It’s not usually we get to pay tribute, in full, to our giants whereas they’re nonetheless with us. But in “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” Judd Apatow dutifully and affectionately celebrates the laugh-filled lifetime of a comedy legend who’s nonetheless right here to inform the story — and the jokes — himself.
“The 99 Year Old Man,” which debuted Thursday in two components on HBO and HBO Max, is a big-hearted tribute to Brooks, an indefatigable comedian drive who did greater than most anybody to lighten the temper of the twentieth century. At 99 (he’ll flip 100 in June), Brooks stays a remarkably nice raconteur.
One of the cleverest tips by administrators Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio is taking part in a few of Brooks’ tales — like a memorable lunch with Cary Grant — throughout not simply his sit-down interviews with them, however over a number of speak present appearances. He’s been telling a few of these jokes for many years. It doesn’t matter. They’re nonetheless good.
“The 99 Year Old Man” takes the entire life in: the formative childhood in Brooklyn; the Sid Caesar-aided entry to “Your Show of Shows”; the lifelong friendship with Carl Reiner; the 2000 Year Old Man sketches; “The Producers”; the wedding to Anne Bancroft; “Blazing Saddles,” and past.
But if there’s an ongoing query in “The 99 Year Old Man,” it’s posed early by Apatow, who seems on-screen as Brooks’ interviewer. Do folks actually know who he’s? “No,” Brooks solutions straightaway.
That would possibly sound like an odd reply for somebody who has so unabashedly lived almost a century within the public eye. Yet Brooks has been such a continuous performer that it may typically be tough to see the place the schtick ends and the self begins.
One particular person describes Brooks, as a new child, considering the supply physician smacking him on the rear was applause. In an earlier clip, an interviewer laments Brooks’ obvious lack of introspection. He replies that he’s merely “a coalescence of vapor.” When Brooks gave his Oscar speech, for the screenplay to “The Producers,” he stated he would converse from the center: “Ba-bum, ba-bum.”
So is what’s inside Brooks simply jokes? I’d say — and I believe that is what makes “The 99 Year Old Man” not simply an exhaustive documentary however a transferring and even stirring one — it’s extra the alternative. Brooks’ comedy, from the 2000 Year Old Man to “History of the World, Part I,” has all the time derived from one thing deeper, extra private and intrinsically Jewish than its slapstick qualities typically have urged.
“Comedy is a sensational and sometimes spectacular political weapon,” Brooks says within the movie.
There are numerous massive names who are available in to talk to Brooks’ boldness as a comic, amongst them Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler and Conan O’Brien. But I’m tempted to assume Brooks’ legacy is in how, for him, life and comedy are one: pulse and punchline collectively.
You can see that in Brooks’ a long time of marriage with Bancroft, who describes, each time her husband got here house as like a celebration. And you may see it in Brooks’ timeless friendship with Reiner. After the deaths of their wives, the 2 associates would nightly meet to eat deli sandwiches and watch outdated motion pictures. Reiner as soon as recalled they’d watch movies “with lines like ‘Secure the perimeter!’”
Bancroft died in 2005 and Reiner in 2020. Any life that stretches so long as Brooks’ takes on an elegiac high quality. Appearing within the documentary, earlier than their deaths, are each Rob Reiner and David Lynch (whom Brooks, a believer, bought to direct “The Elephant Man”).
But the losses that add up in Brooks’ life by no means outstrip the laughter. You’re left questioning if Brooks is among the funniest folks to ever reside, or one of many wisest.
“Comedy is lively. Comedy is joy,” he says. “And that’s what keeps us going. We have to look forward to little happinesses, little joys.”
© Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.