News

Jim O’Heir couldn’t figure out why a publisher would want Jerry Gergich to share his Parks and Recreation adventures, but let me tell you, the guy’s one hell of a storyteller. He sheepishly agreed to put pen to paper after getting the collective blessing of Amy Poehler, Mike Schur and Greg Daniels, and the result is Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles and Parks and Recreation, out November 19th.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with O’Heir about the collection of tales he calls “my love letter to the show.”

“Nick Offerman and I used to always say we were just journeymen actors. We went from job to job, and maybe you get a pilot that goes or that usually doesn’t go. You’re making enough money to pay the bills and life is going on and then a show like Parks and Recreation...

Daniel Goldberg, the frequent Ivan Reitman and Todd Phillips collaborator who co-wrote and produced the Bill Murray starrers Stripes and Meatballs and shepherded other films including Space Jam, Old School, Road Trip and the Hangover trilogy, has died. He was 74.

Goldberg died Wednesday in Los Angeles, his brother, Deuce Bigalow screenwriter Harris Goldberg, told The Hollywood Reporter. “He was a gentle, lovely guy, he was my hero,” Harris said. “He was everything I measured myself against.”

No cause of death was immediately available.

Survivors also include his wife, British Columbia native Ilona Herzberg, a producer on films including The River Wild, Evan Almighty, Waterworld, Rachel Getting Married and Feds, the 1988 comedy that starred Rebecca De Mornay and Mary Gross and was the only feature her husband directed in Hollywood.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Goldberg was the older son of Irwin, an aeronautical engineer, and Audrey, an artist.

He met Reitman...

Seth Green is the latest actor to accuse Bill Murray of inappropriate behaviour.

Speaking on the Good Mythical Morning YouTube show, Green said he was nine when the Groundhog Day actor picked him up by the ankles backstage on Saturday Night Live and dumped him in a rubbish bin.

“When I was nine years old, I did a spot on Saturday Night Live when Mary Gross was one of the on-the-scene anchor people for the news, and she did a whole thing about what kids think about the Christmas holiday,” Green recalled, adding that Murray was the show’s host that weekend.

“[Murray] saw me sitting on the arm of this chair and made a big fuss about me being in his seat,” the Austin Powers actor said. “And I was like, ‘That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa.

Amid the multiple sexual assault allegations against Bill Murray, Seth Green shared a story of Murray’s “power play” backstage at “Saturday Night Live.”

Green was just 9 years old when Murray physically grabbed him out of anger while hosting the holiday “SNL” episode. “When I was 9 years old, I did a spot on ‘Saturday Night Live’ when Mary Gross was one of the on-the-scene anchor people for the news, and she did a whole thing about what kids think about the Christmas holiday,” Green explained during the “Good Mythical Morning” YouTube show.

“[Murray] saw me sitting on the arm of this chair and made a big fuss about me being in his seat,” Green continued. “And I was like, ‘That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa. Kindly eff off.’ And he was like, ‘That’s my chair.'”

Green...

Seth Green is the latest actor to come forward with a story accusing Bill Murray of inappropriate behavior. The “Robot Chicken” co-creator and “Austin Powers” actor revealed on the “Good Mythical Morning” YouTube show (via Uproxx) that he was only nine years old when he had a physical altercation with Murray backstage at “Saturday Night Live.”

“When I was nine years old, I did a spot on ‘Saturday Night Live’ when Mary Gross was one of the on-the-scene anchor people for the news, and she did a whole thing about what kids think about the Christmas holiday,” Green said, adding that he killed time backstage by watching television. Murray was the host of that particular “SNL” episode.

“[Murray] saw me sitting on the arm of this chair and made a big fuss about me being in his seat,” Green said. “And I was like, ‘That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch.

There was every reason to expect "Club Paradise" would be the comedy smash of Summer 1986. Harold Ramis was two-for-two as a director thanks to "Caddyshack" and "National Lampon's Vacation," and scorching hot off the blockbuster success of "Ghostbusters." Ramis had reunited with his "National Lampoon's Animal House" collaborator Chris Miller to hammer out the story, and hooked up once again with his "Caddyshack" co-writer Brian Doyle-Murray for the screenplay. And then there was the cast: Robin Williams, Peter O'Toole, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Robin Duke, and Mary Gross. How could a film stuffed with this much comedic talent possibly miss?

