When Stand Up Stood Out

REspose to the review prior to this titled: "The Rise and Fall of Boston Comedy." This review is disqualified. The writer simply doesn't get it mostly because he's from the UK. This film is a fabulous chronicle of how the Boston area and specifically two little places helped to spawn a business boom and provided a boost to comics everywhere in the US. Prior to 1978 there were two places in the US to really do stand-up. N.Y. and L.A. Boston was not on the map. Yes, Chicago had 2nd city but as an individual art form, L.A. and N.Y. were it. It chronicles the rise and fall (and follies) of local comics and many that went on to much acclaim and continue to work very successfully. Of course the local guys aren't well known. D'oh! that's why they're local. But they plug away and continue to make money, albeit less than the more famous brethren, but they're still at it. If this dies in May of '78 like the founder of the comedy connection expected, half these guys would be doing construction or dead.

The 16mm/Beta or VHS cam shots by someone are fantastic. The bit's are still hilarious (this guy's country brought us Mr. Bean and Benny Hill. Yes, yes they brought us Python too and we **all** thank them very much.)

I had forgotten Lenny Clarke's show on TV38 (Yes, I am from the Boston area and was a high school freshman in 1978)

My 14 yr- old laughed at every old bit and I cringed at the language halfway in but

*******She laughed in the right places!!********

and I did not have to explain **Anything!**

See This Movie!!! (but not with your 14yr old.)

What up with the quote on the back? It says something like this movie is the antidote to Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian. I don't get it. The documentary Comedian is a more focused film, basically just showing a year in the lives of two comics. When Stand up Stood Out is a long winded, unfocused historical documentary about some pretty irrelevant comedians in Boston. Steven Wright is the only comedian in the whole lot who anyone cares about whatsoever. Lenny Clarke is an annoying, unfunny idiot that thinks he is edgy because he says rude, inappropriate things. Wow. Not impressed. The guy who made this movie is obviously pretty narcissistic and lame for making such deliberate self-promotion. There are plenty of great comics to come from the Boston scene (Conan, Leno, David Cross, Steven Wright, Janeane Garafalo) but this doc mostly just focuses on the director and his friends. Not as bad as the unwatchable Aristocrats, but not nearly at the same level as Comedian.

This is a movie/documentary whose publicity promises more than it delivers. All the same - as a student of stand-up comedy and its history - the DVD will be a welcome part of my collection and is one that I will repeatedly watch with interest.

The story told is the rise and fall of the comedy club scene in Boston USA, from 1978 with the opening of little clubs, to their closure in 1988 when the whole thing collapsed - in parallel with the standard of live comedy in the USA - brought about by the sudden saturation of bland boring stand-up on cable TV.

The culprits were the actors with slick presentation that started to take the place of performers with a true comic sensibility. This is something that is not clearly exposed or explained in the movie, but it is an issue that to a lesser extent is still with us, and has also resulted in a fall in the standard of live comedy in the UK.

BUT... Back to the movie! Along with the director Fran Solomita who also appears in the movie, the key players in this story are Barry Crimmins and Lenny Clarke - the main MCs from that period in those Boston clubs. Both of these guys remind me of characters from the UK comedy scene that I have known and seen. Barry is like the late Malcolm Hardee - always in relaxed control both on and off-stage by the sheer weight of his personality. Lenny is a wild man on stage reminiscent of Alexie Sayle in the early days of the London Comedy Store in precisely the same era.

I'd never heard of these two comedians before this movie, but there are a few big name comedians on board to help to tell this story, although I am not convinced of how big a part they really played in it. Dennis Leary and Jimmy Tingle have much to say in interviews, but we see less than a minute each of them on stage, and we never see them talking in company with the real players in the story.

There is more of Bobcat Goldthwait, both on and off-stage. I've never been a fan, and I'm afraid these fresh clips didn't convert me. Oh... and we see Kevin Meaney doing his "man in the street" routine - taking a mic and camera into the street, bus, restaurant, ladies toilet, etc... He's certainly daring, but there's not much wit on show.

The biggest star name comedian involved is Steven Wright, and at the heart of this movie is the story of how he went from nowhere to making his name on the couch of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This, and the later dramatic rise of Bobcat to the Letterman Show were the events that revealed the rivalry and ambition that goes alongside the close working and personal relationship between comedians.

This leads to some of the most interesting and serious interview contributions in the movie. Unfortunately much of the interview material does not have the same substance, and makes you look forward to the next clip of stage work. Unfortunately again, many of these clips are of the journeyman comedians of the time who demonstrate why they have remained so anonymous. The occasional clips of open mic oddballs are far more memorable.

One part of this movie appears misplaced. The interviews with Paula Poundstone and Janeane Garafalo seem to be in the package simply to prevent this being an all-male movie. They clearly weren't of the same generation as the key players of this story and are not closely involved with the story being told.

The movie concludes with the present day reunion concert, and it is interesting to see how the key players have weathered over 25 years, including their stage presence. It makes for a fitting end to the story.

Fran Solomita's documentary WHEN STAND-UP STOOD OUT chronicles the rise of the Boston stand-up scene in the late seventies and early eighties, a period that produced such talents as Dennis Leary, Steven Wright, Don Gavin, Janeane Garofolo, Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Colin Quinn and Solomita himself. It follows the scene's conception, at a crummy little Chinese restaurant called the Ding Ho, to Wright's first appearance on Carson's TONIGHT SHOW, to the mainstream success comedians like Clarke, Leary and Garofolo have enjoyed, while confronting issues of inter-comic jealously, bitter rivalries, drug and alcohol excesses, and the elusive specter of fame. The film is constructed competently, and features some really eye-popping moments (the comedian who bashes a heckler with his guitar), but it never really feels like more than a slightly longer BEHIND THE MUSIC or TRUE Hollywood STORY. Since the director is a buddy of most of the subjects, the viewer feels like an outsider on an inside joke, robbing the film of it's objectivity. The major issues (the drugs, the jealously) are dealt with in brief montages, so most of the film is dedicated to showing early (and admittedly funny) clips of the comedians performing, and no real insight is made. Ironically, WHEN STAND-UP STOOD OUT really needs to stand out more.

Comedian Fran Solomita's look back at the Boston Stand-Up Comedy scene of the late 70s and early 80s amounts to a collection of his home movies (much of it captured on VHS quality tape). Solomita was part of a group ranging from Steven Wright to Jeneane Garofalo to Lenny Clarke, the latter is portrayed as the ringleader of an unruly herd which ran wild in places like the Ding Ho and the Comedy Connection. There isn't much of a neutral perspective on the scene, but, the clips and interviews are of interest. Other than Wright and Garofalo, others like Denis Leary, Paula Poundstone and Bobcat Goldthwait also sustained careers after leaving for 'Hollywood', while others remained local (with various degrees of jealously and acceptance). Jay Leno is barely mentioned, but he was technically the first to break out.