Misery Loves Comedy
Jimmy Fallon, Tom Hanks, Amy Schumer, Jim Gaffigan, Judd Apatow, Lisa Kudrow, Larry David, and Jon Favreau are among over 60 famous very famous American and Canadian funny people who share life and professional journeys and insights, in an effort to shed light on the thesis: Do you have to be miserable to be funny?
7 July 1966, Chesterton, Indiana, USA
22 June 1959, Los Angeles, California, USA
3 May 1970, Union City, New Jersey, USA
18 November 1953, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
30 July 1963, Encino, California, USA
3 September 1970, Port Hueneme, California, USA
13 March 1950, Miami, Florida, USA
23 November 1971, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
1 June 1981, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
20 May 1950, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
23 May 1963, Long Island, New York, USA
12 March 1982, Chicago, Illinois, USA
25 May 1955
19 August 1969, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA
23 September 1959, Newark, New Jersey, USA
28 September 1964, Newton, New Jersey, USA
19 October 1977, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
26 March 1950, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
1 August 1969, Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA
19 September 1974, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
27 September 1963, New Jersey, USA
3 May 1965, Swansea, Wales, UK
2 August 1970, Red Bank, New Jersey, USA
9 May 1940, Brooklyn, New York, USA
13 October 1964, Chicago, Illinois, USA
12 September 1968, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
7 February 1960, New York City, New York, USA
2 December 1970, Ozone Park, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
September 10, 2015
If only he had probed a bit deeper, and widened his scope beyond the predominantly white, male subjects (including our own Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan and Stephen Merchant), this could have been a fascinating film as well as a funny one.
April 30, 2015
Are they miserable? No; everyone seems to be having a great time. Are they funny? Um, not so much.
April 23, 2015
While there's no single, monumental insight here-no a-ha moment that cracks the code of comedy-there are a ton of stories and opinions that comedy nerds should love.
June 25, 2015
Overall, what we get is a relentless conveyer belt of talking heads, earnestly dissecting their profession.
November 11, 2015
It's a decent enough film for comedy buffs though there aren't a whole lot of surprises.
April 30, 2015
We hear plenty of engaging anecdotes, though, taken together, they don't do much to illuminate a subject that has been thoroughly explored elsewhere ...
April 30, 2015
For the most part ... this is a pretty safe discussion about a very unsafe art form. We can only imagine what's in the outtakes.
September 17, 2015
Do you have to be sad to be funny? You'll have to sit through a slew of micro-anecdotes and shop talk before you get any answers from this choppy documentary - longer than any decent comic would defer a punchline.
May 07, 2015
With so many subjects, it's obvious the director is going for quantity, but it doesn't work (especially the scenes with Matthew Perry; a funny actor is much different from a professional stand-up). The overall tone feels scattered and self-important.
April 23, 2015
While genial and never dull, the film is all over the place, a classic example of trying to do and say too much.
June 21, 2015
If comedy is tragedy plus time, is stand-up comedy a kind of higher math used to survive that equation?
April 23, 2015
An evident labor of love and also a work of grating amateurism.
