Displaying items by tag: comedy

Multiple sources are reporting that Louis CK made a surprise appearance at the Comedy Cellar in New York City on Sunday night. You may or may not know that at the height of his career Louis CK was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. He sidestepped and denied the allegations for many years, finally telling the NY Times in 2017 interview:

“I’m not going to answer to that stuff, because they’re rumors. If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real … (CK then was asked, “So they’re not real?”) …  They’re rumors, that’s all that is.”

Well, CK denied the “rumors” for years. Until too many women came forward and then he admitted that “These stories are true.” He was immediately fired from multiple shows, lost deals and had his recent film, “I Love You, Daddy” pulled from distribution. A film he wrote, directed, produced and starred in. The film also starred Chloe Grace Moretz and John Malkovich. The unreleased film is about an aging filmmaker (Malkovich) with an appalling sexual misconduct past and his new relationship with seventeen year old Moretz who happens to be Louis CK’s daughter. It’s unreleased but folks have still seen it. I mean, hell - I’ve seen it. And to be honest - it was okay. It’s even been nominated for awards! True story - the Alliance of Women Film Journalists gave it nominations and an award - winner of the Most Egregious Age Difference Between The Lead and The Love Interest Award and nominee for the Hall of Shame Award!

Way to go Louis! =)

Anyway. You can imagine the shit storm of negative social media and press Louis CK was going to get when he made a walk on surprise appearance. Keep in mind that Louis CK often did walk on performance in the past to the sold out room (115) of the Comedy Cellar. It’s just that this was the first one since the allegations broke almost one year ago.  

Apparently, audience reaction was fairly positive. His fellow comedians performing that evening said it was “classic Louis” and “quite good.” Cellar owner, Noam Dworman verified that he received one complaint email but also, several supportive emails. So, it sounds as if the walk on show - was fine.

But for the most part celebrity reactions have been uniformly disgusted. Comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted: “You know how many talented women and POC comics are knocking on doors trying to get some time in front of audiences or powerful people in this business? And Louis just gets to glide back in on his own terms? Gosh, does it payoff to be in the boys club..the white boys club.”

Top Chef host, Padma Lakshmi tweeted: “Not falling for this Louis CK "triumphant return" narrative after years of him humiliating women who worked for & with him.”

I would even go so far as to say the vast majority of coverage of Louis’s surprise set was negative. Very, very outraged and negative.

But Louis was not without his supporters. A few fellow (male) comedians voiced approval. Marlon Wayans said, “It’s nice to see Louis out of comedy jail.”  SNL actor and Emmy host Michael Che had a lot more to say.  

He mocked the twitter outrage with, "'OMG! Can you believe that guy went on with his life?! (Yes, I can.)”

But Che’s main point was that the outrage was more about fame obsession gone wrong. Che wrote:

"What’s interesting to me about these articles against Louis CK performing again, is how important fame is to people. A lot of what I read says that CK shouldn’t get to be a ‘famous’ comedian anymore. Because to them, he’s still winning. Isn’t that strange? Meaning he can be shamed, humiliated, lose millions of dollars, lose all of his projects, lose the respect of a lot of his fans and peers, and whatever else that comes with what he did. But since he can still do a comedy set for free at a 200 seat club a year later, it means he got off easy. THAT’s how coveted fame is. Just because it looks to you like someone is 'getting off easy' cause they still have the perks you would kill to have, doesn’t make it so."

Okay. Maybe. Those are some fair points that I hadn’t considered.

I would push back though, that Che doesn’t seem to mention the shame, humiliation, loss of $$$ and loss of projects that all of the women suffered due to CK’s actions, the subsequent cover up and the strong arm harassment tactics to get the women to just shut up. A lot of them left comedy because of it. How are we to value their loss of $$$ and loss of careers. How do we offer them their “comeback?” Is that even a thing? Are you allowed a comeback for something you dropped ten years ago due to harassment against you? I mean, you might not even be good at it any longer - because you haven’t done it in ten years! So, what should we allow your “come back” to be? A check? How much should it be worth? Should it be based on the overall value of what you lost? How do we calculate that? Is your only “payment” from this ordeal that Louis CK no longer gets to work in comedy? Is that fair for all parties involved?

*shrugs*

I mean, you can be cynical and say that had the women not been subjected to sexual misconduct and harassment - maybe they still wouldn’t have had “what it takes” to become a famous comedian. Okay. Well, what if some of them did have “what it takes.” Maybe one of them had the potential to become the next Tiffany Haddish (only the greatest female comic working today!).

Oh, man. That hurts my soul a bit. To think that a comedy powerhouse like Tiffany Haddish could have been lost to us because of sexual misconduct and harassment. That could have happened. And maybe it did.

