Dane Cook: Vicious Circle_720p(480P)

source: Dane Cook: Vicious Circle

I think Dane Cook is a funny person, he has a natural comedic sense and can execute ideas well. He has good timing and plenty of energy and physical skills. And many of his ideas here are quite interesting and deep, even though the topics are pretty common (relationships, sex, family). The problem is that he goes for too many easy jokes. Weak, obvious ones. Maybe it's because of the huge, fanatical audience. Maybe that made him indulge more. It's a shame because I think he's capable of hilarious, insightful comedy. There are glimpses of it but too often it's interrupted by unnecessary additions or side-tracking. The Beatles stopped touring in 1965 because of their screaming fans - they couldn't hear themselves or their music. Pretty depressing really. This audience also seems to be allergic to quiet - they appear to have an urgent need to fill any and every moment of silence they can find with screaming, shouting, cheering and applause. It's pretty annoying. It's amazing that adults can get this excited about a regular human being. They're just dying to touch him or be near him. I can understand laughter and some applause, but here it keeps cutting off his flow and comes at inappropriate times - they're clearly desperate for (his) attention. I like true stories but I guess every comedian lies and exaggerates - it's basically part of the job. Still, it's annoying if most of it sounds completely made up which is the case with this special. Nevertheless, Dane is good at telling stories. It's just that they drag a bit. If I were a teenager they might be funny. But you can generally tell where he's going with things and you want him to get to the point. I think he just lacks a little artistic discipline. The crowd seems to love it which is important but you want to create something timeless as well. There has to be something personal about it. Dane comes across more as a craftsman. Skilled but not trying to do anymore than the minimum necessary. It's a shame because he seems very talented and intelligent and funny. He doesn't seem to be working anywhere near his full potential - he's aiming for what makes people laugh (including cheap jokes) rather than what's truly, meaningfully funny.

Though I thought that many of the laughs were undeserved and perhaps at some points forced, I thought that the actual performance was not all that bad. Firstly, talking for 2 hours and 12 minutes is an impressive feat in itself, but to a large crowd and maintaining that kind of energy throughout the performance is really good. Also, his material is not that bad at all. Though his stuff may not agree with certain senses of humor, I think that there is at least one joke for everyone, however, there is almost certainly a cringe-worthy moment for everyone as well. Thirdly, his improv is quite high standard (excluding the Jake part)and found it generally added to his performance. Finally, his observations are quite good, and though many of his observations were not specific to my context, he managed to draw the audience in to his point of view. Top Stuff.

If you are a fan of Dane Cook's then you'll definitely love this. It's just a lot of Dane being Dane. And it's GREAT. There's old material thrown in with a lot of new stuff. And all of it is great. He even uses one of his old jokes in a new one. It's a great blend. It's also a pretty decent length of a show, about an hour & a half long. I'd say if you get the chance, watch the uncut version on DVD too. There's about 40-50 extra minutes in the "DANE-gerous" version. Including an encore, some extentions on a few of the bits that aired on the HBO special, and a few completely new things. I have to give Vicious Circle a 10/10 for pure excellence. I quote VC every day. It's great and even if you're not a fan of Dane Cook's this might turn you into one.

