Life, sex, and death in the modern world.
Harvey Fierstein and Stockard Channing star in the HBO showcase Tidy Endings.
Next.
He told me that he was going to beat out of me, that he was going to take my kids, and
that he would make my life so miserable that I would wish daily that I was dead.
The young woman you just saw was murdered by her ex-husband.
During the next 15 seconds, another act of domestic violence will occur.
But people can be helped, and this epidemic can be stopped.
Please join me, Lee Grant, for America Undercover, battered, beginning September 13th on HBO.
Catch the brightest stars, the biggest hits, the best movies on HBO.
Honored with the 1988 Academy Award for Best Actress, Jodie Foster stars in The Accused
with Kelly McGillis, Brian Dennehy, Stockard Channing, Aidan Quinn, the HBO original movie
for October, The Perfect Witness, The Perfect Victim.
Honored with the Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, Meryl Streep stars in the
drama A Cry in the Dark.
Catch them all, the best movies on HBO.
Amy Irving, the uptown yuppie living the simple single life.
I have everything.
But Grandma has other ideas.
You made an appointment with a marriage broker?
I got some nice boys, fine, respectable boys.
Peter Rieger, one of downtown's nicest pickle packers.
I am not holding my breath.
And the big blind Davis set.
Get it.
This is what I'm waiting for.
Crossing to Lancy may be more than they ever bargained for.
It's a match.
Nah, not so fast.
Premieres Sunday on HBO, the best time on TV.
It's the Wembley Arena, the sizzling, sexy, sensational Diana Ross.
In a tour of her performance, the one and only Diana Ross on HBO World Stage.
Coming Saturday, September 9th.
Hi I'm Matt Lauer for HBO Entertainment News.
When it comes to comedy, there's no place like HBO.
And when it comes to comedy festivals, there's no place like Montreal.
In July, the streets of Montreal became a grand stage for performers from all over the
world during the seventh annual International Comedy Festival.
HBO cameras were there, taping the acts and antics of the more than 250 comedians and street
entertainers who showed up in the name of comedy.
They were certainly not at a loss for audiences.
Almost half a million people turned out for the two week festival to catch the comedy
of such well knowns as Jerry Seinfeld, Rich Hall, Bob Goldthwaite, Rick Dukerman, and Robert
Klein.
It was a wonderful festival, devoting a beautiful city like this to ten days of laughs, what
could beat it.
And HBO was there.
If you weren't able to make it up to Montreal, don't worry because HBO taped the festival's
grand finale featuring the best of the fest.
And it will air as an HBO comedy hour.
The Montreal International Comedy Festival 1989 premiering in November.
While festivals aren't the only place to get a dose of comedy, the latest rage off Broadway
this season is Reno in Rage and Rehab.
A one woman show featuring the talents of an up and coming comedian known simply as
Reno.
I'm Judy Heine on the bank line and she's about ten years younger than me and she's
got one of those power bows on, you know.
Like I'm supposed to be intimidated by somebody who looks like Bozo.
I think people want some substance again and I guess my show has substance.
I mean, you know, I'm angry about some things.
I feel about, I'm passionate about everything I talk about otherwise there's no sense of
talking about.
For years, Reno honed her humor in downtown Manhattan clubs earning only 25 to 30 dollars
per night.
I performed at performance spaces like PS122 and Dixon Place and the Pyramid Club and Limbo
Lounge and places that come and go with the night because they're basically people's living
rooms and often very illegal although the ones that I mentioned are not.
And eventually people said well, Reno, you know, you're really good at this, why don't
you make a living at it?
Rolling Stone magazine agreed and named her Hot Comedy Prospect of 1989.
I brought my bra so this 24 year old broad could trade futures on Wall Street.
Want to trade futures?
Why don't you trade futures with me, huh?
At this point, Reno shouldn't trade futures with anyone.
Hers is looking pretty good.
HBO introduces Reno in her unique special premiering in November.
Another comedian who continues to gain momentum is Robert Townsend.
His fourth HBO special playing the nut role Robert Townsend and his partners in crime
four is currently in the works.
We're playing the nut role.
We're back on HBO and the madness is just beginning.
With the specials, I get the best of both worlds, the best of all worlds.
I get to perform in front of a live audience so that adrenaline is flowing.
Then I get film clips so I can work my skills as a director.
Then I have production numbers that allow me to dance and sing.
The multi-talented Townsend first hit the scene in 1987 with Hollywood Shuffle, a film
financed through his own credit cards.
It was a real learning experience.
I didn't go to film school and so I kind of like taught myself, you know, movie making
by being on the set and watching.
After watching the film's enormous success, Townsend packed up his partners in crime and
shuffled off towards television.
I still am amazed to say that they pay me to do what I do.
You know, I get paid for this.
I mean, it's like I'm just being a kid and having fun.
I mean, it's like, I mean, my partners, we're all kids.
You know, we just happen to be, you know, like, you know, in our twenties and thirties,
you know, and so, but we're still kids.
All kidding aside, Townsend's on a roll, a nut roll.
