Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy (2009)
Director Robert Townsend
Main cast Franklyn Ajaye; Angela Bassett; Bill Bellamy; Julian Bond; Todd Boyd
Genres Comedy, Documentary
Description Directors Robert Townsend and Quincy Newell offer this comprehensive and hilarious examination of the history, evolution and cultural significance of African American comedy in America, from the earliest minstrel shows to the latest HBO special. Featuring interviews with cultural critics and loads of comedic clips, this program features appearances by a who's-who of black comedians including Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg and many more.
In the spirit of the old west variety shows, Vaughn played host to the ensemble of comedians and performed improvisational sketches with surprise celebrity and musical guests. The film chronicles the journey of Vaughn and the comedians as travel over 6,000 miles and perform 30 shows in 30 consecutive nights in cities across the nation.
A look at the work of two stand-up comics, Jerry Seinfeld and a lesser-known newcomer, detailing the effort and frustration behind putting together a successful act and career while living a life on the road.
The American comedian/actor delivers a story about the alternative Hip Hop scene. A small town Ohio manâs moves to Brooklyn, New York, to throw an unprecedented block party. Filmed with inspiration from the 1973 documentary Wattstax.
Performing at the Celebrity Star Theater in Phoenix on July 23, 1978, Carlin mesmerizes his audience in the second of his 12 HBO specials. The show was originally planned as part of a concert/sketch movie, The Illustrated George Carlin, that never came to fruition.The routines include: Death, Kids & Parents, Newscast #2, Time and Al Sleet, the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman. -- From Amazon.com
A film about the cultural evolution of the Sydney beach side suburb of Maroubra and the social struggle faced by it's youth - the notorious surf gang known as the Bra Boys.
American: The Bill Hicks Story is a biographical documentary film on the life of comedian Bill Hicks. The film was produced by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, and features archival footage and interviews with family and friends, including Kevin Booth. The filmmakers used a cut-and-paste animation technique to add movement to a large collection of still pictures used to document events in Hicks' life. The film made its North American premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. The film was nominated for a 2010 Grierson British Documentary Award for the "Most Entertaining Documentary" category. It was also nominated for Best Graphics and Animation category in the 2011 Cinema Eye Awards. Awards won include The Dallas Film Festivals Texas Filmmaker Award, at Little Rock The Oxford American's Best Southern Film Award, and Best Documentary at the Downtown LA Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of the first 47 reviews counted were rated positive.
The Comedians of Comedy is an occasional stand-up comedy tour featuring Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford that was documented in a 2005 film and 2005 Comedy Central television series of the same name, both directed by Michael Blieden.
Determined to find out the true effects of marijuana on the human body, stand-up comedian and former Stoner of the Year Doug Benson documents his experience avoiding pot for 30 days and then consuming massive amounts of the drug for 30 days. More than just an amusing story of one man's quest to get superhigh, this documentary also examines the hotly contested debate over medical marijuana use.
HECKLER is a comedic feature documentary exploring the increasingly critical world we live in. After starring in a film that was critically bashed, Jamie Kennedy takes on hecklers and critics and ask some interesting questions of people such as George Lucas, Bill Maher, Mike Ditka, Rob Zombie, Howie Mandel and many more. This fast moving, hilarious documentary pulls no punches as you see an uncensored look at just how nasty and mean the fight is between those in the spotlight and those in the dark.
Artist and life-long nerd Johannes Grenzfurthner is taking us on a personal road trip from the West Coast to the East Coast of the USA, to introduce us to places and people that shaped and inspired his art and politics. Traceroute wants to chase and question the ghosts of nerddom's past, present and future. An exhilarating tour de farce into the guts of trauma, obsession and cognitive capitalism. Features interviews with Matt Winston, Sandy Stone, Bruce Sterling, Jason Scott, Christina Agapakis, Trevor Paglen, Ryan Finnigan, Kit Stubbs, V. Vale, Sean Bonner, Allison Cameron, Josh Ellingson, Maggie Mayhem, Paolo Pedercini, Steve Tolin, Dan Wilcox, Jon Lebkowsky, Jan "Varka" Mulders, Adam Flynn, Abie Hadjitarkhani, Kelly Poots...
