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Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete First Season

Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete First Season

List Price: $39.98
Your Price: $29.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not Crap. Original Comedy.
Review: The reviewer "from NYC" who gave Curb 1 star is missing the point. This is not supposed to be funny in the same way as every other network show, where everybody involved is happy with themselves and with everybody else, and each situation gets resolved by the end of the episode. This is real-life humor, where the protagonist is not happy, is not everyone's friend, and does not generally come out on top.
If you don't like comedy characters shouting and swearing and causing people offense and aggravation, and you prefer a show to have a giggling audience track all over it to help you along, then stick to Friends. This happens to be something different, and it is long overdue.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Crap
Review: Larry David has the maturity of a 2-year-old. If you'd like to watch a totally out of control character scream and yell and fuss over trivialities continually for a half hour at a time, a completely unlikeable, unwatchable jerk, who is teamed with a woman who's so nice she obviously could NEVER really be his wife - she probably hates working with him - then be my guest. I find the show pukadelic, and I think it's a little scary that it actually has an audience.

The reviewer above seems to think that, because I don't enjoy a show about a narcissistic sociopath, I must only enjoy nicey-nice shows with laugh tracks about happy people. This is simply ridiculous. Larry David's show, in its own way, is as unrealistic and free of the nuances of real life and real relationships, as the happy dappy shows the reviewer above ridicules. Larry David avoids reality simply by going to the opposite extreme. If people are unlucky they might meet one person in their entire lives that has a few of Larry David's loathsome qualities, but a person that was literally like this could not exist outside an institution of some sort for very long. And frankly, I don't care if a comedy resolves at the end or not. That's got nothing to do with it. The problem is that Larry David is a person impossible to like, and the show lacks cleverness. Despite all the screaming and yelling, it is somehow bland.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I've never laughed so hard at anything before......
Review: Larry David is THE funniest man ever, it takes a real comic genius to take some harrowing situations and make them funny. He gets himself into the most embarrasing situations which make me flinch, but the result is always hilarious. All you have to do is watch one episode and you'll be hooked and wanting more. I highly recommend this DVD because it feels really good to just watch something which makes you laugh out loud and you can watch all the episodes when you want, as many times as you want and not have to think about the next time it will be on television.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Don't delay--you need this dvd
Review: I'll try to make this review short and sweet. Curb your Enthusiasm is, without doubt, the funniest show on tv today. Like Ralph Kramden long before him Larry David is a master at making himself the prize buffoon on every show; and that simple concept works every time. I realize that some of the situations on the show are a bit contrived but it really doesn't matter. David's ill advised comments, facial expressions, and flat out lies (mostly to his wife) are all hilarious. Whether or not you're a "Seinfeld" fan you owe it to yourself to buy this dvd.
As for the dvd itself I think the sliding mechanism is actually pretty cool. The lack of "bonus materials" may bother some but not me. The 10 episodes plus the hour long original special are well worth the money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Comedy Show on TV Today
Review: Acidicly sardonic, relentlessly witty, mean-spirited yet warm, intelligent, boasting a great lead protagonist...'Curb Your Enthusiasm' is that, and much more. The HBO series has finally reached DVD, and is a must have for an lover of true comedic talent. The star/creator Larry David is an ex-writer for 'Seinfeld', but 'Curb...', with its absence of a laugh-track and utterly realistic concepts, admittedly takes it one step further than the successful 'Seinfeld'. Almost completely improvisational, the show focuses on Larry's life as an HBO-exec. Once the audience grasps Larry's attitude towards people, it will surely have a great time watching him deal with the consequences of his abrupt behavior. Despite his sarcasm (he detests opinion, unless it's his own) and the constant repelling of offended individuals, Larry's wife (Cheryl Hines) and friend (Jeff Garlin) manage to communicate with him, and it's those relationhips that orm the heart of the show. Larry wins sympathy, and then comes up with spontaneous outbursts of unreasonable behavior.
Hilarious, 'Curb...' is an essential addition to any comedy-lover's DVD collection. Season 1, by the way, is the funniest, due to the inspired, fresh feeling and its masterpiece 1-hour episode that will wring tears of laughter out of people. And it won't resort to slapstick, or excrement portrayal, or etc - this is REAL humor, folks.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "I'm well on the way."
Review: Much better transfer than Larry Sanders, but what's with the jagged edges on my HD widescreen?Progressive? Interlaced? What am I doing wrong?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hillarious beyond belief!
Review: Don't plan on viewing this, unless you are prepared to laugh frequently! The comedy of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is unlike anything Hollywood has to offer today. Think of it as Seinfeld without sensors. Tackling topics you wouldn't dare speak of in a social setting, Larry David stumbles into the most bizarre and uncomfortable of social situations with insanely funny results. While this series was just finding its place (just wait until the next two seasons) in season one, it is still brilliant, edgy, and innovative. If you're offended easily, you may look elsewhere, but I'm a Larry David fan for life.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Most Original Comedy Series of the Last 5 Years...
Review: Over the past several years I have enjoyed getting to know the "Real George Costanza". The situations he gets himself into never fail to baffle and amuse me immensely. Some of the confrontations seem unrealistic but nonetheless humourous. This show is excellently crafted becasue a) its virtually unscripted which leads to some funny backgorund situations, slipups by the actors, and more genuine dialogue; and b) its a full half hour long which allows for 6-8 more minutes of story development than regular sit-coms.

