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List Price: $24.99 | | Label: Shout Factory Theatr
Salesrank: 29032
Released: June 5, 2007 |
| Our Price: $2.93 |
| Used Price: $1.00 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
When actress Annabelle Gurwitch was fired from a play by Woody Allen, she wondered how she would cope with being downsized by a cultural icon. Turning to friends in show business she was assured she was not alone. Fired! features funny moments and tragic tales with a who’s-who of top-rated comedians and actors.
Description of Fired!:
A first-person documentary about a real-life bummer, Fired! finds actress Annabelle Gurwitch sorting through the phenomenon of losing a job. The impetus for this search? Gurwitch was cast in a Woody Allen play, only to be fired by Allen after rehearsals began. This showbiz stubbed toe inspires Gurwitch to go Michael Moore on the subject, only cuter and pleasanter. She solicits anecdotes from a large pool of comedy buddies, including David Cross, Tim Allen, Sarah Silverman, and Jeff Garlin, and she includes clips from a comedy concert where stand-ups recount their worst job experiences. These are generally pretty funny; less successful are Gurwitch's conceptual ideas, like putting Andy Dick in a traveling food van so that he can bewilder unsuspecting customers. Gurwitch also travels to Lansing, Michigan, interviewing auto workers about their tenuous relationship with a big car company. Surprisingly, she also gets an interview out of former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich--which turns out to be not so surprising when Reich wonders if Gurwitch could maybe help out his son, who's also in show business. Some of this is mildly funny, but as appealing as Gurwitch is (you were wrong, Woody Allen), the movie feels unfocused. Included in the DVD: copious outtakes with more anecdotes from celebs about getting canned. --Robert Horton
Fired! Reviews:
Getting let go . . . 
2007-09-29 - A comic tribute to a not-so-funny subject. Annabelle Gurwitch gets people to tell their getting fired stories, and when they are stories about crappy jobs and insufferable employers, it's pretty funny. When it gets serious (people with long-term jobs getting cast off in corporate reorgs while the execs get big bonuses), it's out of its depth. It isn't always the case that losing a job means you're in the wrong one, as Gurwitch seems to believe, yet she includes no stories of those whose lives crashed and burned and never recovered after getting a pink slip.
That caveat aside, there are many laughs to be had in this documentary, and they are often exhilarating. Celebrity interviews include Anne Meara, Jeff Garlin, Tim Allen, and Harry Shearer. Meanwhile, the DVD includes more than an hour's worth of out takes, to show that you can't really exhaust the subject. Should be required viewing for anyone going through job loss; it cuts the trauma down to size.
Fired is a winning doc you should hire. 
2007-09-01 - Fired is funny, sincere, unpretencious and entertaining as is its star and producer, Annabelle Gurwtich.
funny take on a serious theme 
2007-08-02 - ***1/2
They say that when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. Well, that's pretty much what actress/comedienne Annabelle Gurwitch did when she was summarily fired from a Woody Allen play. She turned her experience first into a successful stage show, and then into a feature-length documentary, appropriately entitled "Fired!"
Gurwitch uses this film not merely as therapy for herself but as a means of comforting other people who have experienced the same situation. In wildly funny terms, the filmmaker reenacts the euphoric moment when she first heard that she had been hired by the great director, then the personally devastating scene when she was dismissed from the production, and finally the initial dark days of depression immediately following the canning. She then chronicles the proactive steps she took to convert her sour experience into a sweet-tasting personal triumph. After seeking solace and advice from an assortment of friends, therapists and clergy (also reenacted here), she decided to delve into other people's stories about being fired and to use them as material for a stand-up comedy stage show of which she herself was the host. When that turned out to be a hit, Gurwitch decided to make a documentary film about the experience.
In the movie, she interviews well-known comic celebrities such as Fred Willard, Anne Meara, Tim Allen, Andy Dick, Illeana Douglas and others on their experiences of losing a job and provides snippets of her stage show as well. She also sets up a booth at a local job fair to hear the firing stories of some of the people there. Towards the end of the movie, Gurwitch launches her own Michael Moore-style investigation into some of the dismissal practices of massive corporations like GM, and interviews people whose job it is to "soften the blow" of firing.
With this small but entertaining film, Gurwitch and her comic buddies gently apply the healing balm of laughter to one of the most painful aspects of human life.
Fun with human resources
2007-06-11 - By now, all corners of the universe have been notified that actress Annabelle Gurwitch got the sack from Woody Allen, who said of her performance: "You look retarded." Gurwitch used her humiliation as inspiration for an off-off-Broadway event, a book and this movie.
"Fired!" is a pretty good film about bad life experiences. Mostly, Gurwitch wanders around interviewing the famous (Sarah Silverman, Tim Allen) and the unknown about what it's like being terminated and surviving. The best bit for me was when she shoots hoops with a former human resources exec, who reveals a few dirty secrets and explains why you're cooked when the words "As you know ... " come out.
The extras are more of the same, nothing special. Audio and video are OK for a low-budget effort.
All the cool kids are getting fired.
2007-04-03 - I saw this film in the theater and really loved it. It is funny and genuinely informative. Ms. Gurwitch demonstrates that a documentary film doesn't have to be dull.
