Kevin Nealon

Judd Apatow teams up with his former roommate Adam Sandler to write a star comedy vehicle for the actor in You Don't Mess With the Zohan, the tale of an Israeli commando who fakes his own death so he can follow his dream -- to be a hairstylist in New York City. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry's Dennis Dugan directs for Happy Madison Productions and Columbia Pictures. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Can the world's oldest adolescent maintain his cool while living with his grandmother? Alex (Allen Covert) is a 35-year-old video-game fanatic who gave up a career in accounting to take a job testing games for Brainasium, the company behind the wildly popular game "Eternal Death Slayer." While Alex took a big pay cut to land his dream job, he's happy with his work and is making ends meet -- until he discovers that his roommate hasn't paid the rent for the last six months, using the money to finance repeated visits to a local massage parlor. After running out of friends who will let him sleep on their couch, Alex swallows his pride and moves in with his grandma Lily (Doris Roberts), who loves Alex and is happy to give him a place to stay in exchange for doing chores around the house. Lily shares her home with two friends, perpetually confused Bea (Shirley Knight) and sexually adventurous Grace (Shirley Jones), and between the three of them, there's always work to be done, keeping Alex busy nearly every night. While Alex tells his co-workers he's living with three attractive women who are running him ragged, they don't know the real story; in the meantime, Alex is trying to charm Brainasium's beautiful new executive, Samantha (Linda Cardellini), while butting heads with the firm's space-case CEO Cheezle (Kevin Nealon) and J.P. (Joel David Moore), a teenage game designer who is no longer in touch with reality. Grandma's Boy was the first feature film from director Nicholaus Goossen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"A family walks into a talent agent's office..." So begins "The Aristocrats," a joke kept mostly secret by stand-up comedians for decades. An intentionally "bad" joke, the laughs in The Aristocrats aren't in the punch-line (one of the only elements that's the same every time), but in the set-up, made unique by each comedian who tells it in an attempt to fashion the world's dirtiest joke. The cat was finally let out of the bag by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza, the seasoned funnymen who gathered together a hundred people to tell a hundred different renditions of the bit. Among those presenting their personal take on The Aristocrats in this film of the same name are Jason Alexander, Robin Williams, Gilbert Gottfried, Jon Stewart, Emo Philips, and Chris Rock. The Aristocrats premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Saturday Night Live: Lost and Found - SNL in the '80s documents a turbulent decade for the long-running sketch comedy show. The eighties began without creator Lorne Michales at the helm, but still produced Eddie Murphy. By the middle of the decade Michaels returned, but his first season back was a bumpy one for both fans and critics. This program features famous skits by a number of popular performers including Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, and Phil Hartman. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A man comes face to face with the rage he didn't know he had in this comedy. Dave Buznick (Adam Sandler) is an even-tempered businessman who, after a series of strange misunderstandings on an airline flight, finds himself accused of air rage. A judge sentences Dave to undergo anger management therapy, and he soon finds himself in the care of Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), a celebrated therapist. However, Dave's group therapy sessions with a handful of truly disturbed individuals -- among them jumpy ex-con Chuck (John Turturro), obsessive sports fan Nate (Jonathan Loughran), slow-burning Lou (Luis Guzman), egocentric Andrew (Allen Covert), and bisexual porn stars Gina and Stacy (Krista Allen and January Jones) -- leave him far more unsettled than when he arrived. Later, when Buddy decides to move into Dave's home for intensive therapy, he soon discovers Buddy has more than a bit of his own anger to resolve, and that no one brings out Dave's deeply buried inner rage quite like Buddy. Anger Management also stars Marisa Tomei as Dave's girlfriend, Linda; in addition, the film features a number of notable actors in cameos, including Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Ray Liotta, Heather Graham, and Harry Dean Stanton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After the cops catch him preparing dinner in the house that once belonged to his late wife Trudy, Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is temporarily bundled off to the Medford Psychiatric Institute. While undergoing therapy, Monk stumbles upon clues to the murder of a doctor that occurred at Medford three years earlier. But how can Monk convince the authorities that he isn't hallucinating--especially since his main sources of information include the highly delusional John Wurster (Kevin Nealon) and a thirty-year-old inmate (Ken Cheeseman) who still believes in Santa Claus? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dana Carvey ventures into the world of PG-rated, family-oriented entertainment as star and co-writer of this light adventure comedy, which requires the actor to assume more than three dozen different identities. Carvey's primary role in Master of Disguise, however, is that of Pistachio Disguisey, an ordinary waiter with a hidden, mostly untapped talent for transforming himself into any persona he wishes. When his kindly parents, Mama (Edie McClurg) and Frabbrizio (James Brolin), are kidnapped by the evil thief Devlin (Brent Spiner), the usually meek Pistachio is forced to rescue them. Enlisting the help of his grandfather (Harold Gould), Pistachio learns that he is one of a long line of family members to have the power of "Energico," a mystical means of changing one's identity to suit any given situation, and Pistachio learns to use these powers to their fullest to defeat Devlin and win back his folks. Carvey's original idea for Master of Disguise was helped to the screen by executive producer Adam Sandler, a buddy of his from their time on NBC's Saturday Night Live. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

