2. Get very, very specific (Documentary Now!)

2. Get very, very specific (Documentary Now!)

Like much of the comedy programming on IFC, the new joint effort from Saturday Night Live alumni Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, and Bill Hader presumes that the audience has already done its homework. An anthology series grounded in sketch comedy, Documentary Now! follows in the footsteps of such famed SNL-related short subjects as “The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash,” “Synchronized Swimming,” and the Armisen-and-Hader-fronted “History Of Punk: Ian Rubbish And The Bizzaros,” applying a studious eye and a bone-dry sense of humor to the entire history of documentary filmmaking. The true stars of the project are directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono and the Documentary Now! editorial team, who expertly mimic the primordial docudrama techniques of Robert J. Flaherty (and the investigative retrospective that called those techniques into question) or the Direct Cinema of Albert and David Maysles. The episode that riffs on the Maysles’ classic Grey Gardens makes no excuses for those unfamiliar with the names Big Edie and Little Edie, diving right into the lives of two fallen socialites (played by Armisen and Hader) with eccentric fashion sense and squalid living arrangements. The humor is in the commitment, from the grainy filmstock to Hader’s take on Little Edie’s “best costume for the day” speech. That gives Documentary Now! solid footing from which to escalate its premises to wildly comedic heights, be it treating VICE News correspondents like Wile E. Coyote or connecting the dots between the feel of Grey Gardens and popular trends in contemporary horror cinema. [Erik Adams]