Really Surprised!

Overrated

Brilliant and touching

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

3/15/18. Wow, what a biopic! Never heard of him but now that I have watched this I will never forget him. A caustic, sarcastic comedian who had a good reason for being that way - he was sexually abused when he was a small child. Eventually he took all that energy and channeled it into activism against Internet child porn. More than anything he raised awareness of how prevalent child molestation is, and it's scary. Parents, protect your children!

This raw and explicit documentary, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, is not for the faint of heart and certainly not for everyone. It traces the life and career of the acerbic, rageful, and cynical comic Barry Crimmins, who has now become a leading children's rights and safety advocate.Early on in the movie, Crimmins sets the tone by stating his two main goals, that of overthrowing the U.S. government and closing the Catholic Church, and as the film progress we find out why he feels this way. The doc traces Crimmins' early years in Skaneateles, New York where he began his comic career, to his move to Boston where he established a comedy club in the Chinese restaurant The Ding Ho, that eventually became a breeding ground for many known comics of today.About halfway through the movie, it takes a radical shift relating a 1992 monologue where Crimmins graphically revealed for the first time in public his horrific sexual abuse when he was a child. This led to a tireless effort, often at the expense of his own health, to be an advocate for children's safety.These were the very early days of the Internet, and Crimmins discovered in some AOL chatrooms vile and disgusting transmissions of child pornography, and devoted much of his energy to try and get AOL to close them down, to no avail. At the time apparently, this was still regarded by some as a free speech issue and not criminal activity like it is today.This was demonstrated in the film, by a Senate Judiciary hearing where Crimmins was invited to testify. He was able to confront the smarmy Asst. General Counsel of AOL, and state his case to a panel of Senators who embarrassingly professed their ignorance of what the Internet even was. Of course today, child pornography has become a severely prosecuted crime in the United States.In summary, although certainly not for everyone this explicit documentary was one I took a lot from, led by Crimmins' deep seeded attempts to battle some powerful evils in society, and maintaining his integrity while doing just that.

Call Me Lucky is a shocking, brilliant new documentary. It's about a man, few have known, but many really should discover. He's an American treasure, despite hating his own country so very much. Barry Crimmins is the subject of the piece. He's said to be "a cross between Noam Chomsky and Bluto". He is a giant fireball of communist rage. No matter how much you think you hate the United States, and the Catholic Church, trust me, you don't hate it as much as Barry does. He's seething anger personified, but it didn't just come out of a vacuum. As a young child, he was subject to a series of unspeakable, disgusting sexual assaults. How much of it that he discloses will make your jaw drop. It is devastating. Once you take it all into account, you suddenly understand his resentment for his surroundings. As a man, and in-between his stand- up gigs, he dedicates his free time in a heroic journey to save children who have been at the hands of sexual abuse. Through this journey, he exposes the darkest underbelly of the pedophilia ring, during the dawn of AOL. I'm spilling way too much about this documentary, but it's brilliant, and I have to just spill all of my thoughts here. It's Bobcat Goldthwait's masterpiece, and what should be, and won't be, an Oscar contender. It's too cool for the establishment to like. If the day comes and the Oscars don't nominate "Call Me Lucky", I hope to see Crimmins rail against the "capitalist, old, white, wrinkly, pig f******" that screwed him over again… sorry to paraphrase.

Barry Crimmins is not a well-known comedian outside of Boston and New York. But he is a legend among comics, including many legendary comics. His highly intelligent and hard-charging style, lashing out at greedy and inhumane politics, puts him in the ranks of Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Bill Hicks. He also helped mentor a roster of comics like Denis Leary, Stephen Wright, Tom Kenny, Paula Poundstone, and Lenny Clarke. He also mentored Bobcat Goldthwait, who directs this simple yet emotionally packed biography that explains not only who Crimmins is, but how he came to be. This is not a "how did he get to be so funny?" or "the greatest (blank) you've never heard of" fluff piece. This is a very gritty, sometimes very dark look at the horrors Crimmins endured as a child, and how he turned his suffering into a lifelong mission to help those victimized by man's inhumanity to man. His compassion permeates his actions, even as he takes the microphone at a Senate hearing on child pornography and uses it to (figuratively) beat a suit from AOL into submission. The result is an emotional wringer that will take you from belly laughs to gut-punched. See this film.