Look, maybe Louis just “tried it out” to see what the reaction would be. And now that he sees the overwhelming negative praise, he won’t try it again. Or at least not for a long time.

Maybe he’s working out new material and planning a big come back and doesn’t care if social media is angry. We have no idea what Louis CK is thinking or if he has done anything (or nothing) to right some of his wrongs.

But something tells me - we’re about to find out.

The setting for Johnny Knoxville’s Action Point is based on an actual place called Action Park — a New Jersey amusement park opened in May of 1978. While it was operated by drunk, stoned teenagers, that wasn’t the reason for the park earning the nickname “Accident Park.” It was their boss who demanded the park test the bounds of physics and personal injury laws.

Action Park’s attractions were dangerous by design, famous to area youth and infamous to their parents for having no brakes and no speed limits. Seat belts weren’t just optional; they were mostly nonexistent. Action Park was a testing ground for amusement park attractions. Its employees were innovators, but employees and visitors alike often became victims of Action Park’s attractions. But all did so willingly, whether they paid or were paid to be there.

Action Park CEO Gene Mulvihill reportedly offered employees $100 to test rides, and he opened them despite those tests resulting in injuries. It wasn’t that Mulvihill didn’t care about his employees and patrons. He just didn’t think he or his employees should be solely responsible for the experiences patrons could have at Action Park. “You make your own fun” Knoxville says at one point in the movie, channeling Mulvihill, whose “philosophy was that amusement park visitors should be in control of their experience, envisioning a park where patrons managed the rides—including how fast and how high they went,” according to a piece by Brynn Holland for The History Channel.  It should be no surprise that Mulvihill’s mind for mayhem attracted the eye of Knoxville — an eye he nearly lost in the making of Action Point.

Mulvihill basically believed amusement parks to be like ski resorts. Regardless of proper maintenance and supervision of attractions, they, like a ice- and snow-covered mountain, are inherently dangerous, and upon paying the price of admission, the patron, not the park, should be solely responsible for any injuries sustained as a result of the patron’s actions. While Mulvihill’s argument that any ride has the potential to cause injury is sound, that’s not how judges saw it when a handful of personal injury lawsuits forced Mulvihill to close Action Park in September of 1996.

The practice of Mulvihill’s philosophy by employees and patrons had predictable results. The wave pool was called “The Grave Pool” because lifeguards frequently rescued up to 30 swimmers on busy days. Women also frequently sustained yeast infections from the water. Six people died at Action Park, which was obviously not advertised in the movie. But the almost 20 years Action Park was open for business is a testament to its patrons’ acceptance and practice of personal responsibility, a quality which Knoxville’s character, D.C., assumes is foreign to his granddaughter, who I thought was a grandson for half the film.

Action Park is no doubt the perfect setting for Knoxville’s jackassian stunts, but it should have been the subject as well as the setting. The place didn’t just have character; it was a character. Instead, Action Point tries to be a story about a part-time father learning how to be a good father figure when it should tell the story of the most dangerous amusement park that’s ever existed and the men and women responsible for that existence.

I’ve long been a fan of Knoxville’s Jackass shenanigans. I was even a jackass myself back in high school. Some of the first films I made were of my friends and me doing stunts like riding office chairs down really steep streets, bicycle jousting, and being towed on a snowboard behind a GMC Jimmy. The Jackass movies are responsible for some of the loudest, longest laughs I’ve enjoyed in theaters besides maybe Your Highness. Even Knoxville’s Bad Grandpa had its moments (mostly the end, which wasn’t because of Knoxville) despite attempting to tell a story. But Bad Grandpa wasn’t much of a stunt movie. Action Point is, and John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky’s attempt at storytelling sinks Knoxville’s latest and quite possibly last attempt at making us laugh at the expense of his and his friends’ bodies.

Knoxville sustained four concussions, broke his hand, lost a five-inch piece of skin from his scalp, lost two teeth, one of which was shoved into his skull, and sneezed his eyeball out of his head while shooting the stunts for Action Point. He said in an interview on “The Dan LeBatard Show with Stu Gotz” that he had to put his sessions with his therapist on hold to get into character. In his first session, Knoxville thought his therapist was a genius for saying “think before you act,” because he had never seriously considered it an option. Stuntmen aren’t unlike athletes in that acting instinctively tends to be safer and more effective than thinking. Thinking leads to over-analyzation and fear.

But Knoxville should have thought about how to make Action Point before agreeing to make it. He should have demanded that this “based on a true story” story should simply tell the true story. Knoxville isn’t a good enough actor to give a convincing, dramatic performance, upon which the film’s story depends. A bear gave a better performance than Knoxville did in Action Point, and no amount of cannabis could make the stuntless segments of the film enjoyable, which is most of the film.

