Village Vidiot

Thousands of brief movie reviews from decades of film watching from a guy who loves the cinema.

Menu
  • About
  • Dave Chappelle: The Closer
Menu

Bo Burnham: Inside

Posted on June 4, 2021January 2, 2022 by Village Vidiot

“Bo Burnham: Inside,” June 4, 2021, Netflix.  My nephew Kyle was right in recommending this one to me.  Accomplished director (“8th Grade”), actor (“Promising Young Woman”) and established solo-comedian, Burnham spent many months of Covid worrying this into being.  It’s funny, terribly serious, sarcastic, insightful, and often very painful.   It’s about self-conscious, self-critical privilege.  It’s very self-questioning and yet he knows the answer.  People want to laugh even when they’re stuck inside.  This self-produced, written, edited, one-man show chronicles Burnham’s life inside and his interior life.  Well, part of it anyway.  It’s not a documentary about his life inside.  Time (except for his birthday eve clock watch) disappears.  We don’t know what he does except the songs he sings and the statements that accompany them.  Does he often call family and friends?  We don’t know. We don’t know how he deals with food (he eats cereal on camera).  It is bit-on-bit produced over many months. Not, it sometimes seems, in sequence.  His physical appearance changes and not, necessarily, sequentially.   He is both self-critical of his privilege and critical of the structure creating privilege that’s allowing him to succeed.  He’s rightly angry that he had finally decided he had moved beyond an immobilizing anxiety, and there he was stuck inside.  He’s self-aware, self-critical and sometimes feels sort of smug.  Is this what an anti-trendsetter is?  He is, after all, playing to his audience.  Some of the visuals are a bit much and occasionally go on a bit too long, but this is often laugh out loud funny.   It isn’t all that’s inside, that’s for sure.  But where were you when you turned thirty?  We do know where he was and what he wants us to see.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
  • Everything, Everywhere, All the Time
  • Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
  • Sybil
  • Rachel, Rachel

Recent Comments

  • Village Vidiot on In the Name of the Father
  • Village Vidiot on Marriage Story
  • film gerry scotti on In the Name of the Father
  • Village Vidiot on The Trial of the Chicago 7
  • Village Vidiot on Marriage Story

Archives

Categories

  • Film Reviews

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org
© 2023 Village Vidiot | WordPress Theme by Superbthemes