Bill Hicks: Sane Man

Bad news: Bill Hicks is still dead. Good news: In 1989, he was alive and freshly sober, with a renewed sense of purpose. The result was Sane Man, 60 minutes of profane, unflinching hilarity. Hicks explores his favorite subjects: rock music, drugs, smoking, corruption, Republicans and anti-intellectualism. This DVD also offers the full 84-minute show, less focused and not as funny. And it invites the standard complaints: that he was one-sided and inclined to undermine good material—in this case, by cutting unrelated black-and-white footage of himself into the performance. But Sane Man’s value is as a record of Hicks still finding his voice. Extras include his canny Elvis impersonation at a Houston Outlaws of Comedy show, an early performance caught on video, and other odds and ends.