Results tagged “willferrell”

It was only last week that Yankees captain Derek Jeter was on the top of the world at the ticker tape parade celebrating the team's 27th—and his fifth—World Series win. But today the Post has him on its cover, looking pretty raggedy. Why?

Will Ferrell stopped by The Late Show with David Letterman last night and was a memorable talk show guest as always. Ferrell said that he has been "bitten by the Broadway bug" during his run of You're Welcome, America... and doesn't plan to stop there. Up next for the comedian is the new production of West Side Story (where he'll play "Gary") and he gave the Late Show audience a little preview of the performance.

Six audience members have gotten up and walked out of the recently opened one-man show starring Will Ferrell, "You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush." The moment in which some Broadway theater goers have been heading for the exits is when the backdrop of the stage is covered by a giant projection of a photo of the former president's penis. Ferrell's longtime creative cohort and director of the show, Adam McKay, told the Times, “It’s not the president’s penis, as far as I know...It’s an anonymous but age-appropriate public domain Internet penis. We went on the Web and got a penis." McKay says that it is "the one moment that is followed by people walking out.” He and Ferrell had some concerns that they could run into legal trouble with the president or the owner of the unit for using the image, but felt that it was important enough to keep in the show because to stay consistent with Bush's image because he says, “He is a frat boy, a big party guy, and you could imagine him doing this."

Park Slopers Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, dubbed New York’s hippest stay-at-home parents by the Times, have joined the cast of Classic Stage Company's Uncle Vanya, to be directed by Austin Pendleton for a January opening. It's the second Chekhov play in a row for Sarsgaard, who's currently on Broadway in an excellent production of The Seagull, and the first time the couple have worked together, aside from a short film. In other stage news, Liza Minelli canceled last night's performance of her new one-woman Broadway show because she was "suffering from dehydration." Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty will come to Broadway after all, but it's unclear whether Alison Pill will reprise her much buzzed-about role. And one performance of Will Ferrell's hotly anticipated Broadway show, You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush, will be simulcast on HBO.

Will Ferrell—who will be appearing in a one man show on Broadway in January called You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush—turned up for the cold opening of Saturday Night Live's election special last night. Portraying a 'see-no-evil' Dubya who has declared the Oval Office "a bummer-free zone," Ferrell joined Tina Fey as Palin and Darrell Hammond as McCain. But with McCain on the run from Bush's endorsement (last seen "travelin' on foot through the Adirondacks"), Dubya focused on Palin first:

FERRELL AS BUSH – "My God you are folksy."

Continue reading "Will Ferrell, as Bush, Endorses Palin-McCain on SNL"

Earlier this week, it was announced that 9 to 5: The Musical, adapted from the movie and eponymous Dolly Parton song, will open on Broadway April 30th, the last day that a show can open and still be eligible for a Tony award. Broadway g'nerds rejoiced, but according to the Times, there's just one problem: The Broadway production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, starring Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane, had already planned to open that same night at Studio 54. Now there's a lot of drama, because they'll have to share the same narrow publicity spotlight! Who will blink? Who really cares? We're more excited about today's news that Will Ferrell will get his own one-man show on Broadway in January, titled You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush. Oh, and speaking of Lane, Matthew Broderick will return to Broadway the same month as his old Producers cast-mate in a revival of Christopher Hampton 1970 play The Philanthropist. Also, you'll now have "9 to 5" stuck in your head for the rest of the weekend.

Another Will Ferrell sports flick will inflate this weekend, capping off a nationwide “Funny or Die” promotional tour that brought him to Radio City Music Hall Sunday night. The movie is Semi-Pro, which stars Ferrell as Jackie Moon, owner of the 1976 Flint Michigan Tropics, a team in the maverick ABA basketball league. To keep his career alive against all odds, Moon initiates off a series of increasingly desperate publicity stunts to attract fans – behavior that does sound awfully familiar.

America's Next Top Model is back in New York and in its second episode, which airs tonight, things are getting a little bit real. The episode brings the fourteen newest model wannabes to the not always fashionable streets. After the troupe mingles with the tourists at their fashion show in Times Square, it's off to their first photo shoot.

Musical theater star and lounge singer extraordinaire Robert Goulet died yesterday of pulmonary fibrosis while awaiting a lung transplant in an L.A. hospital; he was 73.

