LarryDavidFan.com

Courtesy of the generous folk over at Sony, I will be giving away a poster like the one below, signed by none other than LD himself!
The competition will run for the next 2 weeks finishing on Sunday the 12 June.

To be in the running for this great prize use the form below to answer these three Larry related trivia questions:

1. Whatever Works is not the first time Larry has appeared in a Woody Allen film. What are the 2 previous Woody flicks that had Larry appear in minor roles?
2. Larry left Seinfeld after season 7 but continued to voice a supporting character. Who?
3. In Curb Your Enthusiasm’s, “The Ski Lift”, what actually happened to Larry’s misplaced cell phone?

Read more…

Larry recently talked to John Jurgensen from the Wall Street Journal about Whatever Works. In comparing his and Woody’s comedy, he said:

I am not nearly as ambitious or as smart as he is. I’m dealing pretty much with what people have to deal with in their everyday lives. I don’t take on big things. What I do, pretty much, is make the big things small and the small things big. It’s a comedic device. That works for me.

Mali Elfman from Screencave also recently covered a press conference that Larry attended for the film with co-stars Evan Rachel Wood and Patricia Clarkson:

Did you hang our with a lot of Jewish people to prepare for the role?

Clarkson: I mean you never do that.

David: I’ve never done that. So, yes, that aspect was really unusual. I tried to find as many Jews as I could and be-friend them and talk to them and see what made them tick.

Clarkson: Didn’t you go back and you were bar mitzvah-ed again?

David: Oh, my God (laughing). I went back to Brooklyn and walked the streets and interviewed people, what’s it like being a Jew? How do you behave?

In other news, Meg Ryan has been confirmed as a guest star early in the upcoming seventh season of Curb.

Apologies but I can’t embed the first YouTube video so just click through to view.

Update: The Youtube video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal.  I have added the official NBC video to this page but it may only work for those in North America. Apologies, my hands are tied.

Larry talks to Conan on June 16 about his role in the upcoming Woody Allen film Whatever Works.  He also discusses his divorce, dental hygiene and orgasm regret.

Not as good as his Letterman interview but enjoyable nonetheless.

For one reason oranother I can’t seem to embed the second video so click here to view it.

Curb cast member Jeff Garlin indicated on his Twitter account on the 2nd June that season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm will premiere on HBO on the 20th September. Thanks to fellow fan Jim for spotting it, he has been invaluable in getting Larry related news on here FIRST! I apologise for having been a bit slack on keeping the blog up to date but promise to be on the ball in the run-up to the big night.

Scott Raab of Esquire recently had a “An Extremely Awkward Encounter with Larry David” over a bowl of soup. Among othe things the two find time to discuss the health of their necks, vegetables, hummus, and the Seinfeld curse.

SR: So Curb’s seventh season is coming up. You’re starring in a Woody Allen movie. You’re here in New York City. You walked the red carpet last night at the Tribeca Film Festival. How does it feel to be Larry David?

LD: A lot better than it used to, I can tell you that. Better than having to walk from First Avenue to the West Side because I couldn’t afford to get home at night. Having to eat Chef Boyardee, emptying the pennies in a grocery at three o’clock in the morning to buy Chef Boyardee — it’s better than that. I feel good.

For those wondering, I’ve already wiki’d it and Chef Boyardee is a brand of canned pasta.

Also of note, last month Mark Haris from New York Magazine did a excellent feature on Larry, Woody Allen and the evolution/future of Jewish humour. Whether you agree with its assertions or not, if you appreciate the humour of Larry and where it came from, this is a really interesting read.

Stay tuned, more to come!

The trailer was released on Apple’s website recently. It features Larry quite heavily and from the short clips and one-liners it looks like Larry’s character is a combination of the classic Woody Allen character of past New York movies, and the more abrasive yet equally socially inept “fictional” Larry David we all know and love.

So far it would be fair to say that the reviews have been mixed, though the general consensus that I’ve found that it is mostly enjoyable and that Larry has breathed life into the Woody character that some feel has staled in recent years. I’m very much looking forward to seeing it once it opens in Australia and I’ll be posting my own thoughts as soon as I do.

