Results tagged “sarahsilverman”

This seems to be the week of the essay show, with Mortified and Sit N' Spin both tackling the genre, albeit in different ways. There's a ton of smaller shows around town too, like Benderdangle at the iO West Andy Dick theater on Saturday at 8p. In short, there's no reason to not get out and see some great stand up at Largo, or catch award-winning shows for free at Comedy Central Stage, or even drive down to Irvine for known headliners. Also, in recently developed (and huge) news, Martin Lawrence is back for some stand up at the Comedy Store on Friday and Saturday nights.

As usual, things at the Ivy Substation in Culver City are not status quo. Then again, when you’re trying to keep theatre alive in an economy more suited for food stamps than Shakespeare, nothing is going to be easy. Enter The Actors’ Gang, who for years have been at the Los Angeles forefront of doing things the hard way, and with amazing results. Their productions, workshops, and community outreach programs are second to none, and the current WTF?! Festival is right in line with such forward thinking.

                     

The lazy response to Judd Apatow's Funny People will be that it isn't as, well, funny as his two previous films, The 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up. The subtext of that observation, of course, is that it isn't as good as those other films, and that is a howlingly wrong presumption. True, Funny People is not Apatow's funniest film, but -- true also -- it is his best. While not a straight comedy, it has plenty of laughs and inspired lunatic performances (Eric Bana, in particular, is a revelation). What it also has, though, is an interest in exploring the intersection of mortality and human failing, and it does so with great clarity and a requisite lack of pity.

Rick Ortiz Productions puts on a great night of Rock en Español at the Conga Room for your enjoyment. Noches Rockeras features five great music acts, including: La Mala Influencia, Soy Disco, Octavio Red, Ximbios and Astoria. Show starts at 8 PM and it is only $10 if you show up after 10:30 PM.

Now that the summer blockbuster season's in gear, it's time to counter-program with an influx of festivals! The Israel Film Festival runs through the 18th at Laemmle's Fallbrook in West Hills & the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Highlights include Lost Islands, which cleaned kibbutz at the Israeli box office last year and won four Ophir Awards (Israeli Oscars); The Seven Days, another Ophir powerhouse; and audience favorite & Oscar nominee Waltz With Bashir. Rather than feature one-off screenings of a multitude of films, the festival has a smaller slate (30 films) but more dedicated screening times; a nice touch for patrons with less flexible schedules.

There's good sketch all over the place this week, and some novelty comedy acts (hypnotism, juggling), but it seems like the Patton Oswalt / David Cross and Louis C.K. show will be dominating the landscape this week. Beyond that, the in-the-dark ASSSSCAT show should be legendary, so go take a look, and hit up Farley to hype yourself or someone you love.

Wowzers. Patton n' friends at Hollywood Forever, Beer Shark Mice at iO West, a Neil Simon play, Zach Galifianakis, and (gulp) Dane Cook. What a week ahead! Email Farley if you're interested in getting love here for an upcoming show of yours.

     

Hollywood can have problems giving credit where credit is due. Ideas get stolen, supporting actors go unnoticed, and many times the writers who make up the foundation of the entertainment industry never get the limelight in the way that they should. That is, until they decide to go on strike, or a blonde bombshell declares them unfit for accolades. So it should be a source of honor and pride for these men and women when, once a year, they are truly recognized and heralded for their achievements. This is the Writers Guild of America Awards.

It's Thursday so it's got to be all about NBC, right? First of all, you've got Jan (Melora Hardin) from "The Office" going off to Broadway to do "Chicago", then you've got Jennifer Aniston (pictured, right) guest-starring on "30 Rock" (a triumphant return to NBC-Thursdays?), and then we see that NBC finally cancelled the oft-maligned but truly terrible, Christian Slater series, "My Own Worst Enemy" along with the equally terrible "Lipstick Jungle".

Do you remember a lot of car commercials at the last Academy Awards? There's always lots of car commercials, right? But they've been GM commercials for the last 11 years but now Hyundai is taking them over for 2009 (and perhaps beyond). That's $13+ million in ads for the night and supposedly Hyundai has eyes for Super Bowl slots as well.

Can you believe it's already July 31? Well, here's a few interesting items tonight to celebrate the end of the month:

If you haven't caught a show at Largo at the Coronet yet, now might be a good time. Their recently posted, insanely good schedule for the next three months includes performers such as Randy Newman, Loudon Wainwright III, Joan as Police Woman, Maya Rudolph & Fred Armisen, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, Jon Brion, The Ditty Bops, Colin Hay, The Watkins Family Hour feat. Fiona Apple & Dan Wilson, Greg Proops and Flight of the Conchords.

Little tiny ninjas take to the stage to perform Shakespeare’s Macbeth tonight and tomorrow. These “actors” are the plastic kind found in vending machines by artistic director Dov Weinstein. The action will be presented from a briefcase-sized stage and projected to monitors, so don’t fret about missing the action.

Carbuncle is an independent film made over the course of five years. It’s about a director with Asperger’s Syndrome making a movie about a mentally challenged woman who is manipulated by her alcoholic social worker.” We think it’s a comedy.

