David Cross: Let America Laugh Directed by Lance Bangs Sub Pop (2003) DVD Available at Amazon.

Cross continues to find success in a post-Mr. Show universe, and is able to do it on his own terms. He balances small roles in mainstream art and Hollywood films (i.e. a fleeting but genius turn as a birdhouse-obsessed pothead in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and a bit part in the box office smash Scary Movie 2), but his decision to compile his performances from a 2002 stand-up tour for the purpose of a comedy album on indie-stalwart Sub Pop has recently returned him to the spotlight. The album, Shut Up You Fucking Baby, was an enormous success for both Cross and Sub Pop, garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album, and a follow-up -- It's Not Funny -- has already been completed.

Not content to only offer Sub Pop their first comedy album, Cross enlisted friend and noted videographer Lance Bangs to chronicle the spring 2002 dates for the production of the label's first DVD. The result, this feature-length documentary, is less a document of Cross's stand-up routine than a road movie with the comedian, his gang of friends and the legion of dispossessed Mr. Show fans as its stars.

In some ways, Let American Laugh flies in the face of conventional assumptions about a performer's response to fan worship, showing Cross's often brazen disregard for the feelings of those individuals who seek to exploit his good nature or compromise his performances with, how should I say, "disingenuous behaviour". The results are always funny and only further endear Cross to us as viewers. Whether it's Cross unwittingly subjecting himself to a misinformed and awfully drunk interviewer (and an amateur stalker if we are to understand a quick explanation by way of freeze-frame and subtitles), the groupie advances of a couple of non-fans or the too-stupid-to-believe (were it not caught on tape) argument with a jackass club promoter in Memphis, the film finds the humor in the diversity of the people Cross attracts and the comedian's response to his ever-changing surroundings.

Lance Bangs certainly doesn't have a clear directorial style, but more and more often his collaboration on a project and his presence behind the camera is becoming a promise that the camaraderie of the crew and the social actors will translate to the screen. Bangs may have been the butt of jokes on the set of Jackass: The Movie but he was cool as a cucumber while compiling Pavement: Slow Century. It's that confidence that shines through Let America Laugh -- Bangs always seems to be just where he needs to be to capture footage that later serves to illustrate Cross's re-telling of the events to his group of friends. The effect this has is twofold: first, Cross's ability as a storyteller comes to life and illuminates his abilities on-stage; second, we come to feel as though we are part of the group. Bangs only appears on-screen once or twice and his presence is otherwise concealed, despite the less-than-stealthy shooting situations that regularly bring about a direct exchange between a (usually drunk or stoned) social actor and Bangs's Canon GL1 DV camera.

There is little in the way of supplemental material here, but a collection of deleted scenes fully fleshes out a few fleeting references to events from within the film itself. It's not that this material is any less interesting, but rather that it suggests that cuts needed to be made for the sake of tightening the running time of the film.

The whole of Let America Laugh is contained by a fictional framing story involving Cross's post-Mr. Show career as a marketing stoolie in New York City's Brill Building. This plot line strategically interrupts the documentary material and involves an acknowledgement of the video footage shot by Bangs. I will say no more -- it is an inventive way of breaking up the non-fiction thrust of the movie and pays off regularly with laughs of the sort that once figured prominently in Cross's sketch comedy with Odenkirk.

-- Mike Baker