Last Comic Standing is returning for another season. Recently Executive Producer Wanda Sykes, celebrity judges Roseanne Barr, Keenan Ivory Wayans, and Russell Peters, along with the new host JB Smoove spoke to the media about the show.

 

“Instead of doing an HBO hour special, you’re doing a four-and-a-half minute special,” Sykes explained about the job of the comedians competing for top honors.

 
The celebrity judges are standup comedians in their own right, along with having great success in other areas. “You’re not going to change your material for your audience,” explained Wayans about the job of a comedian. “You are going to get your audience to change and laugh at your material, so they may have one state of mind, but your job as a comedian is to convince them that you’re the funniest guy in this room, and by the time you leave this stage, they’re going to agree with you.” Barr added, “It’s also about control. And you’re in control of that room. That’s a lot of what standup comedy is about.”

 

Standup comedy is a tough business. Usually it’s just the comic alone on the stage looking out at an audience expecting to laugh and be entertained. Talk about a lot of pressure. Without any special effects, others with which to interact, and tons of props, it basically comes down to the confidence, material, and especially the delivery of the comic.

 

“It relies just as much on what you’re saying in that microphone as well as what you’re hearing in response,” explained Smoove. “The decibels go up a certain level, you got them; it comes down, it’s time to move on to the next joke, keep it going. You know what I mean? Reading the audience is not just about looking around seeing who the hell is in the room. It’s about using your skills, using that microphone, being able to raise your voice, lower your voice, to project, to listen very intently to what the audience is laughing at. What do they dig about you? Is it your eyebrow movement? Some people get a laugh by eyebrows. All that is part of standup not just saying stuff.”

 

“Also it’s about the relationship between you and the audience, and you’re in control of that relationship,” added Barr who explained, “That doesn’t just happen the first time you walk out. You learn by failure.” And Peters agreed, saying, “It’s about creating trust.” That sounds like a lot of pressure on the comic, however those who stick with it long enough are the ones that can adapt, learn, and continue with their craft.

 

About this show, Smoove wants people to know, “this is also a learning process for people out there who are watching the show to also get an inside view of what really goes down. It’s not like going to a club; and you just go and bring your girlfriend and bring a friend to a club, you all just go laugh, leave to go home and tell the jokes at work the next day. You know what I mean? You’re going to learn a lot more about what goes into being a standup comedian, preparation, the energy level, the performance, all these different rules.

 

“There’s a lot of rules to comedy that people are going to learn watching this show, and not just laughing at the comedians, but learning the process, the story behind this guy, where he came from, what inspires him, what makes him laugh, why are they here on this show?”

 

Barr is excited to see the new batch of competitors. “It’s also about admiring the level of their craft. It’s taking comedy seriously, if that’s a weird thing to say. To admire the level of these people’s craft it’s like ‑‑ you know, it’s exciting and thrilling, too, to see how they’re going to come out and work it.”

 

Barr explained the old comedy clubs are dying out. When she began her career there were a lot more places to pursue her standup routine. She is enthusiastic about this TV show because it gives people a new site to work their craft. “I think that it’s cool,” she said. “I think [it’s] a whole new beginning of media for comics.”

 

This show could, like, be that ‑‑ it could be that where people would be like, “I’m going to work really hard this year and get my timing down so I can go on ‘Last Comic Standing.'” I think that it’s cool. I think a whole new beginning of, you know, media for comics.

 

Season eight of Last Comic Standing premiers on NBC May 22.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

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Dylan Neal (Cedar Cove) turns from charming cooking aficionado to charming detective in Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original film Gourmet Detective. Neal is Henry Ross, a chef extraordinaire who now writes a blog for aspiring chefs. Brook Burns is Maggie Price, a police detective that must work with Ross to find out who murdered a local news reporter who was about to blow the lid off a story that would affect the entire world of upper class restaurants in San Francisco.

 

If this sounds kind of familiar – with a civilian helping the homicide detective – then you are right. It’s a little twist on the Castle plot, only in this movie it’s the detective who is living with her mother and daughter and the civilian helping the police is a chef and not a mystery writer. That said, there are still some cute aspects of this movie.

 

As the newly formed investigative team puts together clues, the “who-done-it” gets more and more complicated. In the beginning Maggie is apprehensive about having Henry working with her team, but as time goes by they form a good relationship and prove their alliance is what it takes to put the clues together and get to the bottom of this frustrating, albeit flavorful, adventure, ahem, I mean case.

 

Dylan Neal co-wrote the script with his wife Becky Southwell, and he is an Executive Producer. The movie is based on the series of book by Peter King.

 

“The talented Dylan Neal has become an invaluable member of the Crown Media family with his successful turn on Hallmark Channel’s first-ever scripted series, ‘Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove,’” said Michelle Vicary, Executive Vice President of Programming, Crown Media Family Networks. “Now, as the star, executive producer and co-writer of this exciting new Mystery Movie Series, Neal proves he is an irresistible draw for our loyal viewers, with electric chemistry opposite the charismatic Brooke Burns.”

