Janeane Garofalo Movies
Actress, comedian, and paragon of cynicism Janeane Garofalo was born on September 28, 1964, in Newton, NJ. During high school, her family relocated to Houston, TX, where the trauma of the move prompted her famously insecure, self-loathing persona to begin blossoming in full. While studying history at Providence College, Garofalo entered a comedy talent search sponsored by the Showtime cable network, winning the title of "Funniest Person in Rhode Island." Dreaming of earning a slot on the writing staff of the Late Night With David Letterman program, she became a professional standup upon graduating college but struggled for a number of years, working briefly as a bike messenger in Boston.Upon moving to the Los Angeles area, Garofalo met actor/comedian Ben Stiller, who in 1992 invited her to join the cast of his short-lived but acclaimed Fox television sketch comedy program The Ben Stiller Show. A stint on Garry Shandling's breakthrough HBO series The Larry Sanders Show (for which she was nominated for an Emmy award in 1996) soon followed, and in 1994 Garofalo reunited with Stiller in the film comedy Reality Bites, a role which earned her the much-despised tag of "Generation X comedian." That fall, she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live but exited before the conclusion of the season, publicly disheartened by the show's increasing drop-off in quality.
After signing on as a correspondent on Michael Moore's news magazine TV Nation and hosting Comedy Product, a standup showcase on the Comedy Central cable network, Garofalo began work on her breakthrough role, co-starring with Uma Thurman in the 1996 romantic comedy hit The Truth About Cats and Dogs. That same year, she also co-starred with Bill Murray in Larger Than Life, and appeared briefly in The Cable Guy and Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy. Garofalo's prolific output continued in 1997; in addition to starring roles in two comedies, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion and The Matchmaker, she was featured prominently in James Mangold's Cop Land and Paul Schrader's Touch, she hosted the MTV series Indie Outing, and she remained a fixture of the emerging alternative comedy circuit.
In 1998, Garofalo's career continued to thrive, with starring and supporting roles in a number of films. Some of her more notable work included Clay Pigeons, a black comedy with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix; Permanent Midnight, which marked another collaboration with Stiller; and the animated Kiki's Delivery Service, which featured Garofalo as the voice of a new age artist and mystic. She also acted against type as one half of a revoltingly cheerful couple in Bruce McCulloch's comedy Dog Park. The following year, Garofalo appeared in no less than five films, with a supporting part in the ensemble piece 200 Cigarettes, a starring role as an unconventional action heroine called the Bowler in Mystery Men (which also featured Stiller), and prominent turns in Kevin Smith's eagerly awaited Dogma, Hampton Fancher's psychological thriller The Minus Man, and the satirical comedy Can't Stop Dancing, in which she acted alongside fellow comedienne Margaret Cho.
In 2001, Garofolo took on the role of Catherine Connolly in The Laramie Project, HBO’s docudrama chronicling the aftermath of the death of Matthew Shepard, and filmmaker David Wain’s comedy Wet Hot American Summer. The actress joined the cast of Pixar’s Ratatouille in 2007 to voice the role of Colette, a talented French chef, and appeared on television shows including Two and a Half Men, 24, and Criminal Minds. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- 2010
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Marking the first solo special in more than a decade, this stand-up comedy presentation features long-time comedienne Janeane Garofalo's notoriously satirical observations on life, popular culture, and the politics of the day. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
Lindsay Lohan stars as an office assistant who fakes a pregnancy to get on the good side of her stringent boss in this romantic comedy from Nu Image and Millennium Films. Chris Parnell, Cheryl Hines, Luke Kirby, and Connie Britton co-star in the Lara Shapiro-helmed production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lindsay Lohan, Luke Kirby, (more)
A scrawny rat named Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt) finds his dreams of culinary superstardom stirring up sizable controversy in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant in director Brad Bird's madcap computer-animated comedy. It's hard being a rat with culinary aspirations, but Remy is convinced he has what it takes to break the stereotypes and follow in the footsteps of star chef Auguste Gusteau (voice of Brad Garrett). As fate would have it, Remy is currently situated in the sewers directly beneath Gusteau's elegant restaurant. Soon Remy teams up with a young chef with little talent named Linguini (voice of Lou Romano). Together they are able to create some fabulous dishes, but they live in fear that someone will discover their secret and object strenuously to a rat being in a kitchen. When Remy's passion for cooking turns the haughty world of French cuisine upside down, the rat who would be king of the kitchen learns important lessons about life, friends, and family while questioning whether he should pursue his culinary calling or simply go back underground and return to his life as a sewer rat. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, (more)
