Netflix Minute: Zach Galifianakis Live

Netflix Minute is a weekly feature highlighting a title from Netflix's catalog of instant view films. If you want to spend a night snuggled up with a bag of popcorn and don't want to drive to the video store, this is for you.

As a type of review, I have to warn you that this edition of Netflix Minute is highly dependent on viewer taste. Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion will obviously appeal more to fans of his prior work and could put off people who aren't familiar with his brand of comedy. This movie isn't going to evangelize you to his cause if you've had trouble watching him in movies like The Hangover. That being said, Live at the Purple Onion does a couple of interesting things that set it apart from the more conventional recorded stand-up routine.

The format is the most novel element of this show, building off a live performance by intercutting scenes from two different settings. The first is an interview between writer/political satirist Brian Unger and Galifianakis's alter-ego/brother Seth, conducted under the guise of a "True Hollywood Story" discussion to gain insight into Zach's life. The second is the roadtrip that supposedly led up to the stand-up routine, with the gang of comics and friends having silly absentminded discussions and pulling off great visual gags born of implied boredom.

So, if you came to Live at the Purple Onion for pure stand-up, you might be a little let down. This format does however allow Galifianakis to test each of the boundaries of his comedic character. The on-stage content delivers the more popular, deadpan humor that embraces absolutely insane thoughts with a straight face. The interview content displays some of the more emotionally disjointed humor that keeps the usually solid Unger giggling incessantly despite obvious fighting against it. Finally, the roadtrip allows for a more candid look at Galifianakis's sense of humor, with his own enjoyment of his jokes bringing a far more blatantly fun experience. The extremity of each of these situations means that switching from one to the other keeps the deadpan from getting too painfully awkward or the interview from feeling too staged.

When it comes down to it, Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion packed a lot of laughs into an hour's worth of instant streaming. With the slow stream of reviews leaking out from The Hangover: Part II and not promising a particularly fantastic movie, this might be just the thing for a comedy fan who doesn't want to give up $10 for a subpar experience.