Bruce Vilanch Movies
With his unmistakable presence -- characterized by an obese figure, oversized red glasses, a shaggy blonde mane, and a scruffy, unkempt beard -- Bruce Vilanch checked in as one of Hollywood's most colorful characters for decades. His effeminate presence and apparel (both of which played up Vilanch's open homosexuality) only heightened this. Though known to many as an onscreen character... (read more) player and comedian, Vilanch scored his most resounding successes as a gag writer for stand-up comics such as Bette Midler, Billy Crystal, Lily Tomlin, and Roseanne; in fact, a point arrived where many considered him the go-to comic for stand-up sets and a first-choice writer for events such as the perennial Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony telecasts. A native of Paterson, NJ, Vilanch attended Ohio State University as a theater and journalism major. After graduation, Vilanch moved into show business professionally, with comic roles in features such as the 1975 Mahogany (as a fashion designer), the 1984 Ice Pirates, the 1986 thriller The Morning After, and the 2008 Adam Sandler comedy You Don't Mess with the Zohan. On the side, Vilanch did frequent uncredited rewrites of Hollywood features and enjoyed a lengthy and productive tenure as a writer of features for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Vilanch's professional mainstay, however, remained comedy writing. He was the subject of the all-star 1999 documentary Get Bruce! and played Edna Turnblad during an extensive run of the Broadway musical Hairspray. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!
PG 2009
A Long Island couple struggles to accept the fact that their son is gay after he comes out of the closet at his cousin's wedding. Every Friday, Shirley Hirsch (Lainie Kazan)...
You Don't Mess With the Zohan
PG13 2008
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...
Tru Loved
R 2007
Uprooted from her comfortable San Francisco home and transplanted to a generic Southern California suburb by her two well-meaning moms, open-minded high-school sophomore Tru...
Naked Boys Singing!
2007
On the heels of a successful debut at the Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles and an impressive eight-year run on the New York stage, the raucous musical showered with...
Laughing Matters...The Men
2007
It's no secret that stand-up comics are a tortured lot, and in this documentary filmmaker Andrea Meyerson pays special tribute to some of the most talented - and...
Queer Duck: The Movie
2006
Born as a series of three-minute chucklers on Icebox.com (and aired later on the Showtime pay-cable network), veteran Simpsons-producer Mike Reiss' giddily irreverent...
The Aristocrats
NR 2005
"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...
Gay Hollywood
2003
Another presentation of the American Movie Channel's AMC Project anthology, Gay Hollywood follows five openly gay men, all employed (not always gainfully) in show...
Queen of The Whole Wide World
2001
Los Angeles' Miss USA 2000 Pageant is a beauty contest with a difference -- while in many ways it seems like a typical pageant, complete with contestants competing in evening...
Call Me Claus
NR 2001
As a child, Lucy Cullins asked Santa Claus to bring her father home from Vietnam. But when her dad returned in a pine box, the embittered Lucy decided that Christmas --...
Circuit
R 2001
A man hoping to move out of the closet falls into a trap of drug-fueled hedonism in this cautionary drama. John (Jonathan Wade Drahos) is a police officer from a small town...
Get Bruce!
R 1999
This is a documentary portrait of a Hollywood comedy writer cited by many of entertainment's biggest stars as their comedic "secret weapon." Bruce Vilanch is a rotund, hirsute...
Jackie's Back
NR 1999
Soul diva Jackie Washington is determined to hit the comeback trail but seems to be having trouble finding the on-ramp in the mock-documentary comedy Jackie's Back. Jackie...
Love Can Be Murder
1992
Corbin Bernsen plays a hard-boiled 1940s private eye operating in the 1990s in the made-for-TV Love Can Be Murder. No, he's not a senior citizen: he's dead. It is the ghost...
Fourth Story
1990
In this complicated and exciting above-average made-for-cable suspense thriller, a woman searches for her missing husband with surprising results. When Valerie's (Mimi Rogers)...
It Nearly Wasn't Christmas
1989
The made-for-TV It Nearly Wasn't Christmas stars Charles Durning as the one and only Santa Claus--a role for which Durning evidently required no padding. The plot...
The Drifter
R 1988
Julia's (Kim Delaney) nightmare begins when she picks up hitchhiker Trey (Miles O'Keeffe) on a desolate road. Once back in the big city, Julia finds she is being stalked by...
The Morning After
R 1986
In this excellent thriller, crisply directed by Sidney Lumet, Alex Sternbergen (Jane Fonda), a washed-up, alcoholic actress who never quite made it, wakes up one morning in...
The Ice Pirates
PG 1984
In this undistinguished parody of the sci fi genre, Robert Urich is Jason who leads a band of pirates in redistributing the wealth of the few to the coffers of the needy. He...
Divine Madness!
R 1980
Bette Midler's wildly funny and theatrical stage show is preserved on the big screen in this concert film shot in California in 1980. Along with her usual raunchy comedy...