The crew have now set off to finish what as left over from Jackass 2.0, and in this version they have Wee Man use a 'pee' gun on themselves, having a mini motor bike fracas in the grocery mall, a sperm test, a portly crew member disguised as King Kong, as well as include three episodes of their hilarious adventures in India.
Affectionate tribute to Bruce Vilanch, who writes material for celebrities who make public appearances, from Oscar hosts and award recipients to Presidents. We meet his mom and see photos of his childhood; in Chicago, he writes for the Tribune and then heads West. Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Bette Midler talk with him and to the camera about working with Bruce, and we also watch Bruce help others prepare for Liz Taylor's 60th, Bill Clinton's 50th, and an AIDS awards banquet where the hirsute, rotund Vilanch lets his emotions show.
Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev travels to America to make a documentary. As he zigzags across the nation, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. His backwards behavior generates strong reactions around him exposing prejudices and hypocrisies in American culture.
Lewis and Clark, aka The Sunshine Boys, were famous comedians during the vaudeville era, but off-stage they couldn't stand each other and haven't spoken in over 20 years of retirement. Willy Clark's nephew is the producer of a TV variety show that wants to feature the reunion this classic duo. It is up to him to try to get the Sunshine Boys back together again for the show.
A boy named Tok is the prospective inheritor of his family that has been working as comedians for generations. But something goes wrong as Tok seems not to inherit any hilarity from his family: he can make no one laugh. When Tok meets Namkaeng, the only woman who does laugh at his jokes, their story of friendship begins.
Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian but his Las Vegas debut is a failure. He goes back to Blackpool, UK, where his father, also a comedian started and where he spent the summers of his childhood. He starts to search for a partner, a comic relief, with whom he can be famous.
Trevor Newandyke is a struggling comedian. Not only does he bomb on stage, but he bombs in everyday life. Heâs fed up with all the jerks who push him around. All he wants is a break, and for someone to get him. Instead of taking a breath and getting himself together or taking his anger to the stage, he turns to the loud din of his headphones and the crackling glow of fire to ease his mind. Heâs not only a lousy comic, but a pyromaniac, as well.
A group of four high school girls decide to put together a band for their school cultural festival. Three days before they are to play the festival, the guitarist and singer quit the band. The remaining members must figure out what to do or risk canceling. They need to find a new member to be the singer, so they ask the first girl who walks by. Unfortunately, she doesn't speak Japanese very well. Only three days before their high school festival, guitarist Kei (Yu Kashii), drummer Kyoko (Aki Maeda), and bassist Nozumi (Shiori Sekine) are forced to recruit a new lead vocalist for their band. They choose Korean exchange student Son (Bae Doo-Na), though her comprehension of Japanese is a bit rough! Itâs a race against time as the group struggles to learn three tunes for the festivalâs rock concertâincluding a classic '80s punk-pop song by the Japanese group The Blue Hearts called âLinda Lindaâ...
The King of Comedy is a bitterly evil satire of show business. Rupert Pupkins is obsessed with becoming famous so he aims at kidnapping one of the best in the business, Jerry Langford.
After his movie and television career has run dry, Bruce Madsen (Adam Carolla) is forced to go back on the road playing one dingy comedy club after another, spending endless nights in budget hotel rooms and always flying coach. Amidst trying to revitalize his career, rekindle his love life and put his daughter through college, Bruce knows one thing for sure - he must get off the road. ROAD HARD is the story of that journey.
BLUE STATE is a romantic comedy about a disgruntled Democrat who actually follows through on a drunken campaign promise to move to Canada if George "Dubya" Bush gets re-elected.
A man pursues stand-up comedy encouraged by his fellow garbage man. Though his friend, who accompanies him on accordion, continues to tell him how great he is, he actually stinks. When the "comedian" grows a third arm out of his back, the friend uses this twist to get him signed up with a sleazy talent agent, and it begins to look like his career is on the move, even though his girlfriend has left him.
