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Canadian-American filmmaker Jason Reitman is set to receive a special award at the upcoming USC Comedy Festival. The filmmaker, known for being the son of famed actor and director Ivan Reitman, is best known for his revival of his father’s Ghostbusters franchise with two pretty successful sequels.

Reitman co-wrote and directed Ghostbusters: Afterlife, while he co-wrote Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, both of which have been quite successful, especially when considering the fact that they are revivals of old franchises.

As confirmed, Reirman is set to receive the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Master of Comedy Award at the seventh edition of the USC Comedy Festival, which will be held from March 28 to March 30 at the campus. The award will honor Reitman’s contributions to film, especially the comedy genre.

Related: Finn Wolfhard Reflects on Why He Doesn’t Want to Join the MCU

In the words of Alex Ago,...

Filmmaker and USC alumnus Jason Reitman is slated to receive the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Master of Comedy Award at the seventh edition of the USC Comedy Festival, set for March 28-30 at the campus.

The three-day festival aims to examine the role that comedy plays in shaping popular culture and social movements. The tribute to Reitman, the helmer behind such films as 2024’s “Saturday Night,” 2009’s “Up in the Air” and 2007’s “Juno,” will close the festival and include a Q&a on stage with film historian and critic Leonard Maltin.

USC launched the event in 2011, the same year it established the USC Comedy department with the goal of “championing comedy as a field of university study.” The festival has been held every other year since. This year’s event includes a panel on AI’s impact in the creation of comedy (session title: “Can Comedy Be Automated?...

After wrapping up his four-season run on HBO’s acclaimed dark comedy Barry, Henry Winkler has been set to receive USC Comedy’s prestigious Oakie Award for Exceptional Achievements in Film and Television Comedy.

Part of the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Masters of Comedy Lecture Series, the award presentation will take place on Tuesday, March 5 at 7:00 pm and will include an in-depth conversation with Winkler, moderated by Barry‘s co-creator and star, Bill Hader. In addition to Hader, past recipients of the Oakie Award include Catherine O’Hara, Nancy Meyers, Kenya Barris, Steve Carell, James Burrows, Paul Feig, Mel Brooks, James L. Brooks, Judd Apatow, Lisa Kudrow, Barnet Kellman, David Isaacs, Phil Rosenthal, and Tim Story.

In a statement on Winkler’s forthcoming recognition, David Isaacs, Co-Chair of USC Comedy and Chair of the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television, said: “Henry Winkler’s indelible mark...

Ingmar Bergman had Liv Ullmann. Woody Allen had Diane Keaton and Christopher Guest had Catherine O’Hara — that’s how actor John Michael Higgins summed up the stature of O’Hara’s work on screen with Guest and other top directors during a wide-ranging Q&a held Saturday as part of the sixth annual USC Comedy Festival.

The Emmy-winning O’Hara was honored with the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Masters of Comedy Award at the festival, in recognition of her long, and often underrated, career in film, TV, stage and sketch comedy.

The Oakie Foundation honors the lives and work of two comedy legends, Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie. Jack Oakie won a supporting actor Oscar for Charlie Chaplins’ 1940 satire “The Great Dictator.” Victoria Oakie was a comedy trouper who had supporting roles (as Victoria Horne) in numerous films, most memorably opposite Jimmy Stewart in 1950’s “Harvey.”

In reviewing...

Netflix has dropped the trailer for the eight-episode second season of “Shadow and Bone.” The second season depicts Alina Starkov, played by Jessie Mei Li, on the run in an effort to bring down the Shadow Fold and save Ravka. However, General Kirigan (played by Ben Barnes) is also back and this time has an army of shadow monsters behind him.

The Season 2 cast includes also includes Archie Renaux, Freddy Carter, Amita Suman, Kit Young, Danielle Galligan, Daisy Head, Calahan Skogman, Lewis Tan, Anna Leong Brophy, Jack Wolfe and Patrick Gibson.