As the title character of Joe Dirt, David Spade plays a "white trash" janitor at an L.A. radio station, whose mullet hairdo is just one of many personal oddities that make him the object of much ridicule. And the sanitation gig is just the most recent of Joe's many incarnations during a tumultuous life, which got off on the wrong foot when Joe was abandoned at the Grand Canyon by his parents as a young child. After stumbling into the on-air studio, Joe steadily recounts the sad and comical story of how he cared for himself and journeyed around the country trying to relocate his family, all while being prodded, teased, and eventually embraced by a sarcastic deejay (Dennis Miller) and a rapt listening audience. His travels involve stints selling fireworks, wrangling alligators, riding aloft in a car dealership display balloon, and being held captive by a Silence of the Lambs-style serial killer. Despite numerous setbacks and bruising physical injuries, Joe emerges from each episode with his spirit intact as he searches optimistically for his roots, and eventually for the chance to return to the one place he was accepted -- a rural farm where the girl of his dreams (Brittany Daniel) awaits. The directorial debut of Dennie Gordon, Joe Dirt was produced by Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison, and features musician Kid Rock, also debuting, in the supporting role of Joe's rival. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Four of Tinseltown's greatest glamour queens came together for this tartly comic made-for-TV movie which pokes gentle (and not so gentle) fun at their histories and reputations. Kate Westburn (Shirley MacLaine), Addie Holden (Joan Collins), and Piper Grayson (Debbie Reynolds) are three legendary Hollywood stars who in their heyday were known to audiences for their beauty, charm, and musical talent -- and, within the movie industry, for their short tempers and industrial-strength egos. The three stars only worked together once, on a musical made in the early '60s called Boy Crazy, but when the film becomes a cult sensation in a late-'90s re-release, Gavin (Nestor Carbonell), a network television executive desperate for a hit, gets the idea of staging a reunion special starring the three divas. However, there's a hitch -- the three women can barely stand each other, and while they share the same agent, Beryl Mason (Elizabeth Taylor), Beryl and Piper haven't gotten along since Piper's husband left her to marry Beryl. But Gavin is determined to make the project work, and hires Kate's son Wesley (Jonathan Silverman) to work with Beryl to pull things together. Against all odds, the three stars agree to do the special, but while there's no small amount of cat-fighting behind the scenes, in front of the camera the ladies discover time has not been kind to all of them. These Old Broads was written and executive-produced by Carrie Fisher and Elaine Pope; Fisher, of course, is the daughter of Debbie Reynolds, whose husband Eddie Fisher had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor (Fisher later married Taylor after he divorced Reynolds), and Fisher wrote a character based on her mother for the novel (and subsequent movie) Postcards From the Edge, which was played onscreen by Shirley MacLaine. No word on where Joan Collins fit into this formula. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This irreverent comedy focuses on a group of nine single people in their thirties who've gotten into the habit of hitting the same three bars in Los Angeles every weekend; most of them are looking for love, but that's the last thing any of them are likely to find. The cast includes Tom Arnold, Scott Baio, Kelly Preston, Sally Kellerman, and Charlene Tilton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Mousse up your hair and pull your Missing Persons records out of mothballs for this romantic comedy set in that era of questionable fashion decisions, the '80s. In 1985, Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) is a vocalist whose rock band stubbornly refuses to get off the ground. In the meantime, he makes a living playing wedding receptions, where his easy charm and ability to schmooze brings him a steady income. Robbie meets Julia Sullivan (Drew Barrymore) when she's working as a waitress at one of his wedding gigs; he immediately takes a shine to her, but since he's engaged, he keeps his distance. Robbie learns that Julia is also engaged; unfortunately, her fiancée Glen Gulia (Matthew Glave) is an obnoxious, self-obsessed yuppie who is chronically unfaithful to her. When Robbie gets stood up at the altar by his fiancée, it's a crushing blow to his ego, and he moves from working weddings to bar mitzvahs to avoid the humiliating issue of matrimony, and he considers giving up on music altogether. In time, Robbie realizes that he needs to step in and stop Julia from marrying Glen before the woman he's come to love ruins her life. Adam Sandler's former Saturday Night Live co-stars Kevin Nealon and Jon Lovitz make cameo appearances, as do Steve Buscemi and Billy Idol -- as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Despite head writer Phil's (Wallace Langham) claims that female comics aren't funny, Artie (Rip Torn) and Larry (Garry Shandling) hire Wendy Traston (Sarah Silverman) on as a new writer. When Phil purposefully fails to submit Wendy's jokes for Larry's monologue, Beverly (Penny Johnson) takes it upon herself to get the jokes to Larry. Catching wind of the writers' conflict, Artie threatens to fire both Phil and Wendy if they don't resolve their differences and get Larry the monologue in a timely fashion. Meanwhile, Hank (Jeffrey Tambor) gets so suspicious that Kevin Nealon is trying to steal his position as sidekick that he begins displaying symptoms of a heart attack. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide