Comedy

IN DAVID MAMET'S vastly entertaining comedy "State and Main" (VHS: priced for rental; DVD: $24.99), new to video this week, a Hollywood film crew arrives at a small Vermont town and proceeds to turn everyone's life upside-down. William H. Macy is splendid as the cool-headed director trying to maintain control of curious onlookers, self-centered stars, ego-bruised writers and acts of God. The end result? Lots of laughs, an acerbic peek inside the moviemaking process, and, finally, a finished film.

I WANT TO start off by saying that I'm not a Bush basher - he is in fact my 43rd favorite president! I find it ironic that while he is filling coffins today, he's thinking about filling his coffers tomorrow. There should be a law passed, if you voted for W in 2000 and 2004 - and STILL think he is doing a "heck of a job" - you lose your right to vote in 2008. Tom Martin, Haddonfield, N.J.

THEATER Fresh off a defining performance as Feste in Pig Iron Theatre's spectacular "Twelfth Night," Scott Greer heads to the reliably hilarious 1812 Productions, which kicks off its season with "Mistakes Were Made. " In a role originated last year by the wonderfully wacky Michael Shannon, Greer is Felix Artifex, an off-Broadway producer who is simultaneously trying to mount his first Broadway show (an epic about the French Revolution), reconcile with his estranged wife and avoid charges of foreign sheep-trafficking.

Peter Liguori has a message for the town's comedy writers: Think January. The Fox entertainment president and his development staff are in the thick of an unusually aggressive summer hunt for new comedy projects that can be whipped up in time to take advantage of the golden launch platform offered when "American Idol" returns for a sixth edition in January. The network has 10 blind script deals in place and has been actively seeking pitches for new projects, Liguori said. "We have the best time slot on television to launch a show," he said.

"Life Is Beautiful" is a genre of one. It is a comedy about the Holocaust - a subject usually approached with the utmost delicacy by filmmakers, mindful of the danger of trivializing or diminishing events that best speak for themselves. Even in today's anything-goes movie climate - when a movie like "Happiness" can deliver a dispassionate portrait of a child molester - when the industry operates without apparent discretion, exploitation of the Holocaust looms as the last inviolable taboo.

Always happy to see Andy Griffith, whether as the charismatic demagogue in A Face in the Crowd, the wise county sheriff Andy Taylor in his self-titled TV show, or the crusty septuagenarian in Waitress. So I was looking forward to his role as the grieving widower in the intergenerational comedy Play the Game, in which a grandson (Paul Campbell) teaches Gramps (Griffith) how to score with "chicks. " Alas, the conceit of a double-dating Grandson and Gramps does not produce a great many laughs in this cringeworthy film costarring Doris Roberts and Marla Sokoloff as the comely Granny and Granddaughter in their sights.

Hollywood would consider Mike Leigh's method of making a movie to be utter madness. But no one can quarrel with results as winning and invigorating as Life Is Sweet. Leigh is an innovator whose system calls for casting a movie before it is written. He gathers his actors and discusses a character in general terms. Then, over months of rehearsals and wrangling, each performer develops his or her part - right down to a detailed life history of the character. Leigh then sits and writes a script.

David McCallum in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of "Run for Your Wife," a comedy by Ray Cooney. Directed by Chris Johnston, set by Michael Anania, lighting by David Kissel, costumes by Alice S. Hughes. Presented at the Playhouse Theatre in the Hotel DuPont, Wilmington, through Feb. 22. The humorous possibilities, if any, in the practice of bigamy have been sectioned by writers of comedy since time immemorial, and notably in the films "The Captain's Paradise" and "The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker," but with the British import that opened last night in Wilmington I think that this long and desperate pursuit has reached the end of the line with a vast echoey clang.

A comedy with a very familiar - and somewhat puffy - face, and a troubling drama from France are at the top of this week's list of new videos. THE FRESHMAN (1990) (RCA/Columbia) 102 minutes. Marlon Brando, Matthew Broderick, Bruno Kirby, Maxmilian Schell. Andrew Bergman's comedy is a breath of fresh air, and not just because Brando does a hilarious sendup of his Oscar-winning portrait of Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Here he's a Little Italy "importer" whose machinations turn innocent film-school student Broderick into an unwilling godson.

Got a minute? I've got 10 people you should meet. Exactly a minute. Six seconds for each. You can do it on Vine, Twitter's mobile app that lets people make and share six-second video loops known as "vines. " You could get a superfast introduction to the glories of this video-looping app via some of its budding auteurs, people like: Pete Heacock, proprietor of First Capital Pictures in North Philadelphia. His vines are suspense stories, jokes, self-portraits in the windows of passing trains . Three of his vines were nominated for awards at the Tribeca Film Festival in April.

