Hulk a Smash hit at box office

First things first, go see The Incredible Hulk at the movie theaters as soon as you can. If you think that it's worse than the Ang Lee-directed one from 2003, you are far wrong. Everything is paving the way for The Avengers, due out in July 2011.

Steve Carell gets smart.

Carell may moonlight on movies, but he's kept his day job at "The Office," the NBC comedy.

Carell won a Golden Globe for his role as Michael Scott, the socially-inept office boss. But he's never actually worked in an office: "I've waited tables, I've worked for the U.S. Postal Service, I worked in the produce department of a supermarket, but I have never worked in an office."

In fact, Carell planned to be a lawyer, but his parents told him to follow his heart. So he moved to Chicago and joined the famed comedy troupe Second City.

"It was just so much fun," Carell said. "And you just felt you were fooling around and playing and getting paid for it. That was like a fantasy job."

At Second City, he met his future wife, Nancy, and another future comedy star, Stephen Colbert.

Colbert helped him land a job as a correspondent on "The Daily Show," covering the 2000 Election.

After several supporting film roles, Carell pitched his own movie idea to filmmaker Judd Apatow.

"I pitched it and he had this look on his face. And he said, 'I could sell that movie today. I could get on the phone and I could call someone and we could sell it.'"

He did, and together they co-wrote "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," with Apatow the director and Carell the title character who truly suffered for his art.

He said the chest-waxing "looked horrendously painful, it was really. The women who worked on the crew, they all told me, 'Maybe you should take some ibuprofen.'"

I don't know how he does it but more power to Donald Etra.

Adam Sandler has done it again. He's given Jewish audiences something to appreciate.

For the Jewish viewer, the film has a special appeal, with its iconic Jewish star tackling the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, according to the senior vice president of media relations at the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, Steve Elzer, the grosses for “Zohan” were “particularly strong” in Los Angeles, New York and South Florida, regions with heavily concentrated Jewish populations.[...]

Sandler is certainly a drawing point for the young Jewish male demographic. The actor, who is known for his lowbrow humor, was rated in 2001 as the second most popular Jewish male celebrity, after Jerry Seinfeld, in a poll of Jewish graduate students. But another factor may explain why “Zohan” has been so appealing to the under-30 Jewish set: It represents the first time that an Israeli — and the attendant Israeli-Palestinian conflict — has been given a comic turn in Hollywood.

Yiddish can sometimes make for strange bedfellows such as NBC News anchor Brian Williams.

Among the boldface names slated to appear at the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene’s June 17 annual gala at New York’s Town Hall, there is one that doesn’t immediately bring to mind thoughts of the Yiddish stage: “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams. But as devoted readers of The Shmooze will know, the newsman is not just a pretty face with a fancy job; he’s also something of a Yiddish buff, from whose tongue words like shpilkes and keynehoreh roll with the same ease as the day’s headlines.

It's time for Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel to face the end of times in Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse.