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Less than a year after Sam Richardson (“Ted Lasso”) won his first Best Comedy Guest Actor Emmy on his second consecutive try, Jon Bernthal (“The Bear”) is poised to do the same. Whereas the category’s 2023 lineup included an even mix of veteran and rookie nominees, Bernthal is the sole returning contender this time and has thus emerged as quite a strong frontrunner.

Bernthal currently faces opposition from fellow “The Bear” actors Bob Odenkirk and Will Poulter as well as Emmys newcomer Ryan Gosling (“Saturday Night Live”) and former TV movie acting nominee Matthew Broderick (“Only Murders in the Building”). Rounding out his list of challengers is Christopher Lloyd (“Hacks”), who poses a distinct threat in that he triumphed on all three of his previous Emmy bids.

In order to determine if this is truly Bernthal’s race to lose, let’s take a closer look at each nominee. Be...

Comedy legend Mel Brooks and “Sex Education” star Asa Butterfield have joined the voice cast of the upcoming animated feature “The Land of Sometimes.”

Based on an original audiobook by Francesca Longrigg with a screenplay by Tony Nottage, “The Land of Sometimes” follows twins Alfie and Elise as they embark on adventures with mystical creatures after being transported to a magical island by the Wish Collector. The story explores themes of family and self-discovery.

Brooks and Butterfield join the previously revealed cast that includes Ewan McGregor (“Obi-Wan Kenobi”), Helena Bonham Carter (“The Crown”), Alisha Weir (“Matilda: The Musical”) and Jessica Henwick (“Glass Onion”). The film also features one of the final performances from the late “Monty Python” alum Terry Jones.

Leon Joosen (“Saving Santa”) is directing the project. The film is from Two Daughters Entertainment and Nottage Productions. Bonnie Arnold (“How to Train Your Dragon”) and Alan Yentob (“Billy Elliot...

Elsbeth has just revealed who the first killer guest star for season 2 is and it’s a huge name! Find out who here!

One of the best surprises of the 2024 TV season has been Elsbeth. At first, it seemed a strange idea: Carrie Preston reprised her Emmy-winning role as Elsbeth Tascioni, the incredibly quirky lawyer from The Good Wife and its spin-off The Good Fight.

Rather than be a legal dramedy, this new show is a throwback to the mystery series of the 1970s. Elsbeth has moved to New York City, where she’s an observer for the NYPD. She’s soon involved in murder cases where her unusual mind allows her to piece together clues to solve it.

What makes the show notable is that, like Columbo, it’s a “reverse whodunnit” in that the audience sees from the start who the killer is. The thrill of the episode...

Netflix has dropped the first look of its upcoming series from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” All episodes of the drama will premiere on the streamer globally Sept. 19.

The teaser starts with a family photo of José (Javier Bardem), Kitty (Chloë Sevigny), Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) Menendez. After the seemingly perfect portrait is taken, all of their faces fall.

“I need to know what’s going on with you and the boys,” Kitty says in a voiceover as the camera continues to click.

“What do you mean?” her husband José responds.

“I need to know. I don’t want there to be anymore lies between us,” Kitty insists. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“It is over. Stop. I’m going to fix this family,” José says. At that point, José and Kitty walk out of frame. As Lyle and Erik watch them leave,...

Ian Nathan guides viewers through Mel Brooks’ 1968 comedy, The Producers, in the latest episode of Classic Movies: The Story of… airing on Sky Arts on Thursday, 22 August 2024, at 8:00 p.m. The film stars Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as two men with a unique plan to produce a Broadway flop. This episode […]

Classic Movies: The Story of… The Producers...

Two years after the release of “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are returning to Netflix with their latest harrowing saga. “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” will premiere globally on Netflix Sept. 19.

The first teaser for the series sticks to the facts of this chilling case. Bight white text reads “On August 20, 1989 Lyla and Erik Menendez murdered their parents.” the teaser then shows the two brothers entering José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez’s Beverly Hills mansion, shotguns in tow.

No words are spoken as the brothers enter the mansion and cock their weapons. The only other sound that can be heard is the fearful panting of an unknown person. Watch the full teaser below:

Following the success of “The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” Netflix expanded Murphy’s “Monster” saga into an anthology series — a common practice for the executive producer known for...

While taking a break from producing the upcoming Spaceballs sequel that somehow exists, this past weekend Mel Brooks presented a special screening of Blazing Saddles in L.A. to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary. Which might be the best possible way to view Blazing Saddles, other than on horseback in 1974.

