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Points From Gryffindor Emma Watson is under investigation for illegally employing a housekeeper 27
Goofballs in Matrimony
Inside Jokes
Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone pair up professionally with their comedy ‘Tammy’
The Show Goes On Because television is no longer confined to … television, NBC’s lowrated, recently canceled comedy “Community” will get to fulfill the first part of its #sixseasonsandamovie promise in the place where it actually thrived: the Internet. Yahoo, a Web portal best distinguished by having a name you should yodel, ordered a 13-episode sixth season that most fans — myself included — had assumed was as By Rudi dead as Chevy Chase’s Greenberg Pierce Hawthorne. Yahoo Screen’s surprise pickup not only fits with the series’ absurd humor (and behind-thescenes drama), but makes sense for all parties involved. Once-fired, then-rehired creator Dan Harmon gets to keep making his show; fans who turned “Community” into an endless stream of GIFs and Internet comments get to keep watching — no TV set required; and Yahoo gains a foothold in the streaming-content arms race against Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video. Behind all the meta-humor, “Community” is about a group of misfits becoming a family in an unlikely place. It’s a sentiment that makes this move all the more fitting. For more of Rudi’s comedy musings, follow him on Twitter: @rudigreenberg.
Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy have been paired in love and comedy since they were aspiring performers at the Groundlings, the Los Angeles improv school. Their long partnership reaches a crescendo today with the release of “Tammy,” a comedy they wrote together that McCarthy stars in and Falcone directs. McCarthy and Falcone, who married in 2005, are incredibly sweet together, but their on-screen relationship is far more combustible. In “Tammy,” she hurls put-downs and ketchup packets at him after
“I love to have a character with a firm belief in their point of view, no matter what it is.” — MELISSA McCA RTH Y, ON THE VOLATILE CHARACTERS SHE OFTEN PORTRAYS
Falcone, playing her boss, fires her from a fast food joint. Ben, do you remember the first time you saw Melissa perform? BF: It was in [a Groundlings] class. … Her character kept going to the same Kinko’s and talking to a guy name Todd. She said the name about forty hundred billion times, like, “Hey Todd. How you doin’ Todd?
WARNER BROS. PICTURES
(NBC)
Q&A
Melissa McCarthy stars in “Tammy,” which her husband, Ben Falcone, right, directed and the couple wrote together.
ters from the start?
‘Tammy’ (R) Director: Ben Falcone Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon and Kathy Bates In a Nutshell: After losing her job, a woman goes on a road trip with her boozing grandmother.
Anyway, Todd, I just need a couple more copies.” And it was obvious she was not there for copies at all. She was just there to talk to Todd. It was a super funny and great character — spazzy and fun. Were you crafting volatile charac-
MM: I love to have a character with a
firm belief in their point of view, no matter what it is. It doesn’t always have to be aggressive. BF: She steals from everybody. Bits and pieces and then she puts them inside herself. People that she grew up with or relatives. MM: I always think in real life, people do so many strange things. In “Tammy,” you throw ketchup packets at your real-life husband. BF: Her suggestion. MM: You were screaming, “My eyes!”
because of those corners, which may have kind of fueled my fire. Which is
terrible because in real life, I would never do that. If anything hurt, I would be like, “Oh my god.” BF: I would hope that you’d never be throwing ketchup packets at me in the first place. Given your success together, these must be good times. M M : We’ve been doi ng it for
20 years for free, with cheaper wigs. We would have kept doing it. If the opportunities that we have now wouldn’t have come up, I still think we’d be at the Groundlings doing the same thing: building crazy costumes and crazy sets that do or don’t work. JAKE COYLE (AP)
Watch Your Seat: A bench on which the teenage lovers of “The Fault in Our Stars,” played by Shailene Woodley, left, and Ansel Elgort, talk and kiss is missing. The green bench resembles hundreds of others around the city, and its absence went unnoticed for at least a month. Suspects in the disappearance include the city itself, which may have taken the bench away for repairs, as well as vandals or even fans wanting to own a small piece of film history. (AP)