Documentary Now!

Not only are the fake documentaries of Documentary Now! hilarious, but doc fans are sure to embrace (while laughing) these studiously crafted pieces from creators Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Seth Myers for their loving attention to detail.

Documentary Now! is so good, you’ll be forced to reassess Meyers, whose comedy writing is so crisp and correct, he should give up his late-night NBC show because nothing he does there will ever be as good or as funny.

The humor has as much to do with the form as the content, and much care and cleverness have been devoted to making these pieces look right, from film stock and lighting, to period graphics, to furniture and clothing; the art direction is exceptional, and as such, delightful throughout.

A key to the series’ success and longevity will be how well it’s able to balance the insider spoof with the satire and offer moments that do more than just painstakingly re-create; moments that remind us of the absurdities of the form and the ways we’ve been trained to see through a story.

Documentary Now! offers clever, frequently funny parodies of a different style of documentary each week.

Two later episodes parody the TV series "Vice" and "Nanook of the North," the 1922 silent film credited with launching the documentary genre. Both are well done, and each has a twist. Each also has an awful lot of Hader and Armisen in costume, so take that as an endorsement or as a caution, depending on your feeling about them. I didn't laugh, but maybe you will.

Not everything lands squarely on target in the first three half-hours of Documentary Now!. But there are enough moments--and quite a lot of them in Episode 3--to keep this ambitious enterprise on track and well worth a roll ‘em.

All three episodes offered varying degrees of laughs, but the “Kunuk” episode is a high-water mark.

The first episode, entitled “Sandy Passage,” certainly sets a high bar--a pitch-perfect, brilliantly performed send-up of Albert and David Maysles’ seminal Grey Gardens (1975).... The other two episodes made available for preview aren’t quite up to the level of “Sandy Passage,” but they’re still far from duds.

Documentary Now! is dazzlingly smart.... It's true that Documentary Now! is funnier if you're at least vaguely familiar with the movies that serve as the inspirations.

Clever. This is a funny, smart comedy for fans of documentaries or even just those who wish they had more time to watch non-fiction filmmaking. In fact, Documentary Now! is so good that it should spark more interest in the very art form it satirizes but also clearly loves.