Robin Williams // Current

added
20 days ago

Official Red Band Trailer for World's Greatest Dad

A very dark comedy about a man (Robin Williams) who learns that the things you want most may not be the things that make you... more

Nettle
added this

Tom Lennon & Ben Garant Take Over Current

The hilarious screenwriters of "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" wreak havoc in the Chemosphere.

chapinyoung
added this

Has Beckett out-simplified himself?

Playwright Samuel Beckett became famous for questioning the very nature of theatre. His aesthetics molded while working for the French Resistance during WWII, Beckett's writing reeked of failure, regret, wasted time, and false promises. Each new work he produced seemed to draw the focus of the audience tighter and tighter. His most infamous play, Breath, only lasted 35 seconds and had no actors.

Now many years after his death, the works of Beckett have disseminated throughout worldwide theater. We study him in college. Sometimes we study him in high school. Those who love him most are deeply in love with his minimalist style and bleak overtones (and hate Steve Martin and Robin Williams for pimping their "Waiting for Godot" for laughs). Those who are over him blame Beckett himself for over-simplifying himself out of contemporary relevance.

Colin Murphy writes, "Perversely, it seems to me, familiarity has made these plays more inaccessible: their visual motifs are so well known beforehand that they are more easily dismissed. Godot is “the one where nothing happens”; Endgame is “the one with the old pair in the bins”; Happy Days is “the one about the woman buried in the sand.” Like conceptual art, the point becomes the idea, not engagement with the work. Potential audiences stay away, thinking they know everything because they’ve heard the idea, while those that do attend don’t find these well-worn conceits surprising or disturbing. The radical encounter with the savage poetry of Beckett’s work is lost."

I'm inclined to agree. Brian Dennehy is going to be performing Krapp's Last Tape (or "the one where the old guy listens to tapes of himself") at the Goodman in January 2010. For newbies, this is going to be a real treat. But for those of us who have seen the filmed version of Patrick Magee (whom the role was written for) and read the play, surely we can conceptualize this new production without even needing to see it.

When an artist creates a new cliché, he is a visionary. That day. And that's the danger with a playwright like Beckett. He's only brilliant once.

--St_Alia_10191Playwright Samuel Beckett became famous for questioning the very nature of theatre. His aesthetics molded while working for the... more

St_Alia_10191
added this

0 responses

added
4 months ago

Robin Williams recovering from heart surgery

Oscar winner Robin Williams is expected to make a complete recovery from his recent heart surgery in the next two months and plans... more

dirtyemowords
added this

0 responses

added
4 months ago

Robin Williams Recovering From Heart Surgery

The Oscar winner is recovering at Ohio's renowned Cleveland Clinic after successfully undergoing heart surgery on March 13.

TravG73
added this

1 response

added
4 months ago

Robin Williams to undergo heart surgery

Robin Williams will undergo heart surgery, according to his publicist. Robin Williams was on an 80-city tour for his one-man... more

sarahlane
added this

16 responses

added
4 months ago

Robin Williams In Hospital With Heart Problems

It has been reported that Robin Williams is hospitalized with a heart issue in a Miami hospital. The 57-year-old actor is in the... more

cocko
added this

1 response

added
4 months ago

Robin Williams Cancels Shows: Ordered To Rest

Funny man Robin Williams was supposed to perform today and tomorrow at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida... more

missmissea
added this

0 responses

added
6 months ago

Robin Williams' Dad indulges in dimwitted gags

Robin Williams leaps off a high dive in the nude at the end of "World's Greatest Dad." Not an inspiring sight.... more

dirtyemowords
added this

0 responses

added
9 months ago

Robin Williams makes royal date

Robin Williams will return to the UK stage for the first time in 25 years, he has announced, as part of a show to celebrate Prince... more

rwylie
added this

6 responses

added
11 months ago

Forget Seinfeld, Microsoft, you want the two Coreys

Thursday, we learned that Jerry Seinfeld, one of the funniest men on the planet, will be the new spokesman in an ad campaign for Microsoft's Vista operating system. Can Seinfeld steal some of the marketing thunder from Apple's hipster Macintosh dude and the poor, shlubby Windows fella who clearly needs to get his suit tailored?
Well, as our readers have noted, there's a bit of irony to this, since many of us recall that Seinfeld was always using a Mac on his '90s sitcom. That got us thinking: Should Microsoft hire someone not so clearly playing both sides of the fence? Thankfully, our readers had some terrific ideas.

• Our first commenter, "J-Hawaii," had a good suggestion, a Borg drone from Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, I'm not sure this is the best representative of Microsoft's business-first attitude. While we often think of the Borg as joyless automatons of a conformist culture, the best-known Borg, Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, added new femininity to cyber-kinetic life forms. Even the creepy Borg Queen in the movie Star Trek: First Contact had a certain je ne sais quoi about her.
Could a Borg offer the first sex appeal to a Microsoft ad campaign since the Rolling Stones were singing Start Me Up for Windows 95?

• Commentator "Dirk VanNerden," along with many others, suggests Steve Carell and the rest of the cast of The Office. Makes sense; you've got vaguely unhappy office folk stuck in workplace purgatory in Scranton, Penn. (I grew up about 20 miles from Scranton, so trust me: "purgatory" is a nice way to put it.) Total Microsoft stereotype. Nails it.
However, a Microsoft fan might point out that the cast of a Carell movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin could work just as well for Apple. You know, gadget heads stuck forever in some sort of adolescent, video-game-playing, pot-smoking purgatory.

• Homer Simpson, Charlie Brown, Rodney Dangerfield, Jason Alexander (who played hapless "George" on Seinfeld), and other people doomed to never get it right (unless they do the opposite of what they'd normally do, like George did): Personally, I think the diabolical, nuclear-plant-owning "Mr. Burns" on The Simpsons might be a better stand-in for a company that throws out a profit of a few billion dollars every quarter, despite the Vista follies. But, hey, that's just me.

• "Cafteach" suggests the great comedian and San Franciscan Robin Williams. Makes a lot of sense: Like Microsoft, Mork was at the height of his powers in the '90s, winning an Oscar for his performance in Good Will Hunting. And like Microsoft, he's laid some eggs in recent years. Did anyone even see RV? That said, he was still awfully funny as a penguin's voice in Happy Feet (or was that a puffin?)

• "Theoscnet" offers the cruelest cut of all: The two Coreys, "Corey Feldman and Corey Whoever..." It's Corey Haim, Theo. I looked it up for you. It's been a long time since we got the double-Corey treatment in '80s classics such as License to Drive and The Lost Boys. (But wasn't Keifer Sutherland really scary as a Jim Morrison-inspired vampire?)
The last we saw the two Coreys, they were puffy 30-somethings starring in The Two Coreys--"a look at the lives of former child stars Corey Feldman and Corey Haim living together as adults," as The Internet Movie Database puts it.
Microsoft...a metaphor for washed-up child stars? No way, but it's fair to say the company is starting to look a little puffy and out of fashion in its middle age, as our readers are quick to point out.Thursday, we learned that Jerry Seinfeld, one of the funniest men on the planet, will be the new spokesman in an ad campaign for... more