Entertainment
Appreciation: Comedian, actor, musician and painter Martin Mull mastered the art of always being right for the job
For anyone lucky enough to have experienced the long arc of his career, the death of droll, dry, deadpan Martin Mull, Thursday at 80, feels like the end of an era. A writer, songwriter, musician, comedian, comic actor and, out of the spotlight, a serious painter, Mull was a comfortingly disquieting presence — deceptively normal, even bland, but with a spark of evil. Martin Mull is with us, one felt, and that much at least is right with the world.
There was a sort of timelessness in his person. As a well-dressed, articulate young person, he seemed older than his years; later on, owl-eyed behind his spectacles, he came across as oddly boyish.
He leaves behind a long, uninterrupted string of screen credits, beginning with Norman Lear’s small-town soap opera satire “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” Following that were regular roles in “Roseanne,” “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” “Veep” and “Arrested Development”; guest shots including “Taxi” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”; and work in such films as “Mr. Mom,” “Clue” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
And so it seemed he would always be around, and working. Even so, his appearances were never quite expected, or in the expected place. But he was ever welcome, and always right for the job.
Like Steve Martin, his friend and junior by two years, he was an accomplished instrumentalist. As a purveyor of witty comic songs, Mull was in the tradition of Tom Lehrer and Flanders and Swann and a peer of Dan Hicks, with whom he shared a taste in floral-print shirts. He was a countercultural cabaret artist who set himself apart from the counterculture. Again like Martin, he dressed well in an age when younger comics let their hair grow long and wore street clothes to distinguish themselves from their suit-and-tie elders.
But where Martin was a flurry of flapping arms and legs, Mull worked from a place of stillness. His musical stage act, Martin Mull & His Fabulous Furniture, found him in his signature prop, a big armchair, leaning forward over his big, hollow-body guitar.
“Ever seen one of these before? It’s electric. You’ll be seeing a lot of those in the near future,” he said.
Later, he leaned back as Barth Gimble, the host of the talk show parodies “Fernwood 2 Night” and “America 2 Night.” Even his solo spots on “The Tonight Show” — on which he was a hilarious, blue-streak-talking guest, usually playing off his career in show business — were delivered sitting.
On “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Mull played Garth Gimble, an abusive husband who died impaled on the star of a Christmas tree. One would say that Garth had to die in order that Barth, his twin brother, might live. On the spun-off “Fernwood 2 Night,” Mull and Fred Willard, as confidently dim sidekick Jerry Hubbard, created a telepathic double act in which they could seem antithetical expressions of a single character.
Together, the talk shows lasted only two summer seasons; but due to their weeknight appearances, they produced 130 episodes, giving them cultural weight. (You may find them extracted all over the internet.) Mull and Willard would work together again over the years, in the Cinemax series “The History of White People in America” and the follow-up feature “Portrait of a White Marriage,” in commercials for Red Roof Inn, as a gay couple on “Roseanne” and as robots on “Dexter’s Laboratory.”
Martin Mull, left, with fellow comedian Steve Martin in Santa Monica in 2014.
(Ryan Miller / Invision)
Mull grew up in North Ridgeville, Ohio, not far from Fernwood in the map of the imagination, and white insularity was a theme in his comedy. My first Mull memory came with the 1973 album “Martin Mull & His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room,” which opened with a version of “Dueling Banjos” played on tubas. The record included a “Lake Erie delta” blues song, purportedly learned from his real estate agent grandfather. It was performed on a ukulele with a baby bottle used as a slide: “I woke up this afternoon / Both cars were gone / I felt so low down deep inside / I threw my drink across the lawn.”
“The History of White People in America,” he told David Letterman, would examine “what, if anything, has the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant done in this country since World War I. It’ll be taking a pretty good hard look at that.”
A memorable episode of “Fernwood” exhibits a Jewish person stopped for speeding as he passed through town as something of an exotic animal, for the benefit of Fernwoodians who may have “actually never seen a real live Jew before.”
“I hope that seat’s all right,” Barth says, welcoming his guest. “ I’m not sure what you’re used to.”
Like many great comedians — the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields before him, or Albert Brooks in his own time — Mull was a temperamental outsider who achieved the success of an insider, while remaining essentially untamed. It’s not beside the point that he was, from first to last, a serious artist. He held undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design — where, it does not seem too coincidental to mention, the Talking Heads were born. He would refer to show business as a “day job” that allowed him to pursue painting.
We were lucky he needed the work.