A doomed woman discovers her creative spirit during a final fling with life in this independent drama. Melody Wilder (Saffron Burrows) is already having a bad day when she visits her doctor about a troubling lump in her throat -- her boyfriend has left her, and she's lost her job. However, this news pales in comparison to what her doctor (Janeane Garofalo) has to say: the lump is an inoperable cancer, and Melody has only a short time to live. Throwing caution to the wind, Melody rents a huge, luxurious apartment and furnishes it in high style, putting her purchases on a handful of credit cards she won't be around to pay off. Melody also permits herself affairs with a few of the deliverymen who have become regular visitors to her loft, but she spends most her days alone, enjoying the trappings of wealth as she ponders what little future she has left. One day, Melody makes an impulse purchase, a red electric guitar that looks like one she wanted as a girl. While Melody isn't schooled on the instrument, she begins teaching herself to work out chord patterns and melody lines, and in the last chapter of her life discovers a way to give voice to the pain and confusion she's buried within her. Written by veteran underground filmmaker Amos Poe, The Guitar was the first feature film from director Amy Redford. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Saffron Burrows, Isaach de Bankolé, (more)
Much of the group responsible for MTV's The State -- including director/actor David Wain and performers Ken Marino, Kerri Kenney-Silver, and Joe Lo Truglio -- reunite for this outrageous, irreverent, and raunchy sketch comedy, which skewers the Ten Commandments. In the framing sequences, comedian Paul Rudd (who collaborated with much of the cast on Wet Hot American Summer and The Baxter) stands on a black stage with giant Biblical tablets projected behind him and promises to deliver ten mini-stories, each loosely based on one of the commandments, from "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" through "Thou Shalt Not Covet." For all of the storyteller's efforts, however, he is constantly, comically distracted by interferences, particularly those emanating from intrusions by his multiple girlfriends. The stories are nonetheless told one by one in short-film form, beginning with a sketch in which Stephen (Adam Brody) goes skydiving with his intended, Kelly (Winona Ryder), but forgets to wear his parachute and gets stuck in the mud, waist-deep, which draws gawkers, media, and in time, worshipers. Several of the subsequent stories consist of raunchy, jet-black riffs on sexual perversion, including one about a virginal librarian (Gretchen Mol) entangled in a sultry and messy affair with a Mexican, and another memorable bit about a nutty surgeon who plays a prank by burying a pair of scissors in a patient's stomach and is then sent to prison -- where he experiences brutal sexual abuse at the hands of other men. As an added bonus, the picture packs in a fully animated sequence, narrated by several crack-smokers, entitled "The Lying Rhino." ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Rudd, Famke Janssen, (more)
- 2006
A not-unexpectedly raunchy and iconoclastic animated series from the Comedy Central mills, the half-hour Freak Show chronicled the adventures of "The Freak Squad", a superhero aggregation consisting of deformed and misshapen sideshow performers. Sent out on low-priority missions by the Pentagon, the Freak Squad hoped thereby to save the world, but usually succeeded only in living up (?) to their motto: "Failure is not an Option. It's a Guarantee." The main characters included Tuck and Benny, Siamese twins with the ability to separate ("up to 40 years at a time"), who wasted a lot of their time bickering pointlessly; The Bearded Clam, the female spawn of eco-terrorists and the author of "The Anarchist's Guide to the NFL", whose specialty was spitting lethal "bitch juice"; Primi the Premature Baby, a red-hued aberration still attached to its umbilical cord, who was scared of "loud noises and Jews" and whose weapon of choice was strategic projectile vomiting; The World's Tallest Nebraskan, aka Orlando Jones Wilson, whose talents included shrinking to six inches, performing unusual sex acts, and spewing dull, xenophobic homilies; and Log Cabin Republican, a gay GOP member who periodically transformed into Burly Bear, a leather freak with awesome powers in his carefully manicured hands. Created by Arrested Development veteran David Cross and Home Movies alumnus H. Jon Benjamin, both of whom also provided character voices, Freak Show was unveiled on October 4, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
