While at an event promoting the Disney animated series TRON: Uprising, Paul Reubens updated Collideron the new Judd Apatow produced Pee-Wee Movie:
As far as I know, it’s getting shot very soon. I actually wasn’t supposed to talk about it, initially. I was talking about it in this very veiled, secretive way, saying, “Oh, I wish I could talk about it.” A journalist figured out that it was Judd Apatow that I was talking about because my writing partner was in the audience and he’s written so much with Judd. So, it got leaked about six months to a year before it was supposed to.
Freaks and Geeks is the poster child for the critically-acclaimed show that was mistreated by its network and ignored by audiences during its initial run, only to become wildly popular with fans in the years that followed its tragic, too-soon cancellation. The show accomplished this years before the likes of Arrested Development and [...]
Elizabeth Banks sat down with Slate to talk about being funny in funny movies, having crap-filled babies, and looking like but not being Parker Posey. This is one of a few parts but she never does answer the question on everyone's minds, what's the deal with that super cool red motorcycle behind her? Why is it so cool and red? Do tell, Elizabeth, do tell.
"I got bored of penises. I said, ‘enough of that.’ No, I just like immaturity, I like to show people struggle and try to figure out who they are. I’m a guy and so it leaned guy for a while. But one of the projects I’m most proud of is Freaks and Geeks, which is about a woman in high school struggling to figure out which group she wants to belong to, so for me, it goes back and forth." — Judd Apatow on his recent pivot from dude-centric projects to lady-centric projects, such as Bridesmaids and Girls.
If you are like me and all you're doing this month is whiling away the hours till the April 15 premiere of Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow's HBO series Girls, then you might be interested to hear that Nerve.com is airing Dunham's 2007 web series Tight Shots (first episode above) with a new episode every Tuesday and Thursday. Tell us what you think about it, but only if you're wearing the talking tiara.
Over the past two decades, Amy Poehler has amassed one of the most impressive resumes in comedy history. Not only did she play a significant part in America’s largest comedy institution, Saturday Night Live, she also co-founded the UCB, a venerable comedy institution in its own right and one that grows in influence every year. If those were Amy Poehler’s only accomplishments, it’d still be pretty damned impressive, but, for the past three years, she’s produced and starred in Parks and Rec, arguably the best sitcom on TV. Throw on top of that recurring roles on Arrested Development and Late Night with Conan (before it was a hit) and [...]
Five-Year Engagementearned $11.2 million this weekend, which is nearly half what was being predicted. It's also by far the lowest of the recent era of Apatowian films and it seems to be part of slow falling out of favor for his brand of comedies.
The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)
I don't think I'm going out on a limb here if I say that the bulk of the people reading this article have probably seen [...]
Amid the hubbub about HBO's Girls, which premieres April 15, we still all have some important lingering questions. Like: Is Lena Dunham Jewish? Does this show have the most boobs of any Apatow production? What does Judd Apatow's laugh sound like? Is he available to sit by my bed when I wake up in the middle of the night and laugh gently and kindly while stroking my hair until I go back to sleep? The first three of these questions are answered in this Dunham-Apatow chat for Heeb Magazine; the fourth I'm still waiting on a response to. Any day now.
It's the one-year anniversary of "Lost Roles," the column where we take a different comedian, comedy writer, or comedic performer each week and dive deep into the movie and TV projects they almost became involved with but didn't. This column began with "The Lost Roles of Bill Murray."Even though that piece detailed over 25 roles Murray almost played, there were still enough left to easily fill another post.
As you may know, Bill Murray's never been keen to the fakeness of the movie industry, so much so that he fired his agent and manager years ago and only takes offers via a voicemail system that's hooked up to [...]
Ben Falcone was on Conan last night, talking about how he found himself having sandwich sex with his wife, Melissa McCarthy, on the set of Bridesmaids. He described it as a covert operation, which ended with him having turkey meat on his nipples. Yep, that's totally how all covert operations end because turkey meat makes your nipples sleepy, because of the tryptophan, and there's just no better way to come down from a week of shooting people and wearing really realistic masks that look like other people's faces and having your letters blow up after reading them.
What do you look for in a movie? If you answered humor with a healthy dose of pathos and also an even healthier dose of Paul Rudd's grundle, well, you're going to really like this first trailer for Judd Apatow's sort-of sequel to Knocked Up, This Is 40. We still have a long time to wait for its December 21st release date, but this is a fun first taste of the comedy powerhouse's fourth movie as writer/director. What say you? Not enough jokes? Not enough Rudd gooch? Or the perfect amount of both?
Last month at SXSW, HBO screened the first three episodes of Lena Dunham’s new show, Girls, to a packed house. For SXSW, it was an opportunity to showcase more television writing, but it also marked the return of festival progeny, as Dunham had premiered her first two features there, winning the narrative jury prize in 2010 for her film, Tiny Furniture.
The buzz around Tiny Furniture attracted HBO and the attention of one Judd Apatow, who signed on to executive produce Dunham’s premium cable series. Fast forward two years and Dunham is standing on Austin’s Paramount Theater stage, doing some combination of glowing and blushing after the [...]
Phew. If you're going to read one review of HBO's Girls, make it this one. It admits to the "unstable blend of worship, envy, and disdain" that we all feel towards wunderkind Lena Dunham, analyzes how the timing of the April 15 premiere freed the series from the girly pack of New Girl and 2 Broke Girls, and doesn't shy away from discussing the entitlement of the characters – the "rarefied white hipster thing," as Dunham calls it. If Louis C.K. were a 25-year-old girl, would you want to be him? Probably, but even if you wouldn't, you'd definitely want to watch his TV show.