)
Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s high energy action film Kill is not for the faint hearted.
read more
Language: Hindi
Director: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Cast: Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Tanya Maniktala, Abhishek Chauhan, Ashish Vidyarthi, Adrija Sinha, Harsh Chhaya
It’s true that we don’t really need stars to make a successful film. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s Kill has totally killed it with all its energy. It is fresh, bold and a unique story that not many have thought about and that’s what makes it different. Violent no doubt, but don’t most movies have an element of violence?
I believe Kill is a path breaking Indian action film, but definitely not for the faint heart. It is true that I am not too fond of extreme bloodshed, murder and also not to forget the smashing of head scenes. But keeping my choices aside, I would say Kill is a well-made film and the action sequences are simply mind-blowing. Having watched the movie at the
Red Sea International Film Festival
last year for the first time, I wonder, why did it take so long for the film to be released in India?
It’s insanely violent. What works for Kill is the simple storyline and no beating around the bush. Not much twist and turns and most importantly hitting the hammer right on the nail and sometimes on the people too. The action takes place inside the train with no unnecessary drama, dancing and singing. The concept is daring and fresh for the Indian audience and that makes
Kill
stand out. No flying cars, choppers and superman stunts and most importantly actors like Lakshya, Raghav Juyal and the battalion of dacoits are relatable to the Indian audience. They look like ordinary guys and that’s what makes them special. Lakshya plays the role of an army man, Amrit who is a great boyfriend to Tulika played by Tanya Maniktala.
Lakshya has done a brilliant job, but the actor to look out for is Raghav Juyal. He has a promising career ahead of him. He is one evil character you can’t stop hating. Raghav’s performance is intense and the dialogue delivery, expressions, and every action is absolutely compelling. I must say that this man truly knows his craft. The best thing that the movie brings out is that murderers too have emotions.
If you are looking for a high energy action film
Kill
is one such must watch. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’ has no doubt done a brilliant job as a director, but without cinematographer Rafey Mehmood probably this film wouldn’t have been such a hit. The best part about the film Kill is that not even once will you get bored. No matter how much at times I hated the gory action scenes and tried closing my eyes, the more I got interested in what’s happening next. The discomfort of the blood splatter, the punching, kicking, stabbing and smashing of head all in a train will surely make you think twice before booking a train ticket next time!
Rating: 4 out of 5
WATCH the trailer of Kill here:
Entertainment
Jamie Foxx reveals rare details about health scare: He has a 3-week hole in his memory
More than a year after he was mysteriously hospitalized, Jamie Foxx is sharing details about the health scare. Not all the details. But some.
“Look, April 11 last year. Bad headache. I asked my boy for an Advil,” Foxx told a group at a Phoenix cafe, as seen in a video posted to TikTok by a spectator.
Foxx then dramatically snapped his fingers.
“I was gone for 20 days,” he recalled. “I don’t remember anything.”
He said his sister Deidra Dixon and daughter Corinne Foxx took him to a doctor, where he was given a cortisone shot. A cortisone shot treats a specific spot in the body and can reduce inflammation, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Pointing to his head, Foxx added that another doctor said, “Something’s going on up there.”
As for specifics, Foxx demurred.
“I won’t say it on camera,” he said, getting laughs from the people around him.
While attending an awards luncheon in March, Foxx promised he was going to open up about the hospitalization — on his own time and on his own terms.
“Everybody wants to know what happened, and I’m going to tell you what happened. But I’ve gotta do it in my way,” Foxx said, according to Variety. “I’m gonna do it in a funny way. We’re gonna be on the stage. We’re gonna get back to the stand-up sort of roots.”
“It’ll be called, ‘What Had Happened Was,’ and it’s got all the things that happened, especially on our side of our community,” he said. The comedian said he would address all the speculation that arose from his absence, including rumors of clone sightings and that he “dove out of a car to save this Black woman’s purse.”
Foxx has resumed his gigs amid his recovery. He returned as host of “Beat Shazam,” a musical game show, after Nick Cannon temporarily replaced him for Season 6.
“A Quiet Place: Day One” made a grave miscalculation with its advertising. Scenes were filmed with the intention of putting them in the trailers, but not the movie. This way, when people saw the movie, they wouldn’t be able to properly anticipate the surprises and story progression. To that end, the advertising succeeded, I was indeed thrown off while watching the movie. But here’s where they didn’t succeed: the scenes shot just for the trailers were terrible, with clumsy dialogue and careless pacing. I was so mad at Hollywood for continuing this series without the creative vision of director John Krasinski, especially when the movie looked like garbage without his input. I only saw this movie out of obligation for the column, and I wouldn’t be surprised if fans of the series stayed away entirely because of those awful trailers. But it turns out that not only is this movie better than the trailers, it’s better than the two installments that Krasinski directed.
