79 Results for : comically
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Great Expectations: The Audible Dickens Collection , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 1239min
In this Audible Exclusive performance by Matt Lucas of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens demonstrates that conscience, loyalty and empathy are virtues far more valuable than intellect, wealth and social standing. First published in Dickens’ own periodical, All the Year Round, the novel was divided into nine monthly instalments, from December 1860 to August 1861. Unsurprisingly, it was an instant success and managed to sell over 100,000 copies per week. Though written at a challenging time in Dickens’ life, when the impending breakdown of his marriage loomed over him, Great Expectations proves to be one of his most optimistic, comical and romantic novels. This exclusive recording of Great Expectations starts with a unique introduction written and narrated by Howard Jacobson, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Finkler Question, in which he explains why Great Expectations is his favourite Dickens title. About the book Through a rich first-person narrative, listeners are introduced to the character of young Pip as he visits the tombstones of his beloved parents. Unexpectedly confronted by the dark and mysterious Magwitch, a convict in desperate need of food, Pip must decide whether to aid or impede the stranger standing in front of him - a decision which will shape the course of his life. Introducing some of the most iconic, Gothic and comically repulsive literary characters of all time, from the vengeful Miss Havisham, torn apart by a man she once loved, to her beautiful yet seemingly impenetrable ward, Estella, the listener is propelled through a wonderfully Dickensian world. About the author Much like Pip, Charles Dickens was born into poverty. In his case, it was due to the incarceration of his father, and Dickens was forced to set aside his education in order to work at a nearby factory. Amazingly, this did not deter the young Dickens from rising above his st ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Matt Lucas, Howard Jacobson. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/034165/bk_adbl_034165_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
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Love’s Labours Lost , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 149min
Sir Derek Jacobi and cast perform another Shakespeare classic which has been released for the first time as a digital download. The play opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women - Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than the others. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it would be suicidal for the King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says, insisting that the ladies make their camp in the field outside of his court. The King and his men comically fall in love with the princess and her ladies. The main story is assisted by many other humorous sub-plots. A rather heavy-accented Spanish swordsman, Don Adriano de Armado, tries and fails to woo a country wench, Jaquenetta, helped by Moth, his page, and rivalled by Costard, a country idiot. We are also introduced to two scholars, Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, and we see them converse with each other in schoolboy Latin. In the final act, the comic characters perform a play to entertain the nobles, an idea conceived by Holofernes, where they represent the Nine Worthies. The four Lords - as well as the Ladies' manservant Boyet - mock the play, and Armado and Costard almost come to blows. At the end of this 'play' within the play, there is a bitter twist in the story. News arrives that the Princess's father has died and she must leave to take the throne. The king and his nobles swear to remain faithful to their ladies, but the ladies, unconvinced that their love is that strong, claim that the men must wait a whole year and a day to prove what they say is true. This is an unusual ending for Shakespeare and Elizabethan comedy. A play mentioned by Francis Meres, Love's Labour's Won, is sometimes believed to be a sequel to this play. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Derek Jacobi, Geraldine McEwan, Jeremy Brett, Ian Richardson. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/hcuk/000895/bk_hcuk_000895_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
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Born a Crime
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New York Times • USA Today • San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • Esquire • Newsday • Booklist Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa's tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man's relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother-his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love. Praise for Born a Crime "Compelling . . . By turns alarming, sad and funny, [Trevor Noah's] book provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah's family, at life in South Africa under apartheid. . . . Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author's remarkable mother."-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times- Shop: buecher
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The Fuzzy Dice Man Cometh