A handful of zoo animals leave behind their well-protected environment for the streets of the big city in this computer-animated comedy. Sampson (voice of Kiefer Sutherland) is the king of a make-believe jungle far from the African plains -- he's a lion on display at a zoo in New York City's Central Park, and he lords it over the other animals, including Nigel (voice of Eddie Izzard), a testy koala bear; Larry, a dumb but well-meaning snake; ; Bridget (voice of Janeane Garofalo), a bright but cynical giraffe; and Benny (voice of Jim Belushi), a very New York-ish squirrel who is good friends with Sampson and is trying to romance Bridget without much success. The pride and joy of Sampson's life is his son, Ryan (voice of Greg Cipes), and he's devastated when one day Ryan is crated up and shipped back to Africa. Sampson is desperate to find his boy, and with the help of his pals he escapes the zoo and sets out on a daring mission to rescue Ryan, battling the unfamiliar terrain and Kazar, a wildebeest with a will to power and a passion for choreography (voice of William Shatner) along the way. The Wild was the first directorial credit for animator and special-effects artist Steve "Spaz" Williams. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kiefer Sutherland, Jim Belushi, (more)
Experience the turbulent rise of America's first all-liberal radio network firsthand as documentary filmmakers Patrick Farrelly and Kate O'Callaghan follow the progression of Air America Radio from conception to the airwaves through interviews with such key figures as Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Mark Walsh, and Evan Cohen. When a group of investors chose to challenge the conservative standards of talk radio by launching a liberal radio network in early 2004, few could see the monumental struggles that lay ahead. Despite the financial, creative, and logistical challenges that nearly sunk the entire endeavor, Air America Radio beat the odds by going live on March 31, 2004. As the presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry heated up, the struggle to sustain Air America Radio in the middle of a political firestorm gave testament to the tenacity and undying vision of those willing to put their livelihood on the line to ensure the public a quality alternative to the conservative viewpoints of such outspoken Republican media figures as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O"Reilly. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
The Queen Mother of all dirty words (as it was once described by Jean Shepherd) is examined through all its linguistic, sociological, legal, and ethical implications in this documentary. Filmmaker Steven Anderson interviews dozens of people about the history and function of "the F word," including language historians who have a hard time nailing down its origin, writers (including Hunter S. Thompson and Ben Bradlee) who talk about its role in literature and press freedom, comedians (among them Drew Carey, Janeane Garofalo, and Billy Connolly) who ponder its frequent presence in hipster humor, pop musicians (such as Ice-T, Pat Boone, and Alanis Morissette) who offer their theories about its role in contemporary culture, and social critics (including Michael Medved and Dennis Prager) who believe its currency is taking America into a dangerous place. F*ck also includes footage of famous figures caught using the word unexpectedly and animated sequences by Bill Plympton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
The documentary When Stand Up Stood Out charts the stand-up comedy boom and then decline that took place in Boston during the late seventies and eighties. Consisting of both vintage footage from the era and interviews with the people who were a part of the scene, the film showcases how this fertile comedic territory produced such famous names as Steven Wright, enis Leary, Bobcat Goldthwait, Colin Quinn, and Paula Pundstone. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
A man struggling to save the life of another finds himself drawn into a strange netherworld he didn't know existed in this stylish thriller. Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) is a psychiatrist living in New York City with his girlfriend, Lila Culpepper (Naomi Watts), who was once one of his patients. However, it's another one of his patients who becomes the focus of his obsessions when Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), a disturbed young man whom Foster took over from a colleague, announces during a session that he intends to commit suicide in three days, on his 21st birthday. Sam takes the threat quite seriously and tries to track down Henry, who seems to have disappeared. Sam speaks to a number of Henry's friends and acquaintances -- his mother (Kate Burton), the man he claimed was his father, Dr. Leon Patterson (Bob Hoskins), a waitress who regularly served Henry at the coffee shop where she works (Elizabeth Reaser), and his former therapist Dr. Beth Levy (Janeane Garofalo). As Sam talks to people in Henry's circle, he finds he's learning more about himself than the man he's supposed to save, and he begins to drift into an emotional netherworld where the supposedly dead and the living cross paths. Stay was directed by Marc Forster, who had previously enjoyed breakthrough hits with two very different films, Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, (more)
