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Janeane Garofalo: If You Will - Live in Seattle
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Image Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (26th June 2011). |
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The Show
 For as many comedians that breakout from improve groups and stand-up comedy acts, once they’ve achieved acting success it’s hard to picture them in the reverse. Going back and looking at Amy Poehler doing gigs with the Upright Citizens Brigade are still funny, but even for a long time veteran of sketch comedy, seeing these comedians on stage is a still a new location for me as a viewer. With Janeane Garofalo it’s at another level of disorientation seeing her do stand up, as someone who grew up in the 90’s and didn’t delve too deep into stand up comedy, I mostly recognize her from her varied acting roles and appearances on television. After some slight disorientation that she does stand-up, her routine is less deadpan than I expected but still gets some laughs for her insights. In “If You Will: Live in Seattle” (2010) Garofalo runs the gamut with her topics ranging from television shows she enjoys to political comedy that reveals her strong liberal ties. Garofalo is more than willing to poke fun at herself, opening with a segment on spanx and her inability to deal with technology (despite playing a computer expert on “24” (2001-2010)). There are a few missteps with jokes that have been made all over the place, like David Caruso jokes or Applebee’s jokes. Some jokes are just too easy and the delivery just doesn’t make it better. Garofalo picks it back up hitting stride with some more self-deprecating jokes, talking about her boyfriend, sobriety, heavy drinking and marriage prospects while closing out with a funny but bizarre routine on Natalie Portman’s laundry and vagina. The theatre and setting for the comedy special suit Garofalo well, with Seattle’s political streak her jokes on the tea party’s obvious racism hit it off well with the crowd. Like any other comedy special the action on stage is often intercut with shots of crowd laughter, but it would be hard not to have a good time at a comedy act that has earned a special. Garofalo has her own stage presence that suits her attitude, bringing a long notepad to keep her on track with jokes but not afraid to move around the stage and be active in her jokes from popping her spanx to imitating Caruso. But really what a comedy special comes down to are the jokes. There are few times that directing can really interfere with or accentuate the stage presence of a comedian with too many crowd reactions or long range shots of the act on stage when there isn’t much going on. Garofalo didn’t initially strike me as a stand-up comedian but her stage presence and delivery are funny, consistently bringing laughs. There are no moments that took the air out of me with laughter or jokes that I can see being repeated into infinity and abused by people trying to be funny for a group of friends, but not everyone can be a Mitch Hedberg. Bottom line, Garofalo is a funny stand up comedian who brings laughs in this special through some more traditional stand up comedy that doesn’t have to depend on props to be funny.
Video
“If You Will” is presented in 1080p 24/fps in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and AVC MPEG-4 encoding, keeping a nice looking transfer even though it’s a stand up routine. The lighting of the theatre really helps in the clarity, but the colors in Garofalo’s shirt and even spots in the audience come through well, but the background blur and some shots of the crowd without lighting are a little grainy but that really isn’t an issue. Garofalo and the stage are really all that matter for clarity and they come through well enough that you can read her tattoo on the left shoulder.
Audio
Like the visuals, the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is a great quality standard that doesn’t get pushed considering the context but does a nice job. There’s good balance between the crowd laughs and cheers, with Garofalo’s microphone. The sound doesn’t really need to move, except for the crowd feeling like it runs through the channels and the transfer does that fine. Without any pops, or serious errors, the transfer on the audio does exactly what it is supposed to do and keeps the standards of the format.
Extras
There are only two special features, Janeane Garofalo in her home talking about pets in a couple of featurettes. “Janeane on Pets” featurette runs for 6 minutes and 1 second. Garofalo talks about her pets and a couple that gave their pet Janeane Garofalo. Turns out the pet is actually a child and the people that play the couple aren’t funny at all. It’s an extension of her bit about the treatment of animals versus children, it’s slightly funny but the couple’s bad acting just ruins it. “Congressman’s Dream” featurette runs for 5 minutes and 14 seconds, jokes about Starbucks in Seattle, a republican Congressman confronts Janeane Garofalo about the Tea Party and convinces her to do an interview with him in her hotel room in the style of Air America Radio. Very funny segment that lampoons the Congressman well, even after starting on the wrong foot with some Starbucks jokes.
Overall
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