Pages tagged “Zach Galifianakis”

According to Arrested Development alum David Cross, Zach Galifianakis isn't worth paying attention to. "He’s just a fucking standup comic!" Cross told Paste recently.

As previously reported, Merge records is celebrating its first 20 years with a uber-special box set, released in 14 special editions and curated by some special musically inclined guests. Already announced? The currently guitar-less Peter Buck (of R.E.M.) and Junebug director Phil Morrison. Think that's exciting? Just wait until you hear who else the indie label has on the dock for your listening pleasure.

Grab a spatula, 'cause you're gonna wanna scrape your jaw off the floor. That's right: It's been three years coming, but Athens, Ga.-based Chunklet Magazine has announced that its 20th edition is hitting the streets later this month. And, even better, those brave souls who order through the website can also purchase one of the mag's famous split 7-inches, this time shared by none other than fern-straddling, awkwardness-brandishing, comedian extraordinaire Zach Galifianaikis and head Pharmacist, Ted Leo.

Vote in PasteMagazine.com's latest poll...

The 9-5 grind is not kind to any of us, but it's probably hardest on George Winsterhammerman (played by Zach Galifianakis, profiled in the Sept. issue of Paste), the subject of the new movie Visioneers. He faces the familiar drags of long hours at work and a disillusioned family at home, but also a less common problem: spontaneous combustion.

It’s 2003 and I’m sitting in a Midwestern college auditorium with ratty orange seats. The air conditioner is cranked despite it being a cool March night, and that’s good, because I’m buzzed from pre-show beers and wearing a multi-layered thrift-store suit. “The battle of the bands only happens once a year,” my sagelike companion observed earlier in the day. “We should treat it with the respect it deserves.”

Read our issue 46 feature on Zach Galifianakis here.

--

...Sean Penn:
"He called my cell phone and was like, 'Hey, it's Sean Penn.' And I'm like, 'Uh-huh...' He's like, 'What are you doing next week?' And I said, 'I'm going to Arby's.' Then I kinda realized it was him. I didn't audition [for Into the Wild]; I just showed up to South Dakota. It was me and him and Vince Vaughn and Emile Hirsch in a hunting lodge together for two weeks. But when I first got there, I said to Sean, 'How do you know me?' and he said he'd seen Out Cold about 17 times. His son is a snowboarder, it's not like he's studying the works of Lee Majors."

...Fiona Apple:
"I first met Fiona at a club in Los Angeles called Largo. It's a place where musicians and comedians perform together. There would always be musicians hanging out at a comedy show and vice versa. I remember going up to Fiona and saying something like, 'I have diarrhea.' Something I didn't think someone like Fiona Apple would ever care to hear with that persona she has, I guess. She giggled at it, and we always had these weird sentences in exchange. I handed her this music video I'd done for this Anita Baker song ['You Bring Me Joy'], and we were kinda friendly. Then we made her video [for 'Not About Love']."

Watch Zach in Fiona Apple's video for "Not About Love" here. Zach's version of Anita Baker's "You Bring Me Joy": 


...Kanye West:
"I met Kanye through Largo as well, and he had also seen the Anita Baker video. He came to see me do stand-up, and that night he asked me to do a music video. I said, 'If you don't tell me what to do, I'll do it.' I think some people would be intimidated that it's Kanye West, but that shit doesn't impress me, that cockiness. It never has and it never will. The more cocky people are, if you act cocky back to them, they respect it. But he was quite nice about it. I just shot [the video for 'Can't Tell Me Nothing'] at my farm. Will Oldham happened to be visiting me, so we drank some whiskey and shot it. That was basically it."

Zach and Will Oldham' video for Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing":

Youth in Revolt
(filming at press time)
“It’s a movie with Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi, Fred Willard, Jean Smart and Ray Liotta. Youth in Revolt is based on this little book that came out years ago. The script’s really, really good. It is a story about young love and what hormones do when they take over. Cera is the main actor, and I play the boyfriend of his mother. It will be a delight to see.”

