Tag: comedy
WINNERS! Seven Psychopaths on DVD
by Suzan Ryan on Mar.13, 2013, under Competitions
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!
C. Simpson, Burwood NSW
S.Lee, Haberfield NSW
T. Feelysman-Keen, Craigieburn Victoria
K. Jones, Eschol Park NSW
K. Mason, Cardiff South NSW
Subscribe, Save & Laugh
by Suzan Ryan on Mar.20, 2012, under News
Be sure to use the promotional code: M1204PBC
Australian Penthouse magazine has teamed up with Warner Music to offer the first 50 new subscribers to the Black Label edition a very special deal: sign up for 24 editions of Australia’s premier men’s magazine and receive three adult DVDs + a CD and DVD copy of Politically Incorrect—the hilarious comedy audio and live stand-up DVD showcasing some of Australia and the world’s funniest comedians.
POLITICALLY INCORRECT: AT THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL
Featuring Chris Wainhouse, Chris Franklin, Steady Eddy & more…
“If you think we opened a can of worms with our TV show last year, wait until you see the hilarious taboos these guys explore!” – Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson
“I’ve made a career out of being politically incorrect. It’s awesome to know that others are now carrying on the tradition so I don’t have to end up in the $#!T with the missus all the time.” - Dave Gleeson, The Screaming Jets / The Angels
Politically Incorrect celebrates the age old Aussie tradition of taking the piss to combat the ridiculous world of political correctness we live in.
After two critically acclaimed, full house warm up shows, Australian’s finest and fresh comics including Chris Wainhouse, Chris Franklin, Steady Eddy, Rhys Nicholson, Ronny Chieng and Bev Killick bring their dark sides to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as they push all boundaries in this no-holds barred, raw and edgy comedy assault that will have you begging for more!
Speckled with special guests from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, ‘One Politically Incorrect Evening’ will be held in Melbourne’s original comedy heart of Fitzroy at the Evelyn Hotel. Each night will kick off offensively early at 6.30pm, so drop in for a cold beer and 90 minutes of outlandishly insane comedy straight after work to enjoy a night to remember.
Each comic will have you in stitches for 10-20 minutes before they “get the gong” and the next comic steps up to the plate.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival – Events
The Evelyn Hotel
351 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Tickets: $30.00 Full │ $25.00 Concession │ $25.00 Thursday Laugh Pack
Time: 6.30pm
Bookings: Ticketmaster 1300 660 013 │ www.comedyfestival.com.au │ Or at the door
ON SALE NOW
DATES
Thursday 29th March — Friday 30th March — Saturday 31st March
Sunday 1st April — Thursday 5th April — Friday 6th April — Saturday 7th April — Sunday 8th April — Thursday 12th April — Friday 13th April — Saturday 14th April — Sunday 15th April
For more, head to: www.politicallyincorrect.com.au
SUBSCRIBE NOW AND BE ONE OF THE FIRST 50 TO REPLY AND GET YOUR COPY OF AUSTRALIA’S FUNNIEST STAND-UP: http://www.magshop.com.au/Penthouse-Black-Label-Magazine
** Be sure to use the promotional code: M1204PBC
Interview: Australian comedian, Chris Franklin
by Suzan Ryan on Mar.14, 2012, under Interviews
Funny Bloke
Chris Franklin’s hit song ‘Bloke’ features on the comedy compilation CD Politically Incorrect. It turns out that the funny man has a fascinating history, too…
Interview: Nathan Lawrence
Can you remember the first thing you did to make someone laugh?
I was in the Navy and away at sea. All the different branches on the ship have a representative or a team of representatives who will perform at a show one evening. As the cook’s representative, I recited a half-hour of Col Elliott jokes that I’d been listening to as a child and made the whole ship laugh.
We’ve heard you cooked for the Queen in the 1980s. Is that true?
That’s correct. I was one of seven Navy cooks chosen to cook for her at the changing of the colours at HMAS Cerberus in Victoria, and we almost killed her.
How?
Well, we had to cook the meal on several occasions before the Queen ate it, just to make sure that we got it right and for approval by various people. So we cooked it for the Premier of Victoria, then we cooked it for the Prime Minister, and then for the Governor-General, and they all approved the menu. So we cooked it for the Queen. About 70 per cent of the menu was seafood, and Elizabeth Windsor is allergic to seafood. Even the Queen’s own representative didn’t know that. Had she eaten some seafood, we might have solved the whole republic/monarchy debate there and then, long before it started.