 

Gourmet Detective will take turns rolling out new original movies with the other detective movie franchises now on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries – Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Garage Sale Mysteries, Hannah Swensen Mysteries, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, and now Gourmet Detective. These are good, old-fashioned, and dare I say wholesome movies that are fun escapes from our hectic lives.

 

Gourmet Detective premiers Saturday, May 16, 2015 on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

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Shiri Appleby stars in this new addicting series on Lifetime. Appleby plays Rachel, a producer on a dating show called “Everlasting.” Rachel is good at what she does and what she does is manipulate people. unREAL is a fun fictitious look behind the scenes of a Hollywood reality show.

 

The drama behind the scenes of the reality show “Everlasting” is more entertaining than what goes on with the contestants and the suitor they are all competing for. Yes, “unREAL” is a fictitious show but it sure makes you think whether producers have gone to these lengths in real life.

 

Rachel is a complex character who has a lot of personal baggage. She is currently homeless and serving community service for a legal mess she got herself in on a previous season of the show. Constance Zimmer plays the executive producer who has no feelings or remorse for what they put the contestants through. She has a heart of stone and her goal is “good TV.” She even holds back the fact that one of the women’s father had a heart attack because she didn’t want the woman to leave the show. It would be bad for the show because that contestant fits in perfectly with her idea of the characters, aka contestants.

 

More drama off the set is with Rachel and her former boyfriend Jeremy (Josh Kelly), a cameraman on the show who is currently engaged to the makeup artist played by Siobhan Williams.

 

Some of the contestants on “Everlasting” are Faith (Breeda Wool), a Southern tomboy, Anna (Johanna Braddy), a very shrew and calculating woman, Mary (Ashley Scott), a single mother, and Britney (Arielle Kebbel) who is over-the-top.

 

unREAL will definitely intrigue viewers and is the perfect show for binge watching. It has drama, drama, drama. The puppet masters are at the top of their game in this series.
unREAL premiers June 1, 2015 on Lifetime.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

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When M. Night Shyamalan first read the script for the new Wayward Pines 10-episode series on FOX, he was a little baffled, as viewers will understand when they see the first episode. To say there are a lot of questions as to what is going on in this seemingly perfect town is an understatement.

 

As Shyamalan, the Executive Producer and Director of this series explained to the media, “I was reading in bed and my wife was coming to bed and I had the little lamp on and I finished it. It was 60‑some pages and I finished it, and I didn’t understand how any of this could make sense, all of these things. But I had one question in mind, so I got on the phone, called everyone and I said, ‘All right, I just finished it. As long as everybody isn’t dead, I’m in.’” So if you think everyone is dead in Wayward Pines when you first begin watching it, and it is all taking place in heaven, you can be assured they are alive.

 

Okay, so what exactly is going on in this beautiful mountain town in Idaho? (The show was actually filmed in Canada.) Why all the mystery? Why are people so perfect? Why can’t they leave the perimeter of the town? According to the filmmakers and actors, that all gets explained halfway through the season in episode five.

 

As Shyamalan, who has been nominated for several awards for his writing and directing, said, “For me, if you had to say what’s the thing that’s groundbreaking about the show, the thing for me about the show is that halfway through the season, it becomes an entirely different genre, and I find that awesome. For me in particular, the thing that draws me to making movies and the ones I write is like slamming two genres together that shouldn’t be together and kind of how they can be complementary. In this one, you think you’re watching one genre and then it flips to the other genre. It has equal muscles in both genres, so you’re referencing muscles from one genre and we have other muscles yet to be shown.”

 

According to costar Carla Gugino, “The mystery continues even as you start to understand who these people are and you get a different context.” So even though the truth of what this town is all about is revealed in episode five, the last half of the show still has plenty of intrigue to keep viewers coming back. Gugino’s costar, Melissa Leo, echoed that sentiment, saying, “You’ve gotten to know the characters halfway through. Now you understand what their circumstances are and you are attached, in my viewing of it, to the characters.”

 

The lead actor in the show is veteran Matt Dillon, who has had a long career in show business beginning in 1979, and has garnered many award nominations, including one for his performance in the film Crash. “I’m drawn to atmospheric projects, and I like this,” Dillon stated.

 

“For me, the most important thing is that [for] the characters, that there’s logic behind everything that they are doing. It doesn’t have to make sense to anybody but that individual, but there has to be truthfulness to who the characters are, and I think we all felt that.,” the lead actor said. “This show is particularly tricky because you have different levels of reality for everybody, you know. My character stumbles into this town early on, and he’s discovering stuff. I mean, it’s kind of a subjective piece of storytelling in the beginning from his standpoint. He’s sort of with the audience discovering things. But it’s interesting because I would talk to the other actors, and they have a whole other reality. I mean, he runs into the woman that he’s come there to look for, his ex‑partner, and she’d been living there for 12 years, but he saw her two weeks ago, so things like that that really don’t make sense.” Everything comes together in episode five.