G-Force
(in post-production)
“I have this really big movie. This isn’t going to be saying that I sold out at all (laughs), but I’m the lead in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It’s your run-of-the-mill ‘I train guinea pigs how to talk and do military co-op operations’ film. I play a live-action scientist. It is one of the most anticipated talking-guinea-pigs movies to come out in a few years. Will Arnett is in it as well.”

Little Fish, Strange Pond
(in post-production)
“That’s a movie with Matthew Modine. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know where it went; I haven’t even asked. It’s kinda like planting a pumpkin seed and never watering it and leaving your house and going, ‘Well, I hope that pumpkin produces.’ You go do your job. Most of it required me to be hogtied on the floor of an actual porno store. One of those old-fashioned kind, where there are movies playing, movies like Anal-ize This. When your nose is resting on an old carpet in an adult-entertainment store that has been standing strong since the early 1980s, you give a re-think to the path you have chosen.”

Visioneers
(making festival rounds)
“That’s a small little movie that will probably be a cult-classic type of thing. I’m the lead. The performances are really good. It’s just odd enough that you’re kinda like, ‘What the fuck is this movie about?’ But I think that question is in a good way. The writer and director, they’re brothers, and they made this sensitive movie in this absurdity world. I don’t know of a movie that does both; either you do one or the other. This was crazy absurdist stuff with this emotional thing as the denominator. It’s a sweet little movie.”

Back to Rhymes with Crouton: The Touching Story of Zach Galifianakis

1. Zach has ass AIDS and only has a couple of months left to live. It’s really not worth the emotional investment.

2. He refuses to keep Kosher and will not celebrate or even recognize the legitimacy of the High Holy Days.

3. He’s just a fucking standup comic!

4. When asked on national television about the state of standup comedy in America, he said, and I quote: “American standup sucks right now. I’m really one of a very few comedians doing anything interesting or actually funny.”

5. Patton is an unreliable source since undergoing season-ending Tommy John surgery.

Back to Rhymes with Crouton: The Touching Story of Zach Galifianakis

1. Beard.

2. He's the only comedian who fully supports the Iraq war.

3. All the ladies go crazy. Plus some sensitive males.

4. Beard can be shaved into mustache.

5. Hmmmm, hang on, what was number five? I wrote it down on a napkin on the plan. Oh: Can build a winter shelter out of a pair of parkas.

Back to Rhymes with Crouton: The Touching Story of Zach Galifianakis

Talk about a serious bummer: The Comedians of Comedy are calling it quits with a final show July 26. The shindig, called Death to the Comedians of Comedy, happens in San Diego.

What’s struck me so far about Bonnaroo is how friendly everybody is. I suppose some would chalk it up to the festival being in Tennessee, but I'm not so sure-- I'm from Chattanooga, and I've experienced no shortage of surly Tennesseans in my life, most of them in large groups. Plus, almost everyone we talked to yesterday was from out of state-- way out of state. And I can see the draw. This place is just unlike anywhere I've ever been. It's like a little city, but also a county fair, but also a giant backyard party, but also a sprawling, dirty outside mall—an extraterrestrial shanty town plopped down on earth from the planet Tie Dye.

I came to Bonnaroo yesterday looking forward to the music, but as surprisingly tight as Vampire Weekend was last night (they played like a band that's been around longer than three weeks) and as surprisingly big Nicole Atkins' voice is, the best thing I saw was Zach Galifianakis. Bonnaroo has been doing a comedy tent for years, but this was the first time I'd actually gone. I was more familiar with his awkwardly uncomfortable skits, like this ad for Absolut:

If people exploded from stress, there would have to be an elite group of janitors to properly man traffic-prone highways, office cubicles and any professional sports game, ever. In the new film Visioneers, starring comedian Zach Galifianakis and Judy Greer (better known as Kitty from Arrested Development), surely maintenance workers are earning serious overtime in a world where stress explosions becomes a reality. No joke.