(directed by Joe Swanberg)

Playwright Adam Rapp etches elegantly bleak portraits of America’s young lost souls; his Red Light Winter was an Obie-winner and Pulitzer-prize finalist, Blackbird was recently adapted into a film which Rapp also directed. (He wrote and directed his first feature, Winter Passing, which starred Ed Harris, Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell.) Rapp’s published seven novels, plays in a band, and is not someone you’d want to play one-on-one basketball with to settle a bet.

Blades of Glory (directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon): "Will Ferrell the Serious Actor" is a good thing, but oh how we adore "Will Ferrell the Clown." The off-kilter mannerisms, the flamboyant costumes and the tendency to flash his hairy belly for cheap laughs are hallmarks of a great Will Ferrell movie and they're all there in his newest, the figure skating spoof Blades of Glory. Ferrell plays Chazz Michael Michaels, otherwise known as "sex on skates," who ties the single men's skating world championships with the effete, former child prodigy, Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder). The two rival skaters get into a tussle on the podium and get tossed out of skating for good. However, a loophole pointed out by Jimmy's stalker persuades Chazz and Jimmy to get back on the ice, this time as the first men's skating pair. The premise is slight to say the least, but all the better for giving screen time to mercilessly mocking the over-the-top world of skating. Practically every skating great either has a cameo (see Ferrell ogling Nancy Kerrigan's butt) or a reference in the script (we learn Oksana Baiul is as cold in bed as she is on the ice). Plus the film is filled with instantly quotable supporting performances.

SIGNING: If there is one person we could think of that doesn't need an autobiography...it might as well be Rupert Everett. Yet, he'll be signing his new book "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins: The Autobiography" tonight. He wasn't just in "My Best Friends Wedding", he was also friends with Warhol and has been to easter egg hunts in Elizabeth Taylor's garden. Fabulous.

New York mid-December always smells vaguely of pine and peppermint, despite our recent springtime temperatures. Bring that cozy holiday feeling with you into the cineplex for a couple of new feel-good holiday movies.

This week at the movies, two actors known for their intensity on (and off) screen have new flicks coming out. The Oscar-winning over-reactor Russell Crowe goes the romantic comedy route with about an English businessman softened by life in Provence. With a script by Peter Mayle, a novelist well versed in the French countryside, and direction by Ridley Scott, Crowe as Max Skinner actually comes across as incredibly charming. He's sure to send many loins a fluttering as he woos French hottie, Marion Cotillard on his newly inherited chateau and vineyard. Albert Finney, as his beloved uncle, and Freddie Highmore, as the young Max, also have some very cute exchanges together. All of these elements make for a light but well-made movie, that surprisingly entertaining.

but a very reliable source on comedy assures us that "it's the funniest movie ever." While the officials from Kazakhstan may not be happy about how their people are being satirized, it's just the kind of humor that appeals to us young urban professionals. So get your tickets for this weekend early, it's sure to be hugely popular at the cineplex.

Looking ahead to this week's movie options, there's a few indie-sized pics and one massive, Super Big Gulp-sized car racing comedy. Ordinarily Gothamist is all about championing the cinematic little guy, but when it's this goofy, yet earnest we say go for the excess.

Adam Rapp, Writer and Director

- People snuff out a hoaxy press release that claimed Will Ferrell died in a freak paragliding accident

With the vice president shooting people in the face and everyone still getting over their chocolate hang over from Valentine's Day, this week it's hard not to feel a general malaise and slight discomfort about the new releases line up. However as always, New York's repertory film scene comes through in the clinch keeping Gothamist inspired when it comes to movie viewing.

Remakes and sequels and genre formula, oh my! February is a great month for releasing exactly what the studios think the people will pay to see and this week's release schedule is a textbook example of this development by marketing focus group strategy. Oh well, doesn't mean Gothamist is ready to give up on moviegoing quite yet. Here's a few suggestions to guide your weekend viewing.

Though it was the Washington Post's biggest story, the NY media suckerpunched the Post by running the revelation that former FBI No. 2 man, Mark Felt, was Deep Throat, the shadowy informant who helped reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal the Watergate scandal. Felt, now 91, confessed after the urging of his family, catching Woodward and Bernstein off-guard (Woodstein probably were probably planning a book to be published as soon at Felt died). Gothamist, who had been obsessed with wondering who Deep Throat was, thanks to American History classes and Alan Pakula's brilliant depiction of the Washington Post's investigation in All the President's Men, loves this story and has been reading all we can about it: Here's coverage from the Washington Post and the NY Times, plus the NY Post's and NY Daily News's excited coverage.

