Search - Patton Oswalt: No Reason to Complain on DVD

Comedy Central, listen up

MichaelH | East Coast US | 05/03/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Patton Oswalt is funny and my two stars is not because of his performance. It's because of Comedy Central mangling the DVD version.

The show was originally broadcast on Comedy Central, and as such it was cut down to about 40 minutes so it could fill a one-hour time slot with commercials.

The DVD has the original show, and then in the bonus section, it has "deleted scenes," which are the parts of the full-length concert that were cut for time.

So, you can watch the time-edited show, or you can watch the out-of-context segments that were taken out. But what you can't do, and what I have to think any chimpanzee able to use sign language would know you would want to do, is see the original full-length show in its entirety.

So, cheers for Patton, boos for CC. I won't be buying the DVD and that's why."

Great comic gets no respect from Comedy Central

Scott Bresinger | New York, USA | 06/27/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I was almost completely unfamiliar with Patton Oswalt before watching this DVD, but now I'm practically a frothing-at-the-mouth fan. Known as one of the foremost voices in "alternative comedy," Oswalt proudly carries the torch set down by the late Bill Hicks. Mixing social commentary with gleefully rude scatalogical material, Oswalt goes one further than Hicks with a kind of playful (but pointed) surrealism. One early routine on "No Reason To Complain" is a series of jokes about midgets, but but it's too bizarre and silly to be offensive ("if you throw a midget into a tub of hot water, he turns into chamomile tea!")--besides, it's also tears-streaming-down-your-face hilarious. More sharply observant is a bit about the differences between conservative talk radio and NPR, in which racist right-wingers present themselves as rebellious by using hard rock intro music, while their liberal counterparts can only muster "a sad, lonely saxophone echoing in a sewer pipe." Oswalt announces that he hates George W. Bush and the Iraq war (this once got him booed offstage in Pittsburgh, but the audience of fans in the DVD practically give him a standing-O), but he also hates hippies. "I'm a man without a country," he says. There's also a completely original take on one of the most overdone subjects of the last few years--Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ." While Oswalt notes that he's a "stone cold atheist," he nonetheless gives Gibson kudos for having the balls to make such a violent, raw movie. Oswalt's propsition for a similar movie he'd like to see just has to be heard to believed.

Now for the bad news: this was originally broadcast as a one-hour special on Comedy Central and was heavily bleeped and edited for television. While the "unrated" DVD eliminates the bleeps, it unfortunately saves the original format, bringing the main program down to just 42 minutes (that's a lot of commercials!). It's pretty obvious where the ad breaks were, and it hurts the flow of the routine. One special feature has 16 minutes of deleted scenes, which are indeed even more foul-mouthed than the main portion, but why couldn't Comedy Central present the show as it was originally performed? It's almost as if it were dumped onto DVD straight from Tivo. Then there's the matter of having to skip past four obnoxious ads for other DVDs just to get to the main menu--not only doew it make me less interested in the other products, it makes me openly resentful. If that's the kind of respect Comedy Central gives its talent, it's a wonder anyone wants to work with them. Now I think I understand why Dave Chappelle quit his highly successful show.

A couple of the other bonus features almost make up for it. One is an earlier half-hour special (well, 20 minutes without the commercials) of Oswalt in New York, which is almost as funny as the main program. There's also a series of short low-budget skits featuring Oswalt and a couple of other actors playing supermarket employees who riff on various gen-X topics. While these kind of old skits show their age a bit, and are clearly indebted to the likes of "Slackers" or "Clerks," they're still good for a few giggles.

The next time Oswalt does a show in my area, I definitely plan on being there. I hope, though, that the next time he does a televised special, he can do it with a premium cable network like HBO, where this great comic's scorching monologues won't be presented as just another product."

Midgets, you may be offended

R.H. | CA | 04/16/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Terrific DVD all the way through. His take on Midgets and 80s metal videos are particuarly hilarious. What I really liked were the extras though. You get his comedy central presents special and about an additional 30 minutes of stand up from the special that didnt make it to air. Very funny, further proof that patton is one of the few beautiful roses growing out of the manure heap the Blue Collar comedy tour created out of todays stand up scene"

Easter egg

film fan | 07/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The material starts off a bit weak, based on how funny Patton Oswalt has been on all those late night talk shows, but it's all worth it for the NPR bit and his musings on his fantasy movie involving Einstein. There is an easter egg on this DVD--It is an amusing home video that Patton made with his friends when they were teenagers, and it is supposed to be HIS version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Don't read any further if you want to find it for yourself. To access it, go to the bonus features section, scroll down to "Food for thought" (last one on the list), and left-select it."