Review: Hollywood, Look I’m Smiling

Hollywood, Look I’m Smiling is the first stand-up comedy record by Aries Spears, who rose to fame on the FOX series, MadTV.

During his eight-year stint on the sketch-comedy show, Spears got attention for his dead-on impressions of other celebrities such as Shaquille O’Neal, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, and DMX.

Spears uses these skills throughout his set. Unlike other impersonation comedians, Spears goes beyond other recognizable names. Although his bit about Arnold Schwarzenegger seems outdated in 2011, Spears put in the effort to perfect more general accents.

Two tracks that exemplify this have hilariously terse names: “Africa” and “Italians.” On these bits, Spears uses his accents to drive home his overall points. On “Italians,” he discusses the habit of his Italian friends softening verbal jabs with the phrase “With all due respect.” On “Africa,” he talks about African immigrants disliking black Americans and the differences between how Americans and Africans treat their women.

Legendary comedian Paul Mooney is another celebrity Spears put in his impersonation crosshairs. On the track “Blacks in Hollywood,” Spears recalls trying to get Mooney hired as a writer on MadTV with a hilarious backfire ending. This is a must-listen for anybody who’s a fan of Spears, Mooney, or MadTV. This track is also a good window into the culture of Hollywood and, possibly, show business in general.

Spears doesn’t rely solely on his impressions, though. He waxes about several topics such as Canada, horror movies, gladiator movies, gay people, and Barack Obama. Spears publically thanks all the white people who elected Obama and explains his theory as to why, “He (Obama) was the right shade… Y’all know if he was Bernie Mac Black or Precious Purple, he wouldn’t have won.”

All comedy fans will find something to enjoy about Hollywood, Look I’m Smiling but especially fans of Spears. For a debut album, this is incredibly polished, mostly because of Spears’ previous experience. Time will tell how long Spears will pursue stand-up comedy but if he does, he’s got a great foundation.

Spears performs for the Capone’s Comedy Smash at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 16, 2013 at Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall. He will be featured alongside Earthquake, Luenell, and local comedians Cameo Lawrence and Pepper.

Jeremy Castillo is a comedian,writer, and all around hilarious guy! Keep up with him on twitter  (@JeremyCaStillOh) or facebook, (https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.castillo) and check comedyhawaii.com for more of Jeremy’s great reviews 

It’s been said that laughter is contagious!

In addition to being contagious, according to Web Md studies have shown that laughter can also be good for your health!

Prompting physical changes in the body and mind, laughter can offer many benefits to your well-being:
• Within a Group – Some of the greatest laughs are best when shared. The act of laughing helps build happiness and develop intimacy with others.
• Individually – laughter helps in strengthening the immune system, boosting energy, and is believed to bring balance and the reduction of stress to one’s life.

Great news for those who find humor in everyday life, a small study conducted by Vanderbilt University also found that laughing helps burn calories. Results revealed that a good hearty 10-15 minutes of laughter helped their case studies lose 50 calories. Just think about how many calories one could lose by attending a two hour comedy show?
Humor is often found in many of life’s unforgettable moments!
So remember people, if you’re feeling low maybe it’s because you’re lacking a little laughter in your life?
If so, we here at COMEDYHAWAII recommend that you turn your frown upside down and LOL yourself to a healthier and happier you!

Comedy Central’s flag ship show,  ”The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” will be “The Daily show with John Oliver” starting this Summer.

Jon Stewart

Stewart will be taking a break from the show he has hosted since ’99 to make his directorial debut for the
true-life political drama Rosewater, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Stewart also wrote the screenplay for

Rosewater the Made for screen adaptation of Maziar Bahari‘s
New York Times best-selling book
Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival.

John Oliver making his DAILY SHOW hosting debut, is an experienced stand up comic, host of his own Comedy Central show,
STAND UP New York, and 2 year Daily show Alum, this is a great choice, for  a replacement, and something we here at  comedyhawaii.com are all looking forward to, even though we will all miss Stewart during his time away.

John Oliver

In a recent Article published by the  Hollywood Reporter citing unnamed sources, referred to only as “High level NBC insiders”, were quoted in the article as saying,

“Sources believe the network will bring in Fallon partly out of concern about the competition on ABC, which moved younger-skewing Jimmy Kimmel to the 11:35 time slot in January. “The more time Jimmy Kimmel is in that slot, the more the young audience goes that way, the harder it is for Jimmy [Fallon] to keep that audience,” says a source familiar with the network’s thinking.”
The change is rumored to be taking place in the fall of 2014, one wonders, what does Team Coco think about all of this NBC Leno shenanigans? 

It’s official COMEDY fans,
D.L. Hughley and Andy Dick have now joined the cast of Dancing with the Stars season 16!
In the past 9 other comedians have shaken their booties on the dance floor, however none of them have brought home the win.
This season offers double the chance for a fellow funny man to bring home the Mirror Ball Trophy.
Let’s show our support, and tune into the show which airs on March 18 at 8pm.
#VOTETEAMFUNNY
  

Guyspeed.com reports, and we have confirmed, THERE WILL BE  A SUPER TROOPERS SEQUEL!