The first feature-length romantic comedy produced exclusively for the Oxygen cable network, Nadine in Date Land stars Janeane Garofalo as the title character, who though her own love life is in a shambles somehow believes that she can run a successful dating service. Having borrowed heavily from her mother (Swoosie Kurtz) to get the business started, Nadine must now prove to Mom that she herself can have a lasting romance, lest every penny be withdrawn. Thus, when her old flame Adam (Brad Rowe), comes back to town, Nadine vows to literally force him to fall in love with her. Unfortunately, our heroine faces two formidable obstacles: Adam's erstwhile fashion-expert girlfriend Magda (Julie Claire), and Nadine's own incredible gift for stumbling over herself and inserting foot in mouth at all the wrong times. Essentially a contemporary screwball comedy with a generous supply of Bringing Up Baby-style slapstick, Nadine in Date Land was written and directed by Amie Steir, whose short comic films had been an Oxygen channel mainstay for years. The movie was given several video-on-demand previews before its official debut date of June 25, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The world's most obnoxious celebrity talk-show host demonstrates how he rose to mediocrity in this pungent show business satire. Jiminy Glick (Martin Short) is a corpulent entertainment reporter who is looking to kick his career into high gear. Hoping to snag some celebrity interviews, Jiminy and his wife, Dixie (Jan Hooks), head north of the border to Canada, where Jiminy will attend the Toronto Film Festival. At first, Glick's attempts to ingratiate himself with stars and semi-stars are little short of disastrous, but after the easily star-struck reporter allows egocentric filmmaker Ben DiCarlo (Corey Pearson) to shamelessly self-promote his latest project on air, word gets around that Glick is an "easy interview," and his star begins to rise. However, Jiminy's good fortune is tempered by his unwitting involvement in a murder plot centered around booze-addled actress Miranda Coolidge (Elizabeth Perkins) and her wildly pretentious husband, Andre Devine (John Michael Higgins). Somewhere along the way, filmmaker David Lynch (played by Short) happens along, offering his theories on the controversial murder of Lana Turner's paramour Johnny Stompanato. A large number of Hollywood celebrities make cameo appearances in Jiminy Glick in La La Wood, including Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Forest Whitaker, Kiefer Sutherland, and Sharon Stone. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Martin Short, Jan Hooks, (more)
A sad sack has to come to term with his own demons after a long run of bad luck in this downbeat comedy drama from writer and director Matt Mulhern. Duane Hopwood (David Schwimmer) lives and works in Atlantic City, where he's a pit boss on the night shift at one of the city's resort hotels, and has a wife, Linda (Janeane Garofalo), and two young daughters, Mary (Ramya Pratt) and Kate (Rachel Covey). Duane also has a drinking problem, and while Linda loves him very much, she's begin to wonder if he's still capable of living up to his responsibilities as a father. The final straw comes when Duane gets arrested for drunk driving while Kate is in the car with him; Linda files for divorce, and the court opts not to give Duane visitation rights. With Duane struggling to hold on to his family, he gets more bad news when he loses his job after he's caught giving money to an argumentative customer to shut him up. With only his friends from work to keep him company -- Anthony (Judah Friedlander), a maintenance man who wants to be a comedian, and Gina (Susan Lynch), a kind-hearted bartender -- Duane realizes he's come to a crossroads where he has to get his life back on track before he loses what little he still has left. Duane Hopwood also features supporting performances from Dick Cavett and Jerry Grayson. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Schwimmer, Janeane Garofalo, (more)
James Cox directs the sleazy Hollywood murder tale Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. Using a non-linear plot structure, the film explores different perspectives of the quadruple homicide that occurred on July 1, 1981, in the Hollywood Hills. At the lowest point of his career and the height of his drug addiction, Holmes was implicated in the murders of the Wonderland gang: Ron Launius (Josh Lucas), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Barbara Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner), and Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo). Launius' wife, Susan (Christina Applegate), was the only survivor. Led by Detective Sam Nico (Ted Levine), the police investigation reveals a dark criminal underworld surrounding Holmes, his disapproving wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), and his innocent teenage girlfriend, Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth). Eric Bogosian stars as notorious Hollywood nightclub owner Eddie Nash. Wonderland premiered at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, (more)
A handful of New Yorkers struggle to tie together the loose ends of their lives following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in this drama. It has been several weeks since the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell, and Liz (Janeane Garofalo), a writer who watched as one of the jets sailed past her window and into the skyscraper, has refused to leave her apartment since the disaster. However, an eccentric but street-smart poet named Karl (Giancarlo Esposito) carries a torch for Liz and is determined to bring her back to the land of the living. Judy (Nicole Hansen) suffers through an unpleasant one-night stand with Billy (Dov Davidoff) before waking up in the apartment of Punch (Tony Spiridakis), a fellow lost soul whose car is covered with the dust left by the falling towers...only now, some of his neighbors claim they can see a holy apparition in the dirt, so it's hard for him to move. And Samantha (Jennifer Carpenter), who has been observing the neighborhood from behind the bar at a local watering hole, finds some much-needed comfort in the arms of renegade would-be rock singer Gina Mascara (Pauley Perrette). Screened at film festivals as Ash Tuesday, Beyond the Ashes was written by Tony Spiridakis, who also plays Punch. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
