When Stand Up Stood Out (2003)

Really Surprised!

Beautiful, moving film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

As someone who WAS there, this film is merely a compilation of old video, brief talking heads, and the pure chance of a reunion concert. Something DID happen in Boston at this time, but the director missed it by a mile. Instead he built a film around the footage he had, instead of doing the real work of a documentary. The focus on Lenny Clarke exemplifies this laziness. There was the most old footage of Lenny, so Lenny gets a lot of play here, that should have gone to others with far more talent and impact. The women get short-changed, as do the Emersonians. Before there were comedy clubs, there was improv, and except for Denis and Steven Wright, none of these drunken hacks could have created anything but the testament to chemical courage this film documents. The director missed the chance to illuminate the perfect storm that was Boston in those years. Instead he wallows in nostalgia instead of linking how those years rewrote comedy AND punk music, just as Greenwich Village did in the 1960's. Perhaps someday a filmmaker will correctly connect the dots, and link Boston '75 to '85 with the earth shaking cultural changes that we not only witnessed, but managed to live through!

I enjoyed this film, finding the latter part of it quite accidentally one night while channel surfing. A few nights later I sat and watched it from the beginning and consistently enjoyed myself even if I didn't agree with the dark alleys some of the talent went through in their lives. Those dark alleys, though, make their survival today, their perseverance and the fact that some are putting up quality work, all the more interesting.I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed seeing people in their beginning years before weight was gained and hair was lost. I did not recall or even consider that so many comic minds came from the Boston area. (I grew up in Attleboro, MA and went to college in Amherst from 78-82.) There are quite funny bits from all, notably Lenny Clarke and Steven Wright. There are also shocking moments like when Clarke tells a story of almost killing a fellow comic/club owner for short changing him on the night's take. There is also a comedian getting so frustrated with a heckler that he smashes his guitar on the heckler. I don't believe we've heard of that comedian since then. Come to think of it, probably not the heckler either. Not that he was drawing a lot of fans.The film really gives you the feel of being in a smoky, sweaty, really sweaty club. Much of the archival footage is from video tape, some black and white. I get the feeling that it was as if these tapes were their "vaudeville" document. A short clip of Denis Leary has his long hair drenched with perspiration. While moments like this did not make me wish I was there, I certainly was glad that I got to see people working in the trenches as sometimes that is where some of the best work is born.My one criticism had to do with how the film follows a timeline of sorts, beginning in '78 or thereabouts and traveling into the '80s. I felt clearly at one point the film refers to the mid-to-late eighties and then notes that the death of John Belushi (circa 1981) is what got some people to shape up (or not). Soon after that we see a clip from 1989. It just seemed like odd placement given the way the story that was being told (unless people were going into rehab for 6-8 years).All in all, I'd recommend this film to anyone who has an interest in stand-up or particularly, in Boston comedians.

REspose to the review prior to this titled: "The Rise and Fall of Boston Comedy." This review is disqualified. The writer simply doesn't get it mostly because he's from the UK. This film is a fabulous chronicle of how the Boston area and specifically two little places helped to spawn a business boom and provided a boost to comics everywhere in the US. Prior to 1978 there were two places in the US to really do stand-up. N.Y. and L.A. Boston was not on the map. Yes, Chicago had 2nd city but as an individual art form, L.A. and N.Y. were it. It chronicles the rise and fall (and follies) of local comics and many that went on to much acclaim and continue to work very successfully. Of course the local guys aren't well known. D'oh! that's why they're local. But they plug away and continue to make money, albeit less than the more famous brethren, but they're still at it. If this dies in May of '78 like the founder of the comedy connection expected, half these guys would be doing construction or dead.The 16mm/Beta or VHS cam shots by someone are fantastic. The bit's are still hilarious (this guy's country brought us Mr. Bean and Benny Hill. Yes, yes they brought us Python too and we **all** thank them very much.)I had forgotten Lenny Clarke's show on TV38 (Yes, I am from the Boston area and was a high school freshman in 1978) My 14 yr- old laughed at every old bit and I cringed at the language halfway in but *******She laughed in the right places!!********and I did not have to explain **Anything!** See This Movie!!! (but not with your 14yr old.)

What up with the quote on the back? It says something like this movie is the antidote to Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian. I don't get it. The documentary Comedian is a more focused film, basically just showing a year in the lives of two comics. When Stand up Stood Out is a long winded, unfocused historical documentary about some pretty irrelevant comedians in Boston. Steven Wright is the only comedian in the whole lot who anyone cares about whatsoever. Lenny Clarke is an annoying, unfunny idiot that thinks he is edgy because he says rude, inappropriate things. Wow. Not impressed. The guy who made this movie is obviously pretty narcissistic and lame for making such deliberate self-promotion. There are plenty of great comics to come from the Boston scene (Conan, Leno, David Cross, Steven Wright, Janeane Garafalo) but this doc mostly just focuses on the director and his friends. Not as bad as the unwatchable Aristocrats, but not nearly at the same level as Comedian.