever and there is a glorious slyness to the gender politics. And you get to see a working class existence that isn’t just an excuse to make redneck jokes (as it is on EB&D). I’ll now watch the stand-up on Mike recommendation.
Most have allowed it to pass them by, but “Friday Night Lights” is the best show on television as far as class dynamics go. The first season was sublime, the second uncertain as to how to move forward (and attract viewers), the third season is just plain great. Yeah, it’s a soap opera, but it’s a damn good one.
I think I watched “Lucky Louie” once and was put off by the lo-fi quality of the production design, etc. I’ll have to give it another go.
How’s this for production design?