NBC is rarely one to learn the right lessons from success, so how best to follow a thriving Will & Grace revival? Why, undoing any goodwill from The Office series finale, of course, and plotting an official revival for the 2018-19 season!
In the modern world of relationship comedies, happily ever after is rarely the endgame. Instead, we’re in the middle of an era where that “ever after” is examined, and a marriage that started off perfectly has grown a little more complicated than its two subjects anticipated. It’s an uncomfortable topic to deal with, but what better genre to do that than comedy? And what better cast to do it with than the cast of the upcoming I Do… Until I Don’t?
The Daily Show has gone on long enough that you’d have a hard time picking any one dream cast to reunite. Nevertheless, Stephen Colbert may have found it, setting joint Late Show appearances for Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Samantha Bee and more.
Dito Montiel needs a win right now. The noted indie writer/director was the object of some ridicule (from me) when it came out that his latest feature, the Shia LaBeouf-led war picture Man Down, attracted exactly three viewers in all of Britain. The movie didn’t fare so well stateside either, and Montiel’s previous effort Boulevard got lost in the shuffle when star Robin Williams abruptly died prior to release. Montiel’s coming returning in grand fashion this month with a premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival for his latest film The Clapper, an adaptation of the novel he wrote in 2007 titled Eddie Krumble Is the Clapper. And with a new clip surfacing online today, we can make our own judgement on whether Montiel has cause for hope or if he should hedge some of those bets.
There’s no arguing that superheroes currently own the cineplex, but in a slight change of pace, one of this upcoming summer’s cape-clad defenders won’t hail from the pages of Marvel or DC. Kids (and nostalgia fetishists in their mid-to-late twenties) will get a colorful crimefighter of a different stripe with Captain Underpants, the computer-animated adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s long-running line of sophomoric chapter books about a delusional elementary school principal’s adventures in doo-doo derring-do. The first trailer hit the internet today, and if you were wondering if it contains the same Steve Aoki club banger as the War Dogs trailer, then have I got some good news for you!
A longtime boon to children looking to placate mothers who wish they’d read more, the Captain Underpants series of chapter books was the pinnacle of toilet humor to kids in the ’90s and early ’00s. Over 12 books and three spin-offs, author Dav Pilkey generated gaggles of giggles with the superheroic adventures of a crimefighter clad only in a red cape and tightened whiteys, who used a plunger in his unending battle against bathroom-appropriate crime. Such nefarious villains as Doctor Diaper, the Turbo Toilet 2000, and Professor Pippy Pee-Pee Poopypants (a phrase I like to imagine executives at 20th Century Fox saying out loud, usually while seated at a long conference table) all crossed paths with the minimally-clothed defender of truth, justice, and excretive freedoms.
There are a lot of movies about adults searching for their birth parents, but those are often warm, heart-touching stories about love and reunion. In ‘Bastards,’ that search is more about two sons digging up their mother’s sexual past.
Drunk History has made its way around the block, from web series to Emmy nominations, and Season 4 on Comedy Central may be the most satisfied year yet. Not only do we get a first taste of Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda retelling the famous duel, but the first trailer brings a bevy of celebrities from Elizabeth Olsen to Ronda Rousey.