Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Seventh Season

4 Comments

1. M on Amazon

   September 23, 2010 at 4:47 pm

   Review by M on Amazon for Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Seventh Season
   Rating:
   I love Larry David. After seeing Curb Your Enthusiasm I realized L.D. coached all of the characters of Seinfeld on how to deliver his jokes, not just Jason Alexander (George Castanza). David has repeatedly mentioned that things on Curb, especially, are not as funny when they are scripted. The jokes will come off like any other sit-com. What has been special about Curb is the element of spontaneity. So much is improvised.

   In the 7th season everyone is too serious about ranting. All smirks and holding back laughter are missing…….I mean the genuine fun that has been just under the surface for most of the series not the fake struggling to hold back laughter that is done on SNL or the old Carol Burnett Show. It seems that they needed to relax and allow scenes some air. It is one rant after another with a few funny moments in between. I hope there are more seasons to come. This was not one of the best.

   Ted Danson, Richard Lewis and Jeff Garlin have been very good under Curb’s improv conditions. Even when they are supposed to be serious they are funny. Some actors and guests/(L.D. friends) appearing on Curb are not actors but comedians. They do not have a clue as to how to behave naturally or plausibly on camera. Add the element of improv and they are often uptight and struggle just to be active. Sometimes saying and doing nothing would have worked better. Over the course of the series there have been about as many successful as failed performances. Sofia Milos, Ben Stiller and Chris Williams are a few that were very good but there is an equally long list of bombs including Christine Taylor, Anne Bancroft, Michael York, and the various appearances of Seinfeld cast members.

   Every time the Seinfeld cast have appeared on Curb they have been overly serious, ranting or taking issue with everything Larry David does. This is not funny. Jerry Seinfeld is not an actor. He managed in Seinfeld but in Curb we are supposed to see him as a real person not a character in a T.V. show. He is terrible under Curb’s improv conditions. They have attempted to edit dialogue so it flows but it is very unnatural and choppy. Jerry looks like he is half asleep. It isn’t funny. Jerry has said that one of the strengths that set Seinfeld apart was that it was always about the humor and never took itself seriously. There was never an episode, A Very Special Seinfeld, where they promoted a cause. The cast had fun. Everyone was light and enjoyed working together. However, Larry David has depicted the cast as a bunch of stuffed shirts who always take exception to his behavior.

   I don’t think talking seriously about humor is ever interesting, let alone funny. It is only interesting when it remains light and is joked about. As soon as someone, especially a comedian, attempts to intellectualize about humor it becomes very dull. Since Seinfeld, Jason Alexander has been trying to show the world he is smart and sharp …the antithesis of George Castanza. The platform in which to make that case is not a related comedy, (including its bonus material). With that in mind, portraying people we have come to believe to be light and funny as a bunch of serious sticks in the mud was a bad concept from the start. Seeing everyone fake a real moment when the crew is supposed to be laughing at the script review/rehearsal was the antithesis of Larry David’s motto, if it is too scripted it isn’t funny.

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2. K. Swanson

   September 23, 2010 at 4:19 pm

   Review by K. Swanson for Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Seventh Season
   Rating:
   4.5 stars

   In some ways this season continues the slowing down of this entire concept…but when the Seinfeld reunion hits, the old Larry is jumpstarted and there are some truly classic scenes. The best of the best for me, as a huge fan of the finest writing on Seinfeld, mostly courtesy Larry and Jerry, are the scenes of them alone together, especially in the car, when you can see Larry come completely alive, his face glowing with real amusement and humor. That’s the very essence of why Seinfeld was one of the ultimate comedy series: those two comic minds at play with each other. These guys are true friends, two peas in a pod, and you can see that with full transparency in their bits together here, the car scene above all; that feels like them at their very happiest. It’s perfect karma to have a friend that inspires you like that.

   Clearly, these two are the Lennon and McCartney of comedy.

   Having said that, Lar reuses many many bits from earlier Curb seasons in season seven, whether as self-conscious homage/parody or sheer ennui is hard to say. Sometimes it works and sometimes it’s flat, but then again the improv nature of this show means stale Curb is like fresh most any other comedy show. I did like him as a single guy here; more interaction with more people makes for more new jokes. When Cheryl comes back it’s nice but Larry just isn’t as funny with her around.

   The early episodes here are good but the last few are much better, though all have their moments and even at its worst Curb is twice as funny as most other shows out there today. The Black Swan is a highlight, and it’s nice in each episode to see Larry being ever more honest about himself, his tipping habits, his all-too-logical curmudgeonly ways, and even pushing the envelope with the rash thing. Most episodes still wrap up each disparate thread nicely, a la Seinfeld.

   And the last episode is the real winner, as we get to see how Larry’s life and the twin fictional lives of this LD and the Seinfeld universe intertwine. The self-referential Escheresque quality of the Curb Larry staging a Seinfeld reunion to get back his ex (who really did flee like Madoff with his money in real life), and how it all plays out with everyone acting not as themselves but LD’s conception of them, is a mindgame of the highest order and quite brilliant in many ways, particularly the shot of LD and Cheryl watching George and his ex on tv. One can only marvel at how weird it must be to be Larry David, a malcontent billionaire comic that everyone loves for playing himself, but not quite, on tv.

