| ‘Dojo’ comedy group comes out of the cellar | | Posted Wednesday, September 13, 2006 2:52:25 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Local radio's new morning DJ, Chris Barnes of 92.1 QFM, recently started off his shift with Bon Jovi's hit, "Who Says You Can't Go Home," a song he is fittingly referring to lately as his theme song. And rightly so, since he has spent the last few months proving you can do just that. The former, "Life With Bonnie" star has very quickly replanted his roots back into Scranton after leaving the town nearly three decades ago. In addition to his new radio gig, his improv comedy school, Chris Barnes' Comedy Dojo, has been performing all summer, every Friday, to packed houses and rave reviews in the basement of the Scranton Cultural Center. Now that they are closing in on their fourth month, Barnes has decided, on Sept. 15 to celebrate the success of the school and the students by bringing the students out of the basement - and into the Cultural Center's main ballroom - to mark the grand opening of the Dojo.... | |
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| | | The Philadelphia Story | | Posted Tuesday, September 12, 2006 3:51:59 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Recreating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in this sparkling 1940 screen adaptation of The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. In an Oscar-winning role, James Stewart is the scandal reporter who falls for Tracy as her wedding day arrives, throwing her into a dizzying state of premarital jitters. Who will join Tracy at the altar? Snappy dialogue flows like sparkling wine under the sophisticated direction of George Cukor in this film that turned the tide of Hepburn's career from "box-office poison" to glamorous Hollywood star. --Jeff Shannon ... | |
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| | | The Party | | Posted Monday, September 11, 2006 7:51:52 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Though this film is a relatively minor one in the massive canon of Peter Sellers, it has moments of absolute hilarity. Written and directed by Blake Edwards, one of Sellers's most fertile collaborators, the film stars Sellers as a would-be actor from India (let them try to get away with that today) who is a walking disaster area. After ruining a day's shooting as an extra on a film, he finds himself unintentionally invited to a big Hollywood party. That's pretty much it as far as plot goes, but Edwards and Sellers know how to milk a simple idea for an unending string of slapstick gags. The result is a film that is episodic and sketchy, but also frequently loony in an inspired way. --Marshall Fine... | |
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| | | Pee-wee's Big Adventure | | Posted Sunday, September 10, 2006 11:54:54 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Former animator Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Batman, Mars Attacks!) made his feature directorial debut with this delightful comedy, coscripted by the late Phil Hartman (who also appears briefly as a reporter). Wisely, they keep the story simple so as to concentrate on the characters: Pee-wee's most prized possession, his shiny new bicycle, is stolen, and he sets off on an obsessive cross-country journey, determined to recover it. Pee-wee's awkward and childish attempts to be cool and mature ("I meant to do that!!") are hysterical, as when he tells his girlfriend (Elizabeth Daly): "There's things about me you don't know, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand.... I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel." Look for Saturday Night Live vet Jan Hooks in a hilarious bit as a tour guide at the Alamo. And beware of Large Marge! --Jim Emerson ... | |
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| | | The Royal Tenenbaums (The Criterion Collection) | | Posted Saturday, September 09, 2006 3:53:05 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | In a fitting follow-up to Rushmore, writer-director Wes Anderson and cowriter-actor Owen Wilson have crafted another comedic masterwork that ripples with inventive, richly emotional substance. Because of the all-star cast, hilarious dialogue, and oddball characters existing in their own, wholly original universe, it's easy to miss the depth and complexity of Anderson's brand of comedy. Here, it revolves around Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), the errant patriarch of a dysfunctional family of geniuses, including precocious playwright Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), boyish financier and grieving widower Chas (Ben Stiller), and has-been tennis pro Richie (Luke Wilson). All were raised with supportive detachment by mother Etheline (Anjelica Huston), and all ache profoundly for a togetherness they never really had. The Tenenbaums reconcile somehow, but only after Anderson and Wilson (who costars as a loopy literary celebrity) put them through a compassionate series of quirky confrontations and rekindled affections. Not for every taste, but this is brilliant work from any perspective. --Jeff Shannon ... | |
