Here's an interesting little indie film.

Directed by comedian Paul Provenza, it is simply one single joke being told by dozens of different comedians, each with their own spin on it. It's not just any joke, it's an old old joke in the world of comics, sort of an inside joke in their community.

The short version goes like this: A family goes to a talent agency, the agent asks them to do their act. They start engaging in all kinds of sex acts with each other, and end up makinga human pyramid. When asked what they call their act, they say "The Aristocrats". It's not the funniest joke, as you can see, but it is notorious for being dirty, the comedians flesh out the part that I skipped over about the sex acts and go into lurid detail to comic effect.

The official site: http://www.thinkfilmcompany.com/films/thearistocrats/

This movie has been getting surprising hype for such a small film, including an article in Slate and 2 pages in Time.

New York Times Article about it

The tagline of the film is "No sex, no violence, unspeakable profanity"

The Aristocrats was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January and the Seattle International Film Festival in May. It will be shown in NY on July 29th. It will get a limited release in August 12th.

It sounds like a very interesting film. It was picked as one of EW's top docs this summer. I posted variations of the dirty joke here:

http://worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 38f1a59908

Before I posted this I looked for other threads on it, didn't look in that one though.

Damn AMC

http://www.darkhorizons.com

If you want to hear the dirtiest joke ever told... don't bother heading for your local AMC megaplex reports Newsweek.

The theater chain has decided not to show the buzzed-about documentary "The Aristocrats" on any of its 3,500-plus screens. The $20,000 unrated film features 102 of the world's most famous comedians, each telling their interpretations of the same infamous XXX-rated insider joke considered to be too filthy to perform in public.

ThinkFilm, which is distributing "The Aristocrats," says that AMC had agreed to show the film at theaters in Atlanta and Chicago, but then reneged. This comes despite an overwhelmingly good response from test audiences and critics alike.

Executive producer Penn Jillette says "Look, it's a stupid little movie that people are loving. So this is like a supermarket announcing that it's not going to carry vegetables. It's their right to do that. It's just a goofy decision based on one person's taste".

The film opens in limited release starting July 29th. To see the "South Park" version of the gag, click here and make sure no-one is in earshot.

Click where?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/aristocrats/

Went and started checking out what early viewers thought. Most found it incredibly funny, though some found it to just push the extremes of gross-out humor. I like the premesis alot, and don't mind extreme vulgarity (if its funny) but I usually start getting put off if its real toilet humour. Has anyone heard which direction the movie goes?

So far it sounds like each comedian gets a crack at re-telling the joke that Archie first posted. I might be struggling here...but I don't even get the original joke. I'm not known for my ability to catch pre-scripted humor though. In fact...I'm not known for catching any humor at all.

But when all is through, this seems like a series of improvs by the kings and queens of stand-up, and that could make it incredibly funny.

The joke is to basically fill the middle part with the most disgusting things ever imagned.

I'm looking forward to this film.

Yeah? I still don't get it? Does the disgusting middle fill-ins have to tie into being aristocratic or monied or something? I guess I'm still confused about the "punchline" which went on to become he title of the comedy sketches.

I would understand why these comedians, the most famous, would be called aristracts in a sort of tongue-and-cheek poke at their status vs. their professions...but I don't get why the family in the joke calls their act that?

I'm confused.

I guess the movie depends largely on if you find the comedians involved to be funny guys usually. I've seen a couple of them on tv, and have been to live stand-up comedy once. I keep thinking of Nero and his inescapeably painful performances that citizens feigned death to avoid having to sit to the whole way through for some reason.

Well, the joke is that this family does all these awful things, killing each other, necrophiliac orgies, eating shit, golden showers, homosexual incest, animal rape and the name of their act is "The Aristocrats".

Funny stuff.

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Lost you there. I am not making the final leap. So is this supposed to be class commentary? Or like a reference to Satyricon? I don't get it...



I'll take your word for it. Since I'm pretty sure I might be trying a bit hard to make the connection.

Which commedians is everyone looking foreward to hearing from the most? Do any of you guys follow one or two of them regularly?

My fav comedians who appear in the film:

Eddie Izzard
Steven Wright
Bruce Vilanch
Jon Stewart
Sarah Silverman
Bob Saget
Jeffrey Ross
Andy Richter
Chris Rock
Emo Phillips
Michael McKean
Howie Mandel
Bill Maher
Richard Lewis
Penn & Teller
Eric Idle
Todd Glass
Billy Connolly
Carrie Fisher
Andy Dick
Drew Carey
Mario Cantone
George Carlin
Lewis Black
Jason Alexander
Hank Azaria

Hmmm scatological scholarship? Sounds intriguing. I know I hate potty humour, but the premsis sounds so smart, and critics have been pretty warm towards it. Its like I have to overcome my disdain for being grossed out in order to see what looks like it could be a really good movie. Maybe its not so bad though, since they're just saying it, and we don't actually have to see it. Ugh. I'm still straddling the fence.

An Aristocratic joke is in there somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/w/South-Park---T ... =5&t=w&f=b



I'm guessing that's the dirty joke.

I love the fact that Cartman heard that from his granpa.

Oh god.

I thought it was going to be just... haha, incest jokes and scatalogical references and F-words, but surprisingly, there's a lot more humor here than that. Most of it actually coming from the the joke but from interviews with the comics about the joke itself.

Quite entertaining, and often hilarious.