Had Knoxville simply done a mockumentary about Action Park, portraying a daredevil amusement park owner whose only family are his misfit employees and regular patrons, and whose challenge is to keep the park open despite a new competitor and threats of legal action, Action Point would have done Action Park justice. Instead, Action Point tells an all too familiar story so badly it makes the stunts less enjoyable. Action Point should have been another Jackass, not another Bad Grandpa with flashbacks.

If you like this, you might like these Genesis Communications Network talk radio shows: The Karel Show, Erskine Overnight, The Lounge, The Debbie Nigro Show

It has to be hard to be Broken Lizard. Like the Farrelly Brothers starting their careers with the comedy classic Dumb and Dumber (1994), Broken Lizard started their careers with a comedy classic of their own in Super Troopers (2001). But unlike the Farrelly Brothers, the members of Broken Lizard also act in their films, which has made it more difficult for them to find continued success as a film cooperative. Not only does the production company  have to deal with being pigeonholed as a low-brow, comedy specialist, but its members also have to deal with their own case of Jon Heder syndrome. Heder’s the guy who played Napoleon Dynamite and hasn’t been able to escape it since.

That’s why Broken Lizard’s follow-up to Super Troopers was so hard to watch. Before I knew Club Dread (2004) wasn’t any good, I had a hard time accepting the members of Broken Lizard in their new roles. By the time Beerfest (2006) came around, though, I had accepted the fact there might never be a Super Troopers 2 and could understand why. That’d be like asking F. Scott Fitzgerald to write a sequel to The Great Gatsby, or more on topic, asking the Farrelly Brothers to do a sequel to Dumb and Dumber immediately after its release.

It took 20 years for the Farrelly Brothers to commit to Dumb and Dumber To, so we should all be thankful it only took Broken Lizard 17 years to give us Super Troopers 2. Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske are back where they belong, portraying Vermont Highway Patrolmen in a cop comedy that pokes fun at the state of the United States and Canadian culture.

The first rule of reviewing a sequel is not comparing it to its predecessor. Very few sequels are as good as the original, and Super Troopers 2 is no exception. Holding it to the impossible standard only realized by The Godfather: Part II and The Empire Strikes Back is unfair.

We can, however, compare Super Troopers 2 to similar films within the genre and subgenre. In the subgenre of buddy-cop comedies, Super Troopers 2 is no Hot Fuzz (2007), but it’s more enjoyable than The Heat (2013) and CHIPS (2017) and way better than Ride Along (2014) and Cop Out (2010). Super Troopers 2 probably falls behind The Other Guys (2010) but before Let’s Be Cops (2014).

As far as contemporary comedies go, since the release of Super Troopers in 2001, I’ve only seen a few that made me laugh out loud as much as Super Troopers 2. They are, in no particular order: The Other Guys, Tropic Thunder (2008), Jackass: The Movie (2002) (which shouldn't even count but has spawned Jackass Number Two (2006), Jackass 3D (2010), Bad Grandpa (2013), and now, Action Point, which will release June 1, and actually has a story), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Anchorman (2004), Step Brothers (2008), Old School (2003), Pineapple Express (2008), This is the End (2012), Office Xmas Party (2016), Grandma’s Boy (2006), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011), Team America: World Police (2004), Your Highness (2011) and Beerfest (2006). That’s pretty good company for a list that you’ll notice includes just one sequel (unless you include the Jackass franchise).

You should definitely see Super Troopers 2. You’ll laugh enough to forget that you’re basically watching the same plot as the original except to the music of Eagles of Death Metal instead of .38 Special, which is a treat. You’ll get some laughs out of Rob Lowe playing a former, minor league hockey player turned mayor, and you’ll no doubt enjoy the pranks pulled by and on the Canadian mounties competing with the Super Troopers to keep their jobs. The story is far-fetched at best, but the situations created by the story are worth taking the leap.

If you like this, you might like these Genesis Communications Network talk radio shows: The Karel Show, Erskine Overnight, The Lounge, The Debbie Nigro Show

Seeing a lot more bad movies is to be expected when you become a MoviePass member. You’ll see more movies when you’ve got an annual membership to see as many movies you want, even if you only need to see one movie per month to make the membership worth the price. And most movies are bad these days. Gringo is one of those movies.

Having seen the trailer and read the synopsis, I had reason to hope Gringo wouldn’t suck. It’s a relatively original idea: dirty, pharmaceutical CEO doing off-the-books business with dirtier drug dealer needs the business with the drug dealer to stop in order to facilitate a merger. Conveniently, the business conducted with the drug dealer occurs in Mexico -- the kidnapping capital of the world -- and the CEO already has a patsy in mind, but his patsy doesn’t act as the CEO expects.