Brooks was, according to IndieWire, full of great stories about the making of the film, as one would expect. For example, he described how the head of Warner Bros. once had him dragged by the nape of the neck into an office, at which point he was thrown a legal pad and a Sharpie and told, “Write: No hitting an old lady — out. No hitting a horse — out. No farting — out.”

So Brooks promptly “crumpled up his notes” and “threw (them) in the waste basket,” reasoning, “Why listen to anything? I would’ve had an 11-minute movie.”

He also...

“A fart joke is easy.”

This may be, but executed by Mel Brooks, it can get a crowd going more than anything on view at this summer’s Paris Olympics. So was the case this past weekend at a 50th anniversary screening of his western comedy classic, “Blazing Saddles,” which played at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and was followed by a Q&a with the 98 year-old filmmaker himself. Moderated by Brooksfilms producer Kevin Salter, Brooks dazzled and enraptured the audience with tidbits on the making of the film and stories from his colorful past. One such story involved his hard-to-believe Oscar win for his first film, “The Producers.”

“I didn’t have a speech because Stanley Kubrick was in the same category for ‘2001,’” Brooks said of being nominated for Best Original Screenplay. “There was a brilliant director called Pontecorvo who did ‘The Battle of Algiers,’ a great picture...

A new documentary will look at the life and career of filmmaker Mel Brooks, whose films like The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs defined comedy for several generations of people through the past seven decades. The docuseries, which is still in production, will air in two parts on HBO. Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio are co-directing it.

“I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks,” Apatow said in a statement. “This project is the dream of a lifetime.”

Apatow, who’s best known for his own films,...

HBO is working on a two-part documentary about comedy legend Mel Brooks.

Judd Apatow is directing the untitled doc with Michael Bonfiglio after the pair directed George Carlin’s American Dream together. It is now in production.

The docu is an “expansive yet intimate look at one of comedy’s most hilarious and influential minds, whose work has had audiences around the world laughing for more than 70 years”, per HBO.

It comes from HBO Documentary Films and Apatow Productions with Kevin Salter exec producing and Joe Beshenkovsky editing.

It marks the latest Mel Brooks doc to air on HBO; the network aired Mel Brooks: Unwrapped, originally a BBC production, in 2020.

“I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks. This project is the dream of a lifetime,” said Apatow.

It is the latest documentary for Apatow, who directed Bob and Don: A Love Story and The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling.

A two-part documentary about comedy legend Mel Brooks from directors Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio has been set at HBO.

The HBO Documentary Films and Apatow Productions project, now in production, will trace Brooks’ journey from Brooklyn to Hollywood and Broadway. Joe Beshenkovsky, who last worked with Apatow and Bonfiglio on HBO’s four-hour documentary George Carlin’s American Dream, will edit the documentary.

Apatow promises a career-spanning film about the comedy legend behind classic movie farces and parodies. “I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks. This project is the dream of a lifetime,” the Hollywood writer-director-producer said in a statement.

Brooks’ career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows where he worked alongside the late Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. That’s after the teenage comedian in the Catskills conquered the entertainment world with his satirical comedy.

Brooks earned an Oscar...

Few names (if any) loom larger over the world of comedy than Mel Brooks. Now, his eight-decade career will be the subject of an upcoming two-part HBO special from co-directors Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio.

The documentary project, which is being produced through Apatow Productions, will reunite the two men with editor Joe Beshenkovsky, who collaborated with them on their recent documentaries “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling” and “George Carlin’s American Dream.”

“I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks,” Apatow said in a statement announcing the documentary. “This project is the dream of a lifetime.”

While the film does not yet have a title or release date, Brooks’ remarkable career will offer no shortage of material to pull from. After launching his career in the 1950s on the storied writing staff of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows” and collaborating with Carl Reiner on...

Peacock, here I come!

“Smash,” NBC’s Emmy-winning musical drama series starring Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty, is now available to stream on Peacock.

Stream 'Smash' On Peacock $7.99/Month

Per the official synopsis, the two-season series “celebrates the beauty and heartbreak of the Broadway theater as it follows a cross-section of dreamers and schemers who all have one common desire – to be a ‘Smash.'” Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Jennifer Hudson, Jack Davenport, Jaime Cepero, Will Chase, Raza Jaffrey, Andy Mientus, Krysta Rodriguez, Leslie Odom Jr., Brian d’Arcy James, Jeremy Jordan, Uma Thurman and Anjelica Huston round out the cast.

“Smash” premiered on NBC in 2012 and ran for 32 episodes. The series received five Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, winning for outstanding choreography, as well as both Golden Globe and Grammy nominations.

Created by Theresa Rebeck, who also served as executive producer on the series, “Smash” features original music by...

