CookieInvent There's a good chance the film will make you laugh out loud, but if it doesn't, there's an even better chance it will make you openly sob.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Rockwell_Cronenberg As long as I can remember, I've been a massive fan of stand-up comedy. I think that these days there are very few comedians who are worth their weight, but the joy of watching the few who are is almost unparalleled. It's no secret that Lenny Bruce changed the face of stand-up, becoming a pioneer for such contemporaries as Louis C.K. and Bill Burr, my two favorite comedians. Bruce came into a world that was scared to speak the truth, scared to laugh at the absurdity of human behavior and he held up a mirror to the world and said, "Look at yourself, aren't you ridiculous?".For it's time, the idea of doing this was shocking and wildly controversial. People saw him as vulgar and offensive, when he was really just speaking the truth that people were afraid to here. He evolved the game and it's only fair that an actor like Dustin Hoffman, a fellow pioneer of his career field, was selected to portray Bruce in this stark and honest biographic tale. My general stance towards Hollywood biopics is that I'm strongly against them, believing that to condense the life of a human being into a two or three hour film is impossible, but the script here by Julian Barry, adapting from his own play, does a strong job of taking the important parts of Bruce's life and leaving the rest behind.Unfortunately it does fall into a lazy trap of this genre, using a structure that functions around post-death interviews with those closest to Bruce in order to tell the story of his rise and fall. What's interesting though is that it doesn't play it straight in the sense of going back and forth between post-death and the chronological rise of Bruce; it does do this, but it also throws in another period, Bruce's last routine on stage. This adds an interesting twist onto this worn out structure and makes watching his rise even more intriguing to witness.We see him on stage, miraculously portrayed by Hoffman, with a full beard, exhausted expression and a wild, kinetic energy; a refusal to give up and sit down, an almost desperate need to get out all of the words he needs to say before he is stopped again. Bruce is almost a protester here, grabbing his microphone and shouting towards anyone who will listen to understand the crimes against humanity that are being permitted every day. Seeing him in this state makes it even more interesting to see where he began, as we now must wonder what happens to turn the nebbish and soft Bruce we meet in his earliest time period into the biting and confident man he will later become.Bob Fosse directs it all with his own unique flare, and some razor-sharp editing keeps things feeling fresh and as kinetic as the man the whole thing is based around. I also want to mention the cinematography, which is honestly some of the best I've ever come across. It's presented in black and white, which was a wonderful idea to match Bruce's style as a performer, and the way that the shots are composed and lit is a visual orgasm in every way. This is one of those films that I wanted to pause every five seconds just to marvel at the way it was shot, but I couldn't allow myself to step away from seeing more of Bruce.Everyone in the cast and crew do marvelous work here, but there's no denying that the film belongs to one man and that man is Dustin Hoffman. His performance is one of titanic proportions here, a slow-burn of pure genius, bringing Bruce along that evolutionary path to the man we know he will one day become. Lenny Bruce goes through many stages before he becomes the comedic icon that we initially see, and Hoffman plays them all with an absorbed authenticity that is purely magical. Looking back in time we see when he first meets his future wife Honey, and the utter bliss and childish joy on his face would be beautiful if it wasn't so heartbreaking knowing what he will eventually become.It's in the later stages that Hoffman truly lifts off though, when Bruce is in and out of prison and struggling with a drug addiction. Bruce becomes a bastion for free speech and social commentary, but more the film presents him as something more human than that; a flawed creature who for all of his evolutionary changes to media was also a very broken man within himself. There is a scene where Bruce does a routine wearing nothing but a raincoat and one sock, while he's riding high on drugs, that might just be the finest piece of acting I've seen my entire life.The scene is about ten minutes long, but it feels like it lasts an eternity. Normally this would be a complaint, but here it couldn't be a stronger compliment, as Hoffman takes us through this horrific state that the man is in at the time. With his lapses in silence, his rambling dialogues and his stop and start speech patterns, it's like watching a train wreck that you can't stare away from and you just keep hoping will be over soon. You want it to stop but you know that you aren't going to look away until it does.This colossal feat of acting would be impressive on it's own, but the fact that Hoffman does all of it in one take makes it something truly out of this world. It's a performance that stands at the very top of the all-time greats, in a film that is as brutally honest towards Lenny Bruce as he was towards the rest of the world.

Petri Pelkonen This is a movie of a stand-up comedian, Lenny Bruce.Lenny was a Jewish comic, who found love from a "Shiksa goddess", a stripper named Honey.Lenny's act consisted of some questionable material, something not approved by conservative citizens.He found himself often in the courtroom.And then he found drugs with Honey.Along came marital problems and an early death.Lenny (1974) is a Bob Fosse film.The screenplay is by Julian Barry, and it's based on his play by the same name.Dustin Hoffman portrays brilliantly the main character.He probably does a better job than Lenny ever did.Valerie Perrine is amazing as Honey Bruce.Jan Miner is very good as the mother Sally Marr.Stanley Beck is great as Artie Silver.Gary Morton does terrific job as Sherman Hart.I saw Lenny a week ago in a movie theater, for free.I liked the experience.This movie is pretty dramatic, being a movie of a comedian.One of the most memorable moments is when Lenny does an act on dope, wearing a raincoat.That scene shows in a brilliant way the fall of a comedian.And it actually happened.Before seeing this movie I knew very little of this guy.So it's a great introduction to the phenomenon called Lenny Bruce.