Galifianakis plays George Washington Winsterhammerman, an unusually-named dude with a usual existence: wife, kid, comfortable income. Except things seem a bit awry. The Jeffers Corporation, which Winsterhammerman works for, uses an extended middle finger as both its logo and its salutation. Meanwhile, Winsterhammerman's doctor tells him his dreams are pointing to his impending doom.

Written by newcomer Brandon Drake and directed by his brother Jared, the film is set to be released this year.

Watch the (NSFW) trailer here.

Related links:
VisioneersTheMovie.com
Visioneers on IMDb.com
ZachGalifianakis.com

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

We love Zach Galifianakis here at Paste (a lot, like, wasting entire days watching his hundreds of hilarious Internet videos a lot), and the Comedian of Comedy/pianist who likes to introduce himself as "Zatch," well, he loves music.

Ol' Gal pals around with Fiona Apple and Kanye West—last year he and fellow beard aficionado Will Oldham (a.k.a. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) spent a day on Zatch's North Carolina farm filming a countrified lip-dub for 'Ye's "Can't Tell Me Nothing"—so he must've been a natural choice for New York magazine's latest NY x NY event: Indie Rock Trivia featuring Les Savy Fav and Galifianakis.

If you know your !!! from your Dot Dot Dot, gather some like-minded friends and head to the Highline Ballroom on May 21 to compete for what New York calls "super-fantabulous-over-the-top prizes."

When forming your dream triv team, keep in mind that you'll likely be competing with Williamsburg's sharpest hipsters. Then again, there's no way they'll be harder for Galifianakis to please than the youthful audience in this clip:

Tickets to New York magazine's Indie Rock Trivia night are $25 (plus a $3.75 service charge), include a subscription to the magazine, and are available here.

Related links:
ZachGalifianakis.com
Zach Galifianakis on FunnyOrDie.com
YouTube: Zach Galifianakis bemusedly attends a taping of Ellen

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

People not to take interview cues from:

1. That NPR guy who had a painful interview with Sigur Rós.
2. Bill O'Reilly.
3. Zach Galifianakis.

The bearded genius behind his and Will Oldham's alternate video for Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" and a recent Absolut-commissioned advertisement (featuring Tim and Eric) can now add "talk show host" to his colorful work experience. His series Between Two Ferns, posted on FunnyOrDie.com, has already featured a tickle-resistant Michael Cera and now, Jimmy Kimmel.

Watch Galifianakis get barefoot, ask his guest about cocker spaniels and mispronounce every name but his own below:

Related links:
ZachGalifianakis.com
Zach Galifianakis on MySpace
News: Zach Galifianakis stars in Absolut Vodka advertisement

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

Comedian Zach Galifianakis is the creator and star of a new Absolut Vodka ad, made at the company’s request as part of an ongoing series of artist-focused spots.

When Absolut approached Galifianakis about the ad, he agreed on the condition that he could do whatever he wanted with no restrictions. Absolut agreed, and the end result is a textbook example of the comedian’s ridiculously dry sense of humor. Galifianakis asked his friends Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job! to join him in creating the spot, which involves bathrobes, a hot tub and a towering wig that would make Marie Antoinette proud.

When not developing his burgeoning career in marketing, Galifianakis can usually be found out on the road. He was a member of Will Ferrell’s “Funny or Die” comedy tour that hit college campuses across the country last month. Additionally, he will perform in San Diego in April, and at the 2008 Bonnaroo Festival with David Cross, Janeane Garafalo, Jim Norton, Brian Posehn, Mike Birbiglia, John Mulaney and Michelle Buteau.

Dates:

April
8 - San Diego, Calif. @ 4th and B Theatre

June
12-15 - Manchester, Tenn. @ Bonnaroo Festival

Related links:
News: Will Oldham and Zach Galifianakis make video for Kanye
ZachGalifianakis.com
Zach Galifianakis on MySpace

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.