THE END of the world has been very good for Craig Robinson, but, then, everything's been good for the actor these days. The suddenly red-hot Robinson has his first leading-man role in the rom-com "Peeples," opening today, and has his second (as the Antichrist!) this fall in a comedy called "RapturePalooza. " Robinson is also part of the ensemble for "This Is the End," playing himself in a comedy about a bunch of actors (including Seth Rogen and Danny McBride) who happen to be at James Franco's apartment when the world ends.

Mickey Rose, 77, a childhood friend of Woody Allen's who cowrote his movies Bananas and Take the Money and Run , died of cancer April 7 at his home in Beverly Hills, his daughter, Jennifer, told the Los Angeles Times. Mr. Rose and Allen met in high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., and became friends. They shared a love of jazz and baseball. Mr. Rose met his late wife, Judy, through a blind date arranged by Allen. Mr. Rose became a TV comedy writer. He wrote for Johnny Carson and Sid Caesar and for shows including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , All in the Family , and The Odd Couple . Allen said Rose was one of the funniest people he has known - and a "wonderful first baseman.

Sunday   Life lessons Michael Whistler's comedy The Prescott Method: Easy Steps to Perfect Bread Baking Every Time , set in 1966, limns the friendship of university wives as they gather to knead some dough. The show goes on at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio on 3, 825 Walnut St., and continues on a Tuesday-through-Sunday schedule to April 14. Tickets are $30 to $40. Call 215-574-3550. . . . In Theresa Rebeck's comedy Seminar , four aspiring novelists endure unorthodox weekly workshops with a famed literary lion who proceeds to mercilessly rip their work to shreds.

JUST AS the caveman comedy "The Croods" hits theaters, there is breaking Neanderthal news. This just in: Scientists at the Natural History Museum now believe that our cousin the Neanderthal, whose brain was as big as ours, died out because too much of his brain was dedicated to vision and physical ability, and not enough to socialization and thinking. Thus, he was unable to "cope with environmental change and competition. " This is, rather shockingly, the precise story line of the new 3-D animated comedy "The Croods," though with an upbeat spin.

Stop me if you've heard this one: Philly is finally fully funny. There's Helium Comedy Club, where top national acts fill the room alongside such notable local stand-ups as Chip Chantry, Juliet Hope Wayne, and Doogie Horner. Spaces from PhilaMOCA to the Trocadero host comedy affairs of varying scale. We've got valued sketch troupes, improv crews and collectives with regular gigs - Comedy Sportz, Secret Pants, Philly Improv Theatre, Sideshow Presents, and the N Crowd - and more open mikes for them than you can throw a stick at, if throwing a stick is your idea of fun. "So many locals are working to make improv, stand-up, and sketch accessible," says Alison Zeidman of WitOut.net, a two-year-old info-packed comedy zine created by Luke Giordano and Aaron Hertzog.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG lives on the comedic edge, whether it's on the stage, on set or in her swivel chair on "The View. " She doesn't shy away from the controversial - she welcomes it. Back in 1990, in "Whoopi Goldberg Presents Billy Connolly," Goldberg began a bit by singing, "Where have all the negroes gone?" She urged members of the audience to sing along with her and "follow the bouncing Negro!" Despite early hesitation, they did. "And they said y'all wouldn't do that!" she laughed.

MARLON Wayans had to make "A Haunted House," his new found-footage - shot as if it were an amateur film - comedy flick, or else he would have been out of a job. "I like to work and there's no movies for actors, period, especially black actors. When white actors are like, 'Man, there's no work out there,' then black actors are like, 'Are you kidding me?'" Wayans said during a recent trip to Philly. Since Wayans moved to L.A., he has fended for himself. "["Boyz in the Hood" director]

PHILLY HAS never lacked for hilarity. Ben Franklin was internationally funny. Comedy legends like Bill Cosby and Bob Saget were molded in our city. And our sports teams make us laugh - if only to keep from crying. But Philly has never been known for its comedy scene the way Chicago, Boston or Austin have. But that's changing, as evidenced by the WitOut Awards for Philadelphia Comedy. Comedy blog WitOut.net will host its second annual awards show Sunday to fete Philly's funniest. Alison Zeidman, WitOut's editor in chief, says this year differs from the inaugural event, because it will have fewer inside jokes and more broad appeal to those who might not be as familiar with what Philadelphia comedy has to offer.

PASADENA, Calif. - In his forthcoming NBC comedy, Michael J. Fox will play a newscaster who had quit his job due to Parkinson's disease but returns to work in the show's first episode because a new medical regimen has helped him control many of the disease's symptoms. It mirrors the life of the former Family Ties and Spin City star, who said last year that drugs had helped minimize the physical tics of Parkinson's and had enabled him to take on more acting jobs. The yet-to-be-named sitcom is a key piece of NBC's strategy to build upon a revival that has brought the network back from many years in the ratings wilderness.