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When Nora Bridge left her husband and her two daughters 10 years ago, she took the only route she could see, and assumed she still had her daughters' love. Now, though she is distant from her own daughters, Nora is the hostess of a radio advice show, where she advises listeners that "family comes first." When a scandal breaks and Nora hits rock bottom, she finds she has to rely on the two people she has betrayed most deeply: her daughters, Ruby and...
2) Funny girl
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In swinging 60s England, the nation is mesmerized by unlikely comedy star Sophie Straw, the former Blackpool beauty queen who just wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball. Behind the scenes, the cast and crew are having the time of their lives. But when the script begins to get a bit too close to home, and life starts imitating art, they all face a choice. The show's writers, Tony and Bill, comedy obsessives, each harbour a secret....
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"Franny Steinberg knows there's powerful magic in laughter. She's witnessed it. With the men of Chicago off fighting WWII on distant shores, Franny has watched the women of the city taking charge of the war effort. But amidst the war bond sales and factory shifts, something surprising has emerged, something Franny could never have expected. A new marvel that has women flocking to comedy clubs across the nation: the Showstopper. When Franny steps into...
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Dana Diaz is an aspiring stand-up comedian--a woman in a man's world. When she meets a tough computer programmer named Amanda Dorn, the two bond over their struggles in boys' club professions. Dana confides that she's recently been harassed and assaulted while in L.A., and Amanda comes up with a plan: they should go after each other's assailants, Strangers on a Train-style. But Dana finds that revenge, however sweet, draws her into a more complicated...
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In 1977, aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents, and veteran of countless USO tours to boost morale, is kidnapped by the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People's Revolutionary Army who want to bring their cause back to life.
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"Jen has dumped Andy, and he's handling the breakup in exactly the way all his friends and family might have expected: very, very badly. Crashing at his mother's house and obsessively photographing his hairline, Andy embraces the rites and rituals of every breakup-the ill-advised decision to move onto a houseboat, the forced merriment of a lads' night out, the accidental late-night text to the ex-all resulting in a never-ending shame spiral. Even...
9) Unscripted
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When seventeen-year-old Zelda is chosen for an elite team at a prestigious improvisation camp, it is a big step toward achieving her dreams, but first she must survive her teammates' sexism and coach's cruelty.
10) Starburst
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The annual Edinburgh International Festival, which celebrates film, music, and comedy, brings thousands to the beloved Scottish town each summer. This year, the festival draws six unique and vibrant individuals, who all come together to follow their dreams—seeking success, love, fame, or simply happiness. Each of these incredibly well-crafted and intriguing characters is trying to discover their destiny, and during this one magnificent summer,
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Caryl Phillips has received international acclaim for his works, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and membership in the Royal Society of Literature. Dancing in the Dark brilliantly re-creates the life of Bert Williams, the first black entertainer to achieve stardom in America. In 1896, when Bert decides to perform his stage routine in blackface, he is accused of reviling his race even as he becomes a star in...
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By turns graceful and knowing, funny and moving, Niagara Falls All Over Again is the latest masterwork by National Book Award finalist and author of The Giant’s House, Elizabeth McCracken.
Spanning the waning years of vaudeville and the golden age of Hollywood, Niagara Falls All Over Again chronicles a flawed, passionate friendship over thirty years, weaving a powerful story of family and love, grief and loss. In it,...
Spanning the waning years of vaudeville and the golden age of Hollywood, Niagara Falls All Over Again chronicles a flawed, passionate friendship over thirty years, weaving a powerful story of family and love, grief and loss. In it,...
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The funny man is a middling comic in an unnamed city. By day he takes care of his infant son, by night he performs in small clubs, sandwiched between other aspiring comics. His wife waits tables to support the family. It doesn't sound like much, but they're happy, more or less. Until the day he comes up with it. His thing. His gimmick. And everything changes. He's a headliner, and the venues get bigger fast. Pretty soon it's Hollywood and a starring...
14) The Fisher Boy
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The past comes rearing up to bite the next generation when a son digs too deep into his family's past.... Martin Firestone can't figure why his father, the eccentric painter Leo Firestone, is throwing a fit. All Martin did was tell his dad he'd been accepted to medical school.
Then, Leo tells Martin a story about his own father, Dr. Samuel Firestone, an extraordinarily gifted doctor and a living legend in the small city of Hobart, NJ, but a man with...
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Dylan O'Connor is attacked by a mysterious man who informs him that he is now a carrier of a disease that will either kill him or transform his life. Dylan, his autistic brother Shep, and Jillian Jackson who is another carrier, run from their enemies, but soon discover that they are drawn to crime scenes just before the crime occurs.
16) New adult
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Boy meets boy volume 3
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"Twenty-three-year-old Nolan Baker wants it all by the time he's thirty. Too bad he's single, barely able to cover his own expenses, and still paying his dues at a prominent NYC comedy club. When faced with his perfect sister's wedding, Nolan takes it as a wakeup call. It's time to quit comedy and make good on his practical dreams-most importantly, asking Drew Techler, his best friend, to be his date. But right as Nolan is about to give it all up,...
17) Heckler
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Hollywood stand-up comedian turned amateur sleuth Biff Kincaid is called at the last minute to headline a comedy club inside a sprawling resort on the Las Vegas Strip. He's thinking big laughs and good times are all that's in store when he boards the next plane to Sin CIty. He has no idea that the real gig won't be just headlining a showroom - it's solving a murder.
It turns out he's filling in for his friend and fellow comic Tiger Moore. Tiger was...
18) Killer material
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Some kinds of thievery cause not only material loss but outrage--Great Aunt Annie's cameo brooch, for instance. Or a stand-up comic's routine. So when Bill Kincaid, standing in at the last minute for a friend who unexpectedly cancels his gig, finds that another comic working there that night has taped his act, he is mad!
Turns out there's a lot more involved than the theft of a clutch of hilarious one-liners, no matter how important that can be to...
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It could be said that in this episode Groucho Marx operates as a Hollywood-style Scarlet Pimpernel, with a repertoire of outrageous puns covering the steely, daring life of a counterspy. But, as Groucho might retort, his cover is at the dry-cleaner, and, besides, Groucho is not one to hide his light under any bushel (even one of stuffed clams). So he and Frank Denby, his sidekick, scriptwriter and close friend, set out to uphold their reputation as...
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"June Bloom is a broke, cynical twenty-nine-year-old writers' assistant on the late-night comedy show, Stay Up with Hugo Best. Hugo Best is in his sixties, a beloved icon of TV and humor, and a notorious womanizer. After he unexpectedly retires and a party is held for his now unemployed staff, June ends up at a dive bar for an open-mic night and prepares for the sad return to the anonymous comedian lifestyle. What she's not prepared for is a run-in...