Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)
★★★★ / ★★★★
Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg spent a year with Joan Rivers to document her rollercoaster ride of a career. Joan Rivers is a comedian, but she claimed she was an actress at heart; she simply played a comedian and she knew she did it well. I saw Joan Rivers for the first time on TV when she interviewed people on the red carpet during the Oscars. There were two thoughts that ran across my mind: “Who is this hilarious woman?” and “She’s had way too many facelifts.” She knew exactly what people thought of her yet she decided to forge on like she didn’t care. It’s not that she wasn’t hurt by mean comments (especially critiques directed at her acting abilities), but being in show business was what quenched her appetite yet at the same time fueled her hunger to be relevant and reinvent herself. Despite the ups and downs of Rivers’ career in a span of one year, the directors successfully painted a well-realized picture of their subject. I had no idea that Rivers had been around since the early 1960s and had appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” I didn’t even know she won in a reality show. But it was the small details in her life that moved me, one of which was when she expressed to the camera that one of her biggest fears was that one day, she’ll turn around and find nobody she knew well enough to ask, “Do you remember?” Despite her lavish lifestyle (and she told us bluntly that she loved living comfortably), I’m convinced she held more value to personal links and true companionship than she led us to believe. That moment swept me off my feet because I did not expect it from a comedian who made outrageous jokes about AIDS, abortion, and even handicapped individuals. I was also moved at the part when she and her grandson decided to volunteer for God’s Love We Deliver to deliver food to handicapped people who couldn’t leave their homes on Thanksgiving. At end of the day, Rivers concluded that “Life is mean.” For a woman who was seventy-five years old, working at very strange (and very late) hours, sometimes traveling in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t help but ask how she continues to do it. I found her story inspirational because it made me think about where I want my career to go. “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” is full of beautiful contradictions that weren’t necessarily easy to swallow but that’s exactly what I loved about it. Ultimately, that’s what I loved about her. She’s edgy, ironic and she knew the business (and the busy-ness) of show business. People thinking of establishing a career under the scrutiny of the public eye should see this documentary. They just might think twice. Joan Rivers said she’s never seen her name without a positive adjective right before it. How about the resplendent Joan Rivers?
Funny People
Funny People (2009)
★★ / ★★★★
“Funny People,” written and directed by Judd Apatow, stars a bunch of funny people: Adam Sandler as a senior comedian who discovers that he has a fatal disease, Seth Rogen as an aspiring comedian who Sandler hires to write jokes for him, Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Rogen’s flatmates, Leslie Mann as Sandler’s ex-lover and Eric Bana as Mann’s unfaithful husband. Unfortunately, the material was not as funny as I expected it to be. In fact, it was quite serious because the lead character was obviously depressed because of his doomed fate. There were a few jokes with chuckling from here and there but there were no laugh-out-loud funny moments as they were in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” or “Knocked Up.” If Apatow was aiming for some sort of a dark comedy because it did (or was supposed to) have jokes about death, then I believe it completely failed on that level. I had major problems with Sandler’s character because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel sorry for him. Not for one second did I feel bad for him because he was a jerk even to those who obviously cared for him. When his character finally met up with Mann after years of not seeing each other, he fell in love with her all over again but I didn’t buy it. After all, how could a guy who didn’t value himself and his friendships value some kind of a romantic relationship (and a flimsy one at that)? The film wasn’t logical and it should have been because this picture was supposed to be for adults. I was more interested in the angle regarding what it took to be a successful comedian instead of Sandler’s so-called plight. I enjoyed the cameos from Sarah Silverman, Andy Dick, Charles Fleischer, Eminem, Ray Romano, and others. With such a brilliant cast who are very funny in other movies, this film failed to take risks. Instead it featured one contrived and sometimes uncomfortable moments on top of one another. If it weren’t for the breathers (such as the cameos) that had nothing to do with the drama in the character’s depressing lives, I would have been harsher with this picture. If you’re a fan of any of the names mentioned, then by all means, see it. However, I warn you to not expect too much because it doesn’t have enough meat to carry a two-hour-and-thirty-minute feature.
