American: The Bill Hicks Story

[walldude]

Hey normally I would post this in the entertainment area but I know Bill Hicks is well loved on DU. I found this on EMPIRE the UK movie magazine website. It's a documentary on Bill Hick's life. it looks like it opens soon.
This just shot up to my number one must see movie.

http://www.empireonline.com/futurefilms/film.asp?id=136800#trailer

[Echo In Light]

1. Thanks! There are several doc/performance films about Bill, esp the one narrated by Janeane Garofalo...

[BrklynLiberal]

2. thank you very much for this headsup.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Some great videos..including the Letterman performance that was cut.

http://artoftalk.tv/2009/08/14/bill-hicks-reveals-the-dark-side-of-comedy-on-letterman-1989/

Narration by Janeane Garafolo of Letterman routine.

[deutsey]

4. I definitely want to see this. Thanks. n/t

[Greyhound]

5. Off to the Greatest Page with this announcement.

His death was so sad, almost as sad as the fact that he was deemed too honest for consumption by the American Sheeple.

[AnneD]

6. He was well loved....

in Houston.

[Hissyspit]

7. Most appreciated; hadn't heard about this.

[myrna minx]

8. K&R n/t

[wolfgangmo]

9. The greatest stand up ever?

It's an easy argument to make. Most assuredly he is one of the greats. For me it is a coin toss between him and Carlin with house odds going to Hicks. I've seen video of his early work in small clubs where he was basically going one on one with corporate mooks and redneck christo-fascists proto-patriotic hecklers and blowing them out of the water.

The funny thing is that I am an immigrant from Canada (I fell in love, I moved - so sue me) and I knew about Hicks long before I moved here and I knew about him much more than any yanks I met. Most of the yanks I know who love Hicks were introduced to him by me. How, I wonder, is it possible that such a genious didn't find acceptance here?

The answer is found in the denizens of corporate boardrooms. The stupid don't like being laughed at.

[Echo In Light]

10. Bruce, Carlin & Hicks: Holy Trinity of using the role of comic as social critic/speak truth to power

Lenny paved the way and paid for it

Carlin was The Master, in my estimation

And Bill...Bill was something else, and now that we've outlived him long enough to see the country become a right winger's wet fuckin dream, his voice/ideas resonate more urgently and passionately than ever.

[WilliamPitt]

12. Don't forget Richard Pryor

[Echo In Light]

13. Pryor was another outstanding comic who soared well above the usual range

... speaking about the harsh realities of his era, of being black, poverty, drug addiction, common perceptions, etc

I don't necessarily cast him as really, you know, consciously putting himself in that particular spotlight of needing to challenge social systems/hierarchical structures the way the other three did, though ... at least not as consistently throughout his long career.

Still, Pryor was killer

[XOKCowboy]

16. I'm a huge fan of comedy and only saw him once or twice on TV..

He couldn't/wouldn't do the Tonight Show (though he did do Letterman several times) and even though Carlin and Pryor were all over HBO/Showtime Bill never did a stand up special that I know of. I was a fan from the first time I saw/heard him but I think he just wasn't "ready for Prime Time" as they say. Plus he was critical of President Clinton (he was truly an equal opportunity politician hater). Then of course the cancer took him way too soon also.

He'd have had a field day with the 8 years of Bush.

[Echo In Light]

18. I saw a routine where he weighed Bush/Clinton's then upcoming election ...

And while you're correct in that he routinely preached against the two puppet-party fallacy, he sided w/Clinton as the 'lesser evil,' and was openly referring to Reagan/Bush, and their "conservative" ilk who rose up through the 80s, as fascists and mass murderers.

You didn't find many 'big' comics then - or now - with that sort of dedication to specifically choosing language that really seemed caustic at the time - and it only seemed beyond the pale due to the social conditioning Americans are raised within which prevents them from accurately identifying and sizing up political ideologies, and the corruption of their country's system of governance.

Carlin did it, too ...in fact, he and Hicks were the only two I can recall who railed extensively against the first Gulf slaughter. Both had recorded shows around that time which included very long, thought-out anti-war bits.

On the other hand, Hicks was likewise fond of claiming that his act was like "Chomsky with dick jokes."

[tavalon]

22. There are some people here at DU who are as smart as he was

but think about that. People here are generally far smarter and well informed than the average person, therefore Hicks was just too smart and too well informed (and too willing to rub it in people's faces) to be more popular, though, if the pancreatic cancer hadn't taken him so early, I wonder how famous he might have become.