On the whole, I thought this was pretty lame, but I can see how certain people might enjoy it -- e.g., Catholic college kids, anyone under 18, or women (or gay men) who think Dane Cook is hot. First, the compliments: it was interesting to see him perform "in the round", his physicality is admirable, and his ability to go from extremely clean (or even child-like) jokes to extremely vulgar jokes shows a nice range. However, overall this just didn't do it for me. I hardly laughed at anything. Most of the jokes seemed to be the kind that a teenager might make up. His "observations" about relationships seemed like they were made by someone who had been in maybe 2 relationships, neither of which lasted more than 6 months -- yet he used the words women "always" do such-and-such, men "always" do whatever. Always? Really? His over-the-top descriptions of how men and women argue seemed completely false. Many other jokes just missed the mark for me, such as the bit about crying - and the implication that "everyone" needs a good cry. Sure, I cry at certain things, but I never need a "good cry." I am not trying to sound tough here, it's just that I don't know any adult men that come home from work, and just start bawling because they wanted to cry their hearts out all day long. Therefore, I chuckled at the jokes, although I was thinking that it had nothing to do with any reality that I personally experience. Girls and young boys could probably relate. Another example - he brings a girl home and she starts masturbating, and he does too. He asks if she likes it and she, like other women, "always" says "ooooh yeah". The joke goes something like: "what if she said, thanks for asking, but no, I don't really want to see that." Are you wondering where the joke is? Me too. Some women enjoy seeing men *, and many do not. So, where is the humor? One last example - he refers to word "chit-chat" as "chat-chit" and then actually states something to the effect that he is very clever. Overall, I just didn't relate to any of his self-absorbed humor, and the "observations" seemed to come from a world that I did not recognize. Although when I was in high school (20 years ago) and knew nothing about relationships or life, I probably would have liked it a lot more.

I am not an avid fan of Dane Cook, and I saw his stand-up special not on purpose but when I was browsing through the channels to find something to watch. Like it or not, I found his special to be hilarious. Yes he did over do somethings and yes he did some unnecessary things. Despite those flaws, Dane Cook's special was still enjoyable. Almost half of the special was made up of verbal jokes and physical humor, where he impersonated his ex, his co-workers and so on. He talked about different things, starting from lying to fighting with his girlfriend and the differences between guys and girls. DC is outrageous and hilarious.

DANE COOK: VICIOUS CIRCLE was the severely overrated HBO debut of red-hot stand up comedian Dane Cook, wisely filmed in his hometown to make him seem a lot funnier than he really is. Cook was first introduced to HBO audiences with the dreadfully boring documentary TOURGASM which was then capped off with this comedy concert filmed in Cook's hometown of Boston. Apparently, Bostonians find this guy hysterically funny because the audience at this concert is shown going out of their minds at every single word that comes out of this guy's mouth and I just didn't get. Cook seems full of himself, self-congratulatory, and madly in love with the sound of his own voice. The nucleus of some very funny material is here, but Cook blows everything way out of proportion...the guy lakes twenty-minutes to tell a five minute joke and his material hardly merits the 90 minutes (!) that HBO gave him while really funny guys like Chris Rock and DL Hughley only get 60 minutes. For hard-core Cook fans only.

!This show is amazing! U like Dane Cook you'll love this, you like comedy you'll love this, this show kicks ass! new material as well as some old stuff. (well as far as i know). Dane does a unique in the round comedy show, its the first i've ever seen a comedy done this way, and he does it amazingly with nothing but his trusty stool. This show will have you crying with laughter, and in my opinion Dane is the American Version of Lee Evans, and he is amazing! You'll be laughing from start to finish... guaranteed lol :p This is unlike any of his other performances i have seen, he has one big audience as well, Dane himself said its his best performance in his 16 years as a comic. I loved it you'll love it too, trust me lol :P

You know, we fool ourselves. We clump things together because of characteristics that show we do not understand. For instance, we have this category of "hobbies," a strange way to organize things we choose to do. Comedy is like that. I believe. If we laugh at things, we clump them together as if they had something in common. So this is called comedy. I think I'd call it great storytelling. These aren't jokes — they're life, spun in a way that we have to laugh. Its the Bill Cosby style of storytelling. Stuff from marriage, childhood, friends. Long, long introspective memories. What works here is that the man does draw us unto his stories. He's quite talented at this. He's less talented at turning that attention into the sort of startling twists or insights that constitute great humor. But it hardly matters because our investment in the story is deep enough for us to laugh at less clever comic devices. If you are interested in who you are, surely you are interested in why you laugh. This helps. And you'll laugh too. He's on a small circular stage. Look closely at the design of the pattern. Its a hand. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.