Improvisational comedy is the cinnabon with extra frosting of human achievement. It is what should go into a space capsule, bottled up with perforated holes, along with a copy of Ben Fold's Five "Your Most Valuable Possession." The elasticity and speed and insight and telepathic and sympathetic ways in which improv performers communicate with each other is miraculous seeming. And so like all unsuccessful documentaries that try to explain the birth of great art, this one is mostly reductive. As in, it makes the claim that these two featured performers are so good at what they do because they walk around the city, sometimes together, sometimes apart, and look at stuff. Really deeply. And then they improvise!
What it doesn't mention is that there are all sorts of laws and rules and formal training that goes into the craft, like, say, learning meter if you're going to be a poet, or scales if you're going to play the guitar.
The remainder of the doc is a complete performance filmed in Chicago. It wasn't terrific (best I've seen was an entire Shakespeare play improvised on the spot, in Shakespearean English) but it nonetheless filled me with awe of the craft. I bet Koko and the Ass-Head would make a dreamy tandem. And Slothy could be the third guy who's uncomfortably not funny but is extremely handsome. C+
Koko: Your mind.
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