Get Bruce! (1999)

Best movie of this year hands down!

So much average

Simply Perfect

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I only saw this documentary because it was one of five films on a multi film disc that I got out of the bargain bin and this wasn't the film that I was going for. Bruce Vilanch is an openly gay comedian and writer. He writes for stars especially for the Oscar Awards ceremonies for hosts like Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. We meet his mother and learn he is adopted. He wears crazy t-shirts and has an ugly beard. I don't think he's a horrible person. He is far more open than most people were long before it was fashionable to come out of the closet. While the documentary has plenty of faults and flaws, it's enjoyable and sometimes just pointless to honor somebody like Bruce Vilanch. When you want a good comedy writer to help with the show like the Oscars, you get Bruce Vilanch to write some jokes. He has written performance pieces for Bette Midler and has been friends for decades with legendary performers. It's interesting to see his past as writing for the Brady Bunch Variety Show in the 1970s after he left Chicago to get his start in Hollywood writing.

what a terrible film and what a terrible man. this is one of the worst pieces of hollywood self-serving, syrupy nonsense i've ever had the misfortune to watch.it's fair enough when the egg-producers all get together and buy "Eat more eggs" campaigns. if this is the best the Bruce Vilanch Marketing Board can come up with...i have long thought of hollywood as being so capable of parodying itself that external parody was unnecessary and this just confirms my belief. if i didn't know better, i'd think i was watching a Mr. Show sketch parodying Bruce Vilanch. i wish...if you like watching sincerity so contrived it's appalling in its insincerity, 'fly on the wall' segments about the comedy process so contrived they're hard to watch and hollywood celebrities generally patting each other on the back to extreme, don't hesitate to rent this - you'll love it.i think even the most devoted Bruce Vilanch fan will be made nauseous by the awful song that plays out over the closing credits.Get Bruce? get lost...

Bruce gets his due that is. This is a man many people don't even know and when they do they know him as the guy who sits in the square next to Whoopi Goldberg on "Hollywood Squares". There is a reason he is there beside some of the best comic minds in Hollywood. Bruce Vilanch is who they go to to get jokes. He is the man behind the best comic moments of the biggest events in Hollywood. This movie follows Bruce as he writes and cuts up with various celebs (the funniest parts are when they just talk in stream-of-conscious style and let the jokes come as they may.) Celebrities are interviewed and Bruce is praised as the comedy-messiah come to earth (which he is), Bruce's mother is interviewed in true Jewish mother fashion and you see where he gets his humor being raised by this lady. If you like gossipy Hollywood humor and in-jokes, you might really enjoy this movie. Recommended!

sure, get bruce is pretty funny, but it trips a bit...the film begins with the typical "bunch of people talking about the subject." this does not work. i found myself bored and thinking i was going to make a big mistake."get bruce" is at its best when it shows the subject (a guy who writes jokes for celebs) at work. the scenes where bruce is working one on one with billy crystal, whoopi goldberg, robin williams, et al, are some of the laugh-out-loud funniest things i've seen in a long time. and i don't even like robin williams.sadly, when all these portraits are done, the directors scope pans out again and tries to make general statements about the subject. here, he again fails. perhaps it would have been funnier had the filmmakers consulted bruce.six of ten