ElMaruecan82 "Lenny" tells the tragic fate of a pioneer and a martyr : the comedian Lenny Bruce whose irreverent courage paved the way to a whole new style of performance : stand-up comedy. Lenny is posthumously regarded as the father of stand-up comedy and this movie directed by Bob Fosse, is a deserved homage to the unsung hero of a shameful fight for freedom of speech. Who else but Bob Fosse, the director who's to entertainment what Hitchcock is to suspense, could have made such a riveting movie about a comic performer ? And who else but Dustin Hoffman could have personified this prodigious comical talent and his heart-breaking fight for dignity in such a haunting performance ?"Lenny" is about entertainment in its most difficult, underestimated but noblest form, comedy. And by noble, it means 'most sincere' because laughs are the most spontaneous emotions, and you can't cheat with them. That's what Romans called "Vis Comica", a gift, a strength, and a power. Lenny had this power and used it to point out and denounce the excesses of American society. He wasn't a clown, or a buffoon but he was a performer who built an ingenious talent to translate any sensitive subject : religion, politics, and society into an acerbic but hilarious social commentary. He epitomized the notion of making laugh and think. His approach was always provocative but never badly intentioned, in other words, he always had a point, something to denounce, but on one condition : it had to make people laugh … half-polemical, half-cynical, but always comical. A lot of close-ups on the audience are used in the film, a reminiscence of the same direction used in "Cabaret" : people look bored, upset, thoughtful, smiling, laughing, they're part of the artistic process, as long as they laugh at the end, and applaud, they get Lenny's point and appreciate his comedic talent. Indeed, you can't cheat with laughs.There's something profoundly cathartic in Lenny's humor, a desensitizing effect leading to a bigger tolerance. Lenny didn't even realize how beyond his time, how modern he was. He didn't know he would face a hateful crowd of opponents from an Establishment which could tolerate anything, except the use of profanity and obscenity on stage in a public place. And that's how Lenny became an unintentional barometer of freedom of speech in America. And as an irreverent character who believes in his ideas, he could never censor himself ... not because he wanted to defy the system, but because he was convinced he was defending a right cause. As long as people were genuinely laughing, he couldn't believe his words were considered obscene. His disbelief was sincere and turned his rebellious attitude into a form of political activism that kind of killed the fun, but never the relevance. Lenny's fate, in a tragic irony, is almost religious as he was sacrificed on the altar of intolerance, for his ideas and beliefs. The last shot of him naked, lying on the floor, is indecently shocking, so is the devastation in his voice when he's begging the judge to let him redo his sketch. I'll never forget the way Hoffman breaks his voice, shouting "I didn't hurt anybody" ... this heart-breaking sentence summarizes the whole martyrdom of Lenny Bruce. This film invites us to follow the tragic story of Lenny and understand this obscure part of America's history where the so-called moral society couldn't allow a performer to exercise his right to speak. It also invites us to question our own tolerance and then try to put our beliefs into perspective. Freedom of speech is like a gift from democracy, you can corrupt it by conveying fear, racism and hatred, or you can make people laugh by destroying all the barriers of political correctness and convince them that there's no segregation in words. Lenny's point is that we're all equally laughable, regardless of our cultures, our religions, our social status, life is too serious to be taken seriously. If the content of Lenny's sketches seems harmless now, that doesn't mean that freedom of speech should be taken for granted. If there are still some words that mustn't be said, or ideas that mustn't be expressed, this means the fight is not over yet."Lenny" is built on a tertiary structure. One third of interviews of all the people who knew Lenny : his manager, his mother and his wife, Honey, played in an extraordinary underrated performance by Valerie Perrine. The chemistry between Honey and Lenny was poignant. Those are two persons, imperfect, but so endearing in their mutual love you could see that Lenny wasn't the bitterly cynical type of guy, he knew what love was about, and this love was one of his greatest inspirations. The heart of the film is Lenny's story, his ascension, the pinnacle of his career until the tragic descent into hell, on which he and Honey have a responsibility. Indeed, he and Honey were flawed, and the excesses that governed a big part of their life were not omitted. And this poignant tragicomedy is punctuated by sketches from a late-career Lenny, showing how he turned all these events that enriched his life into hilarious, provocative and insightful comments. It was not a way to make people laugh at him, but with him at all the flaws that make humans worth being mocked. Lenny's sketches relied on his capability of turning everything he touched into laughter, and that's the pure comedic talent.Lenny is about a man ahead of his time, a pioneer for entertainment and a martyr for freedom and dignity, but the deepest truth about Lenny, that makes his death sadder and more obscene lies in the heart of Honey, who, as a heart-breaking conclusion, simply says "He was just so damn funny"

intelearts Lenny Bruce is iconic - Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Robin Williams all owe much to Bruce's honesty. No one-liners, just observational comedy on sex and relationships.Here under Bob Fosse's stark direction Hoffman shines. This is the closet Dustin Hoffman comes to method acting: if you go to YouTube and look at Bruce you can really see the effort Hoffman put in here.The film tries to explain, only partially successfully, how Lenny came to be the comedian he was. The biographical format works well enough but we are never really given the insight as to how he developed his stage act, rather it is explained through the drugs and circumstances...All in all a good, fairly gritty film, which charts the life of one f comedy's great groundbreakers, and a killer performance by Dustin Hoffman.