I don’t toss the word Genius around a lot, but Zach is a genius. Who else in the world would put out a comedy DVD (live at the purple onion) in which the performance could be classified as a bomb? How can you bomb and be fucking brilliant? The answer is: You can’t, but Zach can.
Clever, offbeat material that is sometimes undermined by a overly disturbing delivery. Zach can be brilliant, but get in his own way at times.
I think it’s interesting that other reviews here have Zach’s material outshining his delivery. Both are stellar, but Zach’s real ability is to just keep working at something with different deliveries.
I’ve never seen a comic willing to fail in front of the audience, even on his own DVD. I think that improvisation and instant real feedback from the audience fuels him.
Nothing special. He tries to downplay his presentation and succeeds just a little too much.
Zach Galifiankis is a comic’s comic. He’s the Bela Fleck of comedians.
The genius of his work is not so much in his understanding of what makes a crowd respond as it’s what makes other comics respond. I believe that it’s more important for him to get the approval of peers than it will ever be from an audience. This becomes obvious with his continual willingness to risk image and career to test what he truly believes to be funny to people that understand performing and comedy. If he left his methods and beliefs by the wayside and just focused on what every other comic strives to become he would immediately be a consumer success. He never has, and he never will. That to me makes him a valent and brilliant comic, but probably a very tortured one as well. The great ones always are.
If I’m wrong, then this guy is on a whole nother level I can’t even fathom. Either way, he’s the best I’ve seen in a long time.
Though he risks failure far too often to be sure you’ll get a great show for him, when he’s on he’s incredible. And when he wins an audience back from one of those self-inflicted situations, he’s a genius.
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