How did you make the jump from your first stand-up experience in the Navy to making it your career?
I was in Melbourne drinking in a pub on a quiet Sunday afternoon, and there was a comedian named Chris Bennett standing at the bar. He’d been on Hey Hey It’s Saturday, so I recognised his face from there, and after a few beers I went over and just annoyed the shit out of him. “Here’s a joke you can use, and here’s another joke, and here’s a song I sing.” I annoyed him for about eight hours.
What was the inspiration behind your hit ‘Bitch’ parody, ‘Bloke’?
Life, I guess. There was another comedian named Pommy Johnson—he did a musical act—and he lived with Chris Bennett. He just happened to be with Chris the night that I was annoying him and before I’d even started doing comedy, he said, “I’ve got an idea for a song. I want to do a parody of the Meredith Brooks song ‘Bitch’. I either want to do it about Pauline Hanson and still call it ‘Bitch’ or do the male response and call it ‘Bloke’.” So I went around to his house, and within about three minutes I had written both versions. He chose to use the Pauline Hanson version, ‘Bitch’, on stage. Then, when I finally got roped into doing the comedy, I asked, “Do you mind if I do that ‘Bloke’ song?” He said, “You wrote it, go for it.” And it went to number one. He picked the wrong song!
‘Bitch’ is touted as a feminist anthem. Did you cop any flak for your take on the song?
To be able to release the CD, we had to get approval from Meredith Brooks and her co-writer, Shelly Peiken. Meredith was fine with it and Shelly was a little bit la-di-da about it. She said, “I don’t want anyone to parody it, my music is like artwork, it’s like a masterpiece that you hang on the wall.” So we had to send the head of EMI Australia over to England to convince her that it was going to make some money for her. And I sent her over with the message, “Tell her I’ve gone over her masterpiece in crayons and I didn’t stay within the lines.”
We’re willing to bet that he didn’t pass that on…
No, I hope not. He pointed out to her how much she might have made out of my single, because we went halves in the artist royalty, and I can only assume that her response was, “Well then, fuck art, and let him do it.”
Politically Incorrect Vol.1 is available at: http://www.politicallyincorrect.com.au/
Feature: Last of the Aussie Larrikins
by Suzan Ryan on Oct.04, 2011, under Features
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| NOT so long ago, Ted Bullpitt on TV’s Kingswood Country used to complain about his daughter Greta’s boyfriend, the ‘bloody wog’—and we laughed at his unapologetic bigotry. A few years ago, a bunch of amateur in a blackface routine on the briefly resurrected Hey Hey It’s Saturday show caused a media uproar.
But as the chattering classes howled about what a disgrace it was, shock jocks grumbled about the neutering our iconic Aussie sense of humour. What changed so dramatically in such a short time? From the 1808 Rum Rebellion until the football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars days of the 1970s, Australia enjoyed national representation by a very distinctive figure. He—no sexism intended, but it was almost always a male figure—was coarse, disrespectful, simple and funny. We’ve seen him epitomised in characters from sport (Shane Warne), politics (Bob Hawke), entertainment (Rodney Rude) and business (Kerry Packer). He’s the larrikin, and he’s been a staple of Australian cultural life for a long time. Until now… Around the time we stopped hearing the phrase ‘lucky country’, we also adopted other models of national character besides the stoic, sardonic rural type with little time for hierarchical authority and a unique language to share his disdain for it. When globalisation took hold in the ’80s, we wanted to see (and sell) ourselves as latte-quaffing sophisticates, particularly in the city-based hubs of media and social commentary. It generated a unique social and cultural tension—even though we envied the urbane cool of New York or London, we kept contempt for ‘wankers’ dear to our hearts. Like the curmudgeonly grandparent we had to lock away during parties, we loved the larrikin even though we were a bit ashamed of him. Just watch some of the movies from the New Wave era—where the blokes are all ockers, chasing beer and roots, their long-suffering women safely distanced from such behaviour by their British accents. The larrikin might have thrived for so long in the pre-media age because of our healthy suspicion of authority, perhaps the cultural memory of a time when it transported our ancestors to far-flung, unforgiving penal colonies for inconsequential crimes. Now, it seems the inner urbanite in our national character is winning. The onslaught of political correctness has taken its toll, and like the rest of the world we’ve been overrun by the unstoppable hegemony of American culture, tailored to appeal as much to a Yackandandah sheep farmer as it does a Hezbollah footsoldier in the Gaza Strip. But there’s a class division in Australia like there is in Britain or anywhere else, and that’s the one between city and country. Though our national mythology is largely based around the bush, most Australians live in coastal capitals where we’re more familiar with rap music and broadband internet than billy tea. |
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| We might consider the larrikin a uniquely rural figure, but in fact he’s never stopped cross-pollinating between the city and country.