Eric Heisserer and Daegan Fryklind serve as showrunners and executive producers, with Leigh Bardugo as author and executive producer for the series. “Shadow and Bone” is also executive produced by Shawn Levy, Josh Barry, Dan Levine and Dan Cohen for 21 Laps Entertainment, Pouya Shahbazian (Loom Studios) and Shelley Meals.

Season 2 of “Shadow and Bone” premieres March 16. Check out the trailer below.

The mark Nancy Meyers has left on film and TV comedy has garnered another prize as she’s been selected to receive USC Comedy’s Oakie Award.

Doled out as a way to recognize “exceptional achievements in film and TV comedy,” news of the award was announced on Tuesday by university professor Jack Epps, who holds the Jack and Victoria Horne Oakie chair in comedy.

Meyers will accept the prize during a virtual presentation on Nov. 14 that also includes an in-depth chat with moderator and comedy legend Martin Short. The event is part of the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne ...

The mark Nancy Meyers has left on film and TV comedy has garnered another prize as she’s been selected to receive USC Comedy’s Oakie Award.

Doled out as a way to recognize “exceptional achievements in film and TV comedy,” news of the award was announced on Tuesday by university professor Jack Epps, who holds the Jack and Victoria Horne Oakie chair in comedy.

Meyers will accept the prize during a virtual presentation on Nov. 14 that also includes an in-depth chat with moderator and comedy legend Martin Short. The event is part of the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne ...

Showrunner Kenya Barris offered a glimpse of one of the projects he is pursuing now that he has relocated to Netflix during a wide-ranging discussion Saturday night held as part of the USC Comedy Festival.

“I can say this,” Barris teased. “I want to reboot what a family show is.”

Barris spoke with filmmaker Tim Story during the packed session at USC’s Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre.

The showrunner was on campus to take part in the Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Masters of Comedy Lecture Series at the fourth edition of USC’s School of Cinema Arts gathering focused on comedy. Attendees at Barris’ session heard an inspiring discussion about the future of the industry, the power of comedy and a tiny glimpse of what to expect from the “Black-ish” creator now that he’s relocated to Netflix. Students in the crowd were buzzing about the $100 million pact...

'To Each His Own' movie with Olivia de Havilland and John Lund 'To Each His Own' movie review: Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland stars in Mother Love tearjerker Olivia de Havilland, who had starred in the 1941 melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, returns to the wartime milieu in To Each His Own (1946), once again under the direction of Mitchell Leisen, who guides the proceedings with his characteristic sincerity while cleverly skirting the Production Code's restrictive guidelines. In To Each His Own, de Havilland plays Jody Norris, a small-town woman who falls quickly in love – much like her character in Hold Back the Dawn – but this time during World War I, when Jody's brief liaison with daredevil flying ace Captain Cosgrove (John Lund) results in an out-of-wedlock child. When Cosgrove is killed in battle, the young mother anonymously gives up her baby to a childless couple in her hometown, remaining...

.Well I.ll be swizzled.. I cry fowl. or hare. I asked my invisible friend named Mortimer, a fifteen foot 3.75 inch giraffe, if Harvey was the real deal and he said it was bollocks. The movie still fills me with joy no matter what Mortimer says and Stewart shows that you don.t have to be sane to have a positive outlook. Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart) is a genial and friendly man who has one best friend in the whole world. His sister Veta (Josephine Hull) and her daughter Myrtle May (Victoria Horne) are rushing him out of the house so that they can have a tea party. They don.t want him to come home and call...

With the 80th anniversary of USC's School of Cinematic Arts imminent, industry benefactors have been lining up to support the institution's expansion.

Fox Entertainment Group, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Dana and Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli Foundation and Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg are among the donors that have ponied up to support construction of the school's new campus, which USC hopes to complete next year.

Since 2006, fundraisers have accumulated nearly $125 million of the $175 million needed to finish the state-of-the-art project.

Alumni including John August, Ashley and David Kramer, Peter Segal, Stacey Sher and Jana and Stephen Sommers also have contributed.

George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg will present a tour of the new campus March 29 during a news conference with Sca dean Elizabeth Daley and USC president Steven Sample.

"We are incredibly proud of our close and valued ties to the entertainment industry,...