One-Liners: One-Liners

Three docs for the price of one: 

NORMAN LEAR: JUST ANOTHER VERSION OF YOU (B) - This adoring documentary about the mega-producer who created alt-TV in the 1970s traffics in the maudlin but ends up as a smart examination of the 93-year-old survivor of the culture wars.

"All in the Family" changed the face of television, an assaultive proto-Trumpian guttural screech from a divided America at the turn of a decade. Norman Lear infused that cutting comedy with personal touches from his own hard upbringing. Daddy issues abound -- and nearly drown the proceedings -- and filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady ("Detropia") even go so far as to goose the narrative with staged re-enactments of an adolescent parading around in Lear's signature white floppy hat. That's where the sap creeps in.

They pay due homage to Lear's output in the '70, including the "All in the Family" spinoffs (and spinoffs of spinoffs) "The Jeffersons," "Maude," and "Good Times" (where we see Lear on the set with his mostly white staff and mostly black cast, with the tensions of the time evident). There's also a tip of the cap to surreal nighttime soap "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." The movie sags in the final reel as we wander away from the world of network TV into Lear's equally prominent passion, politics, as leader of People for the American Way, his answer to the Moral Majority.

George Clooney shows up for some reason with simplistic analysis. Rob Reiner does belong here, and he's as incisive as he usually is. But it's Lear, with his charisma and wisdom, who carries the show and makes the time with him worthwhile.

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY (2013) (B) - Ah, those were the days. Canadian writer-director Alan Zweig is in a mood to reminisce about the 20th century immigrant ancestors who made growing up Jewish something to cherish, and he ropes in a host of Jewish comedians to agree with him.

He mostly succeeds. As a prominent off-camera voice, he exposes his deep neuroses, a 60-year-old man nostalgic for the old folks, fretting over a lost tradition, but newly raising a little gentile. Many of the funny folks call him on it, especially Bob Einstein (Super Dave Osborne, Marty Funkhauser) over the end credits.

As has been well documented, we love documentaries about comedians, and Zweig loads things up front with the old guard -- Norm Crosby, Shelley Berman, Shecky Greene and Jack Carter. Berman is the feisty one here, refusing to go along with Zweig's thesis that Jews somehow own comedy, or did during the golden era. He prefers to be a comedian who happens to be Jewish. The old guys all sport wonderful wigs and healthy tans. Zweig occasionally drops in '60s clips from the Sullivan era of the likes of Alan King, Rodney Dangerfield, Henny Youngman and Jackie Mason.

The next wave then shows up -- Gilbert Gottfried, David Brenner, Mark Schiff (I'd forgotten about him), Marc Maron (still with that chip on his shoulder) -- to carry the rest of the show. Howie Mandel is surprisingly insightful, and naturally funny. The two women -- Judy Gold and Cory Kahaney -- are especially sharp and bright, more empathetic with Zweig's self-absorption. A bunch of classic jokes get tossed around and analyzed a bit, and they are most easily identified by their punch lines -- "He had a hat," "Oy, vas I thirsty!" and "Look who thinks he's nothing." One of my favorite quickies is from Mandel: Two Jewish men sit down on a park bench. The first one sighs and says, "Oy!" The other responds: "I thought we weren't going to talk about the kids."

Mark Breslin, a Canadian comedy club owner, compares postwar Jewish comedy to jazz -- an expression of powerlessness and intelligence at the same time, born from frustration. He also is not sad that his people have transitioned from kvetching to living more in the mainstream; it means that the struggle has diminished and they've been accepted.

Zweig gives Berman the last word before the credits, or more accurately the last lyrics, as Berman, who is still kicking at 91, sums things up with a Yiddish song. During the credits, the director sets off Einstein for the umpteenth time, and here we go again with the bickering ...

LUNCH (2012) (D) - Oy. Don't bother. I'd rather eat a tongue sandwich.

A group of old comedians and comic writers gather once a month at a deli in Los Angeles to kibbutz and crack wise. Donna Kanter hung out with them for years, eventually turning this into a memorial for her father, Hal Kanter (who wrote for Hope and Crosby's films and for Gobel and Berle's TV shows), who is among the casualties of this treacly, often insipid documentary.

The tragedy of this film is that it's not very funny. A few stale jokes ("He had a hat!") pierce the messy production and the ordinary banter. But most of these guys either were never very funny -- Monty Hall and Gary Owens, anyone? -- or are dreadfully over the hill -- Sid Caesar, for example, who can barely keep up with the conversations. (The TV variety legend died in 2014.)

They all treat the filmmakers like she's an old friend's lovely daughter (which she is), and it barely cuts it as a home movie for these old showmen.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "When Jews Were Funny":