Man on the verge of a breakthrough Aug 22, 2008
His performance as a failed actor turned deluded high-school drama teacher (one determined to mount the most offensive musical since Mel Brooks cooked up Springtime for Hitler) is aggressively demented, yet laced with sweet pathos. If you did any time in a high-school drama class, you have likely met his Dana Marschz - a man deeply frustrated (but never beaten) by the fact that enthusiasm rarely triumphs over talentlessness. (Globe and Mail)
CLEAN FUTURES Aug 14, 2008
The temptation to branch out the popular cell-shade cartoon by the same name is understandable considering how well it s been received by kids and nerds alike as Mel Brooks sagaciously put it, Lucas Films is all about milking that magical moichandising cash cow but CG-graphics is not the way to do it. Because CG-animation is intended to add a level of reality and depth to a cartoon, Filoni s venture was doomed from the start. (New York Press)
Isaac Hayes: From Shaft to Chef Aug 12, 2008
" Hayes: "Ya damn right. " Hayes: "They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother " Girls: "Shut your mouth. (Time.com)
Monday's Highlights Aug 6, 2008
Merchandise: Mel Brooks pokes fun at "Star Wars" in the 1987 comedy "Spaceballs" (8 p.m. ABC Family). Rick Moranis and John Candy star. (Los Angeles Times)
This Stock Tip Will Incinerate Your Savings Jul 27, 2008
As Mel Brooks said: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.". So stop buying the rumor and focus instead on owning great businesses for the long-term. (MSNBC -- Business)
Comedies Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder and the City of Ember Train Jul 25, 2008
Here he is on Air America's The Young Turks, interviewing Mel Brooks. Of course on September 6, I will check these guys out and see how they do. (Variety)
Berliners get a crash course in glittery celebrity culture Jul 22, 2008
They're strangely hypnotic: your neighbor's vacation slides in which Pamela Anderson, Mick Jagger and Mel Brooks keep turning up. Whatever. (International Herald Tribune)
Classic Mel Brooks Jul 20, 2008
That means capturing the classic comedic tone of Mel Brooks' 1968 film not mimicking the Broadway formula that relegates the leads to the straight and comedic roles of Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, respectively. There's a real element of early TV comedy in this, right out of The Honeymooners,' Sayles said. (Auburn Citizen, NY)
Lee Grant's Outtakes Jul 5, 2008
Mel Brooks' and Buck Henry's created characters were fresh and, in their deadpan silliness, unique. This is something fresh. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Will The Fly live up to its buzz? Jun 28, 2008
Even Mel Brooks, the movie's producer, had noticed. One day while watching a rough cut of the scene where Goldblum walks to the bar where he will rip off George Chuvalo's arm, Brooks turned to the director and said, But David, why does the music need to be so big. (Globe and Mail)
Today in History Jun 28, 2008
Comedian-movie director Mel Brooks is 82. Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich. (Yahoo News)
'Get Smart' doesnt measure up to original series Jun 27, 2008
In the credits, original series creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry are listed as consultants. Just how much they were involved is anyone s guess. (Kingston Mariner, MA)
'Big' Shoes to Fill Jun 27, 2008
This little bit of information came right before she interviewed comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks. "The president does not want to do an interview, he would just like to have a private meeting. I m not sure I know why," Walters tells her producer, Bill Geddie. (Fox News)
Movie review: "Get Smart" missed it by that much Jun 27, 2008
" The sitcom "Get Smart," created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, was much sillier than this film version. The movie gets credit for its efforts to modernize "Get Smart," but they don't pull out many of the film's memorable gadgets, like the famous shoe phone, until the end. But "Get Smart" still isn't sure what it wants to be: a goofy satire or slight thriller with laughs. The result is an uneven effort, where the catchphrases from the television show, including "Sorry about that chief' and... (Ames Daily Tribune, IA)
Barbara Walters Summoned to Syria Jun 26, 2008
