Harry Shearer

Fred Willard's faux-hawk is possibly the best thing about Christopher Guest's "For Your Consideration," a spoof of Oscar season hype co-written with Eugene Levy. It's funny in parts but not half as inspired as past efforts. Still, Willard is a genius at...

If you're familiar with the cult-favorite rock group They Might Be Giants, you won't be needing any encouragement to see the new documentary on the band, "Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)." If you're not already washed in the blood, the answer is more...

Office temps are not ordinarily thought of as heroic figures in the James Bond mold. And transcribing and mailing "17 very important letters" in a timely and professional fashion may not sound like an exceptional challenge. The droll and disarming...

Tuesday May 19, 1998      Godzilla, that gigantic mutant amphibian reptile, is back, bigger and much better than ever, cutting a swath of destruction from Polynesia through Panama and on to Manhattan, where he threatens to trample the entire island...

During the Oscar telecast, Nathan Lane delivered a crack about the Weinstein brothers of Miramax and then mock-apologized. "The rich and powerful," he said. "We make fun of them because we love them." Maybe it's true, because there's a whole lotta love in...

Friday July 11, 1997      "Thrill Ride: The Science of Fun" isn't quite the white-knuckle adventure its promoters claim. Yet it's exciting even without being in 3-D as you might expect from an Imax movie of this kind.      The large-format picture...

Friday July 10, 1998      "Small Soldiers" is a little boy's fantasy of toys come to life. And like small boys it is often charming and funny, occasionally malicious, and finally too focused on gizmos and effects for its own good.      What if,...

Friday June 5, 1998      His gifts as a comic actor are well-known, but who would have thought that Jim Carrey might simultaneously break your heart as easily as he makes you laugh?      It is only one of the accomplishments of "The Truman Show," the...

Friday February 26, 1999      A large-format 3-D movie about the history of 3-D images on film sure sounds like a good idea, but ultimately "Encounter in the Third Dimension" is more a test of endurance than a history lesson or anything resembling...

Wednesday August 4, 1999      Blame it on Bobby Sherman. What are two 15-year-old girls to do? They've just got to make that midnight deadline for posting an entry into the "Win a Date With Bobby Sherman Contest"--he's their singing idol--so what to do...

It's a good thing that Christopher Guest, impresario of the gently faux documentary, wasn't listening when irony was given the boot in the mass media a few years back. Since helping to make cult history with the mock documentary "This Is Spinal Tap,"...

Ahoy, me hearties. In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, all references to "the recall" in today's column will be changed to "making Graybeard Davis walk the plank." Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be referred to by his pirate name,...