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The best Richard Lewis movies and TV shows reveal just why the stand-up comedian and writer had such an easy and successful transition to both the big and small screens. Born in New York in 1947, Richard Lewis found his footing performing at open mic nights in New York’s Greenwich Village in the early 1970s. After moving to L.A. at the advice of fellow comedian David Brenner, Lewis started getting regular slots on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Thanks to his incredibly self-deprecating and, often, dark comedic style, Richard Lewis managed to gain the attention of many network executives. This led to his big break in 1979 with the leading role in the NBC direct-to-tv movie Diary of a Young Comic, which he also co-wrote. From there he quickly became a household name, especially after appearing alongside lifelong friend Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. While he tragically passed...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook.Newsa Different Man.IATSE, Teamsters, and the Hollywood Basic Crafts unions began bargaining jointly with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers after a thousands-strong rally in Los Angeles. In Variety, IATSE president Matthew Loeb discusses the union’s priorities and the threat of another strike after the current contract expires on July 31.In an open letter, Carlo Chatrian, the outgoing artistic director of the Berlinale, and Mark Peranson, the festival’s head of programming, respond to the backlash that followed the closing ceremony, at which a number of award recipients called for a ceasefire in Gaza: “This year’s festival was a place for dialogue and exchange for ten days; yet once the films stopped rolling, another form of communication...

John Belushi’s kinetic energy and skill at physical comedy made him a larger than life performer during his short run as a superstar on “Saturday Night Live” and in movies such as 1978’s “Animal House” and 1980’s “The Blues Brothers.”

But Belushi’s work off-camera as a writer and director, from his earliest days in the Second City improv troupe, was considerable. As the life of the comedian — who died of a drug overdose at age 33 in 1982 — is re-examined in the R.J. Cutler documentary “Belushi,” which premieres Nov. 22 on Showtime, here are highlights of Belushi’s story as chronicled by Variety.

The first reference to John Belushi came in the Nov. 17, 1971, edition of weekly Variety. He was singled out for praise in a generally positive review of the “Cum Granis Salis” show staged by Chicago’s legendary Second City. That famed ensemble would later contribute major players to the original “Saturday Night Live” cast,...

Above: German poster for Last Year At Marienbad (Alain Resnais, France, 1961), artist: Tostmann.

Over the past three months of Movie Poster of the Day, the two most popular posters by far were two beautiful (each in their own very distinct way) posters that I posted in memoriam of two dearly departed auteurs: Alan Resnais and Harold Ramis. And two other posters among the most popular (i.e. most liked or reblogged) were those posted in celebration of Philip Seymour Hoffman, including Chris Ware’s lovely 2007 design for The Savages, one of my favorite posters of last decade. So, if nothing else, Movie Poster of the Day has recorded the saddest losses of the year. (Not forgetting the adorable Swedish poster I posted for Shirley Temple which didn’t make the Top 20.)

I’m happy to see a number of new posters here: a very popular Dutch Wolf of Wall Street,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Dec. 3, 2013

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $29.95

Studio: Broadway Video

Meet Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band in The Rutles Anthology.

All You Need is Cash, the great 1978 rock mockumentary comedy created by Monty Python’s Eric Idle that outstandingly parodied The Beatles, makes its Blu-ray debut in The Rutles: Anthology.

Originally introduced by Idle in his post-Python BBC satire Rutland Weekend Television, the film All You Need Is Cash was brought to prime time in a 1978 TV special, produced by Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels, directed by Gary Weis and featuring the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players. The film follows the epic rise and fall of the tight-trousered lads from Rutland as they hit the top of the pops and the heights of absurdity. Needless to say, it became a major cult hit…

The Rutles are played by Idle, Neil Innes, John Halsey and Ricky Fataar,...

From a time before hip-hop and crack, cult documentary offers a vivid snapshot of south Bronx street life

"I've seen … 57s … I've seen 12-gauge shotguns, I've seen 12-gauge pumps … I've seen a .45 military special with a clip on the street … I've seen fuckin' Thompsons. A damn Thompson! I've seen it! I've seen hand grenades, I've seen damn beer-can bazookas getting made. That thing hit you, just the same as being hit with a gun! I've seen .22 zip guns, I've seen .38 zip guns. I see things you never think you'll see on the street. I've seen dynamite. I've seen all this, man; you'd be surprised. Pretty soon, they're going to steal the damn atom bomb!"

The young man recounts his amateur arsenal to the camera with a complete lack of drama or hyperbole, quickly ticking off the hardware of his daily life as though he were running through a shopping list.

The uniformity of today's digitally colour-graded films can never match the spontaneous look of deteriorating celluloid

The other week I was at the BFI Southbank to see Brian Clemens's sole directorial feature, the hugely enjoyable and inventive Hammer film Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, a favoured movie of mine that I'd never before had the chance to see in its natural environment: the big screen. Before the screening started, a representative from the BFI informed the audience that the print had arrived fairly last minute and the quality wasn't all that great; it was an old print, from the original 1974 release and not only had a lot of surface damage and patched together breaks but had also started to rot away, giving much of it a pinkish hue. Well, I wasn't going to get another chance to see this so I "bravely" decided to stick with it and was quite...

Yesterday, I talked about how the short films of Saturday Night Live have evolved since the show began. But what about reaching an audience beyond that of the show? Gary Weis and Tom Schiller were sort of pioneers in their day because as Schiller notes, "There was hardly anyone writing and directing shorts on TV at that time." But would Schiller have wanted his films to go viral? "God, yes." He would also agree that Tli's shorts are a natural evolution for the SNL short film. "They reflect the humor of the moment, shape it even, in some cases. And because they're digital, [they] have a chance to go viral and be seen by more people ...The immediacy and look of digital suits the show right now." Obviously, The Lonely Island shorts were not the first to go viral. Before they...