Aside from Ramis and Levy playing a couple of hapless, horn-dog tourists who inadvertently score a trash bag full of marijuana, just about nothing works in "Club Paradise." The notion of a retired Chicago firefighter (Williams) starting up a ramshackle Caribbean resort with his disability money sounds promising,...

Washington, D.C. — Actress and comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus accepted the Kennedy Center’s 21st annual Mark Twain Prize Sunday with heartfelt thanks to the cadre of colleagues gathered to pay tribute to the “Veep” star during in a warm and spontaneous evening that recounted her illustrious career. Not surprisingly, some of the event’s most pointed material was aimed at the Trump administration.

“I grew up in the D.C. area during the quaint, old-fashioned Rule of Law period,” Louis-Dreyfus said during comments upon accepting the honor from Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein – a small bust of author Samuel Clemens.

Louis-Dreyfus noted that she attended the private Maryland girls school Holton Arms, “which has been in the news lately” (in connection with new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh). Recalling her performance there in a play, she said she still remembers every detail of the occasion. “But I don’t remember...

Melissa McCarthy's new comedy, The Boss, arrives in theaters on Friday. Given McCarthy's string of box office successes, the movie seems primed to be a hit. And we're stoked too, but the premise of the film has us recalling another female-led comedy: The 1989 Shelley Long cult hit Troop Beverly Hills. Both films focus on women of means who enjoy living the high life but who have also been humbled in some way - The Boss's Michelle Darnell being sent to prison, and Troop's Phyllis Nefler facing an impending divorce. And both protagonists turn to the Girl Scouts (or...

Twins

Showcase Inventory

Created by David Kohan, Max Mutchnick

Produced by KoMut Entertainment, Warner Bros Entertainment

Aired on The WB for 1 season (18 episodes) from September 16, 2005 – March 3, 2006

Cast

Sara Gilbert as Mitchee Arnold

Molly Stanton as Farrah Arnold

Melanie Griffith as Lee Arnold

Mark Linn-Baker as Alan Arnold

Show Premise

Highly successful lingerie company owners and married couple Alan and Lee Arnold decide to retire from their CEO position and name their non identical twin daughters as their successors. The two sisters, Mitchee and Farrah, couldn’t be more different from one another if they tried. Oddly, the two take after their parents almost exactly, with Mitchee taking after her father, who is brainy, uptight, and reserved, while Farrah takes after Lee, an alluring, uninhibited, and seemingly vapid blonde. It would seem that for the parents, the notion of “opposite attracts” is what brought them together, but for the two sisters,...

Last night, LeBron James came as close as any player has in 46 years (since Jerry West in '69) to winning the NBA Finals Mvp for a losing team. What he did in carrying a team of scrubs and/or Knicks castoffs to within two games of a championship was otherworldly, not just for his own play, but for the complete ineptitude of his supporting cast whenever he wasn't on the floor. It had me wondering if there was a TV equivalent. I'm not talking about a great performance in an otherwise bad show, because we've seen plenty of those (Matthew Perry in "Studio 60," for instance), but a Hall of Fame performance that transforms a show that would otherwise be unwatchable into something seemingly great in its own right. I put the question out on Twitter this morning, and got some interesting responses: @sepinwall Orphan Black ... — Tormund Clientsbane (@LukeMayeux) June 17, 2015 Certainly,...

On the eve of its 40th anniversary special (though the anniversary itself isn't until October), what is left to say about "Saturday Night Live"? There have been multiple books written about the show, several documentaries, countless essays — riding the never-ending roller-coaster between "Saturday Night Dead" and "Saturday Night Lives Again!" — best-ofs, worst-ofs, and every other kind of list you can think of. I don't know that anything I write over the next few pages will provide new insight into one of the most influential comedy shows ever made, but I wondered if you could tell the story of the show — through good times and bad, through revolutions and evolutions and retrenchments — by looking at its sketches. I wound up picking 21 in all: some among the show's most famous, some obscure but important. These aren't meant as a definitive breakdown of the best "SNL" ever had to offer, but as a...

I was going to write about the new Paul Feig film The Heat and the unfair weight put on female driven comedies to prove that yes, women are funny. In fact, when I heard of The Heat, the first thing that I thought was “Oh yeah, like Feds.” FEDs (Daniel Goldberg, 1988) is the only other time I can think of that the buddy-cop genre was populated by women. To be honest, I recall FEDs being pretty funny. It features Rebecca De Mornay and SNL alumus Mary Gross as FBI trainees who get dealt a tough case while completing their training and tests. Regardless, it was completely unfair for me to immediately compare it to the only other known female buddy cop movie out there. We’ve seen multiple iterations within the genre including interracial (Lethal Weapon), inter-jurisdictional (Bon Cop Bad Cop), international (Rush Hour), and even interspecies (Turner and Hooch) pairings.

