Here’s what really surprised me about The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling. It’s too long. Judd Apatow’s new documentary about his close friend and mentor, the late, great comedian Garry Shandling, premieres over two nights Monday March 26 and Tuesday 27 on HBO and HBO Canada. Eat early and set a long evening aside if you
CANNES — Richard Plepler just looks like money. He always appears as if he just stepped off one of the 200-foot yachts docked in the harbour surrounding the main pavilion here at MIPCOM. He looks like Thurston Howell the Fourth or Fifth. HBO’s Chairman and CEO was presented with the “Hey, he showed up” award Monday
What?! No love for Love? That was my first reaction upon hearing the list of nominations for the 69th Annual Emmy Awards. Actually, I would have been surprised to see the Judd Apatow-produced Netflix gem (pictured above with leads Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust) among the shows listed in the Best Comedy category. It is such
“For 25 years, I have been the only woman on set, so I had no other women to talk to,” Big Little Lies star Reese Witherspoon told reporters last month in Pasadena. Being the only woman on the set is a phenomenon known as “Smurfette Syndrome,” she added. That’s where there are “100 Smurts around, but
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I had a close encounter with Carrie Fisher. Actually it wasn’t so long ago; it was the summer of 2010. Far away? It was at the Beverly Hilton, in the main ballroom. Fisher was at that summer’s TCA press tour, chauffeured in by HBO to promote their airing of her
MONTREAL — How could “An Evening with the Cast of Veep” possibly go wrong? Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Timothy Simons, showrunner David Mandel and producer Frank Rich took the stage at Montreal’s Maison Symphonique Thursday night as part of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. Before them a packed house. The HBO series and Louis-Dreyfus were
This is harvest time for late night comedians. Look at the production values that go into this jab at Trump broadcast months ago on Jimmy Kimmel Live. The casting! (The stars of the Broadway smash The Producers, Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, plus Cloris Leachman for a cameo.) The sets! The extras! Kimmel, who will be at
Sunday marks the 3rd season premiere of one of TV’s funniest comedies–Silicon Valley (10 p.m. ET, HBO and HBO Canada). Some other show comes back right before that, Game of Something or other. Veep is also returning, but as Hugh Hefner used to say, let’s stick with Silicon. I had fun interviewing leads Thomas Middleditch