Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing Blu-ray Movie Review

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater December 20, 2013

The late, great George Carlin took a sour turn with his 18th album—and 13th special for HBO—the morbid, uncomfortable Life Is Worth Losing. Carlin made a living sounding off on the absurdities and horrors and hypocrisies of the human condition, but here he airs out the dirtiest of mankind's laundry. He starts off innocuously enough, with an impressive five-minute free-form riff on what it means to be a modern man—"A man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist, politically, anatomically, and ecologically incorrect"—and follows this with a characteristically Carlinesque dissection of a few words you shouldn't say in polite company. Like dingleberry: "It always sounded kinda Christmas-y to me; doesn't it have a holiday ring to it?"

But we should know from the set decoration—New York's Beacon Theatre stage has been turned into a snow-covered graveyard—that Carlin's about to go dark. The next hour holds the bleakest, most nihilistic comedy of his 50-year career. As the title implies, suicide is a central theme, with Carlin speculating, "That's probably the most interesting thing you could do with your life. End it." He goes on at length about auto-erotic asphyxiation, buying rope to hang yourself from Walmart, and the gender inequality of suicide statistics—"That's something else you gals will want to be working on"—while the crowd laughs along uneasily. But he's only just begun. Additional topics include:

• Necrophilia: "You know the best thing about necrophilia? You don't have to bring flowers. They're usually already there."
• Natural Disasters: "Don't you have a part of you that secretly hopes it gets worse?"
• Beheadings and Bomb-Dropping: Let me ask you this...what is the moral difference between cuttin' off one guy's head—or two, or three, or five, or ten—and dropping a big bomb on a hospital and killing a whole bunch of sick kids? Has anybody in authority given you an explanation of the difference?"
• American Idiocy: "Only a nation of unenlightened half-wits could've taken this beautiful place and turned it into what it is today, a shopping mall. A big f---ing shopping mall. That's all you've got here folks. America the beautiful, one big transcontinental commercial cesspool."

This is uncomfortable, finger-pointing, squirm-in-your-seats stuff, and it doesn't ever lighten up. Even Carlin diehards might find this material a bit too on-the-nose. That said, it is an experience, and Carlin seems less concerned here with making us laugh than shocking us out of our complacency.

George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot way-back-when in 2005 on now antiquated HD digital TV gear, Life Is Worth Losing looks a little rough in its 1080p/AVC-encoded from MPI, which was almost certainly taken from the same source as their 2007 DVD release. Sure, there's a modest bump up in clarity and color here, but I probably wouldn't enjoy the special any less in standard definition. Chroma noise is noticeable in the shadows and there's some minor macroblocking at play here too. Nothing distracting, though.

George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The only audio option on the disc is a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track, but Carlin's voice remains clear and easy to understand throughout. No real issues here.

George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There's nothing here but a main menu with a static image.

George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Life is Worth Losing is dark, funny, borderline prophetic stuff, but it's hard to wholeheartedly recommend buying it on Blu-ray unless you're a diehard George Carlin fan. For one, it's currently streaming on Netflix, along with several of Carlin's other specials, so if you're a subscriber, that's a no- brainer. The disc is also entirely bare-boned, and I question this particular comedy set's potential for repeat viewing.