Review: Demetri Martin, Important Things

Back in 2004 I saw a familiar name on Comedy Central’s line-up - Demetri Martin, who had for the last year appeared in late-night goof-off Conan O’Brien’s credits as a staff writer.

I’ve always been rather fond of Conan’s show; it doesn’t follow many of the rules engraved in the midnight stone by other greats like Letterman and Leno and often doesn’t follow its network’s rules or even its own rules. Conan is frequently shameless in a manner that has an odd aire of good taste about it.

So I tuned in for Demetri’s 3-part special, and found myself laughing so hard I pooped a little a few times. Martin is a very funny young man.

His original style of humor struck me as very intelligent and truly one of a kind. It was a mix of stone faced one liners of the sort you have to think about for a few seconds, and long convoluted threads that are partly funny because of their twistiness and partly funny because of where they finally tie up.

He’s also cute as a bug, a unique version of that nerdy boy next door you’re just sure is packin’ because of his big nose, hands, feet and ears. He’s got a very sexy butt, not exactly a “bubble butt,” just a nicely proportioned, wide unit that makes you want to grab a hold of for tapping.

Demetri is one of those few celebrities who seems the type that would actually be fun to hang out with.

It’s easy to imagine spending a pleasant afternoon downing pitchers of beer with him at a decent microbrew, letting the conversation follow its own lead, and equally as easy to imagine some of that beer spurting out through one’s nose during an uncontrollable paroxym of laughter.

Even his Person DVD has some great material on it, although I personally don’t think it’s of the same calibre of his original standup material inpsite of containing bits and peices of it.

This is hard to explain, but his later stuff lacks the flow, the connectedness of his debut patter.

And now, this latest: Important Things.

I’ve watched 2 installments, and each one made me want to hug him like a Mom and ask, “oh, honey, what happened here?”

His stylings are still mostly the same - those trademark drop-dead funny one liners combined with observations that wander far and wide before delivering a moneyshot so hysterical you’re thankful you didn’t lose the faith part way through.

But the organization of these treats is so haphazard that it’s almost painful to watch an entire episode.

Speaking honestly, if I weren’t as gay as granddad’s lace knickers and didn’t find him so much fun to watch from the physical point of view, I wouldn’t have made it all the way through the first episode, even though I’m something of a Martin fan.

Important Things needs some serious help if it’s going to survive infancy.

 

Martin needs to sit down and watch what he’s spawned and compare it to his previous. His funniest material is that which seems to have an accidental flow and continuity, but was actually the result of skillful writing and careful planning.

His current approach, which seems to be stapling things together in a truly random manner, is not nearly as piquant - in fact, it’s quite irritating, especially knowing that he could be much more entertaining if he paid attention to what makes him really, really funny in the first place.

~ pagemoneky