“The only way to upset the power structure in your communities is to goad them, confuse them, irritate them and, most of all, make them live by their own rules. If you make them live by their own rules, you destroy them. And never forget that ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. Comedy is our friend. Throw the kitchen sink at them!” – from Saul Alinksy’s “Rules for Radical Comedians.”

Alinsky

I never really had any insight into the pure comic genius of Saul Alinsky until I saw his new age Method followers display their considerable chops on the national stage. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, the Master’s ostentatious and envelope-pushing Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner-like proteges, whose hilarious ACORN skits also showed brilliant flashes of the late great Allen Funt. The Mysterious Mister X, the L.A. street comic who “Alinskyed” Faris Alkhateeb’s boredom-fueled Obama Joker art into an urban poster as devilishly humorous as Hannibal Lecter, also made as big a national splash as a 300-pound chub doing a cannonball into a crowded public kiddie pool. (more…)

Last Friday night at 11:30 PM, I was on stage at the Broadway Comedy Club in New York City “eating the check spot.”  Six hours later, at “oh-dark-thirty” I was humping the hills of a local Army post, being fired upon by elements of the Fighting 69th Infantry Division.

For both the comedy club audience and myself, the latter was a hell of a lot more fun than the former.

Since 9/11, I have been a volunteer citizen-soldier in the New York Guard , the State’s official state defense force. The New York Guard is made up of hundreds of great guys and gals, about half military veterans and half – like myself – getting the opportunity to serve in the military for the first time a little late in life.  We drill once a month and a week in the summer, training to assist the National Guard in stateside, non-combat missions.  We are a “force multiplier,” trained and ready to respond to augment NY National Guard units on the chemical / biological / nuclear decontamination team, military emergency radio network communications, search and rescue teams (for lost campers in the Adirondacks, for example), medical and legal services, and a whole host of other missions. It’s a great way to serve and help the National Guard, and it accepts all kinds or people – rabbis, dentists, truck drivers, school teachers – even Emmy Award winning comedians. (more…)

The Academy Awards for 2008 have been handed out, and the “popular kids” have Oscars on their mantles, but the dirty little secret about winning awards is that you’ve gotta campaign for them. Thousands of dollars were spent by the distributors and filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Milk (Focus Features), The Reader (Weinstein) and other assorted winners and nominees, but not all performances received that sort of big money backing.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue. (more…)

The Drew Barrymore-produced romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You has made the jump from catch-phrase to self-help book to movie hit. With an all-star cast this classic ‘chick flick” appears to be winning the weekend after posting a spectacular $10.5M in opening day ticket sales. That should mean a 3-day start of $27.4M or so, easily out-pacing holdover Taken (Fox) and three other new wide releases. With this kind of opening, Not That Into You could reach almost $60M by the end of next weekend (a 4-day Presidents/Valentine’s combo), which would forecast a potential $90M in US ticket sales.

The new movie developed by New Line and now released by Warner Bros is based on the book of the same name co-written by former Sex & the City scribes Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo. The line itself has come to be a reassuring fallback for women in the dating scene (and I’m guessing single guys have adopted the mentality as well in the rough-and-tumble world of dating).

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