December 9, 2015

Albert Brooks Explains Why 11:30 at Night is a No Beard Time

Albert Brooks has played some of the greatest comedy roles ever in film, and he's also played a dangerous criminal, but this year he's promoting a very different kind of film from anything he's done before. Brooks is playing Cyril H. Wecht, MD, JD in the new movie "Concussions" and he went on Jimmy Kimmel live Tuesday night to talk about the film, and share a clip.
November 12, 2015

Annie Hall Tops the List of 100 Funniest Screenplays Ever

The Writers Guild of America announced their awards for the top 101 funniest screenplays of all time revealing Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman's Annie Hall topped the list. Annie Hall won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1977.
May 25, 2015

Ultimate Summer Reading List: 149 Great Reads

This year, we forgot to put together our new "Summer Reading List" in time for memorial day, but we've got something much better than a new list. We've put all of our old lists in one place including our 2012 and 2013 lists put together by our team of writers, our 2014 list put together by Liberty Hardy, and our Christmas Gift List of great books by comedians put together by Andrew Farignoli. You can order each book by just clicking on them. Enjoy and have a great summer.
February 21, 2015

The Top 87 Oscar Nominated Comedy Performances. Ranked.

The 87th Annual Oscars are upon us, and with that comes the common debate as to whether the Oscars don’t give comedy their due. The argument can certainly be made that there is a definite type of film which always receives nominations described as “Oscar bait”; the films which seem to have been made with a checklist of “how to get nominated.” But in the 87 years since the Oscars have been around, there have more than a few times that the Oscars genuinely loved comedy. After all, the first film to get nominated in the top five AND the first film to receive nominations in all for acting categories were both comedies (It Happened One Night (1934) & My Man Godfrey (1936)). And despite seeing more than a few times that the Oscars somehow overlooked great comic performances or only nominated comedians when they went serious (Cary Grant’s two nominations were both in dramas), a few times they showed they had a sense of humor. With that said, here are my picks for the 87 funniest film performances which ever got nominated, ranked.
February 19, 2015

The Comedic Performances That The Academy Overlooked

Reese Witherspoon knows. So does Steve Carell. It's an open secret that being funny on film will not bring you Oscar gold. If it did, Steve would have been billed as Academy Award Nominee Steve Carell for the last 10 years. His performance in The 40 Year-Old Virgin was a revelation. The guy you saw on The Daily Show every so often suddenly turned in this nuanced performance that was both hilarious and sweet. The entire movie hinged on the believability of his character Andy, and Carell very subtly had us in the palm of his hand the entire time. If Andy was dyslexic or had a harelip instead of being a virgin, Carell would have been making the rounds on the awards circuit in 2005, the way he is this year for Foxcatcher.
February 11, 2014

Royal Families of Comedy

We don't have royalty in these United States of ours, but if we did, the following families would the kings, queens, lords and barons of comedy.