Critic Reviews

Douglas Tirola’s doc about the satirical bible’s rise and fall is fascinating, funny, smart, juvenile, tragic, and likely to offend just about everyone. It’s a must-see for anyone who cares about comedy.

Douglas Tirola’s doc does the era and National Lampoon justice. The tone is sharp and freewheeling, the craziness is infectious and the pace is cocaine-quick.

Focusing on the magazine and not its offshoots, the film is uproarious, not for what its many talking heads say but for its astonishing procession of brilliant, boundary-breaching illustrations and captions (augmented by some animation), many of which are as explosively funny today as they were when first published.

Douglas Tirola’s Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is a frenetic, rough-edged, unapologetic tribute to the Lampoon, featuring some amazing archival footage, nifty bits of animation and dozens of straightforward talking-head interviews that crackle and pop.

Energetic, laugh-stuffed and very colorful (it would be a feat to make a dull film about these people).

A generous and briskly entertaining doc.

Tirola’s punchy timeline hits the breaks at the ’80s flameout, wobbling in its handling of self-destructive editor Doug Kenney. But until the defunct Lampoon starts magically reappearing in your mailbox, this excellently titled pic will do nicely.

Comedy enthusiasts will love the look back on the groundbreaking magazine, its talented players, and the way the doc captures its irreverent spirit.

Satire, parody, racist skewerings of racism, sacred cows slaughtered, silly slides down the slippery slope into Anti-Semitism. And breasts. Lots and lots of breasts!

Ultimately, what makes Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead valuable is the sense it provides of how savage and uncompromising the National Lampoon was in its heyday.