This little bit of information came right before she interviewed comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks ... His wonderful musical "The Producers" is opening in Vienna this weekend, but Mel Brooks isn t going to the premiere. (Fox News)
Madonna Sabotaged? Jun 26, 2008
His wonderful musical "The Producers" is opening in Vienna this weekend, but Mel Brooks isn t going to the premiere. "I m scared!" he joked about the scenario. (Fox News)
Buzz Briefs: Naked Cowboy, MTV Awards Jun 24, 2008
"Young Frankenstein," the stage version of Mel Brooks' cinematic monster spoof, will get a new trio of leading ladies starting after the July 4 holiday weekend. First up is Kelly Sullivan who takes over the role of the winsome lab assistant Inga on July 8 from Sutton Foster, who is leaving to appear in "Shrek the Musical," opening on Broadway in December. (CBS News)
'Get Smart' winsat box office Jun 23, 2008
In Get Smart, Carell re-creates the blundering Max Smart character created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The TV show starred Don Adams as Agent 86 of a secret U.S. government spy agency under the guise of a greeting card salesman. (AZCentral -- Entertainment)
Get Smart: Clever comedy thriller Jun 23, 2008
There are so many ways this movie could have gone wrong, it's a relief to see that director Peter Segal (50 First Dates, Anger Management) and writers Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (the scribes of Failure to Launch) didn't stray too far from the template laid down more than 40 years ago by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. But they also avoid the trap of slavish devotion, and they thankfully don't overdo the famous catchphrases "Missed it by that much" and "Sorry about that, Chief!". (Toronto Star)
Steve Carell: Agent 86 ... and loving it. Jun 22, 2008
The influence of comic genius Mel Brooks, the co-creator of Get Smart, is evident. With a list of credits including The Producers (and its more recent stage version), Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety, he was a late addition to the production staff, halfway through filming, after a legal settlement with Warner Bros, according to Brooks's lawyer. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
For Carell, getting 'Smart' role a cinch Jun 22, 2008
Michael Scott, the cringe-inducing buttoned-up manager played by Carell on NBC's "The Office," is just another step in the evolutionary scale of Adams' cringe-inducing buttoned-up spy on "Get Smart," the '60s TV series created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and starring Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, a k a Agent 86. So sure were the producers of the 2008 big-screen version that Carell was their man, the role was his for the taking. (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Tracy BennettAnne Hathaway, left, and Steve Carell star in a scene from “Get Smart.” Jun 22, 2008
There s a review on that says Mel Brooks in my audience and loves the movie the critic goes on to explain that Brooks laughed a lot along with everyone else. Who knows if the person writing the synopsis actually sat in the cinema with the comedic great, but Brooks will without a doubt be proud of this wondrously zany throwback. (Green Valley News & Sun, AZ)
Duo takes on Max, Agent 99 Jun 22, 2008
" What do you and Don Adams have in common? Carell: There's a bit of a physical resemblance that would be part of the equation. But aside from that, it's hard talking about him in the same breath as myself, because I don't aspire to be as good as he was. He's iconic and the way he did the character is iconic, and I don't have any pretense of trying to live up to that. If anything, I'm just trying to get an essence of what he did as opposed to any sort of imitation or channeling. Hathaway: I... (Athens Banner-Herald)
Get Smart Directed by Peter Segal Jun 22, 2008
Get Smart, the satirical, James Bond-esque television series created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry has received its extreme makeover, but thankfully the underlying charm of the old show was not botoxed to oblivion in the tinsel town process. Fans of the series will recognise the updated world of Maxwell Smart, which fully acknowledges its past, inserting a number of in-jokes that will pass by casual viewers, referencing the original series with the secret agent museum that hides Controls... (Exclaim!)
