Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Third Season | Larry David, Cheryl Hines

Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Third Season | Larry David, Cheryl Hines | The Best Yet

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	Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Third Season Larry David, Cheryl Hines Hbo Home Video, 2005 average customer review:based on 55 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The art of not caring for other people's approval

I got CYE based on seeing it in the DVD store, never having seen HBO. I know Larry David is the co creator and writer on Seinfeld, yet as comedian actor he is totally new to me.

It is fascinating and a little disturbing to see the similarities between Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. The gestures, intonation, delivery, humor and even similar facial expressions are a little eerie at times. Who influenced who?

This third season is brilliant with obvious parallels with both Seinfeld and Fawlty Towers starring John Cleese. Minor situations become major drama, with the main character creating situations which become farcical and then get resolved. The ruthless self absorption of the LD character, is quite compelling to watch, as he fearlessly goes where other people just wouldn't, and is often oblivious or indifferent to the destruction he causes. You just got to admire someone who relentlessly does not care what other people think.

I was particularly appalled by the firing of the chef, after hiring him for being bald, and then firing him for wearing a toupee.

Refusing to thank a friend's wife for buying dinner, because her husband put down the card, and he was the bread winner, as it was his money not their money that was paying for the meal.

Shamelessly using the death of his mother to get sympathy sex from Cheryl.

Having Cheryl bake cookies filled with Benadryl so that Richard Lewis' new Christian girlfriend who refused to take medication would eat them and recover quickly from her peanut allergy reaction which LD triggered. The beauty of it would be she would think her recovery was due to prayer.

Asking a waiter for the tip back because he thought he had tipped him twice.

Giving his friend a yoga mantra, Ja Ya then asking him to stop using it. Friend discovers yoga mantra means f--- me!

The episode where he hires the chef with Tourette's syndrome, is classic in the way of Seinfeld.

I think my favorite episode if I had to choose is the Corpse Sniffing Dog.

Cheryl the wife is priceless as a study in patience 'Loving you is my job Larry.'

I could go on. LD is truly appalling, yet I love the show, and have also ordered season 2. The series does contain some strong language, compared to network offerings. Update: Having now seen season 2 as well, I consider season 3 is consistently better, although I have to say season 2 has a couple of really outstanding episodes. I particularly liked the one with Thor the Wrestler. I recommend you get season 3 first.

All the episodes on season 3 are very good. There is a stop and greet interview with most of the cast. It is interesting to note that there is little scripted dialogue, yet the stories are very well structured, and the situations are extremely well set up, and the actors just go, and they have different cameras focused in on each actor. It is unconventional, yet works amazingly well.

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The Best Yet

The third season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is the best yet. I don't know how one goes up from 5 stars, but somehow they managed to do it. The main characters are the same as from the first two seasons, with Larry David playing himself, Jeff Garlin as Jeff Greene (Larry's agent), and Cheryl Hines as Cheryl David (Larry's wife). Also, as with the first two seasons the dialogue is improvised, and the shows focus on a single character (Larry) as opposed to an ensemble as was the case with "Seinfeld".

As with the first two seasons, there are ten episodes in the season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". This season, the season long plot is Larry investing in a restaurant along with several other people (e.g. Ted Danson, Michael York) and the problems they have along he way (e.g. finding and losing chefs, uniforms for the wait staff, a restaurant critic, etc.). Each episode also has its own plot, which cover a wide variety of subjects such as religion (Christian Science, nativity scenes), Terrorist attacks, mourning, pets, and much more. All the episodes are very funny, but "Krazee-Eyez Killa", "The Terrorist Attack", and "The Grand Opening" are not to be missed.

This DVD box set includes 2 DVDs, which have all 10 episodes, as well as a couple of excerpts from the "U.S. Comedy Arts Festival" in which members of the cast and directors discuss the show and their favorite scenes.

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Episode 6!!!

Wow, that was pure comic genius. The combination of Larry's father and cousin almost had me in tears. My husband and I watched it on our dvd on a plane and were out of control laughing. We spent the vacation we went on just citing excerpts of this episode and cracking up! LOVED IT!

"It's a little saucy"

Honestly, this is one of the only shows I can stand to watch on DVD more than once. It's funny every time, and the only way someone could think otherwise is if they don't give it a chance, or else if you are looking for constant slapstick humor,then this maybe isn't the show for you. How could you not enjoy Jeff, "simple,simple,simple. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the vest. A navy vest. Simple, lovely, it feels good, its a vest!"

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Basil meets George

I like this show, I recommend the DVD, but can we please be honest about what it is, and why it is good when it is good? The show is marketed as "flinchingly realistic." It says that on the box, and that seems to be the perception, uncritically repeated in everything written about the show. We are supposed to believe that it is a realistical show because people play themselves and the scenes are adlibbed. But the subplots of the shows are actually very contrived, woven together very formulaically, and all require an astronomical series of coincidences to make them all pull together in each shows finale. The shows remind me more of Fawlty Towers than of Seinfeld, in that each show consists of Larry David reacting to things the way we'd all like to react if we had no frontal lobes, and by the end of the show everyone is angry at the protagonist whether he is trying to do good or harm. There are moments that feel very realistic, and are very entertaining, like Larry David and Richard Lewis adlibbing with each, which Richard Lewis in one of the DVD extras reports is a very authentic and surreal experience. Most of the scenes though, in the service of the plot machinations, require the characters to quickly get infuriated with each other. If it is "flinchingly realistic" at all, it is realistic in the sense of portraying honest human interactions minus the superego. And that is when it's funny. For example, when Larry David's manager's wife asks him if he would like a tour of their new house, and he says no. And Larry David's reaction to having his in-laws decorate a Christmas tree in his house.

It's a good show, this is a good season, go out and buy this DVD set. Each episode is good for at least a few very hearty laughs. When it's good, it's good in the way the best moments of Seinfeld and Fawlty Towers are good. It can also be over-the-top farcical in the way that the later, and weaker, seasons of Seinfeld were, when it became less focused on clever observations of human interactions and more an exercise in outrageous, cartoonishly broad comedy. Which is fine, if that is what cracks you up, but don't then claim it is uniquely distinguished by its realism. Anyway, this is my hang-up. I get very distracted by shows in which the characters don't act the way people actually act. In the case of this show, there is the extra layer to it, in which somehow everyone has become convinced that it is a realistic show. Judging by what people seem to like, I don't think most people are bothered by this, so thank you for listening, and take care.

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