TV producer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it incredibly becomes a smash hit. Michael Rapaport co-stars in this searing satire.
George Carlin celebrates 40 years of comedy and here, he presents 2 new standup bits, comedian Jon Stewart gives an interview with him, and we look at his old comedy work through the last 4 decades.
Dave Skylark is king of the celebrity interview and host of the hit night time talk show "Skylark Tonight." The brain behind Dave's empire is his producer and best friend, Aaron Rapoport. Unfulfilled, Aaron yearns to do meaningful work. He scores the chance of a lifetime when he secures an interview for Dave with Kim Jong-Un, the mysterious and ruthless dictator of a nuclear-armed North Korea. As Dave and Aaron prepare to leave for North Korea, they are approached by the CIA and asked to assassinate Kim. They accept the mission, becoming two of the least qualified men ever to assassinate â or interview â the most dangerous man on earth.
Blustery funnyman Lewis Black hits the stage for his Comedy Central special, which finds the comic using his wry observational humor to skewer everything from Washington politicians and the tanking economy to cellphones and getting old.
The irreverent host of a political satire talk show decides to run for president. But his stunt to expose Washington corruption goes further than he expects when he actually wins the election. Meanwhile, a software engineer suspects that a computer glitch is responsible for his surprising victory ⦠but will she speak up?
An Afro-American organization, the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., is in permanent fight against a white organization "The Man" defending the values of the black people in North America. When the Afro-American candidate Gen. Warren Boutwell behaves strangely in his presidential campaign, Undercover Brother is hired to work undercover for "The Man" and find what happened with the potential candidate.
Adolf Hitler wakes up in a vacant lot in Berlin, with no knowledge of anything that happened after 1945. Homeless and destitute. Although everyone recognizes him, nobody believes that he is Hitler; instead, they think he is either a comedian, or a method actor.
The third and most successful of four stand-up act movies release by Richard Pryor on film. The stand-up act includes Pryor's frank discussion about his freebasing addiction, as well as the infamous night on June 9, 1980 that he caught on fire.
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz follows a young woman named Dorothy Gale who dreams of becoming a singer but is unable to pursue her dreams. After being swept up by a tornado with her pet prawn Toto, Dorothy embarks on a journey to meet the Wizard of Oz, the person who both Dorothy and the citizens of Oz believe can help make her dream come true.
Striking a chord with audiences everywhere in 2000, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour -- featuring Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and Ron White -- became one of the most successful comedy tours ever, grossing more than $15 million. Now, stocked with a cooler full of good ole boy jokes (and plenty of Pabst Blue Ribbon), the comics are hitting the road once again to unleash their unique brand of redneck humor.
Barry McKenzie sets off for England with his aunt, Edna Everage, to advance his cultural education. Bazza is an innocent abroad, fond of beer, Bondi and beautiful sheilas, but he soon settles into the Australian ghetto in Earls Court, where his old mate Curly has a flat.
Oscar and Peter land a career-making opportunity when a Chicago tycoon chooses them to compete for the design of a cultural center. The tycoon mistakenly believes that Oscar is gay and has him spy on his mistress Amy. Oscar goes along with it and ends up falling in love with Amy.
A fantastical re-imagining of the events of 1979, when Monty Python made Life of Brian and the debate about what is an acceptable subject for comedy was blown wide open.
Wayne Dobie is a shy cop whose low-key demeanor has earned him the affectionate nickname "Mad Dog." After Mad Dog saves the life of Frank Milo, a crime boss and aspiring stand-up comedian, he's offered the company of an attractive young waitress named Glory for a week. At first both are uneasy about the arrangement, but they eventually fall in love. However, the situation becomes complicated when Milo demands Glory back.
A stowaway (StanisÅaw Tym) sneaks aboard a ship departing on a cruise down the Vistula River. The captain takes him for a Communist Party cultural coordinator and the intruder gladly adapts to his new role, immediately setting to work at manipulating the passengers and crew into silly and vaguely humiliating games. Before long, Tym has got everyone under his thumb and created his own comedic dictatorship.