The episodes presented here are classic....starting with The Pants Tent to Porno Gil (Mmmm, Tobasco) to The Wire (with an excellent performance by Julia Louis Dreyfus) to AAMCO to the final episode of the season where Larry fakes being an incest survivor. Larry David's bungling will not cease to you make you laugh in complete and udder beguilement.

This set contains 10 great episodes, an interview of Larry with Bob Costas and the 1 hour HBO Special that started the whole phenomenon. Buy this DVD and see why "I am totally nonplused."

Oh and an excellent overall performance in many of the episodes by Larry's real life friend Richard Lewis....great job.

I would have given this set 5 stars easily if only for two reasons: 1) the stupid slide packaging is ridiculous - the first time I tried to get the discs out I nearly ripped the sliding case apart and even after you figure the whole deal out its not that easy to operate without pulling the whole contraption out of the sleeve; and 2) Where's the widescreen?

Can't wait for Season 2.....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best comedy on television
Review: An article in the Jan. 19, 2004 issue of The New Yorker asks, "Is Larry David funnier than everyone else, or just more annoying?" After watching the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD, the answer is obvious: he is funnier.
In Curb, David plays himself: the successful co-creator and executive producer of Seinfeld who is bungling his way through life.
Many parallels are apparent between Curb and Seinfeld. In both, the comedy is rooted in the ennui of everyday living and the basic format of both is essentially the same: take an awkward or compromising situation and string it out to its ludicrous, hilarious end.
Curb, like Seinfeld, thrives on its cynical, caustic undertones and its smart, quick dialogue. But Curb has one enormous advantage over the former NBC sitcom: HBO. Freed from the artistic restrictions of network television, David is free on Curb to ridicule every aspect of human life.
David's wife Cheryl (played by Cheryl Hines) and his manager Jeff Greeene (played by Jeff Garlin) round out the trio of core characters. And while both Garlin and Hines are perfect for their roles, it is David who carries the show: he is in every scene of the first season.
Comedian Richard Lewis is also a regular on the show, playing himself in three of the ten first season episodes and providing some of Curb's funniest moments. Take this scene for example: Lewis and David are walking in downtown L.A. when they are accosted by a blind man who recently moved into a nearby apartment and needs help arranging his furniture. When David says that he can't do it, the following exchange occurs.

LEWIS: How can you not help a blind man?
DAVID: How can you say "blind man" in front of a blind man?
LEWIS: I didn't mean that in a bad way. I meant "sightless." I respect the blind as much as anybody. I've got my own problems: I'm a recovering alcoholic. I have intimacy problems.

There's no doubt: David really is funnier.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Prognosis...Positive
Review: Watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm" produces a sensation not wholly unlike that of watching "Seinfeld"- the hit NBC show that Larry Co-created with Jerry Seinfeld. Like an evening with a potty-mouth, successful George Costanza, One still cringes with delight as David explodes some frivolous insult that he's been dealt into a season-long vendetta. But if you're a moralist who felt Seinfeld pushed the envelope with such episodes as "The Contest", you're in for a shock in David's HBO refashioning of the New York Four. From getting little children drunk, to failing to attend his mother's funeral, nothing escapes David's comic gaze. He can make anything funny.


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