PD's Heaton: What's so smart about shows-turned-movies? Jun 21, 2008
At the time I didn't know that the "Get Smart" creators were Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. Brooks would go on to make "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein," and Henry would become an original writer for "Saturday Night Live." So right there you can see where the show got its unique tone, which was both broad and acidly sarcastic. (Cleveland.com)
What's behind the liberal - conservative ideological divide in America? Jun 21, 2008
I once saw a Carson show that had Mel Brooks on the show. The Nixon jokes were as funny as anything I have ever seen. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- Opinion)
John Anderson - Come On Down! Jun 21, 2008
ranallo - I believe I compared the way Bettman looked to Mel Brooks as Gov. William J. Lepetomane in Blazing Saddles. I I m the mark, here. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- Sports)
Ann Randolph, one-woman wonder Jun 21, 2008
Just a few months after Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft helped Randolph bring "Squeeze Box" to New York City in 2004, Bancroft became ill (she died in June 2005), and the project fell to another producer ... I performed "Squeeze Box" for two years in small Los Angeles theaters before Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft came to the show. (San Francisco Chronicle)
'Get Smart': Maxed Out, By Kurt Loder Jun 21, 2008
Smart" is uncertain exactly what it wants to be. The original show, created by gag maestros Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, began airing in 1965, in the midst of a spy-movie craze that had been launched by the first three Bond films. That very particular cultural context being long gone, this movie is left with a narrative premise secret spy agency battles international bad guys with a barrage of shpritzy one-liners that has no contemporary cognate. And so the filmmakers have striven mightily to... (VHI.com -- Music News)
'Get Smart' an inspired remake Jun 21, 2008
Get Smart takes inspiration from characters created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry 40 years ago during the Cold War and Vietnam era, then discovers its own unique identity and energy. Only occasionally does bringing a dated TV sitcom to the big screen result in something fresh. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
'Get Smart' lacks intelligence of '60s TV series Jun 20, 2008
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, creators of the original "Get Smart" TV show back in 1965, are credited as consultants on the new blockbuster film of the same name ... Much more satisfying is the earlier scene in which Max and 99 infiltrate a Russian soiree seeking information: Carell's tango with the hefty Lindsay Hollister recalls the dance of the hippos in "Fantasia," and there's a bit with laser beams that feels like a blast of authentically vulgar Mel Brooks shtick ... Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.... (Boston Globe)
'Get Smart' Jun 20, 2008
Making it all that much more perplexing is that the original show, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and starring the exquisitely earnest Don Adams as Agent 86 and Barbara Feldon as the soign. e Agent 99, seemed so effortlessly funny. (Los Angeles Times)
'Get Smart' retreads old ground Jun 20, 2008
Screenwriters Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (of the limp Matthew McConaughey romcom "Failure to Launch") keep the story moving along smartly but don't approach the surreal flights of imagination that sometimes graced the TV series (which was created by comedy legends Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, after all). Director Peter Segal apparently decided that fat people are automatically funny when he made "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps." He repeats the lesson here with flashbacks to a grossly overweight... (Juneau Empire)
Free-fall Artist Jun 20, 2008
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry co-created the original "Get Smart" television series, spoofing the popular James Bond movies. The two were the masterminds behind Maxwell Smart's shoe phone and the "cone of silence," two staples of the 1960s show. (Daytona Beach News Journal)
* [FILM REVIEW] Agent of reinvention (sorry about that, chief) Jun 20, 2008
Warner Brothers is hoping it can thread the needle with Get Smart, a movie built on the much-loved series, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, about a secret agent named Smart who was anything but. The original Get Smart was conceived in a quainter age, before the public worried that the government was listening in on its phone calls. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- World)
Get Smart falls short in spying and spoofing Jun 20, 2008
The original Get Smart TV series, created by comic geniuses Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, encapsulated two of the great genres of the 1960s: the spy movie and the spoof. But now that even the 007 movies have become, if not self-parodies, at least coolly ironic, theres not that much for the new Get Smart movie to mock. (MSNBC -- Movies)
Steve Carell brings flair to formulaic 'Get Smart' Jun 20, 2008
Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry amid a pop-culture spy craze fueled by the cold war and Ian Fleming, Max was the borscht belt Bond, the seemingly inexpert, ambiguously ethnic American operative who, starting in 1965 and armed with broad jokes, slapstick and a capable female sidekick, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon, a cool number), somehow for five seasons managed to come out on top. He was the original revenge of the nerds, a goofball answer to all those Yale-schooled spooks. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Get Smart misses in its move to the big screen Jun 20, 2008