“The larrikin evolved as a cultural point of reference through early twentieth-century texts like CJ Dennis’s The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke,” says Anthony Lambert, an expert in cultural identity at Macquarie University. “But the characters actually lived and worked in the city.” But still, we’ve dropped the larrikin from the cultural consciousness of city living, haven’t we? “We may not associate larrikins with the city,” Lambert adds, “but it was the cheeky, relatively unsophisticated characters that shaped the local version of reality show The Apprentice, even though it was set in the boardrooms of the Sydney CBD. Many urban Australians would suggest this framing of identity is fairly outdated, but I think ‘larrikinism’ is alive and well in the country and city.” More interesting is the proposition that the larrikin might merely be an illusion, or at best a local version of a universal figure. Most countries or racial groups only gain a toehold in history after considerable hardship, and it’s human nature to respond with humour. The very word ‘larrikin’ isn’t even Australian—it’s an old Irish word with the same root as ‘skylarking’. “I’m sure there are some parallels, analogues of larrikins in most cultures,” says broadcaster and intellectual Phillip Adams. “Bob Hawke rolled up to me at some do and told me the one about the two corpses on the Hume Highway—one was a politician and the other was a kangaroo. The difference was there were skid marks before the kangaroo. “At the time I thought it was wonderful, a larrikin Prime Minister telling a good Australian joke. But when I checked I found the original joke was about Route 66 and the corpse of a skunk. So it’s an illusion to think it’s exclusively Australian. We just claim it as our own.” Adams thinks you only have to look as far as another people who thrived out of suffering as the early Australians did. “There’s a great similarity between the heavy irony of Australian humour and Jewish humour,” he says. “The battering rural Australians have had is a bit like the sense of Jewish irony having to survive almost infinite problems with Yahweh [God]. It produced a similar comic attitude to expect the worst.” Adams also points out that a lot of the larrikin’s trappings were extreme—and fictitious—satirical exaggerations. As the producer of 1972′s The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, he remembers scriptwriter Barry Humphries’ motivations very well. “The film was an act of exorcism,” Adams recalls. “[Humphries] hated the ocker.” The real division of larrikinism in Australia might not be between city and country, or rich and blue collar, but past versus future. Political sensitivity and a more sophisticated (and litigious) society have transformed the cultural landscape—maybe that’s why we love it when a subversive example of larrikin humour sneaks past the cultural gatekeepers, such as with The Chaser. “The larrikin is never far away from the way Australians think about themselves,” says Macquarie’s Anthony Lambert. “You might also argue we’re so distant from such images—in the cities at least—we can laugh at them as lesser forms of ourselves. “I have a feeling it’s a little of both. Most Australians want a foot in both camps, a claim to being ‘Aussie’ in a romantic, laid-back sense but not one that diminishes Australian-ness as something less than other developed countries.” Of course, recent backlashes against larrikinism have proven what a different society we live in from when Hoges invited the world over for a shrimp on the barbie. When Tourism Australia—from advertising devised by Sydney agency M&C Saatchi—asked prospective visitors, “Where the bloody hell are you?”, the response ranged from a new cultural cringe at home to outrage overseas, the British government even banning the offending ads. |
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| Tom McFarlane, regional creative director for Asia Pacific and the US at M&C Saatchi, is very reluctant to agree there was a backlash. When we finally spoke to him after several weeks of failed attempts, he apologised by saying that, “After nearly four years of interrogation on our Tourism Australia campaign, we’re simply jaded.”
