Comedy
Amy Poehler’s Moxie Unites a New Generation of Rebel Girls: Review
The Pitch: High school junior Vivian (Hadley Robinson) is struggling to find her voice. In response to rampant misogyny and lack of support from her school’s administration, she takes inspiration from her mother’s Riot Grrrl past and creates an anonymous zine called Moxie, attempting to unite students under a banner of feminism. But like many before her, Vivian learns that effective feminist activism requires more than buzzwords and good intentions. Director Amy Poehler attempts to pass the torch from third to fourth wave feminism and delivers an empowering and cathartic look at the complexities of Girl Power. Adapted from Jennifer Mathieu’s inspirational novel, Moxie is a love letter to young people struggling to find their own voices and create the changes they want to see in the world. ...
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Wins Best Comedy at 2021 Golden Globes
Very nice! Borat Subsequent Moviefilm won Best Motion Picture – Comedy at tonight’s Golden Globe Awards. Additionally, Borat himself, Sacha Baron Cohen, claimed the prize for Best Actor in a Comedy. Taking place 14 years after the events of the original Borat film, the world-famous Kazakh journalist returned to Yankeeland in 2020 in order to gift his daughter, Tutar, to then Vice Premiere Mikhael Pence. Along the way, Borat and Tutar are forced to navigate a deadly pandemic, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and Rudy Giuliani. In accepting the award for Best Comedy, Baron Cohen singled out the former New York City mayor. “I’ve got to say, this movie could not have been possible without my co-star, a fresh new talent who came from nowhere and turned out to be a comedy genius,”...
New Reno 911! and Beavis and Butt-Head Movies Coming to Paramount+
During a TCA event on Wednesday, ViacomCBS unveiled some of the exclusive titles coming to its new streaming platform Paramount+ in the near future. On the comedy front, the streamer is reviving both Reno 911! and Beavis and Butt-Head for new movies. Following a six season run on Comedy Central between 2003 and 2009, Reno 911! was revived by Quibi for a seventh season in 2020. Paramount+’s upcoming revival is billed as a “super-sized event” titled Reno 911! The Hunt for QAnon. As for Beavis and Butt-Head, the upcoming untitled movie will serve as a precursor to a series revival set to air on Comedy Central. This will be the second Beavis and Butt-Head movie, following 1996’s Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Paramount+, a rebranding of ViacomCBS’ CBS All Access platform,...
Dr. Frasier Crane to Resume Listening in New Reboot for Paramount+
After three years spent on hold, a reboot of Frasier is finally coming to air. Via The Hollywood Reporter, star Kelsey Grammer will be reprising his role in a sequel series on Paramount+. Grammer has been pushing a revival since at least 2018. But the salad remained untossed and the eggs unscrambled until earlier this month, when reports surfaced that Grammer and CBS/VIacom had joined together at the negotiating table. On Wednesday, ViacomCBS finally announced the reboot as a go. Grammer sounds understandably excited about returning to the role he first originated on Cheers in 1984. “Having spent over 20 years of my creative life on the Paramount lot, both producing shows and performing in several, I’d like to congratulate Paramount+ on its entry into the streaming world,” he said. “I...
What’s Streaming on Hulu in March 2021
Busy times for Hulu in March. On the features front, Frank Grillo will try to escape a time loop in Boss Level, Eva Green will train for space in Proxima, Soleil Moon Frye captures her Hollywood youth in kid 90, and Devon Sawa learns the consequences of living off the grid in Hunter Hunter. Meanwhile, National Geographic will explore the life and legacy of Aretha Franklin in Genius: Aretha: Complete Season 3, the second season of FX’s Breeders begins, and Justin Roiland’s Solar Opposites returns for seconds. The back catalogue additions aren’t too shabby, either. Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light is refreshing for these pandemic times, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore is always worth a 45th rewatch, and who doesn’t love a good horror like The Social Network. Check out the full list below, which also ...
10 Happy Gilmore Quotes You Probably Say All the Time
Adam Sandler hit a hole in one with Happy Gilmore. The blockbuster sports comedy completely changed the game for the Saturday Night Live comic, extending his appeal well beyond the bratty teens who were already quoting his albums and sketches. Now, Sandler was winning over their parents. Blame it on golf, or Bob Barker, or the ‘70s-fueled soundtrack, but the film was the rare ubiquitous hit for the comedy genre. Everybody saw it, everybody quoted it, and everybody wanted more of Sandler. Not much has changed in the 25 years since its release. Sandler remains a hot commodity, continuing to fascinate us in the most surprising ways (see: 2019’s Uncut Gems), and Happy Gilmore is still one of the most rewatchable and quotable comedies. Editors’ Picks So quotable that it’s almost become a ...