When Mel Brooks feature filmmaking debut "The Producers" hit theaters in 1968, it was both a critical/commercial smash and a bit of a scandal. Emboldened in part by the increasing permissiveness of the counterculture comedy era, Brooks pushed the outside of the envelope with a ribald sense of humor he couldn't indulge as a writer for NBC's "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" and outright shredded it by making light of the Third Reich with the film's fictional musical "Springtime for Hitler." Soon after the film's release, he was confronted in an elevator by a woman who told him "The Producers" was vulgar. Brooks fired back, "Lady, it rose below vulgarity."

This, I believe, is true of "Jackass." Created by Jeff Tremaine, Spike Jonze and Johnny Knoxville, this showcase for a gang of lovable skateboard-culture knuckleheads who subject themselves and each other to a series of physically/mentally...

Out of all the winners (and also-rans) in the 26 competitive categories at the 2024 Tony Awards, 23 results stand out as particularly noteworthy when considered in the context of history. So what were this year’s most interesting facts, records, and milestones? Check out the complete list of winners here.

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1. The productions that received multiple Tony nominations, but went home empty-handed were “Back to the Future,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “Doubt,” “Grey House,” “Here Lies Love,” “Lempicka,” “Mary Jane,” “Mother Play,” “The Notebook,” “Prayer for the French Republic” and “Water for Elephants.”

2. The individuals who had multiple nominations this year, but went home empty-handed were songwriter/orchestrator Will Butler (“Stereophonic”), lighting designer Isabella Byrd (“Cabaret” and “An Enemy of the People”), scenic designer dots (“Appropriate” and “An Enemy of the People”), songwriters/orchestrators Jamestown Revival (“The Outsiders”), lighting designer Natasha Katz...

I rarely have the opportunity to call any actor sweet, but I think that term certainly applies to the beloved Gene Wilder, who passed away in 2016. It’s remarkable how a gentle man like Wilder survived and prospered in the cut-throat world of film acting but survive he did in an esteemed film career that lasted nearly four decades.

Wilder was one of those rare actors nominated at the Academy Awards for both acting (Best Supporting Actor for 1967’s “The Producers”) and writing. Wilder was also nominated for two Best Actor Golden Globe Awards (for 1971’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and 1976’s “Silver Streak”) and won an Emmy in his final on-screen work in 2003 for his guest performance on “Will and Grace.”

So let’s raise a glass of something wild to toast and remember the great Wilder. Tour our photo gallery featuring his 12 greatest film performances, ranked worst to best.

Peacock has announced the lineup of movies, TV shows, and live sports that will be available on the streaming service in June. The Peacock June 2024 schedule includes Monkey Man, Love Island USA Season 6, The Valley season finale, Olympic Trials, Pride Month programming, and more.

This month’s sizzling line-up takes us back to the hottest villa on TV to meet a new group of bombshells in Season 6 of Love Island USA (premiering exclusively on Peacock on June 11). Grab a glass of wine for an extended and uncensored version of the season finale of The Valley, premiering Wednesday, June 5, exclusively on Peacock.

The streaming service will also offer titles like The Continental (season one is streaming now), the first three John Wick movies, Gladiator, and a trio of films from The Bourne franchise arriving June 1. Plus, don’t miss WWE’s legendary Clash at the Castle: Scotland in Glasgow on June 15 live on Peacock.

Missed Tuesday’s late-night monologues? We’ve got you covered with our round-up of the night’s best laughs from across the dial.

Subliminal Hitler-izing

It shouldn’t have come as such a shock that the Donald Trump campaign put out a new political ad this week containing Nazi stuff. After all, Trump himself has referred to certain minorities as “vermin,” has complained of immigrants “poisoning the blood of America,” has openly adopted Nazi imagery to attack “Antifa,” has advocated for internment camps for undocumented immigrants, has praised Hitler for doing “a lot of good things,” and has called literal, torch-toting white supremacists “very fine people.” Plus, he’s been known to keep a book of Hitler’s speeches beside his bed, openly threatens to use the courts to jail his political opponents, has floated shutting down colleges and universities that don’t teach solely right-wing values, has promised to...

A wide-ranging list of honorees was announced today for the Critics Choice Association’s inaugural Celebration Of LGBTQ+ Cinema & Television, which will take place during Pride Month on Friday June 7, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The event will stream later on HereTV, the first and largest LGBTQ+ TV and streaming service in the U.S. Actress, writer and comedian Sherry Cola (Joy Ride) will host.

