The Comedian

Jan 25, 2019 — Gifted with crack timing and a caustic wit, Elaine May first came up as an improv comedian in the late fifties, forming the popular satirical tandem of Nichols and May with her college classmate Mike Nichols. By the time May...

Nov 19, 2018 — Billy Wilder proves himself one of cinema’s greatest pleasure seekers in this irresistible confection, a landmark of Hollywood comedy.

Aug 17, 2017 — “My first job out of UCLA Film School, at age twenty-two, was directing second unit on The Night of the Hunter for Charles Laughton.” So begins a collection of memories, pre-production sketches, and screenplay pages at the Talkhouse Film from...

Jun 25, 2012 — For this Edinburgh-based writer and filmmaker, Hitchcock’s Scottish caper is both fantasy and reality.

Jun 4, 2001 — Mario Monicelli’s caper comedy is that genuine rarity in popular culture: a satire that not only helped kill off one movie genre, but started a whole new subgenre in the process.

Nov 4, 2014 — In cinema history, there truly is no gag like a Tati gag.

Jan 24, 2022 — Two new books on the wildly inventive comedian and filmmaker make a complementary pair.

Mar 29, 2013 — When the world’s favorite comedian asked his audience to see him as a sociopathic serial killer, he was venturing where cinema had barely dared to tread.

The actor and comedian explains why His Girl Friday is “extremely Hacks-coded,” connects with David Lynch’s love of Los Angeles, and selects favorites like Thelma & Louise and Paper Moon.

The actor and comedian gravitates to 1940s film noir, the “weirdly timely” shock comedy of John Waters, and movies with memorable soundtracks.