Patton Oswalt: Annihilation

I mean come on, all of the comedians already did all of this years ago and this fella is still b-ching about it - his whole bit is about it - he called Hillary "a very qualified woman" (cringe pandering much?) and I bet he's not doing Biden jokes nowadays eventhough he's even more meme material, because he's inconveniently not-republican, right? Just a really really sad little fella. And still I wanted to like him and have a few laughs maybe, but nah.

Coming off the death of his wife, Patton Oswalt delivers a great performance, somehow managing to maintain his composure even while recalling the feeling of telling his daughter that her mother was gone. I've seen other comedy specials where the performer reflects on their difficult past and maybe even breaks down a bit, but I've never been genuinely moved until now. Oswalt tackles his own grief with humour, making the audience both laugh and cry as they share in his healing journey/numb slog. I found his comedy style a bit too crude at times, but then he says at the end that his late wife loved crude humour so it made sense to me if he kind of crossed the line a bit (retroactively made sense anyways.) Great special, watch with tissues handy because you may cry.

In his last stand up (Annihilation), Patton Oswalt masterfully combines tragedy with comedy. He lost his wife last year. And now, Patton has set a new mission for himself: To spread the message of his late wife: "Life is chaos. Be kind".

10/21/17. Despite the tragedy of his private life, Oswalt rises above it in this stand-up comedy worth watching. His honesty about the death of his wife was truly cathartic for him but was probably somewhat reassuring to the audience as well. He is funny without resorting to bad language. His observational humor is spot on and hopefully we will get to see more of him in the future.

Man, that had to have been hard; but he makes it look easy. Considering the levels of Patton Oswalt's despair over the past year, that's the mark of a remarkably honed talent. The only thing worse than losing a significant other is having to bream the news to your child. It's the last thing I'd even want to do. But Oswalt has a gift for turning pain into laughs and rolling with the punches; and all of this is after his hilariously sticky conversation with the front row. Dull moments just don't arise. There are funnier standup specials with more memorable knee-slappers, but I don't think I've ever seen any like this; as soul-crushing as it is uplifting. It is the work of a man who's mastered his craft. 10/10

Patton Oswalt is a funny comedian, for sure. But this 2017 show was just too much focused on easy jabs at Donald Trump, which didn't really sit well with me. Now, I am by no means not a supporter or fan of Trump in any way, but he is just too much of an easy target for jokes. So the fun part sort of sinks into the sand. There are some good jokes here and there about various topics, but they were not sufficient to raise the stand-up show out of the mediocrity gutter, after Oswalt sank it with his Donald Trump tirade. And "Annihilation" was also somewhat of a trip into Patton Oswalt's personal experiences, such as when he talked about the loss of his wife. This is, unfortunately, the type of stand-up comedy show that you will watch once and probably never again.

This is my first Patton Oswalt stand-up experience. There were some good observations and bittersweet stories about his late wife. I did not know he was a widower and that his wife died in her sleep about a year ago. Some bits went on too long so this really needed fifteen minutes trimmed from certain gags. The Polish woman unintentionally traumatizing his young daughter went on way too long. A few stories were too long because they really had no point. The fight he once observed is a perfect example. The ending bit with the * references was also too long and smutty, maybe because I was eating lunch at that particular spot by pure chance. Then when he said it was his late wife's favourite bit, I told myself that at least he had a reason for including it. I gave him the five pity stars because he showed great courage in getting back on stage and opening his heart.

In the description it says this is Patton Oswalt's best show. Well if it is so then I won't watch any other of his shows because I didn't think there were much funny moments in Annihilation. Lately I've been watching alot of stand-up comedies and this one was the one I liked the least. When you just watched a Jim Jefferies show and then you watch this one it is like watching Premier League soccer followed by a soccer game from Luxemburg. Patton Oswalt had a couple okay jokes about Trump, but for a strange reason this show became just unfunny. That he just lost his wife is a tragedy and I honestly think he should not have included that in his show, nor the daughter stuff he spoke about. I don't want to hear sad stories when I watch a stand-up comedy, and that was exactly what it was, and not just for a couple seconds. No he would just continue with that story, adding some jokes that were way too long and not really funny. I guess this will be my only Oswalt show then if this was his best work.