PHOTO BY , COURTESY OF APATOW PRODUCTIONS AND HBO DOCUMENTARY FILMS

NEW FLICKS: GEORGE CARLIN’S AMERICAN DREAM (2022)

Where is it playing?: HBO Max

What's it rated?: TV-MA

Directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, this George Carlin biography mixes interviews with Carlin’s family members and contemporary comics such as Stephen Colbert, Patton Oswalt, Bill Burr, Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld, as well as archival material from his long career. It’s an insightful and frank look at “the dean of counterculture comedians.”

Part 1 examines his childhood, early radio days, transition to TV, his long and sometimes uneven marriage to Brenda Carlin and the birth of their child Kelly, his soaring career thanks to comedy albums, his notorious “seven dirty words” bit, his drug use and how it led to his transformation, finally ending with what looked like a descent into irrelevancy. Had Carlin’s brand of humor become passé?

Part 2 proves he was only getting started. After his ’80s, slump, Carlin came back stronger than ever, and his political observations of American politics and culture still speak to us today and remain more relevant than ever. Carlin’s contempt for the corruption, the duplicity, and the disingenuousness of our leaders and the lack of resistance to corruption by his fellow Americans left him clearly disappointed. He died at age 71 in 2008, but his astute observations of America’s shortcomings still ring true. (two episodes running three hours and 37 min.)

—Glen Starkey