Cynical Cinema

          Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show comes out June 3rd from Alliance Films, and is a must-watch for any aspiring stand-up comedian.  Not only that, it’s a should-watch for the rest of us.  Although Vince Vaughn has never been known as a stand-up comedian, he clearly loves the art, and decided to take four stand-up guys (no pun intended) on a 30-day, 30-city tour of
America.  Comedians Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Brett Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco form the bulk of the nightly show, and Vaughn hosts with the help of some surprise guests each night.  And although some of the guests are not exactly surprises (like Jon Favreau), others truly are (like Dwight Yoakam).  Each of the guest stars does a little skit with Vaughn on stage, and some are terrific.  

          One of the best bits in the movie involves Favreau and Vaughn and Justin Long (Live Free or Die Hard, and the Apple-vs-Mac commercials).  Favreau of course famously wrote Swingers, which launched him (and to a lesser extent Ron Livingston) to stardom, and Vaughn to superstardom.  In Swingers, just in case you’re a guy and somehow, amazingly, have not seen Swingers, Vaughn was the man.  The ultimate cool guy, the one character in a movie that every dude wanted to be.  Every guy wants to be one of two characters.  Either John Wayne in
Rio Bravo, or Vince Vaughn in Swingers.  Sometimes both.  Anyway, Favreau decides to prove how easy it would have been for anyone else in the world to play that same character, and he gets Long to read the lines, right there on stage.  Long’s impersonation of Vaughn in Swingers is, to quote a phrase, “money”.  It ranks up there with either Kevin Pollack or Jay Mohr doing Christopher Walken.  Considering it was off-the-cuff and spontaneous, it’s fantastic. 

          But for the most part, this film is about comedy, and the four main guys who do the tour.  It’s not just joke after joke, although their on-stage acts are filmed and we get to see an awful lot of that.  But we also get to see behind the scenes, on the tour bus with five guys living in close quarters for a month.  And we get to see comedians and their real reactions when they bomb, when they get heckled, how sensitive and paranoid and insecure some of them really are.  We also get to see them with their parents, and we understand how accepting parents must be of a career choice like “comedian”.  (Especially Ahmed Ahmed’s Muslim mother and father, who were initially the least supportive of his career choice, but now are the funniest parents on the tour.) 

          The tour was taking place in the middle of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath, and had to be bumped and rescheduled and moved around to accommodate the victims of that disaster.  The guys tour a trailer park that is housing displaced families, and brings the hurricane evacuees out to see the show.  There is a lot more going on in this film than just a bunch of jokes and inane behaviour on a tour bus, and that’s a good thing.  It’s far better and more interesting to see these guys for who they are, to hear their real thoughts, than it would be to just see an hour and a half of standup from a tour.  That being said, however, I was hoping for more of the standup comedy itself on the special features.  I wanted to see the full show of these guys, especially John Caparulo, who I found very funny.  And although there are a few extra skits and a little more comedy buried in the special features, the entire shows aren’t there. 

          A minor complaint, however, since the film itself was not designed to be simply comedic, and works extremely well.  This is a very entertaining, informative, interesting and of course funny show, a funny and captivating group of guys, and a fascinating film experience.  Whether you’re a stand-up fan or not, a Vince Vaughn fan or not, or a documentary buff or not, pick this up.  It’s worth it on a lot of levels.

Into the Wild is a terrific film. Sean Penn has now directed his first truly excellent movie, and Emile Hirsch has served notice that he is one of Hollywood’s next major acting stars. Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless, a young college graduate with his whole life ahead of him, who decides to go ahead and live that life. Only, his idea of living that life is much different from his family’s idea of living his life. In fact, it’s an idea far more in keeping with Henry David Thoreau’s idea of living life than it is for most of us. However, whereas Thoreau invented a large portion of his masterpiece, Walden, and did not necessarily spend several years of his life living in the woods at Walden Pond, McCandless really did this. He really did leave after graduating school, gave up all his money and his car and his family, and headed out across America to live in Alaska. Into the Wild is the story of that journey.

And it is a fascinating one. Along the way, Christopher does away with all his identification, changes his name to Alexander Supertramp (no connection to the band), and meets dozens of interesting people. Among them are Catherine Keener, who is terrific, Vince Vaughn, who is reliably great, Kristen Stewart, who is ridiculously hot, and Hal Holbrook, who is magnificent in the role that got him nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Of course, the scenery is beautiful, since this is the story of one man and his desire to be completely alone in the wild. But the dialogue is real and poetic, the actors all deliver first-rate performances, and the message really hits home. That message is not necessarily about the freedom that comes with abandoning all of one’s possessions and doing away with conventional society and a “normal” life. In equal measure, it is about the consequences of doing exactly that. The effect that McCandless’ disappearance had on his entire family, in particular his sister. And the effect that he has on all those he meets. This bright, engaging, attractive young man makes friends extremely easily, and creates lasting relationships in just a few short days.

However, he is doing it in large part because he is running away from that most lasting Relationship of all, Family. And toward the end of the film, he says to Holbrook “the joy of life doesn’t come from human relationships”. But that is the fundamental flaw in McCandless’ philosophy. HIS joy actually DOES come from human relationships. Of course, by the time he reaches this epiphany, it is too late, and he has set forth on a journey where he discovers himself, and answers all his questions, too late. I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say he dies at the end - the trailers said as much. But as with most really good movies, it’s the journey that makes them worthwhile.