Happy Gilmore’s Shooter McGavin Is the Perfect Comedy Villain
Editor’s Note: This op-ed originally ran in 2016 for the 20th anniversary of Happy Gilmore. Today, we’ve dusted it off for the 25th anniversary of the Adam Sandler blockbuster. So, grab your clubs, your gold jacket, and meet us in the sand. Happy Gilmore is basically perfect. Disagree with me? That’s your right, but I’m going to stab you with this skate. There’s a lot that makes Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler’s 1996 golf-idiot-savant comedy, so wonderful. Part of it is that it’s almost gleefully simple: failed hockey player discovers that his lousy slap shot could be good for golf and uses his newfound power to save Grandma’s house in a battle of homegrown hero versus rich prick. Part of it is that it’s just funny, made before Sandler started to exhaust his schlumpy charms. But more than anyt...
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar Deserved to Go to Sold-Out Theaters: Review
The Pitch: Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo reunite as screenwriters a decade after Bridesmaids, this time co-starring as the eponymous leads in a new raunchy comedy. Is the magic still there for another hugely successful laugh riot? A Movie That Oughta Be in Theaters: Movies like Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar are a good reason why it remains heartbreaking that movie theaters are mostly ghost towns these days. The new comedy from Lionsgate Pictures was originally intended for theatrical release last summer, and there’s little doubt that it would be best served by playing in front of a large, boisterous crowd. It’s not to suggest that Barb and Star is bad; anything but. Yet it’s undeniably the kind of film that would work at the height of its powers with a ready audience gobbling up every ...
SNL Top Highlights: Dan Levy Charms In Hosting Debut
Since kicking off Season 46 last fall, Saturday Night Live has been running closer to business-as-usual than almost any other late-night show during the pandemic. Still, if you look closely, there are differences: Their audience size has been reduced, which has often made studio reactions more muted; the schedule has featured more episodes in a row and yet longer breaks in between; and the host bookings feel less tethered to the usual promotional cycles of big movies, TV show premieres, and awards season. Case in point: 10 months after Schitt’s Creek ended, four months after the show’s historic Emmys sweep, and two months after his co-starring role in Hulu’s Happiest Season, Dan Levy took a victory lap this week with his first Saturday Night Live hosting gig. In other words, he wasn’t real...
Ranking John Carpenter: Every Movie from Worst to Best
Dark streets, empty lawns, singing trees, and the nauseating pulse of synths — you’re watching a John Carpenter film. Chances are the Master of Horror was responsible for a few of your earliest childhood nightmares. He’s more or less the Ray Bradbury of filmmaking, an underrated visionary who can conjure up a brand of fear that’s both out of this world and within your reach. Six years after returning to the synthesizer for 2015’s Lost Themes, the Master of Horror is back for more with its second sequel: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Once again, Carpenter is working alongside his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies, a collaboration that’s only grown stronger with time. “We’ve matured,” Carpenter has confidently expressed. In celebration, we’ve resurrected this original bre...
Sacha Baron Cohen Says He’s Done Playing Borat
The saga of Borat Margaret Sagdiyev has come to a very nice end. In a new profile in Variety, Sacha Baron Cohen said he’s finished with his most famous creation, and that the fictional Kazakh journalist is now “locked away in the cupboard.” The character had been retired once before, after the release of the 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The satire of Borat is based in surprise. People thought they were talking to a second-rate journalist from a sparsely populated country, and so they didn’t mind sharing their racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism. After the movie became a box office sensation, Cohen thought he’d lost the element of surprise. He began to change his mind in 2018. First, the rise of white nationali...
Chris Rock to Release “Extended Cut” of Netflix Special Tamborine
When Chris Rock released his Netflix stand-up special Tamborine in 2018, he managed to garner a whopping 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes — a rare accomplishment for a film, never mind a comedy routine. Now, Rock is treating fans to even more of those critically lauded jokes with Chris Rock: Total Blackout, The Tamborine Extended Cut, which hits the streamer next week. The Tamborine Extended Cut boasts 27 minutes of previously unreleased footage from Rock’s original Grammy-nominated special. The new clips — which include never-before-seen jokes, behind-the-scenes footage, and various interviews — will touch on race, fatherhood, and politics. Because they’re interwoven throughout the stand-up special, Netflix is calling it a repackaged “remix” of the initial release. To hype up the extended cu...
