Louie
I mentioned before that I’d been wanting to post about this show and how good it is, but today I finally found the video I wanted to link to. Here it is:
Louis C.K. and his friends play poker and discuss homosexuality and use of the word “faggot.”
It’s incredible. A completely ridiculous, vulgar, and hilarious conversation about shoving dicks up mothers’ asses turns into an open, honest, totally human, and shockingly real conversation between straight and gay men (well, a gay man). Nothing’s held back from any party. And to top it off, it’s actually shot incredibly well and the acting is the sort of improv non-acting that puts you right there in the scene. And apparently this didn’t just happen by accident. In a recent Onion AV Club interview, Louie goes into how the show got made and basically FX just talked him into doing the show for super cheap if they let him do whatever he wants with zero intervention. It seems to have worked.
So far, every episode that has aired has ranged from good to to fantastic and has, within the same episode, made me terrified of growing old and made me laugh till I nearly pee myself. If you’re not watching it already, set your DVRs or something. Just make sure you catch a few.
Comments
And it’s been picked up for a second season.
Agreed. We’ve only seen the first 2 episodes but both were great. And agreed about that scene as well. Really well done.
Never even heard of this show, but wow. That clip was amazing. I’ll be making time for this, fo sho’.
I’ve enjoyed every single episode of this show, even if the short film segments sometimes have a saggy, creaky structure. It’s some of the best cringe-inducing comedy I’ve seen.
Most “discomfort comedy” leaves me cold because the lead characters are such unsympathetic, rude assholes undeserving of the empathy they lack. Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm is amusingly carbuncular to a point, but such a petulantly self-pitying and aggressively hateful wealthy elitist that I find it impossible to relate. (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, on the other hand, works because the amoral idiot characters inhabit an utterly absurd cartoonland Philly, not the real world).
Louis CK’s character is so likeable here because he’s struggling to do the right thing. He’s fully aware that all the miserable little injustices in the world weigh down on everyone, not just himself, so he fights to curtail the simple asshole reaction. I can relate more to an average guy trying to just get through the day with his dignity intact. Empathy is always funnier than pure nihilism. The mission statement of the show could probably be summed up as, “I know. I know. Me, too.”
Once again, Justin sums things up perfectly.
The segment where he was on the date with that woman was so great.
I love his reaction to the other chaperone when she says that putting all the black kids on the one side of the bus is racist: “i know, right?”
I finally got around to watching all of these. I won’t be missing it anymore. So great.
Has everyone been keeping up with this show? Am I alone in finding the last two episodes (“Bully” and “Dentist/Tarese”) just completely weird in an unfunny way?
The Bully episode in particular played like a dramatic after school special. There was really nothing remotely funny about it, it was just sad.
I agree and I loved both of those for it. The last scene of the Bully episode totally stuck in my head the past few days.
I don’t believe I’ve seen those last two. But other than that, I’ve been keeping up with the show.
The last episode I saw involved Louie tokin’ up with the neighbor and seeing/doing/saying weird shit.
I like how surreal (yet real) the show is.
Jay said:Has everyone been keeping up with this show? Am I alone in finding the last two episodes (“Bully” and “Dentist/Tarese”) just completely weird in an unfunny way?
The Bully episode in particular played like a dramatic after school special. There was really nothing remotely funny about it, it was just sad.
I agree. I didn’t laugh once during the last two episodes. The bully episode was good though, the dentist one was kinda crappy.
I’m only 4 episodes in, so I can’t speak to the last two episodes. But of what I’ve seen I just love how so many scenes on this show feel so organic and real and barely scripted. The discussion of homosexuality being the first one that comes to mind, but also when Louie argues and then fights with the one comic about racism and comparing him to Hitler and all that. It all just feels very real which is odd for a comedy, but compelling as well.
I have just watched the 4 episodes that are ’On Demand" and pretty much laughed my balls off.
They went under the radiator and I am very glad I do not have a dog.
The Manc said:
They went under the radiator and I am very glad I do not have a dog.
Stop using rhyming slang!
Travis said:The Manc said:
They went under the radiator and I am very glad I do not have a dog.Stop using rhyming slang!
what?? balls, radiator, dog?
Balls to the wall?
Radiator????
Dog – maybe dog and bone? which may be kind of funny.
Hahahaha. I knew that would rile you up.
Does dog and bone mean phone? I bet it does. Those Cockneys sure know how to fool the cops!
Travis said:
Does dog and bone mean phone? I bet it does. Those Cockneys sure know how to fool the cops!
It does, there is also, it has also been used as a sexual thing, to quote Squeeze " I took her back to my place and I gave the dog a bone"
I watched the “Mother” episode last night OnDemand and laughed hard enough that I thought I woke my roommate.
Tom Noonan’s performance in the recent “God” episode is one of the greatest bits of acting I’ve seen in the last year.
Speaking of Tom Noonan, did anyone else see House of the Devil? It was this recent horror movie that got raves, mostly because it was specifically intended as a throwback to 70’s/80’s era horror movies. He was good in it but overall it didn’t live up to the hype.
I thought House of the Devil was great, incredibly creepy and entertaining. The middle third is such a tonally pitch-perfect chunk of elegantly restrained filmmaking that I think the first and last third suffer a bit by sitting in its shadow.
Actually holds up a bit better on a repeat viewing, I thought. The pacing’s easier to swallow when you can take a long view.
Was really happy to see Noonan and Mary Woronov struttin’ their stuff, too.
Justin said:Tom Noonan’s performance in the recent “God” episode is one of the greatest bits of acting I’ve seen in the last year.
I thought of you, actually. Sorta reminded me, not necessarily of any particular stories of your upbringing, but just what I imagined your church experience was like.
Pretty much. The fact that Noonan didn’t play his character as self-righteously angry – and ended his demonstration with sad tears in his eyes – nailed the sequence for me.
That’s my memory of an average American Catholic upbringing: Not much talk about hellfire and brimstone, but a lot of obsessive moping and near-fetishized anxiety over the excruciating suffering going on everywhere (especially how much the crucifixion hurt) and how not being a good person makes you complicit in it. You’ll share the blame through inaction or naughty behavior! This one priest would always lecture us on the importance of “effective love” (shown through personal sacrifice and deeds) over the “lazier affective love” (just feeling nice about something or someone).
So when a little Louie was rushing into the church and trying to pry the nails out of the Jesus statue, I thought it was pretty goofy and relatable and sweet. I liked that it wasn’t played for pure laughs.
I liked Spider-Man a lot growing up. I still think his origin story taps into an enormous amount of repressed Catholic angst.
I can’t imagine how anxious and nervous a person I would be now if I actually went to Catholic school.
I fell behind on this. And we have no Internet at the house yet. Hutch, let me come over and catch up.
My coworker is going to see Louie live this month. {{jealousy}}