The celebration will honor the finest achievements from the LGBTQ+ entertainment community, both in front of and behind the camera, as well as showcase emerging and established talent. This event marks the newest addition to the Cca’s series, following its Celebration of Latino Cinema and Television, Celebration of Asian Pacific Cinema and Television and Celebration of Black Cinema and Television. The Celebrations aim to shine a light on work from historically underrepresented talent.

“I am extremely proud to be able to...

One of the hallmarks of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” was its slew of A-list celebrity guest stars, who often appeared as themselves and lampooned their public personas through grating social interactions with Larry David. The show’s guest star pedigree remained strong until the very end, with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Salman Rushdie making self-deprecating appearances in the last few seasons.

Given the busy schedules of celebrities, fans would be forgiven for assuming the show had multiple people in mind for each appearance. But at this week’s PaleyFest LA panel celebrating the show’s final season, David and his collaborators revealed that they often wrote scripts for specific people without backup plans in mind.

While reflecting on the show’s many legendary guest stars, series director and executive producer Jeff Schaffer reminisced about a Season 10 storyline in which the fictionalized Larry David writes a Broadway musical about Salman...

The nominations for the 77th Tony Awards will be announced in less than three weeks, but the lay of the land is ever changing because seven more musicals and musical revivals will open between now and the eligibility cutoff. As these remaining shows have started preview performances, our savvy users have been updating their choices for the most likely nominees in 10 of the 15 musical categories. See below for a breakdown of how our official odds have changed in the top categories since our last predictions center update on March 21, according to the 1,200 readers currently making their picks. Scroll to the bottom of the article for a tally of nominations by show in 10 of the 15 musical categories.

Up

“Cabaret” — This immersive revival of the classic John Kander and Fred Ebb musical has been leading our odds for the most nominations of any musical revival of the year. It has now added...

The St. Louis Jewish Film Festival has begun is 29th season and hosted a special opening night celebration on Sunday, April 7 at B&b Theater in Creve Coeur.

“On October 7, 2023, Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack caused the evacuation and cessation of all activities at Sapir College in Sderot, Israel—home to its premier film program. Sapir students were just weeks away from presenting their final film projects at the annual film festival at Cinema South. In solidarity with Israel, and to specifically draw attention to the Israeli filmmakers coming out of Sapir College, the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival featured five students’ films. Attached to each one is a one-of-a-kind story about the directors, actors, and other individuals who participated in the making of the film whose lives have been turned upside down in the days since October 7, 2023. With Israel fighting for its very existence, these films can be viewed...

Season 1 of "The Simpsons" is a whole different beast. You've got brown Mr. Smithers, character designs out of a Dr. Seuss book, and Homer inexplicably sounding like Walter Matthau. It's a charming affair, but it also hasn't yet turned into "The Simpsons" we've come to know and love.

What complicates the first season even more is the way that Fox aired certain episodes out of order. This was famously a much bigger problem with the classic era of "Futurama," but it also led to some inconsistencies in early "Simpsons." While the animation, character designs, and voices were all slowly evolving in the right direction throughout the first three seasons, the out-of-order episodes meant the show would sometimes take a seemingly random, large step back in animation quality. A case in point was the season 1 finale, "Some Enchanted Evening," which inexplicably looked closer to the old bumpers on "The Tracey Ullman Show...

With its scathing social satire, raunchy humor and frequent use of the controversial N-word, “Blazing Saddles” got mixed reviews upon its release February 7, 1974. Nonetheless, it galloped to the top of the box office and earned three Oscar nominations, and set new standards for comedy films with its irreverence, spoofs and just plain silliness. Some reviewers did get the joke from the beginning, including Roger Ebert, who awarded it four out of four stars, saying it’s “a crazed grab bag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken.” On its 50th anniversary, we look back at how “Blazing Saddles” has endured as one of the greatest and most beloved comedies of all time.

It all started when Mel Brooks bought the film rights to a story titled “Tex-x” (changed so it wouldn’t be mistaken for an X-rated...

Owing to series creator-star Larry David’s unique deal with HBO, Curb Your Enthusiasm never seemed like the sort of show that would formally conclude.

Since Curb premiered back in 2000, the official line on future seasons was always some variation on: “Curb will be back whenever Larry has a story he wants to tell.” That sometimes meant months; more recently, it meant six years during which no enthusiasm whatsoever was curbed. When HBO announced in December that Curb’s 12th season would be its last, it felt like a violation of the show’s eternal Schrödinger’s comedy status according to which, between seasons, Curb was always somehow both alive and dead, its future hinging on Larry David eventually finding something fresh to be irritated by (a prospect as likely as Dick Wolf locating undepicted professions in Chicago).

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the new Curb Your Enthusiasm season — which premiered Feb.