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| | | Scary Movie 4 (Unrated Full Screen Edition) | | Posted Friday, September 08, 2006 7:53:44 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Some comedy is like a scalpel; the Scary Movie series is a hand grenade, spewing bodily fluids and big-breasted women in all directions as they lampoon the latest horror. In Scary Movie 4's case, the main targets are War of the Worlds, The Village, The Grudge, Saw, and Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah's couch (the scariest of the lot). Along the way, potshots get taken at non-horror fare like Brokeback Mountain and Million Dollar Baby, as well as obvious targets like Michael Jackson and George W. Bush, among others. Anna Faris (Lost in Translation) and Regina Hall (The Honeymooners) return as the central characters wandering through a crazy quilt of horror scenarios, joined by Craig Bierko (Cinderella Man) doing a dead-on parody of Cruise at his most manic. Cameos include everyone from Charlie Sheen to Shaquille O'Neal to Carmen Electra. Some of it's funny, some of it's not, but there's a generally buoyant zaniness that comes from director David Zucker, one of the creators of Airplane!, which started the whole firehose-of-jokes aesthetic. --Bret Fetzer... | |
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| | | Ace Ventura Deluxe Double Feature (Pet Detective / When Nature Calls) | | Posted Thursday, September 07, 2006 11:53:03 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Allllll righty then. Let's get to it. As Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Jim Carrey instantly soared to stardom while tearing decorum to pieces. The award-winning actor plays the screwloose sleuth determined to sniff out the Miami Dolphins' missing mascot and quarterback Dan Marino. Jim Carrey returns in Ace Ventura When Nature Calls as the alligator-wrasslin,' elephant-calling, monkeyshining, loogie-launching, burning coals-crossing, disguise-mastering pet detective. Includes a bonus DVD with specially selected cartoons from the hit TV show Ace Ventura The Animated Series. DVD Features:Audio Commentary:Commentary by Director Tom ShadyacTV SpotTheatrical TrailerTV SpotTheatrical Trailer... | |
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| | | The Crocodile Hunter - Collision Course | | Posted Wednesday, September 06, 2006 11:51:58 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | This first movie from the Discovery Channel favorite opens with a plot of international intrigue over a downed satellite, but within four minutes Steve Irwin is belly flopping after a baby croc on the outback floor. Steve and his nerves-of-steel sidekick wife, Terri, are asked to relocate a cattle-chomping crocodile before it's shot by a local rancher. This same reptile happened to swallow the intelligence-gathering device that fell to earth, and so begins the goofball premise of this lark of a movie. The feds believe the Irwins are appropriating their classified info, and the Irwins think they're running from poachers. Quibblers may object to Irwin's frequent interruptions to introduce a bird-eating spider or paw through croc dung, but Crocodile Hunter fans wouldn't have it any other way. This 89-minute film is rated PG for action violence/peril and mild language. But unless you consider "crikey" an obscenity, it's a safe bet for family viewing. (Ages 4 and older) --Kimberly Heinrichs... | |
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| | | Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition) | | Posted Monday, September 04, 2006 5:52:52 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill. The entire cast--Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and more--give superb performances, carefully pitched so that cleverness never trumps feeling. A great movie. --Bret Fetzer... | |
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| | | Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (Unrated Extended Edition) | | Posted Sunday, September 03, 2006 9:51:59 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | From the director of Dude, Where's My Car? comes another crazed tale of two friends on a perilous quest--in this case, to eat burgers at the fast food restaurant White Castle. The pair--repressed Harold (John Cho, Better Luck Tomorrow) and freewheeling Kumar (Kal Penn, Love Don't Cost a Thing)--get extremely high and set off on the road, only to be sidetracked by skateboarding hooligans, racist cops, an inbred tow truck driver, and Neil Patrick Harris--yes, Doogie Howser, M.D. The humor is all over the map, and it would be nice if there were one female character who wasn't a caricature, but Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle has a loose, gregarious charm, and the movie's canniness about the cliches of the buddy-movie genre give it a sneaky subversive feel--just the fact that neither of the heroes is white puts a different spin on just about every circumstance. Surprisingly clever, cheerfully stupid. --Bret Fetzer... | |
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