BuzzFlash Reviews

March 2005

Lewis Black: Black on Broadway DVD

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

If you haven't seen Lewis Black on "The Daily Show," here's a howler of an example of his brilliant comic pacing.

Black is in the last angry man genre of comics, but his rants on this HBO special (60 minutes) are never out of control harangues that appear like they are about to go off the rail. His timing, pacing, control and delivery are impeccable. He's angry, pissed, irritated, fed-up, annoyed and cool as a cucumber all at the same time.

He's full of vulgarity, to be sure, but it always advances his comic script, which is written like a musical piece, with recurring themes that come back at moments you least expect them. And, in "Black on Broadway," he never blows a punch line, not one.

Appropriately dressed in black, Lewis prowls the New York stage, fulminating about whatever outrage lies out there in the world. He spares no party, no person, no religion, and no brand of drinking water!

Lewis Black is like a Samurai chef. He cuts through the political fakery of the Bush tax cuts with such precision; you are left in awe of how simple it appears to expose the truth. As for the dollar a day most working class Americans got in tax cuts, Black says you might as well have a congressman knock on your door and piss on your leg for all the good that it will do you. What are you going to get with a dollar a day as we reach record-breaking deficits?

In total control of his comedy, confident, clever, surprising, Black masterfully has the audience in the palm of his hands.

We can't tell everyone, they will love this DVD. Comedy is much too personal.

But we're still laughing a week later.

God this guy is good. A true comic artist.

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