Customer Reviews

Sam Kinison: Why Did We Laugh

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The life of the late great Sam Kinison is explored from birth to his untimely death in this wonderful video. It has lots of interviews with Sam's friends, colegues, and his brother Bill. The way it is put together is great, with some of his best comedy clips on the video. It tells about the life of Sam Kinison very well, from the loud mouth hysterical man on stage, to the warm, caring man off it. Buy it... you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll laugh again.

The late Sam Kinison has always been a maligned person due to his outrageous stage presence and performance. In this DVD, you can learn the way Sam REALLY died, see unseen footage of his standup start in Texas and see unseen footage of Sam when he was a preacher. Also included in this DVD are scenes with Dennis Miller, Larry King, Rodney Dangerfield, Jay Leno, Judy Tenuta and other famous faces.

Sam may have been outrageous, crazy, and many other adverbs and adjectives, but you'll know the real story when it's over. Get this and find out the REAL story. END

I watched "Why Did We Laugh" with great interest. Director Larry Carroll has found something deeper and much more interesting about Sam Kinison lurking just behind the noise and laughter. I didn't think it was possible but Kinison actually seems to have been a very human, very compelling character. Bravo.

If you really want to get into Sam's routine(s),don't buy this dvd. As soon as you start enjoying his material, it stops to interview someone else that knew him.

I have a guilty pleasure .... the late comedian Sam Kinison .... the guy who turned from being a screaming preacher to being a screaming stand-up, and if he strikes you the right way, you can laugh til you hurt.

He was really very religious and a great communicator. He was disillusioned with people like Tammy Faye Baker and hubby and their ilk .... the so-called religious people who raised money for shopping malls etc, and so he quit the evangelical circuit to communicate in a very different way. He was also someone very disillusioned by very bad relationships and he expresses his extreme rage at his ex-wives and lovers in a way that others who have been through the same thing can identify with in a very cathartic way.

I remember hating his screaming back in the 80s when I first heard him and then changing my mind when I saw this very same documentary about him about a year ago on A&E. He was in extreme pain and he dumped it on his audience who roared with uncontrollable laughter. Funny how that works.

Having rented nearly every Sam Kinison DVD published to date (Jan. '08), I think this video contains most of Sam's best routines. It includes some truly outstanding bits from his early start in Texas, including some which IMHO he never did as well in later performances.

As noted in other reviews, this video tells the story of Sam's life in pseudo documentary format -- from his early years growing up as the son of a preacher, to his start in comedy, certain key events during & after his rise to the top, to the sad story of his tragic & untimely death.

Unfortunately..... this DVD has been re-published since its original release, which I rented several years ago. This new version has all the same Sam K. content, BUT: As originally published the video was divided into "chapters"; title graphics & music played between each segment/chapter, putting it all into a logical sequence. What you get now, between the comedy bits & the interviews, is dead silence with a jangled assortment of photos & short, now-muted video clips which seem like pointless filler. (They even took out the opening title sequence - what's up with that??) The end result is a disorganized and confusing presentation - a bunch of great Sam K. clips interrupted by seemingly meaningless interview segments. There *was* a point to those segments and their sequence, but there's no way to tell that now. Shame on the publisher for butchering the video in this way, they have destroyed the cohesive and interesting story as told in the original release. Sam's memory deserves better.

My rating: Sam K's material in this DVD: 5 stars. Presentation: 0 stars. If you're eager for a good selection of Sam's best this is it. Just be prepared to fast-forward through the transition segments, and forget trying to comprehend any story or timeline behind what's being presented. I've returned my copy and I'm hoping (the online video-rental co. I subscribe to) still has the original so I can watch it again.

All I can say is, if you can find an original-release version of this video to rent or buy, get it instead - don't bother with this one.

This is the story of a man who was unafraid to tell the truth. Despite the other snarky comments some have posted, this video is a great introduction to a complex, unappreciated genius who has largely been forgotten by our Britney-besotted generation.

So says the tombstone of Sam Kinison who was one of the greatest comedians of our age. His talent outshined that of his peers, and his physical presence was as integral to his success as was his material. Nowadays, in a society blighted by political correctness, only comedians are allowed to speak freely which makes the likes of Sam Kinison all the more alluring. He expounded (with volume!) the foibles of human nature without a filter and we are in his debt. His life is explored here along with selected segments of his art. No, this is not a comedy compilation. You'll be disappointed if you think it will be. The film informs us of his history and features his brother and best friend as the primary persons to reveal his personality. Rodney Dangerfield and Richard Pryor also provide valuable insight. Kinison's was an incredibly passionate life. How obvious it is now, in retrospect, the similarity between his skills as a preacher and the nature of his stage presence. This documentary elucidates the way that he was attacked by PC as well for his shtick on gays and AIDS. We're lucky that a few brave folks like Sam persisted in slaughtering sacred cows and skewering the posturing of our self-righteous elite. I thoroughly enjoyed this DVD and look forward to rerenting the ones devoted to his stand-up.

The first time I saw Sam Kinison was in the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School. Sam just had a small bit as the unbalanced Professor Terguson, but he almost stole the show. I made a mental note to keep an eye out for this raving, original comedian. The next few years brought lots of laughs and surprises.

The strengths in this excellent film are its recounting of Sam's standup career and the interviews with a group of comedians on what made Sam different from everyone else in the comedy business. One gets a good sense of how Sam's originality contributed to his success in a difficult business. The film includes some great clips of Sam's act and his appearance in Dangerfield's Back to School. Why Did We Laugh also recounts Rodney Dangerfield's role in Sam's success.

If there is a missed opportunity in this film, I think it is that the filmmakers do not go quite far enough into Sam's dark side. The viewer gets an idea of the demons that drove Kinison's comedy, but there is not enough material on the experiences that motivated him. There is one clip from Sam's routine in which he says that, before his birth, he was happy, floating in a place where there was no pain. Then Sam begins to SCREAM at his parents for bringing him into this world. To me, that was a fascinating bit that revealed a lot.

I think that it is fair to say that Sam's career had cooled off a bit by the time that he died. Why Did We Laugh? recounts Kinison's excesses with drugs and alcohol. The film, however, does not recount the poor decisions that Sam made, in particular his disastrous fight with "super agent" Michael Ovitz when Kinison refused to do a movie that Ovitz wanted him to do. Kinison's prospects in the movies dimmed considerably after that fight.

Why did we laugh? In the end, I think that Kinison was a true rarity - a show business (and American) original. The fact that he managed to discuss taboo issues in an era when nothing is supposed to be shocking certainly did not hurt his career. Whatever one thinks of Kinison's comedy, he was a fascinating person. I recommend this film.

it just wasn't a good compliation