Despite quality casting, I didn’t laugh out loud once during Gringo. Charlize Theron (A Million Ways to Die in the West) produced the picture and plays the CEO’s business associate. The CEO is portrayed by Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby, Black Mass), brother of director Nash Edgerton. Edgerton was good for a few laughs, but Theron was easily funniest, and it wasn’t because of the dialogue written for her by Anthony Tambakis (who wrote Warrior and Jane Got a Gun, both featuring Edgerton) and Matthew Stone (Life, an actually funny film starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence).

Why Theron was willing to put up money for this heap of garbage is beyond me, but maybe it was a good script before David Oyelowo was attached. Oyelowo plays the patsy and wasn’t funny nor realistic. Spoiler alert: he’s clueless about his wife’s cheating on him with his CEO and “friend,” who treats him like a subordinate. What’s unrealistic about Oyelowo’s performance is that his character is too clueless to exist in real life.

But Jason Bateman is never clueless and always funny, and Game Night is another relatively original idea: a group of friends gather for their weekly game night expecting to solve a staged kidnapping and end up attempting to solve an actual kidnapping. Sure, it has its roots in The Man Who Knew Too Little, a brilliant picture starring Bill Murray, who thinks he’s portraying a spy in the “Theatre of Life” while actually thwarting an act of international terrorism. Game Night isn’t as entertaining as The Man Who Knew Too Little, but we can’t expect Bateman to channel Bill Murray. Like Theron, Bateman put up money for Game Night to be produced.

Game Night is also casted well, with Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers, Mean Girls) playing Bateman’s wife and Kyle Chandler (Super 8) his “cooler,” older brother. The screen is stolen, though, by Jesse Plemons (Paul, The Post), portraying the perfectly awkward neighbor, who loves his dog a little too much and wants nothing more than to be included in the group’s game nights after his wife has left him.

I laughed out loud throughout Game Night, and while it wasn’t The Man Who Knew Too Little, or even Horrible Bosses, the jokes are at least written and delivered well. Mark Perez (Accepted) wrote a quality script and Rich Delia (Dallas Buyers Club, The Help) put together a better cast than Carmen Cuba (The Martian) did for Gringo. if you’re looking for laughs, see Game Night, not Gringo.

If you need more reasons to avoid Gringo and see Game Night, Gringo has received a 39-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes while Game Night sits at 82 percent as of this writing.

If you like this, you might like these Genesis Communications Network talk radio shows: The Karel Show, Erskine Overnight, The Lounge, Free Talk Live, The Debbie Nigro Show

Alex Jones continues to receive about as much press as his friend Donald Trump, with Stephen Colbert impersonating the talk show host on The Late Show, and Trevor Noah attacking him on The Daily Show. Follow the links to view the videos.

Alex Jones makes for good television. That enraged character is so entertaining that Comedy Central has requested the right to use this clip of Jones to open their new show, The President Show, featuring a Donald Trump impersonator as host talking about the day’s news. It’s an attempt at impersonating the InfoWars model and mocking the Alex Jones character to attract a larger, more moderate audience. (The show had Keith Olbermann from GQ’s The Resistance as its first guest.)

The writers and producers of just about every comedy show have been pretty lazy lately, with the lone exception being the writers and producers of Last Week Tonight. With very little effort and originality, the writers and producers of The Late Show, The Daily Show and even Newsweek are taking shots at an easy target from point blank range and making easy money doing so. Not only that, they’re only giving Jones free publicity that enhances his “celebrity,” because as the cliché goes, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Clichés exist because there is truth to them.

While our advertising sales representatives at GCN confirm they have not raised the advertising rates for The Alex Jones Show, they certainly aren’t having trouble selling those spots, even while Jones is taking time to attend a custody hearing. He’s not off to a hot start in proving his attorney’s argument that Jones is playing a character on his show, telling the jury on 4/20 that George Soros is to blame for the ever-increasing potency of marijuana.

All that said, Jones’s audience is set. The people who tune into The Alex Jones Show will likely always tune into The Alex Jones Show, whether it’s on the radio or YouTube. The people who watch Bill O’Reilly will continue consuming whatever it is he does after Fox News, much like Rush Limbaugh. You don’t need to understand these people; you only need to understand these people exist and there’s no changing them.

Apparently, the only thing that could affect the advertising revenue of The Alex Jones Show is a criminal charge or sexual harassment allegation brought against Alex Jones. That’s been the case in sports and entertainment for quite some time. A custody battle isn’t going to turn advertisers away in droves like they ran away from The O’Reilly Factor.

There’s nothing anyone can do about people who want to be heard and have the resources to accomplish that goal because there’s nothing anyone can do about the audience that consumes that garbage. Americans consume everything including garbage; some garbage just smells better.

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If you like this, you might like these GCN Live talk radio shows: The Alex Jones Show