Why don't great standup comics translate to great movies?

Jack Benny?

Woody Allen?

Because stand-up comedy isn't remotely like acting in, writing or directing a feature length film.

Worth noting too that Chris Rock is obscenely rich so uh yeah he might be better at this movie thing than you think he is (even if I agree that his stuff isn't my cup of tea.)

Being funny in person with a worked-up act is A LOT LIKE being funny in a movie. There is no analogue that I know of in terms of performance that translates as badly. How is it so different that it never works? It seems like the more interesting question is why it doesn't work, not why it's "not remotely like" successfully standing up inh person and telling jokes, which seems like it's pretty like acting in and writing a feature film in certain respects.

and I seriously have no idea what you're getting at w the second thing

are you slow?

Clearly!

That he doesn't make good movies because he's rich, or that he gets the chance to make shitty movies he's not qualified for because he's rich? Because what does that have to do with anything

Why the hell is Rock "not qualified" to make movies?

Howzabout the fact that you don't like his movies means fuck all when he's making money hand over fist making them?

"Being funny in person with a worked-up act is A LOT LIKE being funny in a movie. There is no analogue that I know of in terms of performance that translates as badly."

You clearly know jack shit about how movies are made. Trust me there are BIG differences.

The guy is a famously hard worker, smart, amiable, proven box office success, frequently funny to many people, a boatload less fucked-up/druggy, and generally better-respected than half of Hollywood?

COMICS USUALLY WRITE THEIR OWN MATERIAL AND WHEN MAKING A MOVIE YOU ARE NOT WORKING WITH YOUR OWN MATERIAL THATS WHY STEVE MARTIN IN THE JERK WORKS AND YOU ARE ALSO A JERK, ANTEXIT.

Wow! OK!

chill dudes. it's not teh same thing but it's pretty disingenuous to claim all standup performance is necessarily LIGHT YEARS away from performing in movies.

ok im sorry im chill. caps lock is off. phew.

chris rock being rich is a bit of a red herring. most of the movies he fronts do not do well. but he does do a lot of voicework for big $$ animated stuff. and supporting roles in bigger movies. and performance, tv etc.

i love having imdbpro!!

I think Chris Rock is the best stand-up comic in the world right now, and because of his commercial success, he's been able to call his own shots for his last three movies, which coincided with his best standup work but which were all pretty broad and shitty despite his complete creative control. But dude Steve Martin is awesome! His terrible last 20 years of movies has nothing to do with his sentimentality and moneygrubbing and desire to pander to the pseudointellectual new yorker crowd he has a need to prove himself to and everything to do with the control he had that somehow completely dried up at the peak of his financial and artistic success!

Also, Chris Rock is def funny in:

CB4
Beverly Hills Ninja
Pootie Tang (yeah, I said it)

Which is not all that bad, considering that he has only acted in (to my count) 13 outright comedies, of which two were by Kevin Smith.

I think it's LIGHT YEARS actually (like being a musician /= being an actor.) Yes yes, it's all performance on one level, but it's pretty obvious why a person could be very successful at stand-up where they have almost complete control of their entire act and not at all good at acting in films or writing films or even choosing what films to make.

And what I meant by "not qualified to make movies" was that he gets a chance to direct movies he's not qualified for because he's a proved property to act in them. i.e. "not qualified to make movies." Wow!

I mean, proven. Wow.

Seriously, what the fuck. You guys are assholes.

The best standup comics are able to maintain an audience's interest for 90 minutes with NO STORY and just personality and insight and jokes. What am asking is why doesn't that translate into a movie which has more or less the same qualifications, and in fact less so?

The Original Kings of Comedy was produced on an estimated $3,000,000 budget. On its opening weekend, it was shown on 847 screens and grossed a total of $11,053,832. It eventually grossed a total of $38,168,022 at the box offices.

What about movies of standup acts? I loved Comedians of Comedy.

The best standup comics are able to maintain an audience's interest for 90 minutes with NO STORY and just personality and insight and jokes

this is why things like pootie tang and cb4 and the jerk all work and stuff that attempts more conventional storytelling devices don't

or whatever I meant. if you can't get what I'm getting at then fuck it what's the point.

Why do successful stand-up comedy concerts make successful stand-up comedy movies of filmed successful stand-up comedy concerts?

why do fruity pebbles taste so good?!

1) Writing stories is hard and it takes different talents than 90 routines minutes without narrative (which are obv. also hard.)

2) If you don't write your own films picking scripts and getting picked for movies which are funny is also hard. Also people don't necessarily pick scripts because they are great.

3) Finally, even if the script (whether you wrote it or not) is good there is no guarantee that the movie will be good because yup that's right directing films is also hard and more often than not comedians don't have final cut and even if they did there is not saying that they would know what to do with because stand up is not like directing feature length films (see 1).

http://www.stuckiniowa.com/img/uploads/mitchhedberg.jpg

"When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?" "

4) a shtick that works well live, calibrated in real-time to audience reaction and situational circumstances often comes across as hokey and contrived on screen.

4) a shtick that works well live, calibrated in real-time to audience reaction and situational circumstances often comes across as hokey and contrived on screen.

