erlong

pre-order (3-31-09) at dvdempire.com $17.99 plus free shipping. Best price I've seen yet.

RustyOrgan

Man... There was a time when Dennis Miller was funny.

laidbacklarkin

if he could let go of his smugness, cockiness and arrogance, perhaps there could be something funny in there.

Artman

I'm enjoyin his radio show... I dig the cut of his jib!

bwsmom

I feel exactly the same way..... about Bill Maher!!

I'll take Dennis any day of the week over that moron!! Thanks OP!

JeffTheAlpaca

Dam

I preodered it at Amazon and I got the shipping notice today

maybe I should order it at DVD empire and return the Amazon DVD

erlong

Someone on these forums posted a month or so ago that he was really funny until 9/11, then his act just turned bitter and political. After that he seemed to lose the funny. I think only 2 of his post-9/11 specials are on here. Otherwise I wouldn't buy it.

Son-volt

Miller always had conservative leanings. It's just that post-9/11 he went from "guy with conservative leanings taking the piss out of liberal silliness that deserved mocking" to straight up AM radio propagandist. Thankfully there's not much of his propagandist-era nonsense on here, and more common sense mockery, so I think I'll be picking it up. Thanks op.

filmsoncon

Also, in his funny, pre-9/11 days, he dished it out to everyone equally. He may have had conservative leanings (and even that's up for debate), but there's plenty of ire and mockery for Reagan and Bush I in the early specials.

But as others have noted, there's plenty of the early, good stuff in the set, so I'll probably grab it as well. Thanks OP.

stupiddimbulb

Someone on these forums posted that Dennis Miller can change water into wine and make people fly.

DirkBelig

For some, there is no greater sin that an entertainer can commit then to be conservative or less than deep-red liberal. Whenever I see people sneering that Miller ceased being funny on 9/12/2001, I see people who are living in a fantasy world where they probably think Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are oracles of truth. Scary cult-of-personality stuff where worship of Dear Leader runs amok.

That said, as a long-time fan of Miller's and big fan of his HBO series, I've never been too fond of his stand-up specials. Something off with his rhythms in big places. His "All In" special was particularly flat and "The Live Feed", his first after wrapping his series wasn't all that either. He's at his best with immediate current events humor, so specials that consolidate a year's worth of aging gags aren't that great. Contrast that to George Carlin's oeuvre and you'll see what I mean, though George got too unfocused and angry at the end of his life.

reverie

Great price! I ordered it Saturday, and it shipped today. Been awhile since I've ordered from DVDEmpire, but this was pretty impressive.

smashthesymbols

Exactly. As a comedian everyone should be fair game. You can't let your politics dictate who or what you can make fun of. He lost sight of that post-9/11 and his comedy suffered.

With that said, and to get back on topic, I'll probably pick this set up at some point down the road for the early specials. I'm waiting though because this just feels like something that will be bargain bin fodder in no time.

MovieExchange

Miller and Maher both. In reality, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and the Dennis Miller of old are the same type of comic saying the same things... but where Maher and Miller deliver their spiel with the attitude of "you're a moron if you don't agree with me," Stewart has perfected the "aw shucks, here's what I think" delivery that makes him more money than both men combined.



That was pure ignorance.

The "sin" is that Miller, whose career was flagging, jumped aboard the liberal bashing bandwagon post 9/11 in an attempt to make money. In doing so, he went against so many of the things he had been saying for years, and even went as far as saying that he would not tell jokes about Bush. That's called being a partisan hack.

I know you conservatives don't like Stewart because he has the nerve to point out when your "Dear Leader" does something stupid. What conservatives seem to miss is that Stewart does what Miller used to do - take swipes at EVERYONE no matter what side of the political fence they were on. As a matter of fact, that's why you people used to hate Miller pre-9/11... because he launched attacks against anyone that deserved it. And everyone knows when you dare criticize a Republican, even if they've done something so bone-headed stupid that they deserve the criticism, that makes you an evil liberal.

stupiddimbulb

Yeah, all those attacks on Obama by Stewart echoed throughout the halls of Comedy Central.

<crickets>

A-Cod

Anybody out there like both Maher and Miller? I think they are both funny if the joke or observation is funny I don't care what side of the aisle it comes from. I'm all over this Miller set.

