WHO’S READY TO LAUGH by Patton Oswalt (Just for Laughs). July 30 at Massey Hall (178 Victoria). $59.65 and up. tickets.hahaha.com
I’m trying to guess what Patton Oswalt is going to focus on in his upcoming show, Who’s Ready To Laugh? – and it’s not easy. I mean sure, we’re re-entering society after two years of pandemic lockdowns and all the economic and social disaster it has wrought. So the title of the show, which is coming to Montreal and Toronto at the end of the month, is clearly a response to that. But what the comedian gets into is harder to narrow down. He’s just into so much stuff. He acts in TV and movies, does voiceover work, records podcasts and is a huge fan of film history and comic books. And his previous shows generally focus on aspects of what’s going on in his own life between work, family and personal fixations.
Oswalt spoke to NOW on a Zoom call from the screening room in his home, which has comfy-looking black leather sofa seats and a projector. And since he was keeping mum about his show, we just discussed all sorts of stuff: allyship, comedians refusing to keep up with the times, the 15th anniversary of Ratatouille (in which he voiced Remy the rat), new movies and the saturation of comic book narratives. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
I understand we have a mutual friend in (Punisher: War Zone director) Lexi Alexander.
Lexi rules.
She was telling me how much you boosted her up in this industry. She showed me the Punisher: War Zone review that you wrote where you were like, “this movie hits hard.” She was saying that you’re the one that encouraged her to stay in this business when she felt she was feeling low.
Jeepers creepers. I don’t think she needed that much help. She’s so talented. People know how amazing she is. I’m flattered that she thinks I helped her, but it was her talent that got her through. And it was how memorable her imagery is. Her filmmaking is incredible. It would have always punched through, in my opinion.
I think it makes a difference in terms of just having someone help you believe it’s not imposter syndrome; having someone give you that vote of confidence. And you see how it dominoes. Lexi is that person for a lot of people. You’re someone that boosts her up, she then goes on and boosts others up.
Talking about the allyship thing. I want to get into a couple of specials you have on Netflix. In Talking For Clapping you were talking about learning the new terminology. You asked for some leeway, like “We’re trying. Don’t jump too hard on [honest mistakes].” I think there’s something to be said about that. Allyship isn’t just about getting it right off the bat. It’s about learning and making the mistakes.
Yeah. Give people the credit: “oh, that guy tried, but he fucked it up.” But he was trying. Learn to recognize the difference in the people that are trying and the people that are just doubling down and digging in and enjoying being assholes. We’re getting a lot of that, too. Don’t lump the people that are trying and failing in with the people that are openly not doing it.
The internet is very quick to lump everyone together. And like you said, there are the people that are purposely being assholes. Or there are the people who are even pretending to be learning for the sake of being an asshole.
Exactly. Right now, it’s going to be messy and ugly for a while and then hopefully we’ll all evolve. We’ll see.
How are you feeling about the cultural divide that’s brewing right now in comedy. You have a lot of comedians saying, “I can’t do comedy right now because everyone’s ready to cancel you.”
It’s not a cultural divide. It’s just the people that are able to evolve and change and the people that want to just live in one single moment of time forever. That’s always been there in comedy. Every time comedy changes, the people that aren’t willing to grow are the ones who make the biggest noise. The dinosaurs who go down in the tar pits howl the loudest. It’s nothing new. Nothing new is happening. Things are changing. And every now and then, people don’t want to change and they get noisy about it.
You were talking in an interview about some of the comedy from your own past that you would not want to go back to or return to.
There’s plenty of stuff I did [where] I wasn’t as enlightened. I didn’t know better. But you learn from it and you move on.
The end of this month is the 15-year anniversary of Ratatouille. How large does Ratatouille loom over your life? And is it in a good way or in a bad way?
It’s a great way. I got to work with (director) Brad Bird. And I got to work at Pixar. I got to go and tour Pixar and be in a movie that keeps getting rediscovered and people keep really liking it. So it’s been nothing but great. It doesn’t loom. It just enriches.
Did you watch Everything Everywhere All At Once?
Oh yeah.
You saw the raccacoonie gag there.
That made me feel really happy. I texted Brad Bird. I’m like, “Hey, you need to go see this movie. Don’t read about it. Don’t talk to anyone. Just go see it and then text me.” It was pretty cool.
Do you have a favourite movie this year?
I think so far this year it’s been Everything Everywhere. I just don’t see how I’m going to have a more amazing movie experience than that one right now. We’re halfway through the year, we’ll see what comes. But so far in July – six, seven months in – that’s what the movie is for me.
We started talking about you reviewing the Lexi Alexander Punisher movie. I remember at the time, that was something different. Now comic book movies are everywhere. I know you’re a comic book fan. You know these stories inside and out. There was a recent article about how we’ve gone beyond Marvel fatigue at this point. What are your thoughts on the constant barrage of these narratives?
Fatigue brings innovation, especially when the filmmakers are aware of the comic book fatigue. Then you get stuff like the Deadpool films, you get stuff like Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. You get that amazingly underrated Teen Titans movie that came out: Teen Titans Go! To The Movies. It was like Deadpool, but for middle schoolers. Someone will always do something creative and cool. You just don’t know where it will come from.
I think we forget sometimes that the Western was like that. We [celebrate] the John Ford Westerns or the innovation of the Wild Bunch. But we forget that there was a new Western once a month or so.
Exactly. We also forget that Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher were able to come along and bring new stuff to it.
We’re talking just as the new Miss Marvel series wrapped and a lot of people are celebrating how, yes, it follows certain tropes, but it’s also very fresh.
It’s very different, very great new angle. I loved it. I thought it was fantastic.
What did you feel about The Batman?
I thought it was good. I didn’t think it needed to be that long. I would like for someone to make a non-epic Batman; a down and dirty, almost like The Raid version of The Batman, where it just takes place in one night, it’s low stakes and he’s just trying to survive. That’d be amazing.
