Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian

Where does comedy come from?

A look at the work of two stand-up comics, Jerry Seinfeld and a lesser-known newcomer, detailing the effort and frustration behind putting together a successful act and career while living a life on the road.

Jerry Seinfeld Orny Adams Greg Giraldo Jim Norton Sherrod Small Allan Havey Colin Quinn Cynthia Koury George Wallace Robert Klein T. Sean Shannon Gary Greenberg Shawn Seymour Richard Spector Michael Britt Craig Figueiredo Nicole Severine Nicole Beatty Tom Papa Mario Joyner

documentary comedy

82 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • Pablo Alonso

    Review by Pablo Alonso ★★★

    It was great seeing Seinfeld and really interesting to see the process and the anguish and insecurities that accompany the professional comedian. When he was on camera it all went great, you could really sympathize with his struggle and also the comedians surrounding him seem to have a very authentic relationship with him, but when the other comedian was the center of attention I just disconnected, he was an asshole and not particularly funny. In the end having two different subjects in completely different stages of their careers and with two very different attitudes towards it makes for a mess, aside from that it's poorly shot.

  • Ben Trout

    Review by Ben Trout ★½

    There's nothing to watch. Our fearless documentation has clearly fashioned a compare and contrast piece, but it backfires, revealing not the young comedian's break into the business vs. the established comic's return to the stage, but revealing instead a funny man (Seinfeld) and another deeply self conscious - frankly - unfunny man. (Too often, it also feels like a vindication for Jerry, as if getting back into comedy required him to personally commission his feelings about closeting his ego for a short while. The executive producer credit doesn't help matters). Also, in the spirit of drawing attention towards the film as a documentary and not as a segue to Jerry's routine, we see very little actual stand-up, making the interesting…

  • JK Wall

    Review by JK Wall ★★★★½

    So great.

  • Cliff

    Review by Cliff ★★

    Documentary and vanity project following Jerry Seinfeld (one of the film's producers) as he tours the stand-up circuit, having retired all his old material and decided to start again from scratch. It also follows up-and-coming (in his head) comic Orny Adams as he tries to find fame. It's weird to see Seinfeld so insecure about his new material (though to be fair, not much of it is especially funny), and amusing to see how arrogant and self-absorbed Adams is, but there's not much insight into the art of writing routines; a process which, for the most part, presumably takes place in the uncinematic confines of comedians' minds. Chris Rock appears briefly in one section, making you wonder how much more…

  • Kurt Fabisch

    Review by Kurt Fabisch ★★★★

    Superb documentary. Too bad it's the worst to look at.

  • Rich_W

    Review by Rich_W ★★★★

    A definitive delve into the peculiar existence of the stand-up comic, this fascinating doco charts Jerry Seinfeld's post-sitcom return to the circuit and juxtaposes his travails with those of Orny Adams, an upcoming comic with a brattish attitude and oversized sense of entitlement. The instant classic trailer may have rendered the phrase “In a world” hilariously obsolete, but, whether capturing the nocturnal, ritualistic activities of Seinfeld and his shit-talking, fry-chomping peers (Chris Rock, Garry Shandling, Ray Romano, Colin Quinn) or showing the more vicious side of the stand-up game (Jerry losing his thread on stage; legendary comedy manager Barry Katz riling the cocksure Orny with some unsolicited advice), director Christian Charles scores by taking us inside a world so insular and odd that at times it’s like watching a wildlife documentary. As movies about comedy go, this is no joke.

  • Rocco Tenaglia

    Review by Rocco Tenaglia ★★★½

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  • Marcin Wichary

    Review by Marcin Wichary ★★½

    The ins and outs of being a comedian fascinate me to no end. I couldn’t recommend enough the 2009 book And here's the kicker, full of great interviews with comedy professionals; interviews that shed a lot of light on something we suspected all along – for most comedians humour is an escape, a defense mechanism, a way to deal with the darkest demons of their past.

    Another good one is this year’s documentary Conan O’Brien can’t stop which chronicles Conan’s creative (and hilarious) way out of the whole Jay Leno debacle.

    Comedian’s premise is similar, finding Seinfeld in need to reinvent himself after his eponymous show ended its run, but the movie couldn’t be more different if it wanted to.…

  • Martin Teller

    Review by Martin Teller ★★★½

    [rewatch 10/29/11] It's weird that I have a copy of this when I only rated it a 7 the first time, but I've resolved to watch everything I own that I haven't seen for a while, so here goes. I won't be keeping this one, but it was kinda fun to watch Jerry again. I'd love to see his show, but he doesn't come to Portland that much. And how about that Orny Adams? Wow, that guy is a tool. I remember them saying on the DVD commentary that they didn't intend to make him look bad, but he sure ends up looking bad. It sort of sucks that the movie drops his storyline in the last half hour without any sense of where he's heading, but Jerry's the real show here. Rating: Good