As for this weekend, so many new movies are coming out: If you’re a Will Ferrell fan then there’s soccer-comedy Kicking and Screaming ;documentary fans should definitely catch the heartwarming Mad Hot Ballroom; those who loved Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels might appreciate the producer’s new Layer Cake, the tale of a British coke dealer trying to exit the underground drug world; Gothamist saw Monster-in-Law and while J.Lo was Nutra-sweet annoying, menacing Jane Fonda was hysterical, and not only because she indulged in what so many have yearned to do: slap J. Lo around (really, the audience was cheering).

A few weeks ago, the NY Times Magazine ran a great excerpt of Steven Berlin Johnson's new book, Everything Bad is Good For You, which proposes that society has not been dumbed down by TV recently; in fact, if anything, TV watchers have become more skilled at juggling multiple storylines and ideas while watching shows like The Sopranos, Lost, Alias, E.R. or Twin Peaks, offering up the suggestion that a lot of TV drama has gotten better since the '70s and '80s. Of course, this was instantly intriguing and inspiring to Gothamist, as it reaffirms our position that our TV is one of our bestest friends (even if there's an implication that Law & Order's single narrative isn't brain-exercising - we happen to be wondering where an exterior was shot or which headline it's ripped from!). Personally, we think there needs to be a balance of complicated (most anything on HBO) storytelling along with simple (most any sitcom, as 30 minutes leaves you little time, Arrested Development not withstanding) or else our brain will explode and then how will we watch the next Will Ferrell movie? Read the article yourself here, and let us know what your favorite complicated shows are as well as the fluffy ones (high on our list: Anything on the Learning Channel!).

Woody Allen's fictional vision of New York has become so highly developed and self-referential over the years that for Gothamist, who has seen nearly every film Allen has made, most scenes in his newer features evoke similar scenes from previous works. Characters almost always fall into stereotypes of different kinds of New Yorkers, and the city they live in exists largely in the same recurring locations, even as Allen tries to throw in seemingly-new touches and visits heretofore undepicted neighborhoods.

About 30 kids, ranging from wee kindergarteners to eighth graders, were piled up at the bottom of the stairs, 14 went to the hospital (none were admitted; most of the injuries were just scrapes and bruises, not including a new fear of escalators and movie theaters) and Loews was issued a summons. This reminds Gothamist of our fears of riding escalators; for many years, we refused to go on escalators, leaving us stranded momentarily when our relatives would think we were following right behind (it usually took a nice lady to convince us it wasn't scary). What's more, the escalator it happened on was the one that goes to the IMAX theaters from the second floor - the really steep and scary one. Poor kids, it's no fun for your face to be smushed against the angry metal grooves of the stairs; Gothamist is sorry for thinking it was funny (even though it does seem like a bad but funny movie).

Gothamist loved this headline from Jay Rosen's Pressthink: From what we can tell, the Internet doesn't enter the mainstream media until at least six months out. Anyway, some wonder if there's a blog backlash in the making (from CBS Marketwatch, no less) and whether or not blogs get the facts straight. Other wonder if this will speed up Rather's retirement plans. The NY Times analyzes Dan Rather's apology, which makes us think of ESPN Page 2's What Was Dan Rather Thinking?, the Dan Rather watchdog site, Rather Biased, and Gawker's Dan Rather Death Watch.

Circa 7PM: We were pretty excited that Joan Rivers and Melissa Rivers were off Red Carpet duty for E!, because if there's one word we don't care to hear on Hollywood-congratulates-itself night, it's "Missy!" But we have our new Missy: It's "Al," as in Al Reynolds, Star Jones' "fiance." Star, who took over E!'s red carpet hosting duties (with some fashion guy named Robert), kept referring to her upcoming marriage and fiance throughout the evening. Eh. And what Star lacks in the bitchiness that Joan brought, she does make up for it in being able to be "black" with black. But still, hearing about Star watching TV in bed with Al makes Gothamist tempted to scream, "Bring back Joan and Missy, those horse faced, plastic-surgeried bitches!"

...and we're out $35!