Withnail & I (1987) is a masterpiece of British dark-comic satire written and directed by actor, novelist, and screenwriter Bruce Robinson, who went on to write and direct How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), another strong film in a similar vein. His career seems to have petered out, though, after a couple of flops,... Read More

Pornography is the unacknowledged subtext of Todd Phillips’ film Joker, which is a mash up of two films by Martin Scorcese, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. The scene of revolutionary violence which brings Joker to a close is a remake of Times Square during the era of Taxi Driver, which is to say,... Read More

This article is the opposite of the article that I originally set out to write, which was about Frank Fay, the Nazi-sympathizing fascist vaudevillian who invented stand-up comedy. I mean, it says right there on Frank Fay’s Wikipedia page that “[i]n January 1946, just months after Nazi Germany had been defeated, a rally of 10,000... Read More