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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 5, 2024 21:47:20 GMT
Great start. Hoping for more Tracy Ullmann later!
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 5, 2024 23:04:32 GMT
Has Curb Your Enthusiasm softened with age? In some ways, not at all. There is a scene in the opening episode of the new, 12th and supposedly final season in which Larry David is talking to a boring party guest and simply repeats her words in a silly voice at maximum volume. That woman is not seen again.
As the sitcom misadventures of the Seinfeld co-creator’s alter ego have progressed, however, Curb has smoothed some of its edge. The addition a few years ago of the phenomenal JB Smoove as Leon, Larry’s priapic freeloader of a lodger, has given the comedy a more collective vibe, since Leon has his own brand of independent thought bluntly expressed. In the old days, home life was just Larry’s then wife, Cheryl, reacting to his peculiarities. Awkward embarrassment doesn’t hang in the air quite as malevolently as it did when Curb began.
A gradual move to season-long arcs rather than tightly story-lined single episodes has lessened the claustrophobia further. We used to see two or three plots set in motion in the first five minutes and watch content, but somewhat on edge, as they entwined round Larry to form a strangling knot of disaster. These days, a Curb episode means being given a box full of trivial grievances and faux pas, and wondering which ones will collide later to cause a sequence of low-key explosions. The ongoing story does the heavy lifting.
This looser approach works just fine. Season 11, in 2021, was one of the best. If you missed it, the calamity unfolded as follows. The brother of a burglar who drowned in Larry’s swimming pool blackmailed him into casting his sister, Maria Sofia (Keyla Monterroso Mejia), a talentless actor, in his new Netflix comedy, Young Larry. Meanwhile, in an effort to overturn a law requiring safety fences to be built around swimming pools, Larry dated an alcoholic councilwoman, Irma (Tracey Ullman), although he found her toxically irritating. Larry’s plan failed when some shoes he had stolen from an exhibit at the Holocaust museum turned out to have belonged to Irma’s grandfather, causing her to relapse and miss the crucial council meeting. Classic Curb.
A quick update manoeuvres the comeback episode into a new reality. Young Larry has been a success because Maria Sofia is inexplicably popular, which has made her twice as conceited and crass. Larry is still with the fearsome Irma, having been guilt-tripped by her AA sponsor into staying with her for the first 90 days of her recovery. Then Larry leaves the comfort of Los Angeles and travels with Leon and Maria Sofia to Atlanta, because an African businessman is having a birthday party and wants to pay Larry to attend.
Episode one sets up a huge number of minor transgressions, from Larry’s glasses being bent by a stranger who tries them on, prompting him to borrow a pair of Dame Edna-style women’s specs, to a woman called Brooke who does not allow him to call her Brookie. These tend not to include the sort of left-field social observations that used to make us side with Larry, and many of them have no payoff later. They are just indiscriminately piled up. Does that mean Curb is losing its potency? A little, perhaps, but we still feel the wriggling pleasure of witnessing a potential fiasco born in front of us.
Moreover, David and his ensemble are just so good at what they do, watching slightly slacker Curb is like going to see a veteran rock band who have lost relevance but not their groove. Take the scene where Larry is lunching with his manager, Jeff (Jeff Garlin), and they learn that the service is slow because the waiter is in mourning. As they moan that their food will get cold, the way Garlin delivers the simple line, “I ordered a tuna melt – that’s fucked” is funnier than anything most sitcom writers will achieve in their careers because it has the weight of 11 seasons of glorious selfishness behind it. You just know that David and Garlin, who have been the best in the business for decades, will have enjoyed standing around discussing which is the funniest food that is bad when tepid, cycling past soup and grilled cheese before arriving at the correct answer: tuna melt.
Even the closing credits, backed throughout by a police mugshot of a glasses-free Larry staring you out for the duration instead of fading to black, getting funnier with every crew member’s name that flashes up over it, is a moment of effortless genius. Curb is terribly good.www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/feb/05/curb-your-enthusiasm-final-season-review-larry-david-is-the-very-best-in-the-business?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Post by Sneelock on Feb 6, 2024 22:42:18 GMT
the guy sure knows how to promote his last season!
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 7, 2024 0:21:16 GMT
I can forgive him almost anything. He's a great man!
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Post by Sneelock on Feb 7, 2024 0:35:26 GMT
not giving a shit has really worked out very well for him.
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Post by riggers on Feb 20, 2024 10:14:57 GMT
After a lukewarm start (for me) Ep 3 really kicked things up a gear. Great to see more of the cast and Leon was on fine form.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 20, 2024 10:26:17 GMT
I enjoyed the third one a little less than the first two, I have to say, but they've all been a joy. I loved seeing the Japanese dude in the last one losing his temper at them all in the restaurant. Larry David just has to get into a disagreement with someone and it's a TV TREAT.
I was watching some older episodes and they're MUCH more 'spaced out' in terms of action. The improv is slower, there are more dead moments. The last few seasons have been tighter in terms of editing, and more preposterous with the plots. Which of course is part of what makes it funny.
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Post by fonz on Feb 24, 2024 11:32:50 GMT
Just seen 12 1, and it was disappointing. Larry just a parody of himself, but so OTT with the shouting and stuff. The thought crossed my mind that he might be deliberately pushing things too far so that we don’t actually want series 13
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Feb 28, 2024 21:29:10 GMT
Just saw that Richard Lewis has died at 76.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 28, 2024 21:32:03 GMT
Ah shit.
Didn't think he looked THAT ill!
RIP
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Post by davey on Feb 29, 2024 2:18:38 GMT
I used to see him around LA 25-30 years ago. He looked sick even then.
Funny as hell though. Gonna miss him.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Feb 29, 2024 3:22:13 GMT
“Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me. He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.” - Larry David
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Mar 12, 2024 12:06:40 GMT
There was the tiniest moment in the latest episode where Larry checks that he'll be OK to keep getting the 'all you can eat' deal after his friend was banned for life....funniest thing I've seen in ages.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Mar 12, 2024 12:08:05 GMT
oh! it's here
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Post by fonz on Mar 13, 2024 17:19:18 GMT
I have to say, the first episode was relatively poor. Since then it has been a triumph.
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