Earlier, Martin Short spoke about his voice work in this weekend's new animated film, "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" -- as well as reflecting on past film roles in favorites like "Three Amigos," "InnerSpace" and "Clifford." Here, in part two, Short discusses his time on the Canadian sketch comedy show "Second City Television," as well as his one season on "Saturday Night Live."

"Sctv," a Toronto based sketch comedy show that aired off an on from 1976 to 1984, spawned the likes of comedy legends John Candy, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Joe Flaherty and, of course Martin Short. Then, in the fall of 1984, the already established Short joined other "all stars" Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer for the last season of Dick Ebersol's run as the producer of "SNL."

Here, Short talks about his days on "Sctv" and his former fellow cast member, Rick Moranis...

Earlier, Martin Short spoke about his voice work in this weekend's new animated film, "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" -- as well as reflecting on past film roles in favorites like "Three Amigos," "InnerSpace" and "Clifford." Here, in part two, Short discusses his time on the Canadian sketch comedy show "Second City Television," as well as his one season on "Saturday Night Live."

"Sctv," a Toronto based sketch comedy show that aired off an on from 1976 to 1984, spawned the likes of comedy legends John Candy, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Joe Flaherty and, of course Martin Short. Then, in the fall of 1984, the already established Short joined other "all stars" Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer for the last season of Dick Ebersol's run as the producer of "SNL."

Here, Short talks about his days on "Sctv" and his former fellow cast member, Rick Moranis...

Blind items about celebrities are basically the stupidest things. They’re not just rumors about people, they’re unfounded rumors about Mystery People, making it less believable times two. Nevertheless, it’s always fun to try to figure out which movie stars are secretly gay or cheaters or alcoholics. A new blind items asks: Which closeted former SNL star is getting a bad reputation at spas and gyms around Hollywood for his illegal sexual activities? The once-married actor has been caught pleasuring himself in front of other male patrons, and it’s just a matter of time before he’s publicly exposed! We ‘re pretty sure we know who it is (hint: “Party on, Garth! Pass the poppers!”), but here are the top 8 SNL players whose junk we never want to see (note to Seth Meyers: Please Flash Us): 8. Randy Quaid 7. Gilbert Gottfried 6. Joe Piscopo 5. Jim Belushi 4. Chris Kattan...

Charles Rocket: 1980 - 1981. Weekend update anchor. The most prolific male cast member during the 1980-81 season besides Joe Piscopo, He was fired, in part, for cursing on air. (The scene below is the one that got him fired).

Danitra Vance: 1985 - 1986. Recurring characters: "That black girl," and Cabrini Green Jackson, a professional teenage mother who gives advice on pregnancy. (She also died in 1994 from breast cancer). Check out this sketch -- not something they could pull off today.

Tim Kazurinsky: 1981 - 1984. Recurring characters: The landlord from Eddie Murphy's "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood," Father Timothy Owens, and network censor Worthington Clotman.

Mary Gross: 1981 - 1985. Co-anchor of Weekend Update (briefly). Recurring characters: Alfalfa in the "Little Rascals" sketches, Chi Chi, Celeste, and Siobhan Cahill.

Robin Duke: 1981 - 1984. Recurring character: Wendy Whiner. Also played Mr. T.

Jim Breur: 1995 - 1998. Recurring character: Goat boy. He was in those Goth Talk sketches.

"I've seen the future, brother: it is murder." - Leonard Cohen

One of the finest compliments I can give to a movie is to say it feels like it is being beamed down from another planet.  This doesn't just mean that it is odd or quirky, it means that it has broken from the shackles of all known convention, it is completely unpredictable, follows its own tune.  

Miranda July's second feature, The Future, is one such film.  It will never be accused of not having a definitive voice, however it is the type of picture that is very much your cup of tea or isn't.

It stars Ms. July as a timid children's dance instructor who lives in social hibernation with her longtime boyfriend. They maintain a shaky, insular lifestyle somewhat divorced from the comings and goings of the rest of humanity.  For them, it's almost as if being...