                      

LAist was on hand for the world premiere of The Hammer and the subsequent Stoli-fueled afterparty (read our review of The Hammer here) and got exclusive interviews with the cast, crew, and celebrity guests (read the interviews here); and now that I've finally figured out how to upload photos, here are some photos from that evening as well!

 

This past Wednesday night, stars convened at the Arclight Theaters in Hollywood for the Los Angeles Premiere of The Hammer, starring radio/TV personality Adam Carolla. (Read the LAist review of the movie.) The event drew a healthy number of famous faces, including Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, Carson Daly, David Allen Grier, Dr. Drew Pinskey, Jeffrey Ross, Joel McHale, Mark Walberg, Julianne Hough (Adam's dance partner on Dancing with the Stars), David Koechner, Christopher Titus, John Salley, Bill Simmons, Camryn Manheim, and Jane Lynch, along with the cast, director and producers of the film. After watching the premiere, guests gathered in the Arclight lounge and afterparty and enjoyed movie-themed cocktails, compliments of Stoli Vodka.

When you read something you like on LAist, we love it when you hit the "recommend" button, and we love it even more if you put your two cents' worth in the comments. Getting a dialog going with our readers and making sure we're giving you content you can use are top priorities for us. So here's this week's top posts, as endorsed by you via the recommend feature, or as indicated by the level of talk going on in the comments:

Enough with the Oscar talk -- Kimmel's long-awaited response to "I'm Fuckin' Matt Damon" is here and it's chock-full of hilarity:

Silverman came clean last night, honoring boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's 5th anniversary on late night with a music video.

A friend of mine told me yesterday that she was feeling left out of all the Christmas merriment--she converted to Judaism prior to her marriage to a member of the tribe--so she sent her husband to the mall to buy her a gift. While my friend is a bit of a nutjob, I can imagine that for those who don't celebrate Christmas today, especially in this age of consumerism, there's a risk of feeling a bit left out. So here's Sarah Silverman's musical plea: "Give the Jew Girl Toys."

Britney Spears's new friend and advisor Sam Lufti may be charged in a Los Angeles court this week for ramming his car into a process server's Range Rover who was hired by Kevin Federline to subpeona Lufti back in August - US Weekly

Upright Citizen’s Brigade has the hipster comedy scene cornered in a way that could make Wes Anderson weep. The lines to get into their shows look like Urban Outfitters threw up on them, past performers have included the likes of Sarah Silverman and Janeane Garofalo, and one of the founders is uber-hip comedienne Amy Poehler. Their dominance of alt-funny Los Angeles is pretty much undisputed.

Sarah Silverman @ Largo Metal Skool Tommy Peacock, 3 Against 1 @ Key Club Razorlight, Gran Ronde @ Henry Fonda Chris Daughtry @ Orpheum Softlightes, Sunday Drivers, Arizona, Unbusted @ Spaceland Tickle Me Pink, Dead Sara, The Record Life @ Safari Sam's Pedestrian, Cydney Robinson, Holly Palmer @ The Bordello Black Hole Suns, Scott Wolf, Grogans Girl @ The Good Hurt Mercy Killers, The Black Rose Phantoms, Static Though @ Knitting Factory...

Get learned-up with PBS tonight. Sarah's also on (thump-thumpa :-)), and late night TV is strong tonight. 8:00pm Wired Science PBS/KCET - This is a cool show. While I'm not enamored of the bizarre enormous set that the hosts saunter through, each of the pieces are very well done. In particular, tonight check out the "ball busters" segment which is about the testing and certification of baseballs for MLB. TV Junkie 8:00pm Pick 8:00pm Pushing...

PJ Harvey - "White Chalk" PJ Harvey @ Orpheum Rilo Kiley @ Santa Monica Civic Sarah Silverman @ Largo Black Francis, Eastern Conference Champions @ Safari Sam's Castledoor, Hearts of Palm UK, Princeton @ The Echo Limbeck, Travis Shettel, Andrew Deerin, Chris Koza @ The Hotel Cafe Metal Skool, Born as Ghosts, Immune, Glacier Hiking @ Key Club Suburban Legends, Taxi Doll, Skrotum Kiss @ The Knitting Factory Abe Lincoln Story, Doug Stewart &...

Britney Spears has been having a bad week. I thought it was bad a couple weeks ago when she had a hit and run, bombed at the VMA's and had her lawyer drop her. That was actually sunshine and roses compared to this week... It all started this week when it was alerted to the authorities that Brit was driving without a California license, and had in fact never had one. Us Weekly is...

I used the word hump mainly because I think that Sarah Silverman would endorse my use of that word, and perhaps go on to give us an explanation of humping and whom/what humping should be applied to. Am I immature? Yes, but it's a good kind of immature. I feel like I've waited forever for her show to get back on the air but the day hath arrived. Check the clip above to get...

This week seems to be the week that new sitcoms will be unleashed upon us. Tonight we have the bizarre historical moment in which commercial characters have now secured themselves an actual network television series. We're of course talking about Cavemen. While GEICO may have created a successful commercial campaign, one would think that the idea of a series could have been tested online much more economically. Everyone is predicting a flameout and that the...