Bo Burnham: The Inside Outtakes (2022)
★★★½
Starting this by saying to get a look behind the scenes at Bo’s process of making this is infinitely fascinating, the way he does things is so indie (to use a buzzword to simplify) but on massive scale like testing out ISO or testing out the color GELs there is an underground filmmaking aspect to this thing that makes the outtakes so fascinating to watch, like the different takes for each song or skits that were cut, its like asking for to much information but i wish that we could get some insight into why he cut a certain thing or decided not to use it ultimately though I'm not entitled to that at all, like the opening to 30 being him turning 30 which is ultimately for plot reasons him saying that he just turned 30 is suppose to be him saying that the deadline he set internally for himself has expired and now he is in kind of a no man’s land kind of territory where he could work on this thing forever but more crazy is that before the birthday thing it was originally gonna be him kind of recreating his birth, the labor breathing and sitting in the fetal position showcases this.
I think that while INSIDE is the better special and story, this showcases how much darker the special could have been because this outtakes has some darker concepts overall, future being an example, being a concept for living in a future that he wants vs the future that he is in now and how ultimately the future that he is in is gonna be the same one he is in tomorrow like a dark groundhogs day Esq thing, i think that the outtakes take a darker turn and that the turn is done much better in execution in it than the special, while the special is dark ultimately it’s dark from tone, it’s depressing which is intentional, it’s trying to emulate those feelings because I’m sure at the time of making INSIDE these are feelings he was feeling, ultimately the special mirrors the pandemic as well, everything in the special seems okay the a sudden lockdown changes things and while things are a bit goofy and silly at first things grow darker and darker as reflection and lockdown times should have ended but don’t, the outtakes are ultimately a horror movie, as the darker tone is more creeping, it creeps into the round table segment and into the PB&J sketch, the times when he is wishing that he was finished with INSIDE, its look who’s inside again explored to its fullest the horror of being trapped inside your room becomes ever present or as he says “the thing that I’m writing isn’t ending, I feel like I’m waiting for one big event to happen and it it isn’t”
It’s crazy how Inside the original special is about depression and how it is making art when you are depressed, you end up in this feedback loop like a whale stuck in a concrete prison as I’ve heard it put once, but that the outtakes are about that, but also about the COVID pandemic, the writing in this is endlessly fascinating.