“Forget the crap you hear about why people visit Australia,” he says. “What they like most isn’t the Opera House or Uluru. They like Australians, and what they like about us is our character and irreverence, which was without doubt born out of the larrikin era. “But let me remind you of another stereotype in our illustrious history—the wowser, sworn enemy of the larrikin. No fun. Serious. Probably religious. Anti everything. Well, they’re still lurking around and easily offended, it seems, by words like ‘bloody’.” McFarlane adds that the renaissance of the wowser is manifesting itself in a ‘nanny state’ culture. “Frankly, we could run a profitable advertising agency just running TV commercials on what people can’t do, like gamble, drink too much or have unprotected sex—all of the stuff that the Australian larrikin once lived for.” So maybe, even though we’ve stopped holding the larrikin up as a cultural figurehead for our values so visibly, we still love and try to adopt his irreverent attitudes to life. He was never much of a leader, anyway… |
WINNERS! Misfits Series One and Two DVD box set
by Suzan Ryan on Oct.04, 2011, under Competitions
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS:
A. McCarthy, Melbourne Vic
C.Kelly, Park Holme SA
C. Lawrence, Dandenong, Vic
N. Murray, Glebe, NSW
D. Eyes, Chatswood, NSW
Thanks to Roadshow Home Entertainment, Australian Penthouse is offering 5 readers the chance to win the four-disc collection of UK Channel 4 comedy series Misfits: Series One and Two, valued at $54.95 RRP each. Continue reading “WINNERS! Misfits Series One and Two DVD box set” »
Interview: Ross Noble, comedian
by Suzan Ryan on Sep.21, 2011, under Interviews
Leave a Comment :comedy, DVD, interviews, ross noble more...
Reviews – Film: Grown Ups
by Suzan Ryan on Jun.28, 2010, under Reviews, Web Exclusives
Grown Ups
Director: Dennis Dugan
Stars: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider
After the career misstep You Don’t Mess with the Zohan for both Adam Sandler and long-time collaborator director, Dennis Dugan (Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy), both are back on track doing what they do best, making us laugh and chuckle with the prerequisite amount of schmaltz to tug at the heartstrings.
Running through the cast of comedians and comediennes, it reads like a veritable who’s who of Saturday Night Live alumni, and very much feels like Sandler’s version of Ocean’s Eleven. Sandler and Fred Wolf’s (SNL, Joe Dirt, Black Sheep) script will not garner any Oscar worthy praise, but they have one thing in common, they both know their strengths, and those of their co-stars, and weave the tale around them.
Grown Ups centres around a reunion of five championship-winning High School chums who are brought back to their hometown for the funeral of their basketball coach. This trip down memory lane, and the subsequent weekend away at a picturesque lake-house with wives and children in tow, forces each of the friends to revaluate their lives as they rediscover the bond between them.
Super Agent Lenny (Adam Sandler) yearns for a simpler time and wishes his technology-addicted kids would lose the wi-fi and embrace some old fashioned fun. Eric (Kevin James) is down on his luck with a young son with breast-feeding issues , of which he acknowledge neither.
Kurt (Chris Rock) is a househusband, emasculated by his pregnant career wife and overpowering mother in law. Ever the ladies man, Marcus (David Spade) is the fish out of water, with no family or responsibilities, and while his buddies envy his position, he secretly yearns for the life they all lead. The weirdest, and by far the most emotional of the bunch is Rob (Rob Schneider): with several failed marriages behind him and daughters he doesn’t know, he shares his life as a new-age hippie with a partner 20 years older than him, dispensing holistic advice to others while applying none of it to his own life.
After a slow start, the characters solidify into a comedic unit, with Sandler playing the straight man, James’s physical antics a riot, offset by Spade’s trademark sleaziness, and surprisingly understated performances by some of comedy’s more outrageous elements—namely Rock and Schneider. Schneider usually ends up the butt of many jokes, but here you really feel for him and plays more of a sad clown (with am amusing Fonzie-inspired toupee), eliciting sympathy in a genuinely surprising turn.
Each of the guy’s wives offer the film a sense of balance and bring their own unique quirkiness, with Maya Rudolph’s wonderfully inappropriate zingers and Maria Bello’s unnatural breastfeeding of her four-year-old the highlights. Salma Hayek smoulders on screen, as you’d expect, bolstered by the unexpected pants-exploding hotness of newcomers Madison Riley and Jaime Chung as the scantily clad daughters of Rob Schneider’s character.
But it’s not an out-and-out love-fest, with a bitter rivalry between Lenny and the captain of the losing basketball team, Dickie Bailey (Colin Quinn) rearing its ugly head and eventually running it’s course with many laugh-out-loud moments, some involving broken bones. The ever-so-funny Tim Meadows and the king of Sandler film cameos, Steve Buscemi, round out the Hometown Boys crew.
Grown Ups is an entirely predictable affair, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It hits all the notes you expect, and quite a few that you might not. It’s a chuckle-fest with a warm glow. Check it out.
Grown Ups screens in cinemas nationally now.
