Another clip celebrating the groundbreaking quasi-indie studio that Disney is selling and, many believe, destroying. The scene below isn’t quite as funny now as I remember it being the first time I saw it, but when you think of Miramax and Harvey Weinstein, you can’t help but think of Kevin Smith’s ultimate DIY film-making breakthrough, “Clerks.”
And now a bonus clip, the introduction of Jay and Silent Bob. It’s not quite the first shot of John Wayne in “Stagecoach,” but it’s something. And so absurdly NSFW, it’s guaranteed to lower your net worth — in a good way.
Louis C.K. is a rising star in the world of comedy, or is rising as much as a 43-year-old journeyman comic can. He first landed on my radar on the 2006 HBO series “Lucky Louie,” which was shot in front of a live audience in three-camera format. The show built a fan base, but wasn’t well-regarded by the critics, which led to its cancellation.
I then heard an interview of the HILARIOUS Patton Oswalt (about a year ago?) in which the interviewer said that he was the funniest standup working today. Oswalt quickly dismissed the compliment and said that Louis C.K. was the best.
So now it’s 2010 and he has a half-hour single-camera sitcom on FX. The standards are looser than network programming, but are tighter than HBO, which keeps its star in check somewhat (probably to his benefit). Not unlike Larry David, he basically plays himself — a comedian who is also a divorced father of two.
The show intermixes his day-to-day life with bits of his standup act shot in clubs around New York City. He goes to the doctor (Ricky Gervais), meets with his therapist, goes out on awkward dates, attends a PTA meeting, stuff like that. And he finds a way to make it all funny.
There isn’t much in the way of a season-long story arc, so there’s no harm in catching the latest episode and going from there.
If you’ve been noticing a bit of a lack of action on the online cinematic front today, and not just at this site, that’s probably got something to do with folks getting ready to get the heck out of Dodge (or more specifically, Las Dodgeles) and heading for this year’s completely sold out Comic-Con in beautiful San Diego and starts in less than 48 hours if you count Preview Night. Seeing as I’m not only attending Cannes-for-Geeks once again this year and will be participating in a few movie-and-TV plugathons — most of which you’ll be seeing evidence of right here at Premium Hollywood, I’m going to take a little break from my usual twice daily film blogging through this week and possibly going into the following week a bit. I will probably break my silence, however, at at least one point during the ‘con, logistics and schedule permitting, and also talk a bit about what I see there afterward.
Also, in what’s become a yearly tradition for me akin to opening the door for Elijah at Passover, I’d like to encourage any readers attending to stop by my very good and very talented friend Randy Reynaldo’s booth this year in the Small Press area (K1) where I’ll occasionally be (though probably less this year than some past ones — I’m being kept pretty busy). One of these days some smart TV or movie producer is going to snap up the rights and make “Rob Hanes” the next “Scott Pilgrim” and then you’ll all be sorry you didn’t stop by and say “hi.”
Anyhow, until my return, enjoy these moments of geek cuteness I have pilfered off of RobBricken.
Some recently found audio enhances the trailer for the Mel Gibson vehicle, “What Women Want.” Needless to say not safe for work, near children or, really, anywhere near decent human beings.
Thanks to my good pal Wes M. for posting this on my Facebook wall.
This is, of course, a highly unofficial trailer via /Film’s Russ Fischer for ‘The Expendables.” And I’m pretty sure guerrilla editor Garrison Dean is kidding.
(He also did some funny — if you’re a Firefly fan — eighties style fakeopenings for the canceled but never quite dead Joss Whedon series.)
Anyhow, for the sake of equal time, here’s the “Eat, Pray, Love” trailer.
Not that today’s version of Comic-Con — or yesterday’s version, for that matter — was ever even close to being his scene, but it’s still going to be a little less fun and a lot sadder to be there knowing that Cleveland-born-and-bred Harvey Pekar has left the world at age 70. For those of you know who are not familiar with American Splendor, his great yearly autobiographical comics or his occasional graphic-novel sized books like Our Cancer Year, all I can say is that Pekar was a late-blooming writer who understood that comics were a medium appropriate for as many different kinds of stories as the stage or the theater. Since he had friends like underground comics legend Robert Crumb and since his own hilariously grumpy yet humanistic vision of the world was, in its way, a natural fit for the comic book form, it was where he found his artistic home. The world is a richer, funnier, kinder place because of it.
My excuse for being able to note Pekar’s passing here, where I’m supposed to write about movies, is that, after being discovered by David Letterman, who then discarded him when he decided to poke a few too many not-so-funny fingers in the eye of his then-bosses at General Electric, the movies eventually found their way to Pekar’s door. It was his good fortune that husband-and-wife documentarians Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini on their very first narrative feature managed to pull off one of the best movies of the oughts, and my choice, still, for the best comic book adaptation ever with their wonderful and hugely inventive 2003 film version of “American Splendor” featuring great lead performances by Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis. Naturally, I’ve got a couple of film clips.
The first it’s 100% pure, uncut Pekar. It’s also not too far from my own frequent train of thought when I’m shopping in areas rich in retirees of my and Pekar’s own ethnic.
Another in my new occasional series in which I juxtapose the anti-humorous with the actually funny — though sometimes it’s arguably a relative matter.
From the same team who brought out most of the unloved yet apparently consistently profitable and, as far as I’ve been able to bring myself to watch them, utterly unfunny parody films of the last several years — no need to name them here — comes another lousy looking laugh-free trailer with a title that sounds like a less-than-brilliant seven year-old came up with it: “Vampires Suck.” Once again, the kings of the obvious, they’re going after the “Twilight” films. See for yourself, if you must (via a properly regretful Brad Brevet).
Here’s the thing, it’s not enough to simply recapitulate the actual films and simply add an obvious exaggeration of what’s actually going on or combine it with some other randomly selected film from a different genre. Comedy is not easy to explain, but you’d think any professional would know it’s not that simple. Fortunately, some “Twilight” spoofers do and, after the jump, you can see two reasonably clever and funny twists on the franchise.
The start of a new occasional series in which I wall juxtapose the not-so-funny with the relatively uproarious.
It pains me to start this this international (and Spanish subtitled) trailer for the latest comedy from Woody Allen. The Wood-man was a youthful hero of mine and “Manhattan,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” ‘Zelig,” “Sleeper” and several others of his films rank among my favorite comedies. Still, over the years his humor and also his cinematic artistry has mostly grown stale. A recent interview in which he seems to have an increasingly super-depressive view of existence may offer some hint as to what’s going on, but I think it’s that making movies has become mostly a habit for him. In my view, it might have been better if he had taken a break to do something else — stand-up, maybe — years ago. I could go on, but see for yourself.
Unbelievable cast, maybe one line that made me half smile.
And now, the earlier, much funnier Woody Allen.
The really funny thing about this scene from “Annie Hall” is that, Marshall McLuhan might have been a great media theorist, but either Woody Allen and his co-writer Marshall Brickman wrote complete gibberish for him to say, or he flubbed his line pretty badly. “You mean my whole fallacy is wrong.” (?!) The thing is, no one ever seems to notice because the dialogue is nearly always drowned out by loud laughter.
I promised on Saturday that I would continue the epic and mildly NSFW “Tom Cruise is a Cock Block” trilogy. So, as we wind down the holiday weekend, here is part 2. Enjoy. Something tells me this a lot more entertaining than “Knight and Day.”
