Product Description

(HBO Comedy Series) Larry David has a charmed life--success, famous friends, a patient wife, a dedicated manager and a trendy new restaurant...so what's his problem? See Larry spike some brownies, recommend a deranged nanny, thwart an Alanis Morissette concert, rob a grave and get a kid drunk. Along the way he encounters Martin Scorsese, Cheri Oteri, Richard Lewis, Krazee-Eyez Killa, and the Holy Family...and manages to piss them all off.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183 in DVD
• Brand: HBO HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2005-01-18
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .45 pounds
• Running time: 300 minutes

Features

• (HBO Comedy Series) Larry David has a charmed life--success, famous friends, a patient wife, a dedicated manager and a trendy new restaurant.so what's his problem?See Larry spike some brownies, recommend a deranged nanny, thwart an Alanis Morissette concert, rob a grave and get a kid drunk. Along the way he encounters Martin Scorsese, Cheri Oteri, Richard Lewis, Krazee-Eyez Killa, and the Holy Fa

Amazon.com
The third season of HBO's comedy sensation offers more of the same. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," to quote Larry David's other television series, a certain little sitcom called Seinfeld. Consequently, Curb Your Enthusiasm's junior year means more Larry (Larry David) and more of his hilariously embarrassing mishaps. It also means more of his patient spouse Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), avuncular manager Jeff (Jeff Garlin), Jeff’s foul-mouthed wife Susie (Susie Essman), and assorted celebrity pals, including Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Wanda Sykes, Paul Reiser, and Martin Short, all playing themselves (or, like Larry, versions thereof).

The theme that (loosely) ties these 10 episodes together is Larry's involvement in upscale eatery Bobo's, in which Danson and Michael York (yes, that Michael York) are co-investors. As expected, the restaurant will serve to complicate Larry's life in every conceivable way--and vice versa. But the funniest (and most profane) episode must surely be "Krazee-Eyez Killa," starring Chris Williams (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) as the fidelity-impaired gangster rapper to whom Wanda has become engaged. This riotous installment, which sends up Jewish, Italian, and African American gangsters alike, won an Emmy for Robert B. Weide's direction and features that old master-of-direction himself, Martin Scorsese, who first appeared in "The Special Section" (in which Larry bribes a gravedigger to relocate his mother’s gravesite). It's also the episode in which Larry gets a hair stuck in his throat. That hair, which once belonged to someone rather close to him, will remain lodged there for the next several episodes, until a "divine intervention" in "Mary, Joseph and Larry" dislodges it once and for all--along with the last of Larry's dignity. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

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.

The Funniest Show on Television
I bought Curb Your Enthusiasm with one real expections. I am a marine in Iraq and I happen to see it at the local px. I am so glad that I bought it. Everything that happens in the show is hilarious. You find something funny or different every time you watch it, definately an adult comedy. I find myself watching over and over again, not due to a lack of DVD's I might add (we have plenty). It is like the Seinfeld that you always wanted, but couldn't play on basic television. You wil either love this show, or not get it at all, if you do get it, it's a homerun.

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.