Besides his HBO special, he's finishing a film titled Heartbeat and has a new comedy
album coming out this October.
But for now, be on the lookout for a most arresting experience with Robert Townsend
and his partners in crime 4 premiering on HBO in September.
That's the latest on HBO productions.
For Entertainment News, I'm Matt Lauer.
A cavalcade of comic capers tonight on HBO.
At 8, the best movies are on HBO as Tom Hanks grows from puny teen to puzzled manhood in
the premiere of Big.
At 10, Jackie Mason's Up Too Far when the snobby meet the slobby on the golf course
in Caddy Jack 2.
And midnight, Lorne Michaels presents the comedy crew of the nineties in a new episode
of The Kids in the Hall, In the Rough, and Off the Cuff tonight on HBO.
I play the role of John Belushi in the film Wired and very few times, it's very seldom
that as an actor you get to play a role like John because I mean someone as diverse and
three dimensional as John was.
You know, he was so, he could do so many things and do them so well that you know as an actor
to be able to get an opportunity to do all those things and to be all those things is
one thing that then when it's someone that you were a fan of as a kid, which I was, it's
amazing, it's fantastic.
John sometimes would act differently in different situations, I mean radically, very differently.
You know, there was this very dark, compulsive side obviously and there was also a very,
very giving, light, loving side and his comedy meets somewhere in the middle between those
two.
The lips, the lips, mm hmm.
The time that it was most striking, the time that the similarity actually affected me was
the Blues Brothers.
When I put on that garb, it's so specific and the little chest of field with the eyes
and the little thing and the hat and the glasses and the suit.
You know, I went, ooh, yeah, that's close.
We had to dance and sing and every time we walked off the stage, you know, it was press
and 700 extras and so many people.
I mean it was one of those days that made me more able to relate to John, really, quite
frankly.
It was like, wow, you know, this is on a very, very small scale, the kind of pressure and
pulling that he must have felt.
I really can't help but think that if John saw this movie, he would like it because it's
his kind of comedy.
I mean it's his kind of humor.
One man dies.
We are not the two widows of Colin Redding.
He's mine.
Mine.
Two people loved him.
So what if I wasn't everything he ever wanted?
Maybe he wasn't everything I ever wanted.
Who gets the memories?
I want you out of my life and I want you to leave Colin alone.
The man is dead.
I don't know how much more alone I can leave him.
A loss shared, a love found.
Stockard Jennings, Harvey Farsday.
Tidy Endings from HBO Showcase, coming up next.
Catch the brightest stars, the biggest hits, the best movies on HBO.
The multi-talented Whoopi Goldberg stars in the comedy drama Clara's Heart, winning friends
forever, nominated for three 1988 Academy Awards.
Francis Ford Coppola's saga Tucker, the man and his dream, nominated for two Academy Awards
including best supporting actor River Phoenix, Running on Empty.
Catch them all, the best movies on HBO.
I happen to be a very well known American actor.
Not that well known.
Jack Noah is a second rate actor who's about to get the lead role in a third world country.
I just don't think that I can do this.
Play the part or I'll kill you.
Make a very good director.
Thank you.
Not like that, with a flip.
With a flip.
Okay, with a flip.
That's right.
I'm flipping, I'm flipping.
Who are you?
I'm an actor.
Oh, you're an actor.
I'm playing the dictator.
I can help you play the part.
This could be the role of a lifetime.
You should get a Oscar for it tonight.
But only if you can manage to stay alive.
Why didn't you get Bobby De Niro?
Richard Dreyfuss, Raul Julia, and Sonia Braga will keep you laughing in this political farce
about improvisation, impersonation, and assassination.
Moon Over Parador, tomorrow on HBO.
Hold on, Bobby De Niro.
Pierce Brosnan is Neal Skinner.
His business partner double-crossed him, sent him to prison, and stole his girl.
Four years later, it's time to get even.
I'm back.
He's trying to give up smoking, you know how that is.
But I'm going to take you.
A battle of wits.
You still make that funny little noise when you make love?
You'll never know.
I have this one chance to get even.
To get respect.
He jumps you, and you jump me, and that's how he jumps me.
You really think I'm capable of double-crossing you after double-crossing Ebbett?
This is one very twisted pretzel, this guy.
Pierce Brosnan, Tom Skerritt, and Wendy Hughes star in the HBO original movie for September.
He had four years to plan his revenge and one week to pull it off.
The heist, getting even, is worth waiting for.
Premieres Saturday, September 16th, only on HBO.
A cavalcade of comic capers tonight on HBO.
At 8, the best movies are on HBO as Tom Hanks grows from puny teen to puzzled manhood in the premiere of Big.
At 10, Jackie Mason's Up Too Far When the Snobby Meet the Slobby on the golf course in Caddyshack 2.
At midnight, Lorne Michaels presents the comedy crew of the 90s in a new episode of The Kids in the Hall, In the Rough, and Off the Cuff, tonight on HBO.
The Kids in the Hall.
The Kids in the Hall.