comedy

Chris Rock’s F*&%ing Night At The Roxbury

11:52AM Clem Bastow | Good to see Australian audiences keeping up our rep as comedy fans on the edge of the edgy: Chris Rock has caused an outbreak of the sooky la las after getting blue at a surprise gig in Sydney. What were they expecting, Adam Hills & The Cuddly Fun Nanna Hour (with Rove on warm-up duties)? According to Confidential spies, the 25-minute routine featured the “f” word more times than a Ramsay cooking episode – playing fun with everything from Barack Obama to Australia’s origins as a convict country. Ahead of his first tour of Australia, Rock, known for his no-limits, confrontational style, was accompanied by an entourage of seven and the star was dressed smartly in a black trench coat. Roxbury Hotel staffer Chris Strickland said he thought the venue was being “punked” when Aussie promoter Artie Lang called on the night to arrange the secret slot. The Saturday Night Live star did not explain his motives for the impromptu, preview gig, but it proved a cheap thrill for the lucky 100 in the pub on the night. Ha ha, that use of “punked” in inverted commas says it all, really. Top work, Chris Strickland – to the top of the Jazz Randyboy class go you! In any case, now seems as good a time as ever to share one of my favourite Chris Rock Show highlights with you all, How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police – over the jump. More »

What Do Tony Soprano, Brenda Chenoweth And Ja’mie King Have In Common?

12:50PM Clem Bastow | Australian comedy is usually received in one of two ways by our cousins across the pond(s): either wholeheartedly (Dame Edna) or bemusedly before forward-thinking execs decide they can do better (Kath & Kim). Hopefully the former will be the case when Chris Lilley’s masterful Summer Heights High hits HBO as part of the uber-cable channel’s 2008 comedy line-up. Unsurprisingly, the ABC is thrilled to bits with the deal. ABC TV’s head of content creation Courtney Gibson said the broadcaster was over the moon. “Mr G, Ja’mie and Jonah have been welcomed into the home of such immortals as Tony Soprano and Deadwood’s Al Swearengen in the US, and the home of groundbreaking comedy in the UK,” Ms Gibson said. If, however, the latter option (bemused “we’ll originate that joke tomorrow” adoption) turns out to be SHH’s fate, shall we all place bets on who’ll play who in the US adaptation? We’re going with Joey Fatone as Jonah, Hayden Panettiere as Ja’mie, and Steve Carrell as Mr. G. More »

$10 Mil Per Laugh Makes Comedy A Safe Hollywood Bet

6:14AM Seth | Did the winter movie season–with its prestigious yet completely depressing crop of cattle-bolt murderers, paralyzed wink-authors, Alzheimer’s sufferers, and the like–get you down? Fear not: As the NY Times reports, a massive crop of Hollywood comedies are coming down the pike. Didn’t care for the potty-mouthed Russian Roulette humor of Semi-Pro? No matter, as every taste will be accounted for in The Great Comedy Rush of 2008: Apatowian sex farce, period screwball, and the wacky worlds of surrogate pregnancy and Mossad have all been covered. To predict how they fare, we might look to the past–in 1988, the Times notes, a recent writers strike and weakening domestic economy provided the backdrop to four comedies (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Coming to America, Big, and Crocodile Dundee II) that dominated that summer’s box office. But as it turns out, there’s a far simpler method to determine how much your dumb comedy is going to rake in: More »

Isla Fisher: Fat Comedy Is A Feminist Issue

11:00AM Clem Bastow | Our favourite Home & Away alumni-made-good, Isla Fisher has spoken out against Hollywood’s gender-skewed comedy business. The perky redhead reckons – and she’d be right – that the big studios are less than enthusiastic when it comes to greenlighting big ticket comedies with women in the leading roles. “I realised after Wedding Crashers there aren’t that many comic opportunities for women in Hollywood,” Fisher, who was the breakout star of Wedding Crashers, a 2005 comedy headlined by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, said. “All the scripts are for men and you play ‘the girl’.” Fisher has managed to get two of her pet projects bought by studios – the reasonably self-explanatory Groupies, and The Cookie Queen, about a 30-year-old girl scout – though in typically right-on fashion, the noted feminist news outlet News Ltd has made a point of suggesting her newfound “clout” is because she is Sasha Baron Cohen’s wife-to-be. The ironing is delicious! More »