Exclaim! is reviewing every standup comedy special currently available on Netflix Canada, including this one. You can find a complete list of reviews so far here.
One of the Greats is a truly dynamic standup special in that, sensing an opportunity to shake things up, Chelsea Peretti and her collaborator, filmmaker Lance Bangs, incorporate a slew of sight gags and meta interludes designed to entertain but maybe also jar viewers with surprises, many of which include dogs.
Likely best known for her role on sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Peretti has appeared on and/or written for virtually every major comedy show in the last decade, and her surreal observational fare is a custom job; she has a voice and perspective all her own and has immersed herself in comedy enough to take down some of its (often male-centric) tropes.
She stages this special to address some of the laziness in standup, either directly via the deconstruction of how male comics tend to talk about sex with women on stage, and by the very macho introduction to the special, where she portrays herself as some kind of comedy action star, riding a hog across town to tape this special.
The set itself seems to be on track to follow a familiar format until Peretti's standup is interrupted by a surreal iteration of her own conscience. There are sidelong glances from babies and dogs and a man with a giant smile on his face salts a hardboiled egg, which he procures from a picnic basket in the seat beside him. All of these absurd cutaways are charmingly bizarre, keeping viewers on their toes and engaged with Peretti's takes on social norms and conventions, which are ultimately clever, incisive and hilarious.
One of the Greats is a truly dynamic standup special in that, sensing an opportunity to shake things up, Chelsea Peretti and her collaborator, filmmaker Lance Bangs, incorporate a slew of sight gags and meta interludes designed to entertain but maybe also jar viewers with surprises, many of which include dogs.
Likely best known for her role on sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Peretti has appeared on and/or written for virtually every major comedy show in the last decade, and her surreal observational fare is a custom job; she has a voice and perspective all her own and has immersed herself in comedy enough to take down some of its (often male-centric) tropes.
She stages this special to address some of the laziness in standup, either directly via the deconstruction of how male comics tend to talk about sex with women on stage, and by the very macho introduction to the special, where she portrays herself as some kind of comedy action star, riding a hog across town to tape this special.
The set itself seems to be on track to follow a familiar format until Peretti's standup is interrupted by a surreal iteration of her own conscience. There are sidelong glances from babies and dogs and a man with a giant smile on his face salts a hardboiled egg, which he procures from a picnic basket in the seat beside him. All of these absurd cutaways are charmingly bizarre, keeping viewers on their toes and engaged with Peretti's takes on social norms and conventions, which are ultimately clever, incisive and hilarious.