Reviews – Music: Shaun Micallef
by Suzan Ryan on Feb.22, 2010, under Reviews
HIS GENERATION
Shaun Micallef
Shock
ALTHOUGH he’s written, produced and starred in award-winning TV programs such as Full Frontal, The Micallef P(r)ogram(me), Micallef Tonight and Newstopia, and helmed the popular game show Talkin ’Bout Your Generation, on His Generation, Shaun voices every interview, character, scene and song featured throughout the 29 tracks.
From murderous doctors and Satan-obsessed gospel singers, to boorish fruit shop owners and Oprah-watching al-Qaeda operatives, Micallef is pants-wetting funny. His interpretations of Charlton Heston reading the Bible and Christopher Walken singing a David Bowie song are undoubted highlights.
Monty Python madness runs richly in Micallef’s veins, and it’s damnable that this man isn’t minting money on commercial TV, as he is clearly one of our nation’s finest natural comedians.
Reviews – Classic DVD: Yellowbeard
by Suzan Ryan on Feb.19, 2010, under Reviews
YELLOWBEARD (1983)
Director: Mel Damski
Stars: Graham Chapman, Peter Boyle, Peter Cook, John Cleese
Orion/Shock
Review: Suzan Ryam
THE LOWDOWN
Yellowbeard (Chapman) is the ultimate pirate, a scurvy shyster who feasts on the hearts of his enemies and then forces them to eat their own lips; a crazed man feared by all who travel the high seas.
After 20 years of imprisonment for tax evasion, Yellowbeard escapes to reclaim his buried treasure, but is pursued relentlessly by the Royal Navy and numerous, dubious adversaries (Cleese, Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan).
However, fate intervenes when Yellowbeard visits a wench (Madeline Kahn) only to discover that, 18 years ago, she birthed him an illegitimate son, the fey Dan (Martin Hewitt), whose head she had tattooed with the map to the pirate’s long-lost treasure.
Yellowbeard is forced to protect the bookish son he despises, avoid capture, and locate his buried treasure, discovering on the way the true bond of a father-son relationship.
NUTS AND BOLTS
Written by comedy legends Graham Chapman (The Life Of Brian) and Peter Cook (Bedazzled, Derek And Clive Get The Horn), Yellowbeard is a classic example of the kind of madcap comedy made famous by the Monty Python team, and is superbly augmented with the addition of American comedy masters such as Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, and Cheech and Chong.
Regularly cited by fans as the funniest genre movie ever made, Yellowbeard combines a masterful blend of wit, plot, cast and timing to create one of the most revered comedies of the modern era.
The movie remains buoyant via cleverly paced witticisms and superb turns by the peerless Peter Cook, as the inestimably clueless Lord Lambourn; Graham Chapman as the rape-happy, smoking-haired titular pirate; James Mason as the fumbling Captain Hughes (companion to Texta-moustached crew member ‘Mr Prostitute’); Cheech Marin as the sycophantic subject to spit-flinging Spanish King El Nebuloso (Tommy Chong), “Yes sir, your arseholiness!”; and John Cleese as Harvey ‘Blind’ Pew, the Queen’s visually-impaired, sharp-eared spy.
DVD EXTRAS
Extras consist of the original movie trailer: both disappointing and insulting considering the wealth of information and extras provided on the Monty Python movies and the fame and status of the cast.
VERDICT
Yellowbeard should see you crawl, crawl, stagger, stagger to your nearest DVD store for a dose of classic comedy.
Reviews – Film: In The Loop
by Suzan Ryan on Feb.11, 2010, under Reviews
REVIEWS: FILM
IN THE LOOP
DIRECTOR: ARMANDO IANNUCCI
STARS: PETER CAPALDI, TOM HOLLANDER, CHRIS ADDISON, GINA MCKEE, JAMES GANDOLFINI
MADMAN
AMERICAN General William Westmoreland said: “The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.”
Black comedy In The Loop explores how this might happen. Despite enormous opposition from their own governments and citizens, an unnamed US President and a similarly anonymous UK Prime Minister plan to launch an armed conflict in the Middle East.
When meek British minister Simon Foster (Hollander) gets flustered during a series of interviews in which he appears to support military action, the gears of war begin turning in London and Washington, where ruthless Scottish spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (Capaldi) prepares to take advantage of the situation.
Meanwhile, Foster and a few American allies, including the respected Lt General George Miller (Gandolfini), try to keep the peace. An impressive directorial debut from Armando Iannucci (best known for co-creating the Alan Partridge character with Steve Coogan (who incidentally appears in the film). In The Loop is a sharp, well-acted political satire packed with brilliant and witty one-liners. A movie that would be that much funnier if it weren’t so close to the truth.
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