It's Crazy How Insanely Talented Bo Burnham Is
I saw the movie “Eighth Grade” over the weekend. It’s not out in every city yet, just NYC, LA, and a few others. And let me tell ya- it was fantastic, but not in the way you would think. I have never had a harder time watching a movie in my life. And not because it was scary, obviously, but because of the cringe. The uncomfortableness. It was basically 90 straight minutes of “Scott’s Tots” levels of cringe. That was basically my Twitter review.
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I couldn’t believe how good the movie was and hard to watch it was at the same time. And all the while, you know why it’s so uncomfortable- because of how realistic it is. You get flashbacks to how fucking weird of a time middle school was, and that extra layer of empathy adds to the dynamic Bo Burnham creates.
Bo will probably be nominated for, and win, Best Original Screenplay for this movie. And what’s incredible is it’s his *checks notes* first EVER feature film, and he both wrote and directed it. Who does that? Who makes an almost perfect movie in their first go-round? Bo does. And the thing is, while it should be surprising that a 27 year old first-time filmmaker can write and direct a movie universally praised, it’s not. Because Bo has been crushing it from the very beginning, starting out singing songs on YouTube.
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His wordplay has always been second to none. He went from YouTube videos to stand up specials, with his most recent one Make Happy which ends in one of the best bits ever performed:
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After Make Happy, I was confused. Why isn’t Bo Burnham the most famous person on the planet? His songs, his comedy, his performance, they all were better than anyone else doing it. And had been for years. As far as comedians go, going back-to-back-to-back with “Words, Words, Words”, “what.”, and “Make Happy” is about as good as it gets. So I guess he got bored of doing A+ stand up specials and decided to make a movie that has 98% on Rotten Tomatoes instead. Ho hum, ho hum.
My question is, where does Bo go from here? My worry is he’s going to get bored of being too good at everything he does and nothing will challenge him. I think he has train to become an MMA Fighter or something like that? We need him to miss on something. Put out a dud. Otherwise we’re in real jeopardy of him going Dave Chappelle on us and disappearing to Africa for a decade. Or maybe he just continues to crush it and becomes super rich and famous and entertains us for years to come. That’d be much more optimal.
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So yeah, definitely check out Eighth Grade if you get the chance. I give it 4.6 Balls.