Comedy stars Tina Fey and Steve Carell were already close in a sense with 30 Rock and The Office running back-to-back on Thursday nights on NBC, and now they’re both at the helm of full-length feature film, Date Night. It doesn’t look groundbreaking, but there’s no way these two will get together without producing a good amount of solid laughs. The wacky premise of a couple on-the-run due to mistaken identity plus the overload of A-list cameos (Mila Kunis, Leighton Meester, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, Ray Liotta, Olivia Munn, etc) almost guarantee hit status for the flick. We’ll know for sure when it hits theaters in April.
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Hard to believe, but August is just about over—which means that Labor Day is around the corner, and all over the country, people are zipping up their backpacks, heading back to campus, and in some cases slithering their nubile 18-year-old bodies into Catholic school knee socks and short skirts. But we digress! Since school is rearing its ugly head (not for us—we dropped out graduated with honors some time ago), we figured we’d make it easier by reminding you how amazing education could be. Yes, we counted down the 50 best (to us, at least—no Dead Poets Society schmaltz around these parts) school movies in existence. What’s #1? We can’t tell you, you’ll just have to read on and find out…
This Wednesday (8/26) marks the season finale of the hilarious Comedy Central series Michael & Michael Have Issues, and since we’ve been fans of all things State-related for some time, we had to support the show by interviewing the creators/stars Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter in our August/September issue.
So now you’ve got two choices: You can click the link below to read the regular interview as it appeared in the magazine, or you can keep reading this post to see the full uncut interview. We recommend them both. How can you lose? Come for the deadpan white people, stay for the deadpan white people!
Sooo…Dave Chappelle tries to do a last-minute surprise show in the middle of Downtown Portland at 1 AM, and 4,000 people show up. Chappelle supposedly only expected an audience of about 200, so he arrives in the outdoor Pioneer Square alone with a small portable amplifier and microphone in hand. The mob kinda prevents him from doing a proper show, but it’s still crazy to see him walk amongst us—Chappelle has become the Cam’ron of Comedy.
And yeah, we would call this out for being a carefully orchestrated viral publicity stunt of Joaquin Phoenix proportions, but…Oregon? You can’t make that shit up. [Oregon Live via HP]
Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano, last seen a decade ago in a song titled, “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” from South Park’s feature length film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, is back. And what is BB doing right now? Cooking for the Food Network on Sunday’s premiere of What Would Brian Boitano Make?
South Park’s always had its finger in the pants on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist, and more than a few episodes have been met with outrage from interest groups or religious leaders. But every once in a while, SP has turned the tables on real life, and seen its gags subtly nestle their way into pop culture. With the Food Network obviously aping their latest franchise’s name from the beloved cartoon (yo FN: Trey and Matt wanna know where their royalty checks are!) , we dug up 10 instances of Real Life Imitating South Park…
It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here! Fourteen years after its tragic demise, sketch troupe The Statefinally convinced MTV to release the DVD collection of their show, which drops tomorrow. If you were lucky enough to watch it when it was on, you know it was the most innovative comedy of its time, influencing everything from Human Giant to Lonely Island to…well, maybe not Chappelle’s Show, but you get the idea.
The show birthed an insane number of comedy VIPs in screenwriting, acting, and directing, and nearly all of its members continue to work with each other on various projects; Reno 911!, cult comedy classic Wet Hot American Summer, and the new Comedy Central show Michael & Michael Have Issues (premiering this Wednesday) are but three. After the jump, watch The State’s 10 Best Skits and check out a (now updated) chart we ran in our February/March 2008 issue that details the cast’s interlocking post-State collaborations…
Bernie Mac, one of the most successful and beloved black comedians ever, passed away Saturday at age 50 from complications due to pneumonia. Complex will always remember the Chicago native for his foul mouth and absolute realness when dealing with touchy subjects like child abuse. Like many of his early fans, we first discovered Mac when he was doing stand-up on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam in the early ’90s.
Through the rest of the decade, there was hardly a noteworthy “urban” or “hip-hop” comedy that he didn’t make a cameo in'from Mo’ Money and Who’s the Man? to Friday and Booty Call. A more mainstream audience discovered Mac in his 2001 Fox sitcom The Bernie Mac Show, as well as in theatrical gems like Ocean’s Eleven and Bad Santa. Reminisce over some of his most memorable clips below.
Okay, you degenerate '80s babies. Quick history lesson: these two old farts are named Cheech Marin and Tommmy Chong. They made a lot of money 30 years ago turning weed into comedy. Without the (Dutch) masters, you wouldn’t have your Grandma’s Boy, your Pineapple Express, even your Half Baked and its backeotomies. The thing is, a while back Cheech decided he was tired of stoner humor, so he got a job on Nash Bridges and left poor ol’ Chong in the lurch'or, more specifically, in the bing for selling bongs over the internet.
Well, the funny thing about pot humor is that it pays better than being Don Johnson’s wisecracking buddy, so Cheech and Chong are getting the brand back together and hitting the road on a comedy tour. They’re officially announcing tomorrow, so write yourself a note, because you’ll most likely forget otherwise. After the jump, watch a blunt retrospective of some of C&C’s finest throwback moments.
Yesterday, we lost one of the true O.G. characters of our culture when George Carlin passed away from heart failure at the age of 71. In the world of stand-up comedians, this New York City native is one of the profession’s true icons, rivaled only by legends like Richard Pryor.
Known for pushing taboo subjects and challenging societal norms, he is the reason why the FCC has so much power over the content that we hear on the airwaves today. Back in 1973, an angry father complained about Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine being broadcast on the radio, which led directly to a landmark Supreme Court decision that gave the FCC the power to determine what is and what is not “indecent.” Learn more about this comedy God by watching some classic clips below.
Last night Complex rolled to a rough-cut screening of Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller's new summer comedy about a group of pampered actors who get caught in real jungle warfare while filming your average Vietnam War flick. The premise sounds like a cross between ¡Three Amigos! (awesome) and Delta Farce (considerably less awesome), and given that it's been a minute since a Stiller comedy wowed us, we weren't sure what he'd deliver. The first good sign was that he was present for the screening, as were his parents and Larry David.
It turns out that Stiller, who co-wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, is sitting on a banger (you know a movie's funny if it makes the god Larry David cackle). Stiller and Jack Black are back. Tom Cruise's cameo as a ball-breaking movie producer is crazy…funny. Everyone is so strong that you can't say one performance steals the show, but Robert Downey Jr. as a Russell Crowe-inspired Aussie thespian in black face is ballsy and hysterical. Between this and Iron Man (release date: May 2), Downey Jr. is going to own the summer. Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen's weeded crime thriller Pineapple Express (August 8) will have a legitimate box office battle on its hands when Tropic Thunder drops on August 15. Peep the trailer after the jump.
Bernie Mac, one of the most successful and beloved black comedians ever, passed away Saturday at age 50 from complications due to pneumonia. Complex will always remember the Chicago native for his foul mouth and absolute realness when dealing with touchy subjects like child abuse. Like many of his early fans, we first discovered Mac when he was doing stand-up on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam in the early ’90s.
