I Am Comic

I Am Comic, A Film by Jordan Brady is excellent because there is no Jordan Brady. In most documentary about stand-up comedy the director or interviewer often upstage the comics. Brady is smart enough to shut the f@ck up and let 100 or so comedians do the talking. Interviewer Ritch Shydner is not funny enough to upstage anybody. This makes for a funny, quick-paced, interesting documentary that reveals a few things about the world of stand-up you probably did not know.

The set up is simple. Jordan Brady and former stand-up and comedy writer Ritch Shydner go on the road and have comics talk to them. The documentary is divided by interstitial cards into various segments. The pay off is all you have to do is sit back and watch.

I Am Comic covers some of the same stuff other documentary about stand-up comedy cover: beginnings, life on the road, life with other comics, why some make it big and others do not, what is funny, the state of comedy today, and so on. It just does it better with some big name comics and others.

A welcome change here is nobody is allowed to wax poetic about the greater meaning of comedy as mankind’s salvation and a societal manifestation of something though a couple of comics go overboard a bit in the Taboo section.

Most of the comics interviewed for I Am Comic say something interesting but Brent Weinbach is a bit of a poseur and Lord knows what Tommy Davidson is on or what he is trying to say. Another weak point is any segment where Ritch Shydner does stand-up.

Special features on I Am Comic by Jordan Brady are a gig from hell story with Larry Miller, Kathy Griffin on touring, Portland Green Room, True Stories with Jeff and Sarah, and Various Comics. All this clocks in at under twenty minutes.

I Am Comic
A film by Jordan Brady
Monterey Media 2010
87 minutes

Related Posts