The TV show, which ran from 1965-70, was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as a comedy about government intelligence that playfully skewered Cold War paranoia. This movie, directed by Peter Segal (50 First Dates), has updated the setting but kept the familiar foe of the Russians, probably because anything Middle East-related is guaranteed to not make money. (Hillsdale Independent, NY)
Politically edgier, the new Get Smart mocks the President - Jun 20, 2008
Based on the TV series that began in the middle of the spy-besotted sixties, the original Get Smart, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, was a daffy parody of the stereotypically suave and infallible secret agent. The show starred former stand-up comedian Don Adams as Agent 86, a cocky but inept agent for the CIA-like organization CONTROL, with Barbara Feldon as his sexy, smarter, adoring sidekick, Agent 99. (Globe and Mail)
Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson Reveal How They Got Tough To 'Get Smart' Jun 20, 2008
It's also an action-packed movie that unabashedly owes as much to Michael Bay as it does to Mel Brooks. While the original offered soundstage depictions of CONTROL spies engaged in a Cold War battle with evil KAOS agents, this "Get Smart" has Carell and his co-stars dodging bullets in Moscow, engaging in a skydiving fistfight and caught up in chases that involve helicopters, trains and even a swordfish. (VHI.com -- Music News)
Get Smart Got Lost Jun 20, 2008
And there was a lot of it in Maxwell Smart, the doofus, inanely self-confident secret agent Don Adams played in Get Smart, the iconic 1960s television series in which Mel Brooks and Buck Henry started satirizing James Bond almost before he made his first smirking wisecrack to Miss Moneypenny. One dared wanly to hope that the loose, slightly impoverished air of that funny, curiously memorable little enterprise might somehow prevail in our era of more grandiose imagery. (Time.com)
Review: 'Get Smart' funny, some of the time Jun 20, 2008
"Get Smart" remakes TV show from the 1960s by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry ... Forty-three years ago, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry hatched a show about a not-so-smart intelligence agent constantly confounded by his own incompetence. (CNN -- Showbiz)
"Get Smart" Jun 20, 2008
The TV show, which was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and which aired from 1965 to 1970, is the kind of thing that happy childhood memories are made of, as anyone who spent their formative years planted in front of the box, as I did, can attest. "Get Smart" seemed like silly, ridiculous fun at the time, but the shows (recently released in a luxe doorstop of a boxed set) hold up beautifully on the other side of adulthood, too: The prickly chemistry between its stars, Don Adams (as hapless... (Salon)
'Get Smart': On the Red Carpet Jun 19, 2008
How much fun did Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway have while making Get Smart, their update of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's classic television spy spoof. Plenty, judging by all the good humor sported by cast and crew at the film's Los Angeles premiere on June 16. (Entertainment Weekly)
Review: The 'Get Smart' remake missed it by a hair Jun 19, 2008
This contemporary remake of the iconic '60s TV comedy could have used more of the sly wit of show creators Buck Henry and Mel Brooks and less of the antic humor and overblown action sequences that typify Hollywood's summer output. WOULD YOU BELIEVE. (USA Today -- Life)
Spooky coincidences Jun 19, 2008
The Get Smart creator Mel Brooks said that the bumbling Agent 86, whose antics aired from 1965 to 1970, spoke to a growing "credibility gap" between citizens and administrations that were less than honest about the Vietnam War. Buck Henry, another Get Smart creator, said the series allowed viewers to "see government espionage for what it really is, an idiotic enterprise glamorised by Hollywood". (Sydney Morning Herald)
99 Ways to 'Get Smart' Jun 18, 2008
actually tried to remove the credits of creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry from the film ... Mel Brooks assured me on Monday that he has not retired and has not shut down his Brooks Films. (Fox News)
Stars Loving It At "Get Smart" Premiere Jun 18, 2008
The television show starring Don Adams and Barbara Feldon ran from Sept. 18, 1965 to April 12, 1969, Created by comic geniuses Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the show spoofed popular secret agent movies like the James Bond franchise and television shows like "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.". Maxwell Smart (Adams) and Agent 99 (Feldon) were agents for an outfit known as CONTROL who battled against agents from the evil KAOS. Like James Bond and Napoleon Solo, Maxwell Smart had plenty of gadgets at his... (CBS News -- Early Show)
Carell, Hathaway discuss getting 'Smart' Jun 18, 2008
Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as a comic response to James Bond and other espionage adventures, "Get Smart" has endured in syndication, in follow-up movies and a short-lived second TV series in the 1990s. advertisement. (MSNBC -- News)
'Get Smart' free preview Jun 18, 2008
