
Demetri Martin on stage
A stand-up comic attempting to parlay his onstage charisma from comedy club to silver screen is about as easy a transition as a baseball player trying out for the NFL. Certain innate skills will translate, but success is in no way guaranteed. That's what makes masters of both forms - stand-up comedians with long and varied film careers - most rare. At the far end of that spectrum is Woody Allen, who got his start performing jokes in Greenwich Village before moving to the big screen. As a filmmaker, Allen's relationship with United Artists afforded him unprecedented artistic freedom and, over a forty-year career, he has established himself as an auteur of the medium. On the other end is a plethora of comics with one-off flops and distressing miscastings that bely, often, the quality of their stand-up. And right in the middle is a host of filmographies that follow a sine curve of quality (think Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind versus his role in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls or Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop versus The Adventures of Pluto Nash).
Here, in honor of stand-up comedian Demetri Martin's role in his first feature film Taking Woodstock, we invited four of his fellow alternative comedians to put together five of their favorite film roles as performed by stand-up comics.
Kumail Nanjiani
New York City-based comedian Kumail Nanjiani gives us his top five film roles as performed by stand-up comics.
READ MORE
Hannibal Buress
Chicago-born comedian Hannibal Buress picks his five favorite stand-up film roles.
READ MORE
Eugene Mirman
Comedian Eugene Mirman brings his top five favorite film roles by stand-up comics to FilmInFocus.
READ MORE
Paul Scheer
Writer/comedian Paul Scheer brings his top five favorite films to FilmInFocus.
READ MORE
For the DJs of Pirate Radio, the music they play is everything. And, for the club DJs of today, it...
Read More About This
Kermit the Frog once declared, “It’s not that easy being green.” Or perhaps it is. While t...
Read More About This
The first recounted horror film, Le Manoir du Diable, was made in 1896 by Georges Mèliès. A rath...
Read More About This
Many writers from Thomas de Quincy to William Burroughs have attempted to describe in prose the stra...
Read More About This
Between school recess, vacations and all the new movies in theaters, most of us watch a lot of movi...
Read More About This
While Sin Nombre brings a story of hope to the thousands of brutal tales about immigration from Cen...
Read More About This
Certain places seem to become magnets for the bohemian indie musician. The most famous, of course, ...
Read More About This
