I’m a big fan of stand up comedians and regularly visit comedy nights in the local theaters. I also like to watch the big American comedians and there are quite a lot i still remember lines from (for example Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and Eddie Murphy). Why we laugh gives an insight into this branch of entertainment.
The title of this documentary gives a good summary of the subject. In this movie an overview is giving about the growth of black comedy, from the beginning last century up to Dave Chappelle. Comedians like Stepin Fetchit, Redd Foxx, Pick Gregory and Flip Wilson are talked about (which i didn’t know). Slowly they work towards the seventies and beyond and they talk about Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, the Kings of Comedy, Whoopie Goldberg and Dave Chappelle. So it’s a pretty complete overview of the history.
The documentary is consists of interviews with various comedians (Katt Williams, Chris Rock, the Wayans brothers and many more), people in congress and has a voice over by Angela Bassett. It also uses a lot of clips of various routines from the comedians that are discussed. This all results in a very interesting, informative and funny documentary.
Score: 9
Oooh, am going to check this out, thanks for the heads up.
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