Comedian Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes last night. A-list stars could not escape his jokes. In one joke he mocked Angelina Jolie. Gervais said, "Actors aren't just loved here in Hollywood, they're loved the world over because they're recognizable. You can be a little child, a little Asian child, with no possessions, no money - but you see a picture of Angelina Jolie and you think, 'Mummy!'"
Kristen Wiig Talks About People's Most Beautiful Issue
Kristen Wiig talks about making People's Most Beautiful issue. She says if she wasn't a comedian she would own a candy store and be a detective at the same time.
Comedian Dane Cook is not happy about the movie poster for his upcoming comedy My Best Friend's Girl, which he stars in with Kate Hudson, Alec Baldwin and Jason Biggs. He blogged ten things that are wrong with the heavily photoshopped movie poster on his MySpace page. Here are some highlights.
3. The Stare.
My character apparently has fallen in love with a strand of Kate Hudsons hair. Kate's mannequin is desperately in love with the inside of my right ear while Jason is half stunned, half corsage.
4. Lips:
It looks like I'm wearing Maybelline Water Shine Diamonds Liquid Lipstick. My characters name is now Winter Solstice and I'm a hooker with a heart of gold. Jason is my floral carrying pimp, while Kate is my first trick!
5. Fashion:
My character is sporting a very high collar I mean damn they should be snow capped at that altitude. It's going for the vampire lurking in the castle basement vibe. An Olympic pole vaulter would have a tough go clearing that collar. I'm also able to turn my head comfortably 180 degrees, because I was raised in an abandoned barn by a family of owls.
Read all ten of Cook's poster complaints here. The movie poster is seriously odd - especially that vampire collar. (via Huffington Post)
The Chicago Tribunereports that comedian Bernie Mac has died at age 50 from complications due to pneumonia. Bernie Mac was also suffering from a rare autoimmune disease called sarcoidosis.
Comedian and Chicago native Bernie Mac died early Saturday morning from complications due to pneumonia, his publicist confirmed.
Mac, 50, had been hospitalized for about a week at Northwestern Hospital, according to his spokeswoman. A few years ago, Mac disclosed that he suffered from sarcoidosis, a rare autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in tissue, most often in the lungs.
The comic born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough could cut an imposing figure. He stood 6-foot-3, was built like a fullback and carried himself with a bouncer's reticence. But perhaps the strongest weapon in the Chicago comedian's arsenal was that voice, that amalgam of thought and a delivery that could rise like a tidal wave, outpace a Gatling gun and remained, to his last days, loud and unapologetic.
He wasn't scared, he told us time and again, to tell anyone what he thought, to say what others were afraid to say. That fearlessness wasn't always welcome, considering Mac didn't get his big break until his 30s. But when he did, the comic skyrocketed to success in stand-up, television and the big screen.
Bernie Mac was a founder of the Kings of Comedy comedy tour and he also starred in Spike Lee's The Original Kings of Comedy. His show, The Bernie Mac Show, ran from 2001 to 2006 on Fox. A complete filmography can be found here on Wikipedia. There are hundreds of Bernie Mac clips on YouTube - see here.
Will Ferrell talks to Lynn Hirschberg of NYTimes.com/TMagazine. At one time in grade school Ferrell says he wanted to be a professional soccer player and a comedian in the off-season. He also says he working on a great Lynne Cheney imitation.
George Carlin has died at age 71 bug his comedy and his profanity lives on. Carlin's ""Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television" has seen an explosion of interest lately. You can see the video here which is obviously NSFW because of profanity reasons. Carlin's "stuff" routine is also very memorable. USA Today has a good article with quotes from comics.
The iconoclast, who died Sunday from heart failure at 71, was practically a one-man history of American comedy - from the rise of '60s counterculture through the war on terrorism. For more than 40 years, this harsh critic of our shared foibles was determined to set us straight every step of the way. In nightclubs and eventually cable television, he did so in a pointed, profane style that challenged our standards for what could be said on the public airwaves.
It seems quaint in the more coarse pop culture of today, but Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine led to a 1978 Supreme Court ruling that established the U.S. government's authority to regulate "indecent" language in broadcast shows - but made him an enduring symbol of First Amendment speech rights.
"Prior to George, all comedians wore ties and wanted to play Vegas," Jay Leno, host of The Tonight Show, said in an interview Monday. Carlin made 130 appearances on the show, beginning in 1961. His appearances reflected his shift from his clean-cut, suit-and-coat days to his grungy beard-and-ponytail era.
"I loved that he hated golf," Leno adds. "He'd say that these hundreds of acres were wasted just so that two guys could hit a ball. I think he was as riled up on the day he died as he was in the '60s when I first saw him."
There are many other tributes to George Carlin on the Internet. Here's one written by comedian Dane Cook. There's also one on the Bastion and another on Comedy Juice.
Punchline Magazine has rounded up a big collection of New Year's resolutions from comedians. You can see the collection here. Here are a few highlights.
Leah Bonnema: "I will try to cut down my negative thoughts about myself to under 25 times a day."
Stephanie McHugh: "My New Year's resolution is to become a famous comic then quickly fall from grace so I can get on the next season of Dancing with the Stars and win...it could happen...oh yeah right, like you're going to lose 10 lbs."
Greg Proops: "I resolve to buy an extra big thesaurus because I am running out of words to describe my hatred of W."
Greg Giraldo: "My resolution is to join a gym and to not get AIDS any more."
Devon Wild: "I resolve to hack Dane Cook's MySpace and steal his 2,000,000 friends!"