It’s a running gag in the 12th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm that people keep mentioning that Larry David didn’t work on the last two seasons of Seinfeld, but then returned for the finale. Every time, Larry greets the observation with stony silence, because he knows the audience hated that finale, and assumes he is being given another thinly-veiled complaint about it.

David already gave himself a mulligan on that back in 2009, when Curb Season Seven revolved around the fictionalized Larry producing a Seinfeld reunion episode; the glimpses...

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Curse” Episode 10, “Green Queen.”]

“We thought it was a sad thing, and it is a sad thing, but it’s also funny, too. Or there’s humor that could be found in it. Because art is about… really, art is about, um… sometimes you have to go to extreme lengths to make your point.”

In the above quote from Episode 10, Asher (Nathan Fielder) is struggling to describe Mel Brooks’ classic film “The Producers,” but he may as well be talking about “The Curse.” After all, Fielder and Benny Safdie’s impossible concoction of sad things and funny things elevates its tale of marital disillusionment and cosmetic social concerns to an extreme ending. The second half of Episode 10 is so remarkable, so unexpected, and so brain-bendingly bonkers it overwhelms everything that came before it. If you thought the Rachael Ray cold open was surprising, it’s the last thing on...

Gene Wilder is rightfully remembered fondly for his performance as Willy Wonka. However, the comedic actor’s career is the stuff of legends, thanks to his collaborations with legendary comedian Richard Pryor, as well as starring in Mel Brooks classics like The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. The beloved actor has a new documentary that tells the story of his life from filmmaker Ron Frank. The film, Remembering Gene Wilder, has just picked up distribution from Kino Lorber, which has planned the movie’s release for this March.

According to Deadline, the documentary “touches on the actor’s Jewish upbringing in Milwaukee, marriage to Gilda Radner, and his final chapter living with Alzheimer’s. It will include never-seen-before home movie footage, narration by Wilder from the audiobook of his memoir, and interviews with collaborators including Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Carol Kane, and his widow Karen Boyer Wilder.

Directed by...

Exclusive: Kino Lorber has acquired all rights worldwide to Ron Frank’s documentary Remembering Gene Wilder, a portrait of the life and career of the beloved actor and comedian.

Featuring highlights from Wilder’s most memorable films as well as interviews with his closest friends, family, and fellow comics, the film will next play as the Closing Night movie of the New York Jewish Film Festival on January 24.

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release in March 2024, followed by a home video, non-theatrical, and digital release.

Wilder, who died in 2016, is best known for his collaborations with Mel Brooks in The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles, his partnership with Richard Pryor in movies like Silver Streak and Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and his performance as the mysterious chocolatier in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The doc touches on the actor’s Jewish upbringing in Milwaukee, marriage to Gilda Radner,...

A night full of legends, tears and an amazing audition to be the next Oscars host, the 14th annual Governors Awards brought all of this year’s award contenders out to celebrate four industry titans on Tuesday inside the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles.

Angela Bassett, Mel Brooks and Carol Littleton received honorary Oscars, while the Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter was bestowed with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

In addition to honoring legends, the Governors Awards are an opportunity for contenders to make an impression ahead of voting with the Board of Governors and other AMPAS members in attendance. The room was overflowing with A-listers such as Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”), Ava DuVernay (“Origin”), Eva Longoria (“Flamin’ Hot”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Natalie Portman (“May December”), Margot Robbie (“Barbie”) and more.

The night kicked off with a surprise for attendees in the form...

In some ways the musical format suits Mean Girls better than the original movie version, with Angourie Rice in the role once occupied by Lindsay Lohan

The high school comedy of status-sadism now reaches the same third life-cycle stage already achieved by Hairspray, The Producers and The Color Purple: the movie, the stage musical version and then the movie version of that. My own dissident reaction to the 2004 original was a mean review based on feeling it was inferior to Clueless, Election and 10 Things I Hate About You, and that it had its cake and ate it on the prettiness-fascism issue.

But I could have paid more attention to the showstopping individually funny lines; screenwriter Tina Fey after all went on to create an authentic masterpiece with TV’s 30 Rock, in which she could more successfully represent in her own person the eternal Mean Girls themes of reconciling success with kindness.

It was back to business as usual at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood, as this year’s strike-postponed Governors Awards finally unfolded January 9. With preparations for the March 10 Oscars under way with a new set of producers (and an hour earlier start time), the Governors Awards honored Mel Brooks, Angela Bassett, editor Carol Littleton, and Sundance veteran Michelle Satter while giving Oscar contenders a chance to work a room packed with AMPAS voters.

