The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Before welcoming Group 2 of New Faces in Montreal upon their Wednesday night debut, host Pete Holmes asked the audience: “Be gracious. Be present. Be active.” Holmes might also have said be wary. For this crop of comics offered more style than substance, especially when compared to their Group 1 counterparts. …
Each crop of New Faces at Montreal’s Just For Laughs is special and unique. John Heffron, who hosted New Faces Group 1 on Wednesday night, told the audience that all of the big-name comedians you’d see at the festival’s Galas started out years earlier as new faces. That might not …
All of the shows at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival begin first with a pre-recorded announcement for audience members to check in using social media, but please, to turn off or silence the cell phones as well as their heckling mouths and enjoy the show. Jimmy Carr‘s stand-up performance includes …
That’s Incredible was a popular variety/reality TV series in the early 1980s. This NCredible Improv series on Syfy, casting this summer with an air date to be determined, is the brainchild of Nick Cannon. NCredible is Cannon’s branding for his entertainment management company as well as his merchandising. Syfy announced …
The hype surrounding stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael is justifiable and warranted. At 26, Carmichael is having a breakout year. A shining supporting role in Neighbors, which has earned $150 million at the American box-office since May and another $100 million globally. An HBO hourlong stand-up special directed by Spike Lee …
Weird Al may have made the music video parody game on lockdown last week, but it’s a new day, and time for a new parody, thanks to Saturday Night Live star Jay Pharoah. Pharoah and Above Average (Broadway Video’s digital arm) released the music video just now for “Bad Kisser,” …
On Monday night, Montreal’s Just For Laughs and ComedyPro Conference announced most of the New Faces of Comedy for this week’s festivities. Generations of stand-up comedians have regarded New Faces as a stepping-stone to something bigger, in part because the festival and because the industry long treated it as such. …
You can watch part one of episode one of The Jim Norton Show now on VICE.com. Norton’s studio audience is full of fans, but he still manages to allow viewers to warm up to him with his humble self-deprecation about his looks and his show’s debut. He jokes about how …
After what seemed like a month of repeats and repackaged highlights from the auditions for the 2014 season of America’s Got Talent, we finally moved on to Judgment Week — this time not in Las Vegas, but in New York, or New Jersey. Close enough for judge Howard Stern to …
The Toronto International Film Festival announced its slate of world premieres, gala screenings and more this morning, and both Jon Stewart’s directorial debut as well as Chris Rock’s latest both will make their world premieres there this September. Rosewater rose straight from a guest’s appearance on The Daily Show with …