Based on the classic 1960s US TV series created by comedy genius Mel Brooks, the 'Get Smart' film is directed by Peter Segal (who gave us 'The Longest Yard' and 'Tommy Boy') and was written by the guys who gave us the Matthew McConaughey- Sarah Jessica Parker comedy 'Failure to Launch. See it at Canal Walk in Cape Town or Hyde Park in Johannesburg at 8pm on 26 June 2008. (iAfrica.com)
Carell Uses Smart Approach To 'Get' Into Character Jun 18, 2008
Based on the series by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, "Get Smart" is directed by Peter Segal ("Tommy Boy," "Anger Management") and is produced by, among others, filmmaker Charles Roven: one of the producers on the Batman redux "Batman Begins" and its upcoming sequel "The Dark Knight.". And while "Get Smart" doesn't quite go through the overhaul that the "Batman" movie franchise did, it did take an origins approach to the character, a la "Batman Begins." Call it a sort-of "Get Smart Begins.". (Click2Houston, TX)
Tonys put focus on entertainment, not thanks Jun 17, 2008
Were talking Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein and Disneys Little Mermaid two titles that transcend New York theater. But one hopes viewers came away with an awareness that there were new, exciting voices on Broadway, too, most prominently Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer of In the Heights, and Stew, the composer of Passing Strange. (MSNBC -- News)
Broadway has something to sing about Jun 15, 2008
It's been a remarkable year for Broadway musicals old, new, and uncategorizable, from the widely praised revivals of "Gypsy" and "South Pacific" to the fresh new faces of "In the Heights" and the genre-busting "Passing Strange." Oh, yeah, and we heard from Mel Brooks and Disney, too - but their efforts, sensibly, were all but snubbed by the nominating committee ... That's one from each of the four "best" nominees in the revival and new-musical categories, plus performances from the season's... (Boston Globe)
Recasting the past with, would you believe, 'Get Smart' Jun 15, 2008
Warner Brothers is hoping it can thread the needle with "Get Smart," a movie built on the much-loved series, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, about a secret agent named Smart who was anything but. The retread - its studio prefers to call it a homage - versus the wholly confected will get a test when "Get Smart" opens in the United States next weekend and elsewhere throughout the summer. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
This year on Broadway is all about family Jun 13, 2008
Building on his success with "The Producers," Mel Brooks dug into his film bag and found his little horror movie spoof. Instead of opening it up, he practically blows it apart. (Sioux City Journal, IO)
Beckwith reprising 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' from 2001 season Jun 13, 2008
Note: This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only the opinions of those who chose to participate. (Dowagiac News, MI)
New plays and newcomers salvage Broadway season Jun 11, 2008
More people seemed to remember Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" for its $450 premium ticket price (a plan that quietly disappeared after the mostly poor reviews came out) than for Brooks and Susan Stroman's gargantuan reimagining of his film horror-movie spoof. Disney's "The Little Mermaid" was deemed unseaworthy by most critics, too, although audiences found it more to their liking than "Tarzan.". (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Mel Gibson Lampooned by Adam Sandler Jun 6, 2008
There s also a nod to Mel Brooks The Producers in that Zohan not only cuts the hair of old ladies, he has sex with them, too. Shades of Max Bialystock and his troop of walker-bound biddies. (Fox News)
Continuereading Jun 3, 2008
in print and online, 24/7 for free, select the Clean Sweep option. Unable to submit Real Estate, Services, and Business Investements at this time. (Hanford Sentinal, CA)
Cinematical's Friday Night Double Feature: In Memory of Harvey Korman May 31, 2008
And, I've already given you the double feature that covers my favorite Korman film roles -- the Mel Brooks-inspired of History of the World, Part 1 and Blazing Saddles ... And then there was his work with Mel Brooks. (Cinematical)
Blazing Saddles actor dies at 81 May 31, 2008
Korman, who appeared in a number of other Mel Brooks films, was also known for co-starring in US TV classic The Carol Burnett Show. He died in Los Angeles on Thursday after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Harvey Korman, 81 May 31, 2008
His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks' 1974 Western satire, Blazing Saddles. A world without Harvey Korman it's a more serious world, Brooks said on Thursday. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
Comedian Harvey Korman of "Carol Burnett Show" fame dead at 81 May 30, 2008
LOS ANGELES -- Harvey Korman, an Emmy-winning comedic actor best known for playing the self-described "luminous second banana" for a decade on television's "The Carol Burnett Show" and for starring in such Mel Brooks films as "Blazing Saddles," has died. He was 81. (Nevada Appeal)
A Family Affair May 30, 2008
Harvey Korman was a great, underrated comedian and actor who gave us countless hours of pleasure not only on The Carol Burnett Show, but in Mel Brooks s movies and in work with Tim Conway. He was 81 when he passed away yesterday. (Fox News)
Comic actor Korman dies May 30, 2008
Korman was best known for his role opposite Mel Brooks in 1974 spoof film Blazing Saddles. But his regular appearances on 1960s TV program The Carole Burnett Show won him critical acclaim and four Emmy Awards. (WOKR13 Rochester)