-- remy bean, Monday, January 14, 2008 10:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Like "Lucky Louie".

Tomboto, I'm kind of asking that question! It used to be that the best and smartest movies in the world were comedies. That hasn't been the case for a long time, so why is that? Is it because the entertainment business has oriented itself so that a comedian can't say what he thinks unless he's putting a serious face on? (which is what turned Tom Hanks and Steve Martin into assholes, Chaki)

The most creative guys in comedy these days it seems like wind up as either TV writers or standup comics. And that's the end of the line in a lot of cases. And it used to be the model of the entertainment industry was that guys who knew the way that comedy worked evolved into people who made great movies, like Billy Wilder or Frank Capra or Robert Altman or Woody Allen, but now it seems like the movies that great standups produce are pitched way lower than the standup they used to establish their reputations. So why is that? That's the question I'm asking. I think a standup comic like Chris Rock is going to be the guy that makes a great movie someday soon, and i'm really disappointed that it looks like Chris Rock isn't it.

There's a lot more money and security working in television.

Billy Wilder or Frank Capra or Robert Altman were not standup comics, either. But man, if they were...

I'm saying they knew jokes.

And Alex in SF please see 1 Head Of State which had the opportunity to be a brilliant piece of satire that was a big-budget movie produced in a completely hostile political environment but still got made, on Chris Rock's reputation, and was a piece of shit and would never in a million years have been made if Chris Rock didn't have control over every joke and every cut that went out to distribution and that movie was still a piece of shit in every respect.

I know it was TV, but I thought the Bill Hicks' "Third Eye: the Animated Series" was pretty fun.

"And Alex in SF please see 1 Head Of State"

Can I not? Anyway see #2 and #3 for reason why Chris ROck having control might not make a difference.

What I'm asking is why movies he makes are so much shittier, less smart and less funny, than Bring the Pain, Bigger and Blacker and Never Scared. If you think those are worse movies than I Think I Love My Wife, that's cool, but what is it about those movies that makes them so different, and why is it that the most asskicking standup comic in america is making paycheque voiceacting movies?

why not? he's gotta pay a mortgage.

capra, altman and wilder made their share of crapass films too

Can I not? Anyway see #2 and #3 for reason why Chris ROck having control might not make a difference.

and great you don't know what the fuck you're talking about but you want to give me a hard time anyway so thumbs up

so was your question answered?

Yep!

steve martin makes crappy movies because despite already being pretty rich, modern art is still INCREDIBLY expensive.

Shakey Mo? Is that you?

Yeah, that must be it. All those dreamy yuppie reminiscences of Steve Martin's at the top of the bestseller list right now were INCREDIBLY expensive to get down in Word OSX.

Note that your stand-up persona usually needs to be tinkered with to work as a movie persona, e.g. Rodney Dangerfield

All those dreamy yuppie reminiscences of Steve Martin's at the top of the bestseller list right now were INCREDIBLY expensive to get down in Word OSX.

'dreamy yuppie reminiscinces'? have you actually read the book?

What I'm asking is why movies he makes are so much shittier, less smart and less funny, than Bring the Pain, Bigger and Blacker and Never Scared. If you think those are worse movies than I Think I Love My Wife, that's cool, but what is it about those movies that makes them so different

Those first movies are films of his standup act. The other movies are narrative comedies with plots (which possibly suck). They are entirely different things. It really isn't any more complicated than that.

Being funny in person with a worked-up act is A LOT LIKE being funny in a movie.

agree with everyone. has this come up? one way stand-up and acting differ is YOU GENERALLY HAVE TO INTERACT WWITH OTHER PERFORMERS IN FILMS.

o i hadn't noticed we were in a thread where robert altman and billy wilder were landmark directors of comedies... some of their films were comedies, but had very little to do with modern stand-up. i guess there's altman's widely reviled 'popeye'.

"Popeye" was great on a big screen, it's crap on a TV.

Well, maybe not "great" but not totally boring (yes, I did both, or I watched it on TV for 30 mins)

One more explanation: a stand-up show is quite cheap to produce, so there's less pressure to appeal to the (perceived) lowes common denominator. Whereas movies tend to cost a helluva lot more, which means that the producer's and the money men are more likely to try to smoothen out the acts of edgy comedians, even in cases where that edginess is the reason why the said comedian became popular in the first place.

George Burns?
Richard Pryor?

I think Chris Rock is the best stand-up comic in the world right now

You may be right, and that may not be saying a whole lot.

Shakey Mo? Is that you?

-- HI DERE,

pay attention man - I guess you don't recall this thread. Chris Rock's I AM YELLING schtick is really tiresome.

Rodney Dangerfield made a couple great movies, so did Steve Martin. Woody Allen pwnz obviously. Pryor never really delivered in feature films, unfortunately. so the basic premise of the question is flawed both because a) comedians DO occasionally make great movies, and b) yes it should be blatantly obvious that stand-up /= making feature films; as has been pointed out they are two completely different mediums.

how could I forget - Pee Wee Herman!

Coming to America > any of Eddie Murphy's stand-up

same reasons why Tracy Morgan being interviewed about his movie >>>> Tracy Morgan's movie (most likely)