 

Perhaps explaining the mystery halfway through a season seems like a strange thing to do, however this is a story that lends itself to having the viewers understand what is happening early on, so they will develop a deeper connection to the characters.
The story is based on the series of novels by Blake Crouch, who has a personal affinity for the old TV series Twin Peaks. Viewers will almost certainly feel a sense that Wayward Pines is similar to Twin Peaks, however that correlation is short lived as this series continues down a different path.

 

Wayward Pines begins with Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke (Dillon) searching for two missing agents. After a car crash, he wakes up in the sleepy little town of Wayward Pines, Idaho. He tries to contact his family in Seattle but cannot get through. He then sees one of the missing agents, who is living in the town with her husband. But how can that be? He just saw her a couple weeks ago and she was not married. She was younger too. According to her she has been living in the town for over a decade. Then things start to unwind for Burke, and as soon as you think things are getting strange enough, the truth is revealed (episode five). And from then on the story takes a different turn.
Wayward Pines Hospital, Wayward Pines Academy, and all the establishments in town are quite different than what Burke is used to. Oops, did I forget to mention the public executions? What is it about this place? If viewers will stick with it until the truth is revealed (in episode five) they will learn why everyone is in this town. But there’s more…

 

Wayward Pines premiers Thursday, May 14, 2015 on FOX.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

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Award-winning actress Saoirse Ronan stars in Stockholm, Pennsylvania, a dramatic exploration of a young woman who was kidnapped as a child and is reunited with her parents. Cynthia Nixon plays the mother whose world was turned upside down seventeen years earlier when her daughter vanished.

 

Leia (Ronan) was abducted when she was four years old and held captive by Benjamin McKay (Jason Isaacs) who brainwashed her into thinking the world had been destroyed and he saved her. All she knew was that she was alone in a basement with no window on the outside world. McKay looked after her and she trusted him.
Then when she is suddenly reunited with the parents she doesn’t remember, Leia struggles to adjust to a new life with a new home, new protectors, and new freedoms. She is not accustomed to going to a store or even going out of the house at all. It is completely foreign to her. It is as though she was placed on an alien planet. But her mother Marcy is overjoyed with having her daughter back and almost smothers the young woman with her overabundance of caution.

 

While Marcy is trying to get her daughter to trust her, Leia is reliving her life as a captive. Her thoughts continually return to McKay and everything she had known.
The stress and her devotion to regain the trust and love of her daughter causes stress for Marcy and her husband, putting their marriage in jeopardy. The strain is too much for Marcy who goes overboard with her protectiveness of Leia.
This is definitely a dramatic story and Ronan plays her part with melancholy and curiosity. Imagine being told after seventeen years that your whole life was a lie. Imagine being thrust into a world completely foreign with parents you didn’t know you had. While many people would be overjoyed, the bond McKay created with his captive was so strong that the young woman cannot escape the feelings with which she grew up. She is stuck. She is now able to look out a window, and for the first time she sees and feels the falling rain. But her thoughts are still not free.

 

This is not a feel good movie. It is a look at how relationships affect who we are and what we think – especially about what it means to love someone. The Stockholm Syndrome experienced by many captives is front and center in this Lifetime movie.

 

Stockholm, Pennsylvania premiers Saturday, May 9, 2015.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

Follow her on Twitter

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Candace Cameron Bure is one of Hallmark’s “go to” actresses for original films as well as her new “Aurora Teagarden Mysteries” series on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. She stars in this new Mother’s Day original story as well as executive produces it. Just the Way You Are is a fun little film about a marriage that has gone stale.

 

Candace is Jennie who has been happily married to Ian (Ty Olson) for fifteen years with two delightful daughters. He is a successful architect and she is a successful relationship expert. While Ian’s career has taken him away from the family more and more, Jennie has been holding down the fort with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. But then she decides she isn’t really happy with this situation. Yes, she loves her husband, but she misses the times they shared as a couple, long before careers interfered with their enjoyment of life and of each other.

 

That’s when Jennie gets the brilliant idea to move into the guest bedroom and have Ian romance and court her again, like they did when they were younger before all the stresses of life and family took their toll. They start with a blind date where all talk about children is forbidden. They start to get to know each other again and rediscover what it was about each other that made them fall in love in the first place.

 

Candace Cameron Bure is adorable. She is always fun to watch and brings a great empathy to her character. It’s evident that Jennie is desperate for the attention and romance she shared with Ian fifteen years ago and is determined to rekindle that spark that burned out over the years.
The moral of this story is never take your partner for granted, which is something all couples should remember.

“Our devoted viewers absolutely adore Candace Cameron Bure. She has become a beloved perennial star on Crown Media Family Networks and we are deeply grateful to have created a home for her here as part of our recurring roster of exceptional stars,’” said Michelle Vicary, Executive Vice President of Programming and Publicity, Crown Media Family Networks. “Having Candace star in and executive produce Just The Way You Are with us, is a perfect fit in celebrating one of the most treasured holidays of the year, Mother’s Day.”

 

Just the Way You Are premiers Saturday, May 9, 2015 on Hallmark Channel.

 

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment business for 20 years. She also writes about technology and has been a travel writer for the past 12 years. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, from Sourced Media Books.

Follow her on Twitter

Like her on Facebook