When Jill (Janeane Garofalo), the sister of reformed womanizer and former high-profile fashion photographer Jack (Nestor Carbonell), leaves her 17-year-old son with his uncle in an unstable bid to find herself, her brother and sister face an increasingly uncertain future in this dark drama from director Bobby Roth. Bored of working an endless string of weddings and bar mitzvahs and longing to return to the success he experienced before his luck took a nosedive, Jack attempts to connect with both his teenage son and nephew while pulling his life into focus. To make matters even more complicated, Jill's jobless ex-husband, Eli (John Ritter), has also decided to move in with Jack. Will the hapless photographer be able to keep his sanity as his dysfunctional family forces itself into virtually every aspect of his increasingly chaotic life? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nestor Carbonell, Janeane Garofalo, (more)
- 2003
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After Stonewall director John Scagliotti approaches the issue of international gay rights in the documentary Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World. With the 2001 police raid on an Egyptian disco at its center, the film explores several global instances of mistreatment against homosexuals. Through interviews and personal accounts, Scagliotti finds human rights violations and other dire conditions in Honduras, Samoa, India, Namibia, Pakistan, and Vietnam. This film also includes a discussion of pop culture images, the Internet, and the progression of changing attitudes in some countries. Narrated by Janeane Garofalo, Dangerous Living was screened at the 2003 San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Janeane Garofalo
An aspiring filmmaker learns that success in Hollywood doesn't come as easy as she suspected as she attempts to discover the formula to success in this satirical comedy from director William Tannen. When the guidance of her helpful has-been uncle (Michael Lerner) fails to pave the way, Sarah Wilder (Alannah Ubach) must seek the advice of such Hollywood heavies as Mike Meyers, Ben Stiller, and Fred Willard -- only to discover that the old adage is true and Nobody Knows Anything about how to succeed in the cutthroat world of Los Angeles. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alanna Ubach, Michael Lerner, (more)
Barry Sonnenfeld directs this kissing cousin of his own 1995 hit Get Shorty, a comic caper adapted by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone from the novel by newspaper humorist Dave Barry. When two New Jersey hitmen (Dennis Farina and Jack Kehler) show up in Miami to whack crooked businessman Arthur Herk (Stanley Tucci), they happen to creep into his backyard at the same time as Matt (Ben Foster), a high school kid with his own assassination plans. Only, Matt plans to use nothing heavier than a squirt gun on Jenny (Zooey Deschanel), Arthur's daughter, as part of a school-wide game of "killer." When the plans collide, mayhem ensues, and Matt's struggling ex-columnist dad (Tim Allen, loosely modeled on Barry), Arthur's bored wife (Rene Russo), and two confused police officers (Janeane Garofalo and Patrick Warburton) are also called to the scene. Shift to the next day and there's more craziness to follow. Two dimwitted petty criminals (Tom Sizemore and Johnny Knoxville) choose the exact moment Arthur is transacting a nuclear arms deal to hold up the dive bar where they're regulars, which is actually a front for the Russian mob. Soon the whole motley cast -- including an agreeable drifter (Jason Lee), a buxom maid (Sofia Vergara), and a pair of ruthless FBI agents (Heavy D and Omar Epps) -- are caught up in a hostage scenario in which the weapon accidentally gets brought aboard a hijacked plan. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tim Allen, Rene Russo, (more)
American independent filmmaker Lawrence Blume makes his feature debut with the absurd dark comedy Martin & Orloff, starring a lot of the folks from the Upright Citizens Brigade. Martin Flam (Ian Roberts) designs mascot costumes for a corporate chain of Chinese restaurants. After a failed suicide attempt, he goes to see the incompetent therapist Dr. Eric Orloff (Matt Walsh). Under the guise of conducting therapy sessions, the quack doctor then drags Martin on a series of seemingly random adventures about town. Dr. Orloff then recruits a gang of oddballs and malcontents (played by Katie Roberts, Sal Graziano, David Cross, and H. Jon Benjamin) to help Martin face his fears. The film also includes cameos from comedians Janeane Garofalo, Tina Fey, Andy Richter, and Amy Poehler. Martin & Orloff was screened at the 2002 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ian Roberts, Matt Walsh, (more)
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