i kinda liked Head Of State, although certainly it was an underachiever. Rock directed it, too, and on the commentary track he pretty much spells out his dissapointment.

Isn't criticising the President on mainstream TV slightly more risky these days than cussing on pay-per-view?

Didn't Rock play the over-the-top radio star Ruby Rhodd in The Fifth Element? He was brilliant in that! BAMMO! "He moved, I swear he moved!"

Unless you have been sleeping, the liberal media loves to bash the President and really do not seem frightened.

The Fifth Element was a really bad movie but to be fair, I liked him in Dogma or maybe I just liked Dogma.

Nope, that was not Rock in The Fifth Element. It was Chris Tucker.

Vic

I beleive Chris Tucker was playing Chris Rock in Fifth Element. No?

I agree that Rock loses something when trying to crossover to a Middle America / wide distribution audience, but that's a far cry from a "talentless void," of course.

Something to consider is that Rock is the wrong sort of comic actor to carry a movie on his own. He was actually very good in Kevin Smith's Dogma, in which he played a character-role that enabled him to both be "down and dirty" and also pull some emotional strings.

I'd like to see him do some ensemble stuff, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

I agree with you, Mr. Berlin, in a sense. IMO, Chris Rock is too intelligent to be palatable to a mainstream audience. And how about the author's assertion that Mr. Rock left a "talentless void" in the middle of the Oscar broadcast? This comes from someone who claims to be a fan. And he can't even tell Chris Tucker apart from Chris Rock? Mr. Porter, really: They all don't look alike. And, as Mr. HB notes, bashing Bush on Amerikkkan mainstream teevee takes stones.

Natalie,

I am a fan of his adult material not his lame attempt at grabbing the mainstream audience. You cannot compare his monlogue at the Oscars with anything he has ever done in stand-up. Did you like him in Saturday Night Live?

And unlike you, I made no claims regarding his race when I joked about mistaking him for Chris Tucker. I am not sure where I heard it, but I had heard someone's routine mixing up Chris Tucker with Chris Rock.

And again, as a pro-Bush supporter, you would think it takes courage to insult the leader of the United States, but not when you are the one hundredth person doing it, it kind of takes the sting out of it.

No one denies it's easy to mock George W. Bush to a liberal Hollywood audience. The real risk for Rock was cracking on the celebrities the way he did. Colin Farrell is used to being loved and adored and fawned-over; I feel fairly certain he's not used to being told he's a poor man's Russell Crowe. And the joke about Jude Law obviously got under Sean Penn's thin skin. I'm not saying these jokes are big huge risks, but neither are the jokes he usually tells, especially not for the kind of audiences who go hear him.

That was a joke, Mr. Porter, who is uncomfortably overfamiliar? News to me.

And the point isn't that it's easy to mock the Shrub in front of La-La Land libs -- it's that it may not be the wisest thing to do in front of a massive audience of American mainstreamers who, after all, are the ones who really count.

Natalie

I see your last point and do agree with it.

I thought this performance was great, but Chris has definately done better, Chris Rock's "Bigger and Blacker" special was far more funny then this, but nevertheless this performance still managed to make me laugh abit ^_^ I can't wait for his next Stand Up

Expecting anyone to rise above the void that is an Oscar's night is unfair and ridiculous. It is the home of the boring and banal and always will be.

Self congratulation and celebrity fawning is not an atmosphere conducive to originality and inovation. This is Hollywood we're talking about remember

gypsyman