Comic Jimmy Pardo hosts the behind-the-Coco-scenes series, The Pardo Patrol, opens “Conan” for Mr. O’Brien’s live audience, hosts the long-running podcast, Never Not Funny, and is a frequent performer at the UCB Theatre. All efforts are smart and consistently hilarious. And, oh yeah, he's a charitable gentlemen. more ›

Both Jon Hamm and "Mad Men" were winners at this weekend's Television Critics Awards - a great actor on a great show but there were better options that the TCA ignored in these and almost every other category. We review the awards categories, give you a news tidbit about FEARnet, and provide you with the TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan. more ›

Actor Jon Hamm's (Mad Men's Don Draper, obviously) secret has started to slip out over the last few years. The handsome, Emmy-nominated thespian is hilarious. Hamm was a recent guest on Never Not Funny, the highly successful comedy (audio and video) podcast hosted by stand-up Jimmy Pardo (LAist Interview,) and produced by Matt Belkap. The rapid-fire three-way banter reveals that, while Pardo has legendary timing and quickness (to which Belknap is a great compliment,) Hamm's comedy chops are enough to earn him comedic leading-man consideration. more ›

Let’s start this weekend with actors directing themselves. Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his directorial debut in Jack Goes Boating, a very quirky romance based on the Off-Broadway play which also starred Hoffman. I can’t swim either, so I’m totally into it. Then Ben Affleck returns to Beantown with The Town, a bank robbery thriller starring him and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) as bank robbers pursued by Don Draper. more ›

Attention-starved and donning a Rip Van Winkle makeover, the world's reddest talk show host, Conan O'Brien, opened his "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television" tour stop last weekend at the Gibson Amphitheatre with a haunting video of the former Tonight Show host appearing as an obese member of ZZ Top jumping alone on a backyard trampoline. more ›

Film festival season approacheth! Since this isn't Phoenixist, we can start with the Hola Mexico Film Festival. The festival opens Thursday at the Arclight with gritty crime drama Bitten Bullet (if you habla Espanol, Edward James Olmos introduces the film in this clip) and, for aficionados, the Opening Night Fiesta featuring Bostich & Fussible of Nortec Collective... more ›

Weekend Edition The Hollywood Reporter put up more analysis of how NBC's bid on the Olympics does have a silver lining. While it's possible that NBC might lose $250 million on advertising during the Olympics broadcast, the network will expect surges in viewing all of its other shows and networks ("The Today Show", CNBC, MSNBC, etc.). more ›

On Sunday, "Dancing with the Stars'" Carrie Ann Inaba and "The Bachelor's" Chris Harrison will be working the Red Carpet for TV Guide Network's coverage of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Earlier this week, LAist had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with the tandem who will be interviewing the biggest stars of the small screen on “Live at the Emmy Awards with Carrie Ann and Chris” from 6:00-8:00 p.m. ET/PT. more ›

A Haunting in Connecticut gets props for casting the radiant Virginia Madsen (and bad-ass Elias Koteas), but significant demerits for wussying out with a PG-13 rating. Once again -- all horror movies should be rated R! Just like in the good old days! As perhaps the world's biggest (and only) Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller fan, I naturally queued up to see Edge of Love when it briefly played in theaters. The movie's not much, but the bathtub scene with Knightley and Miller is definitely worth the price of a rental. Did anyone else tune out like I did after the first season of Mad Men? Grey Garden offers further proof that Drew Barrymore is perhaps the worst successful actress in the universe. Leverage isn't half-bad. Tim Hutton should work more. more ›

Despite sucking and being overwhelmingly patronizing, is looking more and more like a big flop ($4.2M/$37.8M). more ›

After watching tonight's finale of Mad Men, we don't know how we will make it until next season. Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live last night. Maybe SNL's Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women will help us get through the long wait or even get lucky. more ›

While many fans of Wong Kar-wai were disappointed by . If only his artistic instincts were as sharp as his pecuniary ones. more ›