One of the greatest comedy specials I ever saw was John Leguizamo’s Freak, which originally aired on HBO back in 1998. Part stand-up comedy, part autobiography, Leguizamo is brilliant as he recounts and reenacts all the character-building, intimate details of his life–like the first time he got laid, which was to an old woman with gigantic, bat-like “coochie lips”–with humor and brutal honesty.
The oldest son of Latin-American immigrants, Leguizamo was raised in poverty in some of New York City’s roughest neighborhoods, which makes for a melting pot of crazy characters John brings to life with outrageous impressions–like his deaf and gay uncle Sandy who “invented Spanglish Sign Language,” which for me are some of the funniest bits. And of course, John’s very raw, hold-nothing-back portrayal of the love/hate relationship he has with his father. Leguizamo effortlessly slips in and out of character as he paints a tacky, velvet portrait of his Latin-American upbringing and eventual rise to fame, commanding the stage with stories, song, and dance, all set to an awesome soundtrack. In short, Freak is one of the best, most entertaining one-man shows I have ever seen. I was already a John Leguizamo fan before I saw it because of movies like To Wong Foo and Romeo + Juliet, and to a MUCH lesser degree, the Super Mario Bros. movie (which is TERRIBLE, obviously, but John Leguizamo has the weird ability to fill me with an irrational love for it). Oh, and did I mention it’s directed by Spike Lee?
I’m sorry, I really don’t mean for this to turn into a review, but I feel it’s important for me to demonstrate exactly how much I love Freak so that you’ll better appreciate WHY I’M SO PISSED OFF right now as I hold this piece of shit DVD copy of it in my hands.
Let me back up a bit.
Until recent years, Freak wasn’t available on DVD or in any other format. For the longest time, the only copy I had was on a shitty, worn-out VHS that I had recorded off HBO back in the day. As far as I knew, that was the only copy in existence because even pirated copies of this thing were impossible to get. (Trust me, I was looking.) It wasn’t until the latter part of the 2000’s that a torrent copy of Freak eventually started making the rounds and someone who shall go nameless got me a copy, for which I was infinitely grateful. Between my old VHS and the, uh, “surprise” digital version I got later, I have probably seen Freak dozens of times. I can watch this show over and over again and still find something new to love about Leguizamo’s performance every time.
So now let’s get back to the reason I’m so pissed off. A few days ago I was thinking about Freak again and kind of regretting that I never picked it up on DVD. At the very least I wanted to own it for that awesome, pop-artsty cover design. I spent over ten years wishing that someday I’d be able to watch it in higher quality than the shitty, worn-out VHS tape I recorded off HBO so long ago and then in 2011 this DVD was eventually released. It had been on my Amazon Wishlist for-fucking-ever (we all have Wishlists full of those “someday” items, don’t we?) and I finally, finally decided to treat myself.
And now I’m going to tell you why this DVD is a waste of $12 despite it’s glowing 4- and 5-star reviews on Amazon.
First of all–and this is the minor complaint, believe it or not–the video quality of this DVD is atrocious. It is VHS-transfer quality at best, and when there is even the slightest bit of motion on the screen, everything looks blurry and has scan-lines running through it, like this:
John’s performance is pretty animated, to say the least. He moves very quickly, break-dances at times, and often runs around like a retard (I mean that in a loving way). And all of that would be so much more enjoyable if it didn’t look like complete ass. This shit is unacceptable. But like I said, the video quality is not even my #1 complaint.
The MAIN reason why I’m so pissed off is because this recording has been dubbed over with completely different audio not only for every song that was featured in the original, but also for some of John’s speaking parts–to the point where I suspect a different voice actor filled in altogether. WHY, WHY, WHY? Keep in mind, I am extremely familiar with Freak, having seen it as much as I have. I KNOW what that audio should sound like. The original recording featured a bunch of awesome pop/rock songs like Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” Al Green’s “So In Love With You, and the amazeballs Freestyle song, “Don’t Stop the Rock,” among others, all of which John busted some serious moves to. You know what this DVD gave me instead? Generic-sounding stock music that only vaguely resembles the original songs that made this performance so memorable to begin with.
This copyright shit has gone too far.
It’s pretty sad when you can’t even buy a DVD nowadays without the worry that it’ll sound completely different from what you remember. Take The Wonder Years, for example. The DVD collection of that show has been stripped of its original opening theme song, as well as a lot of the 60s-era music that originally featured in the episodes. This is also why you won’t hear Frank Sinatra’s classic “Love and Marriage” during the opening of Married With Children anymore. THIS IS A TRAVESTY, people. The worst part is I don’t even know who to blame. And dammit, I need somebody or something to blame. I just wish we lived in a world where artistic integrity was valued more than splitting pussy hairs over copyrights.
My advice? Pirate the shit out of this movie. Preferably find yourself a copy of the 1998 original. That’s the only way you’ll get to experience it the way you were meant to.