   It’s not as good as the first few seasons of Curb, but when it’s good it’s great, and once again Larry David delivers the goods in that twisted way that only he can. We’re gonna miss this guy when he’s gone (word is he’s got Groat’s), so let’s enjoy him while he’s here.

   PS The extras are well worth seeing for any Seinfeld fan. There’s about 25 minutes of them, four little bits of which the highlight is the interview with Larry and the SeinFour. Most interesting is the end, with Jason sharing everyone’s enthusiasm but then hammering it home with a little too much sincerity about how great the five of them are as a unit and the magic is so special yadda yadda (read: we oughta do this again, and soon) and you can see both Larry and Jerry trying not to wince. They know that a real Seinfeld reunion would make mega-millions and they need neither that nor the fakeness of it all, which Alexander evinces here, vaguely unaware he’s doing so but seemingly unable to help it. Perhaps he’s desperate for that level of stardom again…or perhaps he’s channelling the repressed needs of a still sein-obsessed public.

   It’s a moment that takes the meta-self-reference of the final Curb show and adds another layer, albeit a layer all too close to the original thing Larry was mocking in the first place.

   Which only drives home one of the best themes in Curb: showbiz feeds on and creates phoniness and unreality on so many levels that if you don’t laugh at the beast it will swallow you whole.
   

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3. Michael A. Newman

   September 23, 2010 at 3:36 pm

   Review by Michael A. Newman for Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Seventh Season
   Rating:
   Now that Season 7 has aired all its episodes I wanted to give my two cents. I enjoyed this season more than the last two (Season 1 was still the best). When Season 6 concluded many of us thought that was going to be the grand finale of the show. With Cheryl finally having enough of Larry’s antics, pairing up with the underwear salesman who befriended her in her time of great fear (Larry was too busy with the TIVO guy at the time) and Larry settled in with Loretta and the rest of the Blacks.

   Well Larry got the itch to do a type of Seinfeld reunion show to make up for the disappointing ending of the original series. He put together the idea that this could be used as a platform to get Cheryl back. As the series started, we see Larry bored with Loretta and trying to get out of the relationship. Larry learns that Loretta may have cancer prompting Jeff to let him know that he better break up with her before she tells him because “you can’t break up with someone with cancer.” It then becomes a race with Larry to get to Loretta before her doctor so he can break up with her before the doctor gives her the devastating news. (brilliant writing).

   Usual battles with Susie and Marty Funkhouser crop up during the season.

   Episodes that followed dealt with Larry dating women in wheelchairs that he has code names for, killing the country club owner’s pet swan and a lesson in proper tipping. To top it off Larry tries to get the Seinfeld cast together only because he meets Cheryl on the way to an audition and he feels that if can give her a part in the show he can slowly win her back.

   For those of you that have not seen it I do not want to spoil the fun. I will say that the last two episodes dealt with the actual Seinfeld reunion and the show will definately not disappoint like the original series ending from 1999. If you have a chance to watch some of these episodes and you like Seinfeld, I would recommend that you watch them!

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4. carol irvin

   September 23, 2010 at 3:02 pm

   Review by carol irvin for Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Seventh Season
   Rating:
   Update: The last episode showed a Seinfeld episode within a larry david CYE episode. It was really wonderful. If you are a Seinfeld fan, you must see the last episode of this season even if you do not like this show. I am a fan of both so was in heaven!

   Original Review:

   I just watched Larry David do a send up of Michael Richards’ infamous “N” word rant to a heckler on this season. David uses the real Richards (Kramer) with the black comedian who lives with him on the show. This is typical of Larry David, who considers nothing too sensitive for comedic exploration. This is one big reason why I love this show. Larry David has to be the most Politically Incorrect Person in America and I love him for it!

   There are just so many funny things this season that any reviewer could write a small book about the joys of Season 7. We open with his girlfriend having breast cancer and Larry’s wanting to end the relationship. Somehow he manages to find a therapist who ends up blaming him for the cancer! (As a cancer patient, I found this whole cancer episode very funny.) We revisit his mother’s death via her tombstone and Larry even manages to get the tombstone cutter mad at him. He becomes persona non grata at his country club after killing another member by making him mad and the guy had high blood pressure (which explodes), all over the inanity of playing through, or not, in golf. He wears women’s underwear as an alibi for Suzie’s husband when she finds panties in his glove compartment. He and Richard Lewis seriously come unhinged together again–Lewis and David have a friendship which thrives on maximum antagonism and misunderstanding. Then there is the biggest thing going on in Season 7: Larry decides to put on a Seinfeld reunion. He does so as only Larry could where you see the reunion coming together behind the scenes. You are not left out of anything in the entire process. The major thing you discover doing this is how much of Seinfeld was Larry–tons. When George (Jason Alexander) and Larry come together, it is clear that George WAS Larry. They are mirrors of one another, willing to obsess and argue over any minutiae.

   This may be the best season yet of this show. I hope Larry David keeps doing it. It is a breath of fresh air among the comedic mediocrity that is the usual tv fare.

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