Cracking Up Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Cracking Up Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 24, 2024

Improv comedy can range from the sharp and hard-hitting to the mundane and unfunny. Cracking Up is somewhere else entirely, if it can even be placed on any genre spectrum at all. Performance art in the vein of Borat and its ilk, the comedy here is in watching the unknowing, the unprepared and the uninvolved everyman suddenly be thrust into the midst of craziness, encountering the film's cast mid-act and being confounded by the bizarre antics unfolding before their very eyes. The self-aware, audience-winking misadventures vary in absurdity and brazenness, with plot being a secondary concern, and feature Kauffman-esque comedian Matt Mitler in front of and behind the camera as actor, director, writer and editor. Taking advantage of the clueless for our amusement -- as if our reaction is the only thing in the room that matters -- stands on the shoulders of the hidden-camera hilarity of old and manages to push boundaries, leading us into things far ahead of its time (circa 1994).

Danny Gold (Mitler) is hilarious on stage (so he thinks) and a nightmare anywhere and everywhere else (though he doesn't seem able to see it). Believing he's God's gift to the Manhattan comedy scene of the '90s, he brings the intensity of a Lenny Bruce performance to every aspect of his life, be it love, sex, relationships, the workplace, or amphetamine abuse. Often to his lone amusement. Danny crashes through the Lower East Side like a human wrecking ball, leaving a path of ruined friendships and burnt bridges in his wake and caring very little for who he loses, offends or alienates. Every success makes him more intent on self-destruction, and no one can stop watching... or laughing. Whether it's with him or at him is irrelevant. Laughter is food, medicine, hydration and life's every breath to Danny Gold, and he can't be stopped.

The filmmakers and cast clearly consider Cracking Up to be their latest "thesis project," following their Movie of the Month videos, taking everything they learned about improvised storytelling and amping it up to scripted and rehearsed 16mm insanity. Both a comic tragedy and a time capsule of the NYC performance art scene of the early 1990s, the film is co-written and directed by Matt Mitler and co-stars Kevin Brown, Debra Wilson, Camryn Manheim, Kimberly Flynn, Frank Senger, Jeff Eyres, Toby Huss, Robert Prichard, Jennifer Babtist, and most of the cast from the Movie of the Month Club videos.

A legitimate theatrical film (compared to the low-rent productions that came before it), Cracking Up finds Mitler's Danny Gold is obnoxious, and I mean obnoxious. If the names Tom Green and Sacha Baron Cohen trigger eye rolling, this one isn't for you. But if their brash personalities and fearless tactics have brought you to the right kind of tears, buckle in and prepare for a character (and performance) both men would certainly name as an influence. Gold -- Mitler's id -- is so self-centered, so self-absorbed that the word narcissist doesn't seem strong enough a psychological diagnosis. He not only brings his act to the streets, he frequents a Lower East Side comedy club that's part Thunderdome, part House of Comedy Horrors, where other starving artists desperately peddle for laughs. And that's after you watch Mitler riff off On the Waterfront in public and before you come to the film's arguable early climax, where he finds an outdoor crowd and begins hopping from character to character (including Jesus) as his befuddled would-be audience watches with what may as well be giant question marks floating over their heads.

Cracking Up Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Art Label presents Cracking Up with a terrific 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer minted from its original 16mm film elements. The resulting presentation won't be as crisp and clear as modern film fans are used to, but it's no less impressive given its subjective limitations. Colors are bold and beautiful, popping off the screen with a ferocity and intensity that matches Gold's insanity beat for beat. Black levels are rich and satisfying, with surprisingly excellent delineation and very little in the way of crush. Detail delivers too. Edge definition is clean and relatively refined, grain is consistent and filmic, and textures still manage to create a convincing array of well-resolved close-ups. Man-on-the-street segments are less polished, but such is the cost of spontaneity and the film's blend of live performance art and unanticipated hilarity. Through it all, though, blocking, banding and other encoding issues are kept to the barest of minimums and the 1994 photography looks as good as it conceivably could.

Cracking Up Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cracking Up also features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo mix that's faithful to the film's original sound design, sometimes to a fault. While scripted scenes are given the TLC required to grant the listener clear, intelligible voices, solid prioritization and engaging soundscapes, scenes on the street or on the fly suffer from everything from crowd noise to wind hiss to the cries and jeers of passersby. Granted, none of it comes as a surprise. This is the film and footage as it was captured, but Art Label hasn't done much to counter any distractions. Does it spoil the experience? Goodness no. It almost enhances it. But as the line between refined audio track and dutiful mix blurs, the lossless audio becomes less and less memorable.

Cracking Up Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Alternate Black & White Version of the Film (HD)

• Audio Commentary - This commentary track features co-writer/director/editor/star Matt Mitler, co-writer Ted LoRusso, co-star Carolyn McDermott and music composer Arthur Rosen.

• Backing Up: Looking Back at Cracking Up (HD, 25 minutes) - A lengthy retrospective with key members of the cast and crew. Memories, anecdotes and tattles come fast and funny as the group reminisces about wilder times.

• Deleted Scenes (HD, 5 minutes) - Four scenes in total, including a separately listed "Complete 'Honesty Laundry Detergent' Commercial," which runs a full minute.

• Raw Footage (SD, 13 minute) - Four unedited "gotcha" scenes are presented with optional commentary.

• Live Sketches from 1991 (SD, 18 minutes) - Three in total.

• Shindlerfella (SD, 5 minutes) - Another on-stage sketch.

• Trailers (HD, 2 minutes) - Two Cracking Up trailers round out the package.

Cracking Up Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cracking Up isn't for everyone but it is funny, wickedly funny at times, and it paints an absurdist portrait of NYC in the '90s sure to delight fans of the period. Art Label's Blu-ray is a strong one too, with an excellent video presentation, both color and black & white versions of the film, a solid lossless audio track, and a host of extras (both vintage and newly recorded).