“Day One” casts aside the familiar Abbott family in favor of new protagonist Sam (Lupita Nyong’o). Sam is a cancer patient taking a trip from her hospice to Manhattan along with her nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff) and service cat Frodo. Sam only agrees to the trip on the condition that the group stop for pizza at her favorite place in Harlem. The sudden invasion of echolocating aliens means a delay in pizza. Honestly, Sam is only interested in self-preservation to the end that it means eventual pizza.
Sam shelters in place for a bit with Reuben, who has a great scene where he stares down an alien like he’s staring down death itself. Also in the shelter is familiar character Henri (Djimon Hounsou) from “Part II” of the series, here forced to make an unthinkable decision. She moves on to helping some children in Central Park before finding a companion in anxious wreck Eric (Joseph Quinn). Can the two survive in alien-infested New York long enough to get a slice of pizza? If so, what happens after that?
“Day One” has the most suspense yet for a “Quiet Place” movie. It was scary enough that characters had to keep quiet to save their lives on a family farm or in small town. But in New York, the noises are as big as the pizzas. Speaking of food, I wonder if the characters’ best bet for survival would be to let the aliens fill up on noisy people and then hope they’re too stuffed to give chase. Maybe that’s why the film’s biggest flaw is that the main characters get away with making as much noise as they do.
The film does an excellent job of wringing scares out of not only the slightest sounds, but loud-looking images. Even with everybody promising to be quiet, a crowd of people is going to make noise eventually, that’s just how crowds are. So if the characters find themselves as part of a crowd, the clock is already ticking. And that’s with a reasonable amount of effort being made. Some people just aren’t cut out for quiet, and associating with those people in this environment could prove fatal.
“A Quiet Place: Day One” had me afraid to breathe loudly in the theater, a testament to the film’s immersiveness. And yet, the suspenseful atmosphere is only the second-best thing about the movie. The real star here is, well, the star: Lupita Nyong’o. This movie doesn’t have returning players John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, or even recent Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy, and Nyong’o makes up for all of them. One way or another, Sam doesn’t have much time left on this Earth, but you’ll want to be there for every moment. It took until nearly the exact halfway point of the year, but I think we have our first serious contender for an acting Oscar. Not bad for a movie whose advertising had me thinking it would be one of the worst films of the year.
Grade: B
“A Quiet Place: Day One” is rated PG-13 for terror and violent content/bloody images. Its running time is 100 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
Phoenix Mercury, minus Diana Taurasi and Becca Allen, lose to Connecticut Sun
Police, firefighters, EMS crews in Brookhaven, Delaware County awarded for saving man's life in Lowe's
Central Florida Haiti organization watches as Beryl skirts past island nation
U.S. Supreme Court immunity ruling likely further delays Fulton racketeering case • Georgia Recorder
Hawaii police arrest two men with loaded gun and rifle on Oprah Winfrey's property – Times of India
See it: Tesla crashes into Columbus convention center at 70 mph
Colorado Rockies game no. 116 thread: Zac Gallen vs José Ureña
Fox News Politics: Georgia the whole day through
Death of missing Oregon girl found in stream ruled homicide
At least 2 dead as tornadoes hit Alabama, damage homes across Southeast
Democratic senator 'horrified' by Biden's debate performance, says campaign needs to be 'candid'
Far-right win in France would not change Labour's EU plans – Starmer
Biden says Supreme Court's immunity ruling 'undermines the rule of law'
GOP Senate candidate ties opponent to Biden debate: Bob Casey knew
Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan arbitrarily detained, says UN working group
-
News1 week agoA Florida family is suing NASA after a piece of space debris crashed through their home
-
World1 week agoIsrael accepts bilateral meeting with EU, but with conditions
-
World1 week agoNew Caledonia independence activists sent to France for detention
-
News1 week agoArkansas police confirm 4th victim died in grocery store shooting
-
World1 week agoNetanyahu says war will continue even if ceasefire deal agreed with Hamas
-
Politics1 week agoTexas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pledges to pass Ten Commandments bill after Louisiana passes similar law
-
Politics1 week agoDeSantis signs bill allowing residents to kill bears, vetoes bill that fines slow left lane drivers
-
Movie Reviews1 week agoFilm Review: Everyday of the Dead (2023) by Yuyuma Naoki