Word: joking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Will Smith used to be able to crack a smile, and to crack up the audience with a joke, a silly song or his elastic, eloquent body English. Lately, though, the most reliable box-office magnet in Hollywood hasn't given himself or his fans much to laugh at. He was a tough, emotionally constipated cop chasing androids in I, Robot, and an ambitious man who loses his job, his home and his wife - everything but his young son - in The Pursuit of Happyness. Except for a romantic holiday in Hitch, the one-time Fresh Prince has become a stolid...
Still, a little more recognition wouldn't go amiss. So here it is, starting with his role in the Beatles. There's a joke that Ringo isn't the world's greatest drummer - he wasn't even the greatest drummer in the Beatles. Record producer Chris Thomas, who worked with George Martin on the Beatles' White Album, begs to differ: "They were a great band and to be a great band you have to have a great drummer." "Ringo rooted everything musically," says Geldof. "He does beats when it's necessary. These songs are all over the place and seamless...
...stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. Ahmed Ahmed, who is an Egyptian-American, likes to complain about how hard it is to pass through airport security because a well-known terrorist shares the same name. If dubious airline officials ask him to prove he's a comedian by telling a joke, Ahmed responds: "Um, I just graduated from flight school?" When that joke bombs (sorry!), he consoles himself with the thought of how frustrated the other Ahmed must get when people mistake him for a comedian. "I'm a terrorist, goddamit...
...Popular though they may be, comedy is no laughing matter in much of the Middle East, where the censors of autocratic regimes keep watch for criticism disguised as satire. (A woman I once met in Syria was jailed for forwarding an e-mail joke about that country's President.) But by comparison, in Lebanon, which hardly has a government, almost anything goes. Indeed, the Axis of Evil arrived just in time to coincide with a season of political farce being performed in Lebanon's parliament, which - deadlocked between factions backed by Iran and by the U.S. - has been unable...
...McCain, when he allows himself to talk about actually being President, recites a litany almost as familiar as the O'Reilly twins joke: He has experience, courage, honor. He often says he's the only true conservative in the race. And indeed, for voters to choose those familiar traits over the smooth optimism of Romney, he would need to be a very true kind of conservative indeed...