[Mohamed]

11. Yay

Hick! I prefer George though.

[Echo In Light]

14. Here's the link to the movie's site ...

http://www.americanthemovie.com/

[Echo In Light]

15. Also found this re previously unreleased material due out ...

After the film directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas took the stage. They were joined by Bill Hicks’ brother Steve. Bill’s mother was in the audience as well. It was clear they were emotional about the film. I also got a sense of great pride in Steve’s voice when talking about his brother and Steve and his family’s desire to spread Bill’s message.

Steve said there is 150 hours of never before seen video of Bill Hicks performing, over 200 hours of never released audio and a shoebox filled with tapes of Bill’s music recorded while he was on the road. Steve went to Abbey Road and mastered all of the music and he expects around Fall of 2010 we’ll be seeing some of all this unreleased material start to be put out there.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44299

[XOKCowboy]

17. Another link...

with the trailer..

http://www.billhicks.com/

It's about time Bill got his due.

[fishwax]

19. cool!

:bounce:

[MilesColtrane]

20. Thank god this film came out before the Russel Crowe/Ron Howard biopic that's in development.

[tavalon]

21. My husband's father was a good friend of Hicks

No one was surprised that he died(though dying of cancer rather than by his own hand was something of a surprise). He found this world horrific and yet he was such a good comedian. I think that may be why we love him here - he was one of us but one of the best of us.

[Echo In Light]

31. It's no secret that many comic artists draw from a wellspring of darkness/depression

What I especially enjoy about Bill is how he faced the grim reality of our creation head on, and found that some of the tried n true avenues of the hippie/spiritual counter culture remained alive and essential...this, in a time when the mainstream of the culture had been conditioned away from perceiving any legitimacy within those choices/outlets. Why? A lack of greed that the consumer culture perpetuates on countless levels (why do you think so few americans stand up and fight back on anything?)

The closing monologue he sometimes used re how we individually and collectively could change everything (implying the long list of human atrocities) by merely making a choice in how we approach matters (letting go of superficiality/greed), lamenting that if we used all the money annually spent on weapons we could instead feed and cloth the world while exploring inner and outer space together, then followed by sudden, loud gunshots-mock assassination for having espoused such an 'un-american' view, was spot on precisely due to the honest simplicity of the message.

[tavalon]

32. Yeah, I heard that ending once

and realized that I was watching a savior, a tortured savior. But then they all are, even the most famous ones, no?

Edited to change the statement "a savior" to "a Christ".

[EFerrari]

34. I've never met a happy stand up. People who go through happier periods

but that's about it. Which is why God invented sex and drugs and sleep.

[RagAss]

37. He was enlightened .... why would he want to stay around a shithouse world?

[tavalon]

38. Because he cared. A lot

Frankly I think that's why he couldn't stay longer.

[Initech]

23. Rush Limbaugh: scat muncher

[troubledamerican]

29. Barbara Bush's pearls

and ball-less scrotum

[walldude]

24. .

[RadiationTherapy]

25. I wish he wasn't so heartbroken; some of his act was very angry and judgemental towards women.

Still the best ever. Ahead of Bruce and Pryor in my opinion; tied with the elder Carlin (young george carlin was too silly for me.).

[abq e streeter]

26. a short personal recollection of Hicks; sent to me by a friend, a few weeks ago:

Did you know that Hicks was a friend of The Planets, during their last few years?
He was based out of Texas at the time and was still doing small clubs.
I recall him at a Planets gig in Lubbock....he got onstage and did his Mick Jagger imitation, while the band gimped their way through 'Satisfaction'. After the gig, Danny, Joe Don, Hicks and I went look for a party. He was a HARDCORE party favor guy. I tried my hardest to make Hicks laugh, but I just couldn't do it. He said he hated the fact that some people try to make comedians laugh.

A few months later, he put us all on a guest list to see him at a club in Austin.
He was very funny, but I just considered him a local yokel till I saw him on Letterman.

[OnionPatch]

27. Thank you, thank you!

Awesome! I love and miss Bill. If he were around right now, he'd be shooting his little poison darts into that elephant right along with us. :)

[Mudoria]

28. He had his moments but I've always thought he was overrrated....

[tavalon]

33. I never, ever, once thought that

He made me laugh and then he took my breath away with his ending.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. Kick

:kick: :thumbsup:

[Echo In Light]

35. Bump

[RagAss]

36. Thanks !