Jerry Lewis

Latest Articles

Review: Dancin' just thinkin' about it

Our fifth annual short-film festival really moves
Whether it was hilariously gruesome female assassins or the soft-touch smiles of a family enjoying daily life, the fifth annual Portland Phoenix Maine Short Film Festival spanned genres well. We had roller-skating, pantomiming, art-creating, cannibalistic ladies, and, if you’ll pardon the cliché, Everything In Between.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX STAFF | November 24, 2010

Point of no return

The end justifies the meaning in Don DeLillo's Omega
Don DeLillo's novels have been shrinking, like a star collapsing into itself, perhaps, or vapor fading on a glass.
By PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2010

Vegas and Jungleland

Paul Shaffer and the Big Man tell all
Paul Shaffer is a happenin’ cat. Pick an It Moment from pop culture over the past 30 years and Shaffer was there. He was an original band member on Saturday Night Live . He played hapless promo guy Artie Fufkin in This Is Spinal Tap . Disco? He co-wrote “It’s Raining Men.” And he helped David Letterman break ground as his glittery, ironic bandleader/sidekick.
By JOYCE MILLMAN | November 24, 2009

The Pythons' Gonzo Gospel

Jesus never had a chance
The scene is familiar: the vast blue sky, the expanses of sand, and, atop a distant hill, Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount to a rapt throng. But on the fringes of the crowd, His listeners behave like rowdies at a rock concert, yelling at one another and brawling until no one can hear the Savior's words. What's that He said? Blessed are the cheesemakers?
By STEPHEN SCHIFF | October 05, 2009

The Funn(k)y Drummer

What's the connection between comedy and percussion?
Johnny Carson was revered for his impeccable comic timing. It was "so precise," wrote one newspaper in his obituary, "that we wouldn't be surprised to find buried in his skull a quartz crystal." And why might that be? Perhaps because Johnny Carson was a drummer. In drumming, after all, timing is everything.
By MIKE MILIARD | August 13, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

Newman's own

Mainstream life, good read
Among Shawn Levy's books is one of my favorite film bios, King of Comedy , with crazy-guy Jerry Lewis, so show-off goofy and schmaltzy, spilling all on every exuberant, excessive page.
By GERALD PEARY | June 24, 2009

Phoenix | Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

V2 (2009)
The French have a way of adopting bits of marginalized American culture — jazz, Faulkner, film noir — and transforming them into something headier, smokier.
By JAKE COHEN | May 12, 2009

Paradis found

The chanteuse is loose
Must we still make the case for French pop?
By CHARLES TAYLOR | April 15, 2008

The belle boy

Audrey Tautou goes slumming in Hors de prix
Precious, rather than priceless, is the word that comes to mind when describing Audrey Tautou.
By PETER KEOUGH | April 09, 2008

Putting the ‘art’ in ‘fart’

‘Pull My Finger’ explores the dark vortex where comedy and poop jokes meet
Everybody poops.
By SHARON STEEL | July 06, 2007

Out of this world

Sandra Bernhard gets cosmic
If comedienne and singer Sandra Bernhard hadn’t invented herself, a hovering mothership beaming her down might have been acceptable.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 05, 2007

Fancy footwork

Halitosis Hall denizens still excel when it comes to self-inflicted woes
Could Little Rhody get a national award for the skill with which its politicians steadily shoot themselves in the foot?
By PHILLIPE & JORGE | November 29, 2006

Laughing allowed

Norm Crosby comes home to the Boston Comedy Festival
When Norm Crosby says he “buried” pioneering television comedian Milton Berle, he’s being literal.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | September 05, 2006

Pensées mal gardées

Plus, fantasy Filles
Boston Ballet’s second production of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille Mal Gardée made it clearer than ever what a fractured fairy tale this is. The pastoral scrim that’s revealed when the curtain goes up sports a surly Demeter bearing a sheaf of grain and bare breasts — no danger of her being badly watched.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 14, 2006

Still crooning

How Chet Curtis became the Larry King of New England Cable
It’s the morning of Ted Kennedy’s 74th birthday, and as the senator enters NECN’s Newton headquarters, he warmly greets Chet Curtis — who is tan and rested after a stint in his Fort Lauderdale condo — as an old friend.
By MARK JURKOWITZ | August 27, 2008