These awards used to be presented at the Oscars ceremony, but they demanded 45 minutes of screen time. Now it makes do with a montage of the Governors Awards presentation.

The Governors Awards usually take place in November and function as a black-tie starting gun to Oscar season. It also provides the Academy with a revenue-generating event as studios buy tables and pack them with that year’s Oscar-bound talent. The delay didn’t impact that energy.

Angela Bassett, collecting an honorary Oscar, gave an impassioned speech about the history of Black actresses in Hollywood and Michelle Satter, becoming the 45th recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, paid tribute to her son Michael Latt, who was murdered just weeks ago, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 14th Governors Awards on Tuesday night.

Donning tuxes and dresses, many of Hollywood’s biggest names filled the Hollywood and Highland Center, a ballroom just steps from the Dolby Theatre at which the 96th Academy Awards will take place March 10, to honor Bassett and Satter, as well as legendary filmmaker Mel Brooks and film editor Carol Littleton, who were also presented with honorary Oscars.

The event was originally scheduled for Nov. 18 but was pushed into 2024 back because the WGA and SAG-AFTRA were still on strike. Despite not being televised, there had been concerns that it might be...

"Only Murders in the Building" season 3 has a few songs in its heart. A musical theatre aficionado will have a ball with season 3 of "Only Murders in the Building," thanks to Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) converting his outlandish murder-mystery play "Death Rattle" into a musical.

While the trio are solving yet another murder, this season is brimming with musical references. In season 3, episode 2, a recuperating Putnam hallucinates his loved ones performing a pastiche of "There'll Be Some Changes Made" from the Bob Fosse-directed "All That Jazz." It's a cutting reference because said musical film, especially this particular number, metatextually tackles the director's heart attack. It deals with mortal self-flagellation, both for Fosse and in-universe for Fosse's fictional avatar.

In contrast, the show also applies a more lighthearted reference to "The Producers" that complements Oliver's pursuits. After a falling out with his friend Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver needs a replacement for the Investigator.

The original cast of Back To The Future had a mini-reunion this week at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City to promote the musical version of the classic film.

Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson gathered to support Back to the Future: The Musical and posed with the singing stars of the musical, Casey Likes and Roger Bart.

Likes plays Fox’s character, Marty McFly, while Bart plays Lloyd’s character Dr. Emmett Brown. Likes is also the third actor to play Marty McFly in the musical — Ben Joyce took on the role before him, and Olly Dobson was the first.

Bart, however, has been the musical’s Doc Brown since the beginning. He is a Tony Award winner and is a Broadway regular as he’s best known for originating the character Carmen Ghia in another musical, The Producers.

@broadwayworld

@Back to the Future Broadway...

Julian Barry, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of the 1974 Lenny Bruce biopic “Lenny” starring Dustin Hoffman, has died at the age of 92, his daughter announced to The New York Times.

Born in the Bronx and a graduate of Syracuse, Barry got his start in showbiz on Broadway as an actor and stage manager, most notably in Orson Welles’ 1955 production of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”

In 1969, Columbia Pictures approached Barry about writing a biopic about the life of stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce, who had died of a morphine overdose three years prior. Bruce accepted, but the project fell through as Columbia fast-tracked other projects.

Not wanting to give up on the script, Barry repurposed it as a stage play and brought it to Broadway in 1971 with “Hair” director Tom O’Horgan and with Cliff Gorman as Lenny Bruce. The play “Lenny” was a success, with Gorman winning a Tony Award for for his performance.

With “Lenny” now on the map,...

Imagine a time before 90 inch TV screens were sold at Walmart for $200 on Black Friday, a time when the family would gather around one rabbit eared black and white television to watch a show on one of the four channels they had available to them. Now imagine a world in the immediate aftermath of World War 2, when everyone needed a good laugh. In that time you may turned on your TV’s after enjoying your mother’s pot roast and carrot dinner to see young men such as Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar and Mel Brooks performing comedic routines that gave you truly guttural laughs. The premises seemed so simple, yet the genius that went into crafting these bits would soon shape the entire direction of comedy. These men would go on to become some of the most iconic figures in the history of entertainment. Sadly, as time does to us all,...

Comedy doesn’t always have the easiest time being taken seriously come Oscar season. Movies based on established toy brands don’t, either. But, based on reaction to Sunday night’s huge world premiere at the Shrine in downtown Los Angeles, as well as my own feelings watching it with the packed crowd of first-nighters, Barbie just may have the stuff to not only become a smash box office hit this summer (I would now guarantee it), but also a surprising genuine awards contender for Warner Bros and Mattel (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence).

