The Aristocrats

The Aristocrats (Director: Paul Provenza)

Provenza is a stand-up comic, and he and Penn Jillette decided to do this documentary of comedians telling the titular joke.

"The Aristocrats" is the joke that begins with, "A guy walks into a talent agency..." and then the most absurd, foul, illegal actions take place as the guy talks about this great act in which he and (usually) his family take part. It involves almost every bodily function and penetration possible, and the punchline is, "So what do you call this act?" and the guy replies, "The Aristocrats."

Almost every name comic performs this joke in the movie, but most of it surrounds the philosophy of the joke--how really, it's not funny in the normal sense--it has a decidely un-zingery punchline, and how the joke is a test of how dark a person is willing to be, especially in front of people. You've got comics like George Carlin, Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Steven Wright, and so on and so forth, with the guys that critics take as the most memorable in Bob Saget and Gilbert Gottfried.

There's a lot missing from this latest pop doc, though. Comedians are, first off, (not surprisingly) hesitant to tell the joke, and they tell it in a way that makes it sound like they are above it all and that they never speak this way normally, but since someone asked, they'll indulge. Also, for some reason, the MTV cutting has found its way into this--a jarring, angle-cut-angle method during the various incarnations of the joke. Many comics get cut off and aren't allowed to really any breathing room. It really seems like the movie was thought of that day, and Jillette and Provenza went around tracking down every comic they could find, and ta-da! Here's the movie! If there was some planning, where the comics could have told their versions of the joke (like Steven Wright's segment) with some sort of different analytical eye, this could have been something really good.

My favorite part of this is when they go through the "spinoff" section, where a guy tells the joke using card tricks, and then there's the different twists on the joke. Other than that, you'll hear so many awful things that it really doesn't register anymore, it doesn't matter who tells it. It really gets...boring.

So yeah, it's disgusting, not for everybody--but it's not for many people who can stomach it, either.