Sara Vilkomerson of The New York Observer has an excellent feature article (and some wonderful artwork) discussing the film’s history and Woody and Larry’s relationship. The last paragraph of the article has some of the most encouraging words on the movie so far:

By reaching out to Larry David in Whatever Works, Woody Allen has added something to his canon that he might never have gotten on his own. He hired the one working comedian who could put a knife edge on the usual adorableness of the Woody Allen interpreter. Whatever Works may not be an uncompromising masterpiece, but it’s the astonishing collaboration of two uncompromising comic masters of the romantic and tortured New York psyche.

And it works.

Some of the other reviews I’ve been reading (not all positive, to be fair):

Woody Allen’s Whatever Works: preety, preety good - Ben Walters (The Guardian)

Don’t curb your enthusiasm for Woody Allen’s homecoming film – Whatever Works is engaging and funny, and in Larry David, he’s found a new kindred spirit to channel his sensibility.

Whatever Works Review -  Ronnie Scheib (Variety)

Allen the director loses sight of what works. The film lacks breathing room — it rushes forward like a stage play with pre-planned exits and entrances, soliloquies and asides.

Woody ‘Works” magic with new comedy – Roger Friedman (Showbiz411)

Whatever Works” is something of a comic masterpiece, full of trademark Allen raving and ranting but richer and fuller than any comedy he’s made since the days of “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Manhattan,” and “Annie Hall.”

I leave you with a clip from the film that involves Larry’s and Evan Rachel Wood’s characters discussing his “genius”:

By now I’m sure most of you have heard the news. I’ve received a lot of emails and comments from fans making sure I hadn’t missed the report that Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards will star in a “multiple-episode story arc” on the upcoming seventh season of  Curb Your Enthusiasm. All have appeared previously by themselves except for Richards, although for those that remember season 4’s finale, Opening Night, Jerry’s appearance lasted all of two seconds. This is the first time the four will reunite for a scripted TV show since the Seinfeld finale in 1998.

Source: EW.

April 22nd. That’s the date Woody Allen’s upcoming film starring Larry will premiere in New York as reported by IndieWire. Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal was “excited we are opening this year’s Festival with Sony Pictures Classics for the world premiere of Woody’s Whatever Works,” calling it a “uniquely funny addition to his body of work.”

Also of interest, there was a very short clip of the film at the end of the Oscar’s coverage when they showed a few clips of the year’s upcoming films. Have a look at this Youtube video at about the 1:26 mark. You’ll see Larry limp in wearing a dressing gown after which Patricia Clarkson seems to collapse to the floor. It’s not much but its enough to get me excited for a wider release date!

Sony Classics has launched its official website for Whatever Works. At the moment there is nothing more than a single photo, a nice background, and a release date: June 19th Los Angeles and New York.

The Annoyance Theater is auctioning off a walk-on role in the upcoming season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (donated by Jeff Garlin) to help raise funds for Veteran Tony Highhorse, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is trying to raise funds to visit friends and families while he still has time.

The theater is accepting e-mailed bids for the role, to be taped on a date to be determined in Los Angeles between the 1st February to the 7th May. Bids end on January 26th so if like me and you’ve dreamt of being a part of your fave sitcom, check out the details here and help a very worthy cause: http://www.annoyanceproductions.com/tony/curbrole.shtml.

Cheryl Hines confirmed in a panel discussion about her new ABC sitcom, In the Motherhood that she will be returning for a seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, telling the press “Listen, Larry will always love me”.

She also told journalists, “Working with Larry, there’s an ease to it because we get along personally and we sort of have a truth-speaking language that we have with each other”.

Evan Rachel Wood sat down with MoviesOnline.ca to discuss her role in Darren Aronofsky’s new film, The Wrestler. She also talked about her role in Whatever Works and her experience doing comedy with Woody Allen and Larry. The interview is lengthy but well worth the read. When asked how much like his Curb Your Enthusiasm character Larry is, Evan Rachel Wood had this to say:

He is that character. That is him. It’s so funny. I was so excited one time we went out for lunch and something happened with the waiter and she started doing the dirt thing and even wrote it down and said, “This would be good for the show.” And it’s like that thing you have where you’re hanging out with your favorite comedian. You’re like maybe they’ll write about this. He actually did. I don’t know if it’s actually going to end up on the show or not but it’s really funny.

She also confirms that Larry will be playing the “Woody” character that anyone familiar with Allen’s work will recognise, suggesting “he’s probably the only other person that could do that.”