The formal review embargo is set for July 18 following critics screenings (Deadline’s Valerie Complex will be reviewing), but the social media embargo lifted at the conclusion of last night’s screening and initial reactions are rampant. For my money this is a razor-sharp, hilarious and totally fun movie that more than...

Nathan Lane used to be the King of old Broadway. Scratch that. Lane still sits from a high seat within the realm of American theater. In fact, when we catch up with the legendary, multi-Tony and Olivier award-winner, it’s during his day off from Studio 54. The other six days of the week, he’s at that famous nightclub turned theater, starring in Sharr White’s new memory play, Pictures from Home.

Nonetheless, for many theatergoers, the thought of Lane invariably brings to mind an iconic American musical-comedy: Mel Brooks’ The Producers. That dazzling blend of absurdist humor and showbiz schmaltz premiered in 2001 before going on to win 12 Tonys, the most for any musical or play to this day. And in the show, Lane played Max Bialystock, a Broadway producer of malleable morality who is introduced lamenting his current situation with the song “King of Broadway,” a tune with...

Good luck trying to define a Cary Elwes character. That’s him as the swashbuckling love interest in The Princess Bride, and as director Mel Brooks’s spoof outlaw in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The dashing Brit, playing a tortured cancer surgeon, even cut off his own foot in the first Saw. None of those roles made him as much of a household name as his Nineties co-stars – that’s also him as foil to Tom Cruise and Charlie Sheen in Days of Thunder and Hot Shots, respectively – but he doesn’t especially mind. “I don’t look at my number on the call sheet,” he tells me. “I’m there to help tell the best story I can.”

The 60-year-old has called the US home since he was a teenager, and it’s reflected in his accent – a curious warble between received pronunciation and transatlantic neutrality. He’s friendly and attentive over Zoom,...

Actor, producer, and writer Mel Brooks discussed life after winning an Oscar for his film The Producers. The entertainer says he faced financial hardship even after receiving the prestigious award.

Mel Brooks says he wasn’t making money Mel Brooks | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TCM

In 1969, Brooks won an Oscar for The Producers for best original screenplay. Roughly 30 years later, the film was transformed into a Broadway musical, starring actors Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. The production won 12 Tony Awards.

Despite the success of the 1967 film, Brooks reveals he had a tough time with his finances. Receiving an award didn’t translate into financial security.

“Up until Blazing Saddles, I was hanging on to show business with the skin of my teeth, not making any money,” says Brooks during an interview with Ruth Rogers on Ruthie’s Table 4 (presented by iHeartPodcasts). “The first movie I made was The Producers.

There are many things to watch if you love singer-songwriter and musician George Harrison. Here’s a list of things to put in your queue—everything from the former Beatle’s favorite films to documentaries about his life.

George Harrison | Gab Archive/ Getty Images

All of The Beatles’ movies

If you’re a George Harrison fan, bets are you’re also a Beatles fan. So, if you haven’t seen all of The Beatles’ films, put those at the top of your queue. There’s A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be. In A Hard Day’s Night, George has his “grotty” scene, which he didn’t want to do. Later, in Let It Be, we see his very-real tense fights with Paul McCartney.

‘The Beatles Anthology’

The Beatles Anthology was a massive project the remaining Beatles undertook in the mid-1990s. It comprises an eight-part television documentary,...

At the end of Mel Brooks' 1981 sketch comedy film "History of the World, Part I" (a movie /Film once ranked higher than "The Producers"), the director included a preview for the inevitable sequel and some of the segments that might be seen therein. Whereas Brooks explored the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and Revolutionary France in "Part I," "Part II" was to feature a Viking funeral, "Hitler on Ice," and the distant future of "Jews in Space." In 2023, the mythic second part finally came to fruition — as a six-part miniseries — with the 96-year-old Brooks writing and producing along with an entire team of the comedy world's biggest stars. Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinhotlz, Nick Kroll, and David Stassen are credited as the primary writers, and the sketches are presented in shorter snippets, skipping merrily back and forth in time.

As of this writing, "History of the World, Part II" has already covered the Romanov family,...

Mel Brooks came up with the title to his 1981 comedy feature “History of the World, Part I” as a joke. There were never any plans to make a Part II.

Until now.

As the streaming revolution took hold, Brooks, his producing partner Kevin Salter and rightsholder Searchlight Pictures decided to explore a long overdue sequel, but in series form. That’s when they contacted Nick Kroll, who’s known for his sketch comedy (in addition to the painfully funny take on adolescence “Big Mouth”), to kick around a “Part II” that was four decades not in the making.

“There was something slightly more exciting about hearing from Mel Brooks, with all due respect to the wonderful folks at Searchlight,” Kroll says.