"I wish people would stop using cell phones in the theater, it's so loud I can't hear what the black people are yelling at the screen".
Bill Maher

erlong

I like them both. I just skip through the first 50 minutes of "Real Time..." and watch the NEW RULES segement. That 10 minutes is some of the funniest on TV anywhere. As for Miller, if HBO put out a DVD of his THE BIG PICTURE bits from his HBO show, I'd be all over that too. Point being, they're comedians. You can't take anything they say too seriously. I don't like ALL of what Maher says, because he do get smug sometimes. I just ignore that and listen to the funny stuff.

sm1

[QUOTE=MovieExchange;9358009]Miller and Maher both. In reality, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and the Dennis Miller of old are the same type of comic saying the same things... but where Maher and Miller deliver their spiel with the attitude of "you're a moron if you don't agree with me," Stewart has perfected the "aw shucks, here's what I think" delivery that makes him more money than both men combined.>>>>




>>>


I think Stewart was a bit too much of a cheerleader for Obama leading up to the election, but now that he is in power, he has taken him to task much more than most others, so I commend him for that. Hopefully, he will be as ruthless with Obama as he was with Bush if it is warranted down the line.

Keep in mind, I am not a Conservative or a Liberal, I'm a Libertarian, so I think both sides are full of crap and have voted 3rd party in all 3 elections in which I have been eligible. I am fiscally conservative, socially liberal, and a foreign policy moderate (I was for the war in Afghanistan and against the war in Iraq). I tend to agree with both the NRA and the ACLU on most issues, and I'm a pro-life (only social issue where I have a conservative streak) but I'm also an agnostic. Now, if that ain't all over the board, I don't know what is lol.

I don't think Dennis "Sold Out." I also don't think 9/11 happened and he all of the sudden became Conservative. I think he always had his Conservative leanings and slowly moved more and more rightward over the years. Al Franken, his longtime friend, even said that when people ask him about it, he says nothing happened to Dennis, he was always Conservative on certain issues.

Miller has said that his first true moment of anger with the left came with their treatment over Admiral James Stockdale, which you can see in his '93 special. He was on record as saying that he voted for Perot in 1992 and Dole in 1996. His dislike of Clinton was on full display in his '96 special "Citizen Arcane." In fact, in an interview with Playboy in '96, he categorized himself as a Conservative leaning Libertarian and said that on most major issues, he tended to side more with Newt than he did with Clinton but that he found Newt to be too exclusionary.

In 2000, he voted for George W Bush (which he stated on his show at the time), nearly a full year before 9/11.

I think Dennis started out as a social Liberal and a fiscal moderate with somewhat hawkish tendencies. That would place him slightly right of center, but his view of Republicans in general was not favorable (he thought of them as many in Hollywood do: cranky white people who hate the poor and are social puritans....which is true for some right wingers and not true for others). As he got older, he got more fiscally conservative and once 9/11 happened, he felt he fully identified more with the right than the left.

I think post 9/11, Miller saw a lot of celebrities and comedians saying vile things (there were a lot of things about Bush worth criticizing, but calling him things like "Nazi" were a tad much) and it pissed him off. He liked Bush, was on board with the War on Terror, and felt like somebody in Hollywood should speak up for the guy. By doing so, he became a hero to the right wing, who were grateful that any comedians were saying anything good about Bush and making fun of his detractors. His subsequent popularity with them eventually led to being on Fox, doing a radio show, etc.....

I listen to his radio show a lot (which isn't only politics.....has celebs, sports figures, announcers, etc......) and the only area where I see Miller as uncompromising is on foreign policy, which is the only area where he can get a bit nasty. He isn't vile with Obama, saying that he hopes he succeeds, and even during the primaries saying that he would vote for him if not for his stance on the war. He disagrees with some of what he has done so far, but hasn't been vile about it and rarely resorts to the type of rhetoric of Hannity, Levin, and the like. Yes, he has had some very nasty things to say about Reid, Pelosi, etc..... but it has almost entirely been stuff related to the war and the troops, which seems to be his sore spot.

As for his political positions, truthfully, the only one that he seems to have changed much is his stance on gun ownership, which he attributes to reading John Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime." The rest of his positions, as Al Franken alluded to, haven't changed all that much, it's just that he's louder about his right wing stances now than he was in the past (ie: he is still pro gay marriage, pro choice, etc......)

All of that said, I think you were right when you mentioned that he was much funnier when he was bashing both sides equally. That, to me, was one of the reasons, in addition to his brilliant style, that I enjoyed his standup and his HBO show. He slapped around the left when he felt they deserved it and the right when he felt they deserved it, but now only does that with the left. The fact that he largely only goes after the left now (he could at the very least, go after the right on stuff like gay marriage, etc.....) and gave Bush a free pass after 9/11 really bothered me and made him less funny.

Now, does that mean I don't still find him funny? No, I still think he's very funny and witty. I enjoy his radio show and his segments on O'Reilly are the only thing I ever watch on Fox besides Red Eye and anything that has Megyn Kelly on it (she is an 11 out of 10). I just think he isn't as funny as he used to be and think he could be even funnier than he is now if he went back to smacking everybody around the way he used to back in his HBO days.

-SM