I watch a couple documentaries a week on my satellite dish. But not many documentaries make it to the multiplex. So when a documentary about comedians showed up at the local theater, I ran right down before it closed.

Comedian follows Jerry Seinfeld after his sit-com went off the air. He did one HBO special to retire all of his material, then he started over. Seinfeld headed for the New York neighborhood comedy clubs first hanging out with his friend Colin Quinn, and later going on stage to try to do five new minutes of comedy.

What Seinfeld forgot over his years in sit-com heaven, is that you have to write and perform stand up everyday. His progress was slow.

Conversely, Orny Adams is a young comedian with stacks and stacks of material. He's been performing for years, but hasn't had that big break. Adams is getting closer and closer to the top, but surprisingly, the closer he gets, the more miserable he is.

As the film progresses, Seinfeld slowly builds new material, and Adams nearly has an emotional melt down as he finds a new manager, and then gets a shot on The late Show.

Now that's a compelling story. The trouble with Comedian is its production values. In the beginning of the film, Seinfeld and Quinn are sitting back stage in a noisy club. The movie was shot on video and it appears the audio was captured with an on-camera microphone. This means more club sound was recorded than voices. It's extremely difficult to hear what the two are saying.

So here you have this great contrast of stories, Seinfeld with fame looking for material, and Adams with material looking for fame, but you can't hear it! It was so bad, the person I went to the film with walked out.

I'd like to see more documentaries at the multiplex. The big screen can give us picture quality our TV screens can't come close to, but lets get a film made by people who know what they are doing.

Dust Bag Full

Film Facts

Cast
• Jerry Seinfeld
• Orny Adams
• Bill Cosby
• Robert Klein
• Jay Leno
• Kevin Nealon
• Colin Quinn
• Chris Rock
• Garry Shandling
• George Wallace

Directed by Christian Charles

Released in 2002

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewed by Mongo