Fred Armisen: Standup for Drummers (2018)

Sadly Over-hyped

Redundant and unnecessary.

Must See Movie...

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I've never heard of Fred Armisen before, and I hope to never hear of him again. This special was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. You seriously have to watch it to see how unfunny it is. Seriously, stop reading this review right now! Go pull up Netflix on your TV, in your web browser or w/e you use and put it on. If you can make it to the end of the special, you deserve a years worth of Netflix for free. Hell, I'll front the bill.It was so terrible, in fact, that I actually had an epiphany after making it through about 30 minutes of this dumpster fire of a special, I shut off Netflix, went into my garage, packed up my drum kit and threw it right in the trash. "Why?" you may ask... because this standup killed drumming for me. It made me realize that I've wasted 20 years of my life. I could've been doing so much more, I thought. So I immediately poured myself a nice, cold glass of Guinness and decide on a new hobby. Today, I crochet! That's right I took up crocheting. I took all my drumsticks and made Shepard hooks out of them (why waste good wood). Yeah, yeah, I know, it's very different from drumming.It's quiet, relaxing and keeps me off the internet, Netflix and anywhere near that godawful special.

Has the brilliant Fred Armisen ever done standup? Don't know. But this misses the mark by a long shot. His character comedy work is some of the best comedy ever. Rarely does a comic get me rolling laughing. But this... The material is weak, the delivery is weak and he took a bit of an elitist tone. Doesn't seem to be his thing but I like that he was trying something new (at least new for me).The observational material about drummers and musicians is adolescent at best or something you might hear from your lame band mates. I found it ironic that he said he didn't get jazz and then did a brilliant bit on regional accents while moving effortlessly across a map of the US, riffing on the subtle differences from area to area, and state to state - which was pure jazz.I think he had fun doing it. If you're a big fan like I am, you're probably going to watch this anyway.

But this fell truly flat. It was really awkward and just not funny. I don't have time to point out all the reasons it fell flat but I think the bottomline is Fred did this as a "creative" project and didn't really think it all through. He probably thought "I love drums, and comedy, so let me combine them". Yes, and I'm sure you had fun doing the show(?) but combining those talents in this way didn't pan out. Portlandia is gold. Keep your comedic and musical talents separate please. Hopefully this will be a learning experience.

I'm a drummer and standup fan and this special let me down on both accounts. Topical drumming observations that often don't ring true, jazz bashing, pretty weak standup bits, and some drumming shoehorned in. Guy is a good enough drummer but this special just didn't really work.Edit: Also, he has his 3 guest drummers all on drumsets at the end and you think they're going to do some cool soloing or trading fours or something but then they literally just play the same simple rock beat for like 3 minutes... It'd be like if you had 3 professional guitar players come out and play the "Smoke on the Water" riff over and over. What a waste!