Single drama telling the story of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's formative years, from child stars to national treasures. 'Big head, short legs' is Eric Bartholomew's first impression of Ernie Wiseman, but their friendship endures and, encouraged by his well-meaning but determined mother Sadie, Eric became the funny man to Ernie's 'feed'. After a successful stint in children's variety, they work their way up the ladder of live performance, but after a disastrous television debut in the series Running Wild, Morecambe and Wise learn to trust their own instincts and just make people laugh.
Oscar-winner Colin Firth stars in this heart-warming cross-cultural romantic comedy set in the idyllic South of France. Nimi, a beautiful Nigerian single mother to son Sammy, is under pressure from her family to find a suitable husband and who better than the local Reverend? After making friends with Matthew, a British comic-book writer and one of his heros, Sammy has other ideas. He successfully plots to get them together but they've still a few obsticles to overcome. (from Amazon)
Here Comes the Bride tells the story of five different people who get their souls switched in the middle of a wedding preparation on a solar eclipse. Stefanie's (the bride) soul gets into the body of the snobby Precy, whose soul gets into the yaya, Medelyn, whose soul switches with Bien, the grandfather, whose soul enters the gay beautician's body, Toffee, whose soul enters Stefanie's body. The problem is the souls are happy where they are except for the bride, whose wedding is coming. She now has to find a way to get into their own bodies.
A Czech agricultural student, Å imon PlániÄka, arrives at the small South Bohemian town of HoÅ¡tice, and joins the local JZD (agricultural co-op) with the intention of trying out his experiment regarding the "Milk yield of cows in regards to a cultured environment". He runs into difficulty with the directorship of the JZD, but he finds them eager to help once they hear he's the son of the local agricultural commissioner, as his last name is also PlániÄka. Blažena Å kopková is given the task of finding out how things are looking. However everything is complicated by the jealousy of Blažena's boyfriend Venca.
Several people experience a miracle of love under the spell of a solar eclipse. Se-jin is obsessively in love with a very bizarre young woman named Ju-won. So-hyun confesses her feeling for Ji-wu by clinging to him and asking him how to become a strong drinker. Jeong-seok is a single father working as a copywriter, loved by Su-jeong, whose advances he rejects every time. Jin-man is a free-hug activist who returns to korea to meet his old flame.
The star player of Icelands top football team causes a stir when he admits to being gay to his team mates and then goes on a journey to discover himself (with the help of the local press). He soon finds himself on the bench for most of his teams matches and decides to call it quits and join a small amateur team made up of men like himself - gay guys trying to play football in a straight world of Icelandic fishing culture machoism
George Bird is a salesman of agricultural machinery who finds out that he hasn't long to live.On his doctor's advice, he goes to an exclusive seaside resort to spend his savings on one last holiday.
Director Mickey Rose's zany send-up of teen slasher flicks features a maniacal psycho known as the Breather (played by Richard Belzer), who stalks âand murdersâ promiscuous students at a suburban high school. The fanatical killer's unusual weapons include paper clips, blackboard erasers and eggplants. Kristen Riter, Matthew Goldsby, Joe Flood, Kevin Mannis and Sara Eckhardt head the cast.
Please enter your e-mail address to subscribe for updates
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Cookies
On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 will come into force. The GDPR strengthens and clarifies the rights of EU-resident natural persons with regard to their personal information The Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy for Valossa services have been updated accordingly.
Please review Valossa's updated Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy. If you use our services to process personal information of EU-resident natural persons you need to comply with the GDPR. By using our services on or after 25 May 2018, you will be agreeing to the changes.
Under the GDPR, you have several rights, such as accessing your own personal data, erasing of that data, and the right to be notified within 72 hours of a data breach that is likely to result in a risk for your rights and freedoms. You may reach the Data Protection Officer (DPO) of Valossa when needed, and the details for doing so can be found in the updated Privacy Policy.
Click 'OK' to agree and continue using WhatIsMyMovie.com.