In and Of Itself

For a couple of years, I've wanted to see a streaming special, but it was on Hulu, which I didn't subscribe to.  I knew I could sign up for a month and then cancel, but there were other things I was in the midst of watching and I also wanted to wait until there were a few others things on Hulu that I wanted to watch.

I finally had a few shows on my list and was caught up on other, so I signed up for Hulu for the month -- it turns out that they offer 30 days for a free trial, which is all the better.

I watched the special a couple nights ago, and it was excellent.  Since one can get a month free, to try the service out (or you might already subscribe), I think it's worth checking out, and probably doesn't have a title most have heard of.  It’s a videotaped production of a one-man off-Broadway show called Derek Delgaudio’s In and Of Itself.  

I heard of it when Stephen Colbert was raving about the production on his show a while back and had Derek Delgaudio on, along with Frank Oz who directed the video version.  Colbert said he and his wife were so blown away by having seen it on stage that they wanted to help get it made as a film, and are executive producers.  I actually turned off the interview, though, because from the way all of them set the show up, saying how near-impossible it was to describe without giving anything away, I didn’t want to know anything more.  (But that’s just me being me.  I don’t read reviews beforehand because I don’t want to know anything.)

Whether the show is to everyone’s taste, I don’t know, it's pretty different, but I think it would be for most people.   It’s really good.  If you’re interested, I'm embedding the trailer below.  It sets the tone well, but doesn’t give much of anything away.  If (like me) don’t want to know anything at all, though, then avoid it.  Otherwise, it’s fine.  The show runs about 90 minutes.

By the way, now that I’ve seen the film, I tracked down Colbert’s interview with Derek Delgaudio and Frank Oz, and an earlier one with Delgaudio alone   They all talked about how difficult it was to promote the show without talking about almost anything about it, including simply what it was.  At one point, Colbert asks Oz how he describes the show when not being able to say much about it,  to which Oz replies, “The problem with answering that is that for me to tell you my opinion of what the show is…goes against what the show is.”  Colbert laughed and said, “Exactly!!  That’s perfect.  Well, that’s it for tonight, goodnight, folks!”

So, here's the trailer.  (You'll see a couple familiar faces in the small audience, there are a few more in the full film, as well.)  If you're intrigued by it, just know that you're intrigued without knowing pretty much anything about it.  That's a tough thing to pull off...