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A Futile and Stupid Gesture
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Entertaining but repetitive
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Robin
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Nails on a chalkboard narration.
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Live performance at end is worth it!
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In the past decade, Hollywood has endured a cataclysm on a par with the end of silent film and the demise of the studio system. Stars and directors have seen their power dwindle, while writers and producers lift their best techniques from TV, comic books, and the toy biz. The future of Hollywood is being written by powerful corporate brands like Marvel, Amazon, Netflix, and Lego, as well as censors in China. Ben Fritz chronicles this dramatic shakeup with unmatched skill, bringing equal fluency to both the financial and entertainment aspects of Hollywood.
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One of my dad’s favorite jokes about getting older was: “I went out for coffee when I was twenty-one and when I got back I was fifty-eight!” I get what he meant now. Time flies. My first book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a "B" Movie Actor, was published back in 2001 and it chronicles the adventures of a “mid-grade, kind of hammy actor" (my words), cutting his teeth on exploitation movies far removed from mainstream Hollywood. This next book, an “Act II” if you will, could be considered my “maturing years” in show business, when I began to say “no” more often and gravitated toward self-generated material. Taking stock in the overall quality of my life, I fled Los Angeles and moved to a remote part of Oregon to renew, regroup and reload. If that sounds tame, the journey from Evil Dead to Spider-Man to Burn Notice was long, with plenty of adventures/mishaps along the way. I never pictured myself hovering above Baghdad in a Blackhawk helicopter, facing a pack of wild dogs in Bulgaria, or playing an aging Elvis Presley with cancer on his penis - how can you predict this stuff? The sheer lunacy of show business is part of the fun for me and I hope you'll come along for the ride.
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Hail to the Chin...Win for the Ears!
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Bored of the Rings
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A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a furry little "hero" named Frito, ready - or maybe just forced by the wizard Goodgulf - to undertake the one mission that can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed. Luscious Elf-maidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul kiss the unwary to death-these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake.
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nonsense cliff notes lord of the rings
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That's Not Funny, That's Sick
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Labor Day, 1969: Two recent college graduates move to New York to edit a new magazine called the National Lampoon. Over the next decade, Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, along with a loose amalgamation of fellow satirists such as Michael O’Donoghue and P. J. O’Rourke, popularized a smart, caustic, ironic brand of humor that has become the dominant voice of American comedy. Ranging from sophisticated political satire to broad raunchy jokes, the National Lampoon introduced iconoclasm to the mainstream, selling millions of copies to an audience both large and devoted.
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Doug Stanhope has been drunkenly stumbling down the back roads and dark alleys of stand-up comedy for over a quarter of a century, roads laden with dank bars, prostitutes, cheap drugs, farm animals, evil dwarfs, public nudity, menacing third-world police, psychotic breaks, sex offenders, and some understandable suicides. You know, just for levity. While other comedians were seeking fame, Stanhope was seeking immediate gratification, dark spectacle, or sometimes just his pants.
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The extras are whats worth it.
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Mustache Shenanigans
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Jay Chandrasekhar has spent the past two decades writing, directing, and acting in film and TV. With his comedy group, Broken Lizard, he has produced and directed beloved movies such as Super Troopers, Beerfest, and Club Dread. Now, with the coming release of the long-awaited Super Troopers 2, Jay is ready to tell the ridiculous, madcap, dead-honest story of how he built his career, how he formed Broken Lizard, and, ultimately, how he made Super Troopers.
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Broken lizard behind the scenes
- By Brian on 03-29-17
Publisher's Summary
This ultimate biography of National Lampoon and its cofounder Doug Kenney offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters. Relying on wonderful stories about the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970s and National Lampoon's place at the center of it, author Josh Karp chronicles how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and that went on to inspire Saturday Night Live.
That history along with interviews conducted with more than 130 people connected to Kenney and the magazine - including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall - and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Animal House and Caddyshack help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon still inspires.
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- Steven Awalt
- 02-07-18
Excellent History of Golden Age in American Comedy
Loved the book, wish it went even longer. Lutkin’s narration was clean, well-read, but every time he said the word “parody” as “parity”, I wanted to punch a nun. A book on comedy, you’ve gotta be sure your reader can pronounce a few key words, eh?
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-19-18
wasnt for me
Hard to finish i beleave trying to understand the language or something made this book a slow read for myself. This book might be a better read for others I just find it to be slow and hard to keep an interest.
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- Aug Stone
- HIGHLAND BEACH, FL, US
- 07-22-18
Rich wonderful book
I loved listening to this. The story is great, Karp fills in lots of wide-ranging details about the many characters who made up National Lampoon and how humor and history moved through the strange times of the 60s and 70s. I found myself with tears in my eyes at the end dealing with Doug's death. The Netflix special piqued my interest but the story is much more vast and we get that all here. A word about the narrator - I had seen the other reviews talking about his pronunciation of "parody" as "parity" and I couldn't believe it. How right they are though, and since that word comes up many times in the book, someone really should have corrected Lutkin about this. He says ending 'd's as if they were 't's, we get this with "Kennedy" too.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- Hunter Kesey
- Atlanta, GA
- 02-16-18
Great book despite the mispronounciations
The narrorator pronounces "parody" like "parroty" and calls Caddyshack's Judge Smails "judge Smalls," but his pronunciation aside this was an amazing book and a wonderful tribute to both Doug Kenney and National Lampoon. It's the basis for the Netflix movie of the same name which is also good.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- Joe Hill
- 02-12-18
Forever Young, Brilliant, and Tragic
I love Doug Kenney. I never met him, but this book and subsequent movie makes me admire and venerate him. I’ve gone from this book looking to learn and read more about National Lampoon, and hope to see more of this brilliant young man that I just read about here. A great look back on Kenney’s life and I recommend it to anyone.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- David Wolpaw
- 05-23-18
Movie was better
I bought this book because I loved the movie. Unfortunately the movie was better. The author of the book is obsessed with getting all the details right about the politics at National Lampoon. I did not find it very interesting. It is more of a history of doug and National Lampoon than an entertaining story. I recommend you see the movie and skip the book.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful