Curb Your Enthusiasm marathon

I just got the Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 5 DVDs in the mail from Netflix this week, and I binged on the 10-episode season, watching every episode over the last couple of days. The show is hilarious, and while season four was funny, I felt like this was a real return to form after spending the previous season mired down by the "Larry is cast in The Producers" storyline.

Curb is one of the stylistic influences on my feature. It started out as a mock doc hour-long HBO special, and it was so realistic and natural that people didn't realize it wasn't real -- in spite of the fact that it obviously would have required multiple cameras for the multiple camera angles. I wanted to capture that style for my film. And I think I did, aside from when I intentionally went with a more traditional dramatic/narrative style and ignored the documentary style.

I also felt that the character of Larry David, being so acerbic and unlikable was a good role model for "Brian" in American Messiah -- it made me feel that you COULD base an entire narrative around an essentially unlikeable (yet oddly watchable) character.

Anyway, Curb is great, if a bit predictable at times (the rhythm and style of the show is such that, if you're a regular viewer, you start to see where the joke is leading -- but part of the joy of watching it is knowing this in advance and still seeing Larry fall into a mess, usually of his own making).