Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

SnoopyStyle Paul Provenza and producer Penn Jillette bring an inside joke among comedians to the outside world. There's a family who performs a disgusting outlandish offensive act with their dog in front of a person. After the act, the persons ask what the act is called. They reply "The Aristocrats".It is essentially a bad joke. The reason for the love is that the performer is allowed to come up with the most outrageous inappropriate ideas. Honestly most of the jokes are not funny although it's probably funny for these comedians who have heard it all before. It is insane material that would never be used in any actual act. It's an insight into the world of comedians. The best one is probably Sarah Silverman who incorporates her family as the actual performers. She does it as a naive innocent girl although her punchline is "Joe Franklin raped me". Carrie Fisher does it with her famous parents. Gilbert Gottfried doing the roast after 9/11 is the most compelling piece of story. The DVD commentary adds more background to the comedy and the various comedians.

Greg Lynch OK.. So I get it, its an inside joke amongst other comedians, its about how vulgar you can tell a joke (which really isn't that funny)..After about ten minutes into the movie you have already seen what its all about and the next 80 minutes are just worthless... In fact if I had to watch it again I would just go to You tube and watch the South Park version! Now I like a sick joke and I am not normally offended by them but this joke is beyond me, A joke about child abuse and rape and god knows whatever else is far from funny.I would avoid this like the plague!! Unless of course you like the plague then you might add it to your own stupid version of this joke.I gave it 2 stars because I found the South Park version funny as it really just sums up just how stupid it really is.

Red-Barracuda Every time I have seen this film over the years I have to admit to finding it progressively less funny each time. It's a documentary that is barely about anything if we are honest. It's about a joke called 'The Aristocrats' that has seemingly been around for decades, yet only comics seem to know about it. There isn't any information provided about how it originated, most probably because like most jokes it just evolved from somewhere by chance and others latched on to it. Anyway, the joke itself is simple. A new act visit a promoters office and describe to him their routine, it's an appallingly offensive act described in graphic detail. At the end the shocked promoter asks what their name is and they reply 'The Aristocrats' with a flourish. You see what I mean, it's completely unfunny and on paper a non-joke. But the way it works is for the description of the act to be as inventively offensive as possible allowing the comedian to riff on the basic idea and to be as creative as possible.The humour all seems to be about shock value and for me this can get a bit wearing. Comic after comic tells a similar retelling of the joke where they try like crazy to be on the edge. But all most of them are essentially doing is being as disgusting and as offensive as possible, which ultimately is about as funny as a punch in the throat. The format of the film means that comics tell the joke to other comics and there is an unfortunate self-satisfied air to proceedings with everybody laughing like crazy at their own outrageousness. An alarming number just try to be offensive with nothing else on offer, including a guy who has to be the worst ventriloquist I have had the misfortune of seeing.But some people rise above the material and elicit actual laughs. George Carlin mentioned that comedy was all about surprise and it's the ones that achieve this that work best. Billy the Mime is funny because of the sheer strangeness and originality of performing the joke via mime artistry. Wendy Liebman subverts the joke by reversing it, where the act itself is super sweet but with a name that is super offensive – when Liebmen delivers this it's one of the funniest moments in the film because it's simply unexpected. Jake Johannsen deconstructs the situation and wonders why the promoter even wants to know the name of the act in the first place and questions why the participants are not in prison or on death row. Sarah Silverman turns things around by telling an anecdote from the point of view of being a real-life participant. While Gilbert Gottfried's telling of the joke is so refreshing simply because he has an actual real audience to work with and is not simply telling it to easily pleased fellow comedians – at last we see how the joke can work in the context of a paying audience. But perhaps the key moment was when Dick Smothers told Tom Smothers a version of the joke. Tom wasn't aware of it and was completely perplexed by it thinking it utterly unfunny and pointless. It was one of the most honest and funny moments in the film and one that most people would experience if they were to be told the joke for the first time with no prompting.

kadencole Um, wow, I feel sort of like the last sane man, I'm reading tons and tons of praise for a movie that essentially is the equivalent of thinking it's funny that penis, rape and incest are clearly defined in a dictionary, tee he, seriously? And for 90 minutes! I couldn't get through it, I was bored! My appreciation for my own time was very offended but jeez, from a political viewpoint, by most, I would be considered an extreme liberal with borderline heathen and hedonistic ideals on freedom and the use thereof, but this?! I'm glad we live in a society where even this garbage can be widely produced, great, fine, but I wouldn't want to watch this at length any more than I would want to watch scenes of staged violence and brutality over and over and over again. The level of immaturity to me and the whole composition of the movie would be like making a movie about a brutal child rape scene and having different directors and different actors portraying it in different ways throughout, if you think that's funny, you'll love this movie. I think the jokes on the public at large, if you like this sort of thing, that's disturbing, if you don't like it, you're a snob? If that's the case I've never been more proud to be a snob, wow, what a great waste of time, surely these talented individuals can find something better to do with their time. This seems like a failed attempt at high art and if there's anything I hate more than high art it's a failed attempt at it.