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Tom Shillue
June 7, 2010
June 6, 2010
May 26, 2010
the actress
with the brilliant Ann Carr and Christina Gausas.
March 16, 2010
February 6, 2010
George Lucas on How to Ruin Things
This interview with George Lucas, specifically this response, is a wonderfully succinct answer to “Why were the last three Star Wars films so terrible?”
Q: But the second trilogy certainly had a built-in audience.
GL: Yeah, everyone says the second trilogy was a slam dunk. But there was a lot of controversy around here about the fact that I wasn’t doing the obvious — I wasn’t doing the commercial version of what people expected. People expected Episode III, which is where Anakin turns into Darth Vader, to be Episode I. And then they expected Episodes II and III to be Darth Vader going around cutting people’s heads off and terrorizing the universe. But how did he get to be Darth Vader? You have to explore him in relationships, and you have to see where he started. He was a sweet kid, helpful, just like most people imagine themselves to be. Most people said, “This guy must have been a horrible little brat — a demon child.” But the point is, he wasn’t born that way — he became that way and thought he was doing the right thing. He eventually realizes he’s going down the dark path, but he thinks it’s justifiable. The idea is to see how a democracy becomes a dictatorship, and how a good person goes bad — and still, in the end, thinks he’s doing the right thing.
OK, so he admits that he realized we all wanted to see Darth Vader cutting peoples heads off, and he does just the opposite, forcing everyone to “explore relationships.” You know who likes to explore relationships? My wife. And she walked out of Star Wars, when she was in junior high school! I love that Lucas reported that most people said “This guy must have been a horrible little brat — a demon child.” Really? What people, all the parents at your local PTA meeting?
The whole interview at Wired.
January 28, 2010
Ping Pong Love
I shot this with director Mark Tiedemann in Germany on a Sunday morning after a commercial shoot. We were talking about the idea in the hotel bar the night before with a couple of German guys and we all said, “let’s shoot it!” Usually when that happens, everyone wakes up and says, “Nice idea, but let’s not.” But we didn’t do that. We shot it in the apartment of one of the German guys, and it took half a day. You can see Mark’s other stuff here.
January 19, 2010
Portland with The Moth
This was in the Portland paper after my recent trip there with The Moth. A good review!
The ghost of Garrison Keillor, indeed, hung over the preternaturally easy nature of host Tom Shillue, although he looked a bit more like a cross between a slender Dick Gephardt and Conan O’Brien. Shillue’s humor was broad Caucasian-ethnic: peppered with jokes about how Jews don’t know the difference between Protestants and Catholics, how Italians talk close and funny. I liked him. He was, like Bill Cosby and Ellen DeGeneres and very few others, a humanist comedian un-full of anger. He also reminded me of mid-century Hollywood’s idea of a virtuous small-town mayor, albeit a Catholic one.
November 4, 2009
I Hung with Salman Rushdie
At last week’s Moth event at Galapagos in Brooklyn, “You Say You Want a (R)evolution,” host Tom Shillue compared the uniforms of US soldiers and Afghanistan rebels to the stylings of Storm Troopers and Jedi knights from Star Wars. If that piques your interest, catch him tonight at The Green Room.
August 13, 2009
Moth in Pittsburgh
Building a Bridge: Stories from Both Sides
with host Tom Shillue and local storyteller Terrance Hayes
Emceed by Tom Shillue (regular Daily Show contributor) and with a soundtrack provided by UkuLizzy (aka Liz Hammond), the storytellers entertained and entwined the audience with true stories on the theme “Building a Bridge: Stories from Both Sides”.
Places like this always call me a “Daily Show Regular” even though I haven’t been for a decade. But it’s in my past resume’, and they like to write it, so I don’t go correcting them.
March 6, 2009
Inside Mystery Team
Sean McCarthy writes about the film:
Derrick comedy has a laugh-out-loud hilarious, dark comedy movie on their hands, and if all things go well, soon enough, there will be a distribution deal for Mystery Team. How do I know this? I managed to get in on one of the intimate free screenings in New York City earlier this week, and talked to four-fifths of the team behind Mystery Team
February 24, 2009
“Things Tom Learned…”
A new podcast! It can’t be! Yes, it can. This one was recently recorded live at the 92Y in Soho.This one is really more of a reading. Well, it is a reading, actually.
September 9, 2008
February 5, 2008
April 10, 2007
August 8, 2006
“Thanks, Dad” Tom Shillue Podcast #511
Tom is back! Hear his excuses about why he took so long to post another podcast. Also, why is Tom so interested in the goings on between fathers and their children? Did your father show up at every little league game? And learn about the perils of a New York Sunday brunch.
“It’s all about the story”. Stand-Up Comedian Tom Shillue (from Comedy Central Presents: Tom Shillue) lives up to his reputation as New York’s best comic storyteller with this improvised monologue, recorded live in New York City, at the famed Moonwork: Evening of Original Works.
April 14, 2006
“Dark Side of Shillue” Podcast #510
Tom explores his dark side, if you can call it that. Is Tom really like Claude Rains in Casablanca? Do his loyalties blow with the prevailing wind? Does he stick his neck out for no man? Did he steal lumber from your backyard?
“It’s all about the story”. Stand-Up Comedian Tom Shillue (from Comedy Central Presents: Tom Shillue) lives up to his reputation as New York’s best comic storyteller with this totally improvised monologue, recorded live in New York City, at the famed Moonwork: Evening of Original Works.
January 6, 2006
Part Two of “Jewish Girls” Tom Shillue Podcast #509
This is part two. Tom explains why his adolescent interest in jewish girls became a lifelong pursuit. Well, maybe not lifelong. Perhaps ephemeral is a better word. Even though ephemeral is kind of the opposite of lifelong. But it did come to a happy, if unexpected conclusion.
“It’s all about the story”. Stand-Up Comedian Tom Shillue (from Comedy Central Presents: Tom Shillue) once again lives up to his reputation as New York’s best ephemeral storyteller with this, another largely improvised monologue, recorded live in New York City. This was performed at Moonwork at The Greenwich Village Center on Sullivan Street.
December 26, 2005
“Jewish Girls” (part one) Tom Shillue Live Podcast #508
Another tale from Tom Shillue. This is part one, exploring the great value in a not so multi-cultural upbringing, and how it once opened the door for opportunity and fascination, in the form of teenage jewish girls.
“It’s all about the story”. Stand-Up Comedian Tom Shillue (from Comedy Central Presents: Tom Shillue) lives up to his reputation as New York’s best comic storyteller with this largely improvised monologue, recorded live at Moonwork in New York City.
December 13, 2005
Things I Love About Winter
Long shadows at noon.