In a recent interview with Broken Lizards Kevin Hefernan he was quoted as saying,

“There will be a Super Troopers sequel. We put it off for a while and then came back to it. We wrote the script and handed it in to Fox and now we’re just negotiating the time and the place and hopefully shoot it some time this year. I have to start growing my mustache now.”

Review: Caligula

Anthony Jeselnik is a beloved and controversial comedian for the exact same reason: his combination of wordplay, delivery, and sheer balls.

Caligula features a giant shark breaching the water and starts off with a track titled “Rape.” That is 100 percent Jeselnik’s style. He lets you know right away what type of comedian he is and what type of fan base he wants. Caligula is for dark and dirty comedy fans with an edge of pretention, not the moan-and-groan types who want apologies from The Onion or Daniel Tosh.

Caligula is the follow-up toJeselnik’s widely praised Shakespeare, which topped many best-of lists in 2010.Jeselnik stays true to his patented one-two punch formula: take an everyday situation or premise then plow through your heart with a laser-guided twist. This way of joke-telling leads to the inevitable question, “How much more can this guy think up?”

Absolutely nothing sacred to Jeselnik. He will touch on any subject that make other people cringe whether it’s suicide, the Casey Anthony saga, or even jokes about his family. Jeselnik constantly jokes about his dad being an alcoholic and his mom being a former porn star. While his delivery makes you believe he’s kidding, there is a tiny bit of you wondering what’s fabricated or exaggerated.

Jeselnik expands more into longer-form material on Caligula. The track “Delay” is a two-minute set-up to one of the best punchlines on the album. This one bit should be taught in comedy classes. Everything builds up to the very last line but there are little laughs along the way to keep people interested.

Jeselnik seems way more comfortable here with crowd work on Caligula compared to Shakespeare, where his interactions with the audience were minimal. He asks a man in the audience about foot fetishes and converses with a female student at Rockford College.This is a big difference between simply asking someone in the crowd their name and doing a joke that didn’t need that set up.

Comedy fans have said Jeselnik is a dirty version of terse comics such as Mitch Hedberg or Stephen Wright. While these parallels make sense, they also gloss over nuanced individual styles. Steven Wright could never tell the audience to “shut the fuck up” nor could Mitch Hedberg praise himself as God’s gift to comedy. Jeselnik has similar styles to and was perhaps influenced by those men but the similarities stop at the superficial.

Every few years, Comedy Central heavily invests into an emerging talent. Dane Cook and Daniel Tosh both had thirty-minute specials and several albums released through them. Tosh eventually got his own series while Dane Cook gets a check every time Comedy Central airs Employee of the Month, Good Luck Chuck, or Waiting. Jeselnik now enters this class. He stole the show while roasting Donald Trump, will seeCaligula released on CD and DVD, and gets to host The Jeselnik Offensive.

Time will tell whether Jeselnik actually is a worthy investment but right now, smart money says “yes.”

Jeremy Castillo is a comedian,writer, and all around hilarious guy! Keep up with him on twitter  (@JeremyCaStillOh) or facebook, (https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.castillo) and check comedyhawaii.com for more of Jeremy’s great reviews!

ARSENIO HALL RETURNS TO LATE NIGHT TV!  Hall is now confirmed to return to late night television with a new syndicated talk show airing across the country.

CBS has set Arsenio Hall’s return to late night TV, for September 9, 2013, via CBS TV Distribution.

We can now add that the show will air during the 10pm to 11pm nightly time-slot (he’s obviously not going to be competing with current late-night hosts; David Letterman is CBS’ late night talk show king right now), in addition to the fact that it’s now sold in 95% of the country.

With a twist on the similar format used by other staple talk shows at the time, like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Hall brought a new and honest voice into the late night game. Having guests like Eddie Murphy, MC Hammer, and Bill Clinton, Hall helped revolutionize what late night could be. As for his return, the comedian said, “It’s an amazing feeling to be going home to my old friends and colleagues and firing up our ‘Night Thing.’ Let’s get busy again!”

By: King Eddie

It has been 23 years since a Ghostbusters movie has been in theaters, and the recent news of a third installment has yet again been delayed.

Filming for Ghostbusters 3 was slated to begin this summer, but now has been pushed back to next fall at the earliest. The Hollywood reporter cites seriious financial troubles as the root of the delay, but there isn’t an exact explanation as of yet. It has been widely publicized that Ghostbusters original, Bill Murray, is famously not on board for the newest addition to the film series, but the rest of the original cast is locked and loaded.

The premise of the new film is based around the original members teaching the newest generation of ghost hunting heroes how to get the job done. Sounds cool enough for me. Though the lack of Dr.Peter Venkman will leave a giant hole in the film, Dan Aykroyd assures us it is of little concern.

“Ghostbusters 3 can be a successful movie without Bill,” Aykroyd said last August. “My preference would be to have him involved but at this point he doesn’t seem to be coming and we have to move on. It’s time to make the third one.”

Well at least now they will have time to polish up the script.