Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke

 (2009)

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray features mediocre video and audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
As raw and offensive as ever, Artie Lange returns to his roots in 'Jack and Coke', shot at one of his favorite clubs in his beloved New York City. One of America’s funniest stand-up comedians, Lange’s irreverent, uncensored humor gets huge laughs from this NYC crowd. The culmination of nearly four years of touring, 'Jack and Coke' includes nearly an hour and a half of insanely honest, hilarious material. Hope you like it.

For more about Artie Lange: Jack and Coke and the Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray release, see the Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray Review

Starring: Artie Lange
Director: Scott DePace

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray Review

I’ve had one too many.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, January 13, 2010

There's nothing sadder than the tears of a clown, as they say, and I get a feeling that Artie Lange is a sad, sad clown. Like John Belushi, to whom he's often been compared, Lange has battled more than his share of personal demons, including a self-professed heroin habit, a much-publicized weight gain, and the pangs of rehab and withdrawal. In late 2009, however, with the CD release of Jack and Coke, his first standup album, Lange's life and career seemed to be back on the up and up. He had kicked his drug habit, sworn off of alcohol, and lost a lot of weight. It was quite a shock, then, to hear that earlier this month, the Howard Stern cohort and former MADtv star tried to take his own life by stabbing himself nine times in the stomach with a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife. I don't want to speculate on his personal life or mental state, but clearly the guy has some intense issues with self-loathing. And this comes through in his raunchy standup act, which is rife with debauchery and self-debasement.

Not a Daffy Duck impersonation...

As much as I feel sorry for Artie Lange, as much as I'd like to say that Jack and Coke is a towering comedic achievement right up there with the early albums of Richard Pryor and George Carlin—two similarly scandalous comics—I have to be honest and say that Lange's standup routine is a painfully laugh-free hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back. Hear me out, Lange-lovers. There's no accounting for taste, and comedy is the ficklest of genres. What may have you doubled over, clutching your gut and wheezing in asthmatic fits of laughter may find me stony-faced and silent, looking like a glum Buster Keaton. I just don't find Artie Lange funny. At all. I think his overuse of the words "gay" and "fag" is blatantly homophobic, his stories about dalliances with Las Vegas prostitutes are demeaning and misogynistic, and many of his racially charged jokes cross the fine line into being actually racist. I'm no stranger to "edgy" or "raw" comedy, but Artie Lange's material simply seems mean-spirited and crass. Worse, his humor never gets at any kind of truth. The best standup comedy, I think, finds humor in something incredibly and surprisingly true about people, but Lange seems content to shock and offend. For example:

The first line of his routine is, "I'm glad Heath Ledger died, and I'll tell you why. I can finally get all the movie roles I was losing out to that motherf---er." He then goes on to act out, quite graphically, his own purported audition for Brokeback Mountain, which allegedly involved violating Jake Gyllenhaal in every way imaginable. How clever. And how many years ago did Brokeback Mountain come out? Seriously, who's still making Brokeback Mountain jokes? I'm not familiar with Lange's back catalog of comedy, so I can't be sure, but it seems like most of Jack and Coke is comprised of recycled bits and no longer relevant jokes. I'm almost surprised he didn't bust out some Monica Lewinski gags. Don't worry though, he does cover such timely topics as 1990s boy-band 98°, Jessica Simpson's weight, and Tom Cruise's overly energetic Oprah appearance. Lange is better when he's telling personal stories and reveling in his own foibles, but his self-deprecation—particularly in light of his recent suicide attempt—is more sad than it is funny. One story, about how you should never send a whore out to buy you cocaine, goes on for much, much too long.

Filmed in May 2009 at New York's relatively small Gotham Comedy Club, Jack and Coke makes it clear that Artie Lange doesn't command the huge following of, say, Patton Oswalt or Jim Gaffigan. The show's audience seems to be having a decent time, but there's no paucity of uncomfortable glances and humorless smiles as the camera pans across the crowd. Most awkwardly, whenever Lange makes a joke about a particular race, the camera cuts to someone of that ethnicity for a reaction shot, as if to say, "Look, it's okay that he made a borderline racist comment! This guy is laughing!" Well, I'm glad someone is. There's definitely a reason why comedy clubs try to keep their patrons liquored up, but it would take more than a few Jack and Cokes to make me enjoy Jack and Coke.

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Shot on high-definition video and given a problematic but relatively clean 1080i/AVC-encoded transfer, Jack and Coke's glass is either half full or half empty, depending on your perspective. I wasn't very impressed, actually, as the image is consistently soft, and almost scrubbed entirely of fine detail. This could be a post-production attempt to remove digital noise, or simply the way the footage looked out of the camera, but either way, Artie Lange appears to have a plastic, candle-wax stump for a face, with his stubble looking like a grey smear and his skin seeming conspicuously devoid of texture. Aliasing also interrupts the fidelity of the image frequently, as close parallel lines—like Artie's mic, his zipper, the text on the wall behind him, and an audience member's striped shirt—often shimmer and flicker. On the plus side, color seems natural, black levels are decent, and noise never peaks. Look out for the incredibly noisy opening sequence though. Not sure what wrong there, but it clears up whenever the show actually starts.

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

There's really not much to say about Jack and Coke's uncompressed PCM 2.0 audio track other than the fact that it does what it needs to do. Artie Lange's delivery comes across as clear and clean, and, well, that's about it. The mix has an appropriately "live" feeling, and though the audience's hoots, hollers, and laughs are audible, they're never overly loud or obtrusive. We do get an Artie Lange-themed rap by musician Re-Surch at the beginning of the show, but that's the only music you'll hear. This is a bare bones but capable track, and I didn't notice any drop-outs, hissing, or other audio anomalies.

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

Artie's Fans (1080i, 3:04)
Pre-show and post-show, Artie's fans—in varying levels of inebriety—profess how awesome he is and wish him well.

Behind-the-Scenes (1080i, 4:47)
Think the greenroom of a comedy club might be glamorous? There is garlic bread. See Artie, Pete Dominick, and Joe Matarese tooling around backstage.

Hecklers and Extra Jokes (1080i, 4:05)
Artie responds to hecklers with some lame put-downs and doles out a few jokes about Oprah and Hurricane Katrina.

Pete Dominick (1080i, 10:10)
Opener Pete Dominick offers up a short, moderately funny set about bald white men, parking in NYC, and the "Miracle on the Hudson."

Joe Matarese (1080i, 10:54)
Materese gives the best set of the night, in my opinion, with a higher concentration of laughs in ten minutes than Artie Lange managed to get out of me in an hour and a half.

Song by ReSurch (1080i, 2:23)
Rapper/producer Re-Surch tells how he got involved with writing the theme song for Jack and Coke.

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

I readily admit that Artie Lange just doesn't do it for me comedically, but even when I put on my objective critic's hat I can't see too much value in Jack and Coke. The jokes are stale, the humor—what little there is—strains for shock value, and in the light of Lange's recent suicide attempt, his self-deprecation seems painful and transparent. The Coke must've gone flat, because all I can taste is the Jack, and it's pretty bitter.

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