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me, i'm the thread re-animatorrrr.
i'm late to CURB, midway through the 1st season and enjyoing it. i can already see the formula at work but it's still ok.
the show is on its 6th season now, and the wife has left him [as Larry's wife in real life did], so there's at least some change in the status.
anyone watched the HBO special that led into the series? it's sort of an informal pilot about Larry prepping up stand-up act for HBO to air and it played heavily with the mockumentary\faux-reality show aspect of it, people acknowledging the camermen's presence all the time.
it was thinking about today's cornucopia of reality shows that also bought my way into CURB. it's like a gonzo-porn version of a married - actually caring for his wife - and successful George Costanza reality show [i can't avoid picturing early Seymore Butts porn films with Shane]. David enjoys the same confort zone that Seinfeld did in his program by acting out an amped up version of himself.
i'm a HUGE fan of Seinfeld an ultimately never thought that those people were bad from the get-go, but they "had" to become selfish pricks in order to succeed in the social dealings of the urban jungle.
I always kind of saw Jerry as a shaman of sorts for this jungle, but one that got too involved in the rules he was so used to observing and analysing [and operating by] from a distance.
there was some tenderness inside the irony, just rewatch the pilot [the one sans-Elaine], and first seasons. Jerry and Co. used to see the often bizarreness of everyday social dealings with awe, joy and incredulity. after some years, himself and his friends became an object of incredulity to others, that led into the trial.
that's why SEINFELD's seasons from 1 to 4 [before David] are brilliant: not only you had the interconnecting simultaneous plots but they were part of a tapestry that helped us see how NY itself as a city was alive [and self-aware, maybe?].
also, after watching all of S's 8 seasons for about 3 times, you get the feeling some of the humour comes from the brainstorming of two "closeted" conservative jewish minds in a PC metropolis in the 90s and how they feel out of place in several situations where they are supposed to show They Care.
the episode with Jerry and George feeling strange that people wonder if they're gay, "but not that there's anything wrong with that" has to me a new light in this context. sometimes you can feel George [specially] wanting to burst out and telling people in their face how much he Hates them, and sometimes he did. but most he just keeps that rage for himself.
anyway, i'm feeling that CURB gives me a good small fix of that humour from awkwardness in social dealings that i loved so much in SEINFELD, in a different, more current format [funny to me how the laughing track is never present in "smarter" sitcoms]. only LA as a setting doesn't work for me in the same way NY did, but maybe the slower pacing has a lot to do with the environment here.
probably one way to avoid - or improve - the formula would be focusing scenes not only on Larry, but also the supporting cast. not wanting it to be SEINFELD 2, but it would be more dynamic. well, maybe this already happened; i still have 5 and half more seasons to watch.
dunno if you guys heard this: Larry is to star in the next Woody Allen movie, which seems kind of fitting: George was always "Larry David by way of Woody Allen". |
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