Watching Joan Rivers – A Piece of Work won’t turn you into a huge fan if you aren’t already at that place in your life. And this intimate look behind the scenes of her life for over a year won’t make her a cult figure a la Tammy Faye Baker (and thanks goodness for that).

The fact remains; Rivers stands as one of the biggest influences on comedy in the last half of the previous century. We’re not talking about influence in the way that Lenny Bruce or even Johnny Carson made strides into our culture. Nonetheless Rivers can be devastatingly ha-ha funny, as witnessed in snippets from her current stand-up routine. Rivers is as nasty as Richard Pryor ever was.

Filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg previously made The Devil Came On Horseback (genocide in Darfur) so their street cred is okay in my book. One thought is that they made a fine movie and nobody was shooting at them while they were shooting film. They dig in places that a hagiography or cable-bio wouldn’t go.

From my perspective, Rivers was a cool television personality in my youth and I always wondered why she clung to the spotlight even to the present day. JRAPOW goes into the details that explain her career arc. From being the first femme co-host of The Tonight Show, to being banished by Carson, to her husband’s suicide, to firing her closest aide this is a doc that sees the good times and bad times as part of the same level playing field.

- Michael Bergeron