Standup Comedy - Christian Finnegan - Au Contraire

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Christian Finnegan - Au Contraire - 2009

Christian Finnegan - 01 - Intro
Christian Finnegan - 02 - A Unique Moment In Our Lives
Christian Finnegan - 03 - Canis Ridiculum
Christian Finnegan - 04 - France v. Ireland
Christian Finnegan - 05 - \'Finnegan\'
Christian Finnegan - 06 - Give Us The Baby
Christian Finnegan - 07 - Rigorous Certification Process
Christian Finnegan - 08 - Purple Shorts
Christian Finnegan - 09 - Why Not A Shark Tank
Christian Finnegan - 10 - Rabbit Ears
Christian Finnegan - 11 - High Five Yourself
Christian Finnegan - 12 - The Telltale Fart
Christian Finnegan - 13 - Dirty And Disgusting And Shameful
Christian Finnegan - 14 - In Excelsis Deo
Christian Finnegan - 15 - The Murder Tree
Christian Finnegan - 16 - Hard Reboot
Christian Finnegan - 17 - Dishwasher Safe
Christian Finnegan - 18 - Enrique Must Be Stopped

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wxfqxqedldje~T1


Review by Tim DiGravina

Best known as one of the talking heads from VH1\'s Best Week Ever, Christian Finnegan offers up a less than hilarious standup routine recorded before a live Philadelphia audience on Au Contraire!. Perhaps the best thing going for the album is the 1920s style artwork, the newsreel-style introduction, and subtitle of \"An Evening of American Style Stand-Up Comedy.\" So much of the routine, particularly the first third, relates to Finnegan\'s \'90s style of self-deprecation, mostly where he worries aloud about not seeming manly, coming across as gay, or not living up to his \"kickass\" last name. It\'s funny, at least, when he suggests people in a bar might be scared to hear \"just you wait \'til Finnegan gets here,\" but that in reality he\'s not a tough guy; he\'s more into crosswords and word games. But even the live audience doesn\'t find most of Finnegan self-homophobia that entertaining. Calling chihuahua\'s and French people gay isn\'t really cutting-edge humor in the 2000s. It certainly isn\'t shocking, and it\'s not particularly funny to a crowd beyond their teen years. Though Finnegan claims not to be a man\'s man, he attempts edginess with spurts of profanity and plenty of dude-like talk, making for a persona that seems more confused than comedically focused. The material is quite a bit funnier than the delivery, but too many bits about mullets and farts fall flat. Finnegan constantly asks the audience if they\'re in agreement with his slice-of-life observations and they clearly aren\'t, as such questions are usually met with applause to show how universal the observations are. For example, Finnegan goes off on a large riff about how he watches gymnastics just to watch young girls with eating disorders getting injured. It\'s a rant that\'s unfunny and perhaps a bit sociopathic. He expects the audience to agree that\'s why they watch the sport, but there\'s no clapping. It\'s more than a bit awkward. There are no real laugh-out-loud moments in the hour-long routine, and the audience chuckles politely more than anything. A tangent about completing missions in video games feeling like life accomplishments and comparing Playstation and X box fanboys to Sharks and Jets at least feel current. When Finnegan says most of his life is spent playing video games into the wee hours of the morning, it at least explains in part why many of his observations aren\'t that relevant to the fun-seeking crowd in attendance. Au Contraire! isn\'t Christian Finnegan\'s finest hour. There are less laughs than even a typical airing of Best Week Ever, and the album makes a listener wonder if Finnegan is better suited to D-List pop culture humor than slice-of-life observational humor.


Biography by David Jeffries

Standup comedian Christian Finnegan came up through the very happening New York City \"indie\" comic scene, but his style is more traditional and influenced by the comedy albums of his youth. He stumbled into the N.Y.C. scene while attending NYU as an acting student. While he liked acting, he didn\'t like the auditions and networking involved, so he switched his major to playwriting. Problem was, he also lacked the discipline for writing, but he still craved a creative outlet. Remembering the Steve Martin and Woody Allen albums he loved way back when, Finnegan fell into standup, working with improv and other groups that did \"weirdo stuff\" at first. He later realized he was a more traditional comedian and began playing to his strengths. Things started moving in the right direction, and in 2001 he appeared on the Comedy Central cable network\'s Premium Blend. A year later he was writing for the television show Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn while keeping a busy standup schedule. His big break came in 2004 when he became a panelist on VH1\'s Best Week Ever, a weekly, smarmy look at pop culture. The show was an instant hit and soon Finnegan was appearing on Chappelle\'s Show and Shorties Watchin\' Shorties. He landed a reoccurring gig on The Today Show and in 2005 was featured on his own Comedy Central Presents special. Finnegan used the special as an opportunity to break free of any Best Week Ever typecasting. He continued to prove he could do a lot more than just be snide about celebrities with his debut CD, Two for Flinching, which was released by the Comedy Central record label in 2006.

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