In "Lucky Bruce," readers get fresh, amusing stories from Friedman's life in letters — the time he provoked Norman Mailer into a fistfight by mussing his hair at a party, say, or was hired to write a script and introduced to his new secretary, a between-marriages Natalie Wood.
Along the way, the play puts a fresh, amusing spin on well-covered topics, among them parenting, pot and porn, all the while providing just enough substance to shore things up underneath.
Beyond the 60 or so shows that wound up on my three lists, there are at least 50 more scripted endeavors that are worth your while and bring something fresh or amusing or necessary to the table.
The movie received a mixed critical reception with LoveHKFilm.com commending the film as "an effective satire of...Singaporean culture" and noted that the actors "do a credible job representing characters from Singapore's varying social strata", while a Variety review described the movie as "initially fresh and amusing but ultimately too one-note and local in its humor to travel far".
See an exclusive (and amusing) Fresh Dialogues interview with Tom Friedman from the archives, titled: Tom Friedman explains his China Envy.
Most fascinating of all has been the transformation almost overnight of Vettel's public image from cheerful, amusing, fresh-faced prodigy to dark anti-hero after he ignored team orders not to pass Mark Webber to win the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The inspired result is "Results," a fresh, dryly funny take on contemporary relationships with Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders and Kevin Corrigan gamely holding up their ends of one amusing triangle.
Even though he thinks Mafia parodies have been overused, Jacobson thought this one brought "a fresh approach and remains consistently amusing.
The story, an amusing if not especially fresh tale involving a witch and some Puritans, is principally a vehicle for the movie's meticulously detailed pictorial beauty, which turns each scene into an occasion for discovery and sometimes delight.
Writing in The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley said that despite amusing touches, the show is "relentlessly arch and tongue in cheek in a way that seemed fresh when 'Desperate Housewives' began in 2004, but now is less so".
This may not be a terribly fresh idea, but the two lead actors are nimble and unembarrassable enough to render the identity confusion amusing and even, sometimes, touching.