Kroll brought in Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, and David Stassen to develop the 21st century take on the original. But they didn’t want to do a new “History...

Mel Brooks is one of the few remaining living legends in pop culture to have survived so many generational shifts. He started as a comedy writer in the earliest days of television, helped shape and transform modern movie humor, and eventually ended up creating a sea change on Broadway as well with an adaptation of "The Producers," one of his first movies. And now, more than seven full decades after he started in TV, Brooks is back on the small screen, as glimpsed in the opening of the Hulu limited series "History of the World, Part II." But true to form, the Brooks we get a glimpse of is a joke in and of itself: it's a very "swole" Brooks (Aka a bodybuilder with a de-aged version of Brooks' face slapped in front of his own visage). It's a microcosm of this sketch series, as shameless and crass and incredibly funny as Brooks' own work.

Protagonist Pictures has sold out international on Rebecca Miller’s Berlinale opener “She Came to Me.”

The Peter Dinklage-led film has sold into Sky for the U.K. and Ireland, Belga for Benelux, Originals Factory for France, Lusomundo for Portugal, Trip Pictures for Spain, M2 Eastern for Europe, Cinesky for Airlines, Aud for South Korea and Shochiku for Japan.

In addition, Universal Pictures Content Group has made a multi-territory deal that spans Germany, Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Scandinavia, Iceland, Switzerland, Israel, Middle East, South Africa, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, Latin America, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Asia pay-tv rights.

CAA Media Finance are representing North American rights on the project.

The romantic comedy-drama stars Dinklage as Steven, a moody classical composer struggling with an oppressive writer’s block that prevents him from delivering his next opera. Despite endless encouragement from his evangelical therapist...

We’re now about halfway through the 2022-23 Broadway season, and there are currently nine productions of plays set to open this spring. Could we be seeing any of them contend at this year’s Tony Awards? Below is a plot overview of each play as well as the awards history of its author, cast, and creative teams, plus the opening and (where applicable) closing dates.

“Pictures From Home” (opens February 9; closes April 30)

This stage adaptation of Larry Sultan’s 1992 photo memoir is a comic and dramatic portrait of a mother and father, and the son who photographed their lives. As Larry tries to capture his parents, their reality explodes from the frame in an exploration of the power of art and how much it reveals.

Adapted for the stage by WGA nominee Sharr White, the production stars Tony winner Danny Burstein, three-time Tony winner Nathan Lane, and four-time Tony nominee Zoë Wanamaker.

Mel Brooks was born in 1926, prior to the advent of talkies and television. He grew up worshiping the vaudevillian likes of Groucho Marx, Al Jolson, and George Jessel. Given the anarchic, anything-for-a-laugh quality of his best movies, you'd think Brooks' allegiances would be tightly aligned with Groucho. But while he's on the record with his affection for the Marx Brothers' work, he was especially enamored of Eddie Cantor.

For most people in this day and age, Cantor is a name more than a personality. The worst that can be said about him is that he was a song-and-dance man who, like Jolson, mimicked African-American entertainers in blackface to bolster his appeal. But Cantor was a born, trailblazing Jewish entertainer, and his comedic rambunctiousness kicked down the door for people like Brooks, who lacked the patience to craft a meticulously structured screwball masterpiece like Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise" or...

Nobody does comedy like the legendary Mel Brooks. With films like "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein," "The Producers," and "Spaceballs," he's changed the face of comedy and influenced generations with his work. Orson Welles did the same with drama. Welles, of course, was a director, actor, writer, and producer and one of the most influential in film history. I mean, his first film was "Citizen Kane" in 1941 if that gives you an idea of what he's done. He made "Touch of Evil," "Chimes at Midnight," "The Trial," and "Macbeth," among others. Not only that, but he was responsible for the famous radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" (based on the novel by H.G. Wells), which led some listeners to believe that there was a real Martian invasion happening.

It seems like an unlikely team-up, Welles and Brooks, but it happened when Welles narrated each chapter of Brooks' "History of the World,...

As most people with a working knowledge of cinema history know, movies used to be predominantly in black & white — glorious black and white, if you will! That qualifier is not at all facetious, by the way, given how the cinematographers during the studio system did a regularly fabulous job of lighting actors and sets in moody, lush, expressionist ways without ever having the benefit of color.

Yet when films made the transition to being shot predominately in color, black and white suddenly became a dirty word to the movie studios, believing that audiences would reject a black and white film as being old-fashioned or worse. Unfortunately, their assumption became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, as many less cultured audience members still view black and white movies as being somehow old and boring, causing lists like these to be written up by critics and historians.

Despite becoming famous for pushing the...