Sorry to disappear for a few days. I got hired on a show that has taken up almost every waking minute of my life... and as you know, I have many waking minutes these days. But I couldn't not share this excerpt from the NY Times review of Good Luck Chuck:
I’ve occasionally heard Dane Cook, one of the stars of “Good Luck Chuck,” described as a comedian. I find this confusing, since my understanding is that comedians are people who say and do things that are funny. Perhaps Mr. Cook is some new kind of conceptual satirist whose shtick is to behave in the manner of a person attempting to be funny without actually being, you know, funny. Or maybe he answered an ad in the back of a magazine and sent away for a mail-order license to practice comedy.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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4 comments:
(it had a typo):
That's a lazy, misguided review. Most comedians are not funny to most people. Most bands are not good to most people. Dane Cook isn't funny to this reviewer's subjective taste (or, usually, to mine), but this characterization (or lazy review angle) reminds me of people who claim art that doesn't personally speak to them is "not art." It is art, you just don't like it. I'm sure Good Luck Chuck is execrable, but some people will like it, and Dane Cook, despite not having a "license to practice comedy", is a comedian.
Is Carlos Mencia a "comedian" as well?
I would probably put Dane Cook in the category of "performer." The same way that Nicholas Cage turned from being an "Actor" into being a "Performer" after "leaving Las Vegas."
Except that clearly Scott is kidding. It's not a "lazy angle," and he's not making a serious argument that Cook cannot be described as a comedian. It's just a joke for the lede. And, for that matter, it's a better joke than Dane Cook has ever told.
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