In the summer of '63, at the age of 11, Buck formed his first band, The Centuries . An April Fools 2012 epiphany urged Buck to pick up where he left off 38 years ago. That same year on August 16th, Buck purchased the Quantum Leap East-West Silver Orchestra On-A-Disc. In April 2013 he enrolled in school to continue his edification in composition, arranging and orchestration. The following collection was produced during the period of May 2012 to July 2013. The Breakfast in Bed Ballet (4:45) This piece is an adaptation of a ballad I had written called I Can Live with That. The lyrics open with awaking to the dawn with your loved one beside you. The bouncy melody in the chorus suggested a dance, ergo ballet. I was compelled to add additional cadences and an interlude before the final chorus. The chorus ends on a comically sour note denoting it's time get out of bed and face reality. Soundtrack for your Nightmares (1:34) Based on Thirteen Flutes a-Floating (read about it's conception below). In this version the X-axis denotes the musical pitch while the Y-axis represents time. I like listening to this before I go to bed. String Section One (4:13) This started out as an exercise in modulation and articulation for a string quartet, but it got of control. I did what I could to pull the reins in, but it needed that Contrabass. And it started out as a sweet melody with thoughtful chord changes but rock chord changes are a part of my psyche, so I couldn't resist using them in the "chorus." I consider them, "Neapolitans." Due to the forceful articulation, it is recommended that string players use their worst instrument. Temple Bells (3:04) An upbeat festive theme based on the Mongolian/Chinese pentatonic scale. It has a seasonal taste suitable for the Christmas holidays. The violas get the pluck pizzicato-ed out of them. A Hole-in-One (3:47) Based upon a song I had written using golf as a metaphor for hope and eventual triumph. Picture a fairway with a green flag in the distance, on it the number 1 flapping in the breeze. Experience the excitement, the exhilaration, that rush of adrenaline accompanying the heraldic victory of spotting your ball wedged between the side of the cup and the flag pole. I suck at golf, but I'm not bad at "putt-putt" (miniature golf). Even there, watching your ball bounce off the shallow brick wall bordering the green, ricocheting off a rock positioned in the middle of the path, and down across the lie from hell into the cup is pretty cool. Washboards are used to introduce the basic rhythm sequence at the beginning. Washboards were employed because they suggested a hand scrub cleaning and I understand that golfers scrub their balls before teeing off. Thirteen Flutes a-Floating (1:29) It's your freshman year in Music College and it's 1970 and you're eighteen and you got no gig and it's Saturday night and you're staring at a lava lamp on the dining table in a friend's apartment on the Northwest side of Chicago and there's a steno pad with a marking pen on the table and it's within reach and you decide to draw the globular activity in the lava lamp in phases and look at the lines on the paper and see a music staff and imagine a grid where the horizontal lines (X-axis)denote time moving from top to bottom and the vertical lines (Y-axis) and the space to the right of each line denote the pitch moving from right to left and wherever an image appears a musical note of predetermined pitch and duration is played by one or more of thirteen flutes you chose because you're Major is in Woodwind Performance and your friend has a flute. Please note: This composition was performed a year later at Triton College. There weren't enough flutists so clarinets were substituted. The title is derived from the Twelve Days of Christmas and the sound of water droplets echoing in a cave. I don't what prompted me to add the sound effect. But I like it. March of the Mouth Puppets (3:56) A 12-tone melody was derived from the roll of twelve musician's dice. (Twelve 12-sided die, each side notated with a note from our chromatic scale.) Artistic liberty intervened and two notes were switched. Four underlying chords were determined by the dice as well by rolling four sets consisting of three dice. Artistic liberty was again applied to determine the triads. In the beginning the 12-note theme is stretched over 16 bars and later presented in 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 note patterns in a fugue-like form. Outside the serialism is the Tuba playing a melodic bass line based on the aforementioned triads and 12-tone theme. The Tuba is a sealed 55-gallon barrel holding back a chromatic beast wanting to free itself of the barrel's melodic restraints. Toward the end of the "fugue" I thought the piece was going to explode. The orchestration is designed to sound like a marching band, locked in step to the beat of an ominous bass drum, the instruments saying the same fearful thing, over and over, drumming it in, only with a different annoying tone of voice, especially that bitchy piccolo. Of course the marching band is a metaphor for the pundits that permeate our meta-media with their propaganda. Chance Constellation Observation 1930 (2:19) This a representation of "Constellation According to the Laws of Chance -1930" artist: Jean (Hans) Arp. A grid where both the X and Y- axis determine the pitch and the Z-axis representing note time/duration is a series of concentric rings. The scales used are whole tones starting on C and C#. At the center of the rings are C4 and C#4. C4 is plotted along the vertical axis going up to the C7s and going down to the C1s. C#4 is plotted along the horizontal axis going right to the C#7s and going left to the C#1s. Time begins in the center and moves outward through each ring in clockwise fashion. The rings are divided into quarters with each quarter segment being one beat in 4/4 time. Wherever the black and white images appear there is a note. On occasion artistic license was applied. From Inside the Zodiac Ride at the Cosmic Carnival (7:51) Imagine you're on a carnival ride on which the Astrocab you're in glides along rails in 7/8 time. From the rail on the left emanates the sound of intermittent twinkling stars provided by a harp playing a B7sus4 pad. And on the right, that rail carries an intermittent electrical hum produced from a low-end string section consisting of violas, cellos, and basses playing with the same B7sus4 pad. Entering the ride and following the Zodiac the composition opens with Aquarius (January) and ends with Capricorn (December). Two schools of thought start the zodiac with the key of C Major (Aquarius) stepping through a cycle of fifths and ending in F Major (Capricorn), or starting in Bb Major moving chromatically and ending on A Major. For this piece both keys were juxtaposed in poly-chordal fashion (IE: C Major over Bb Major, G Major over B Major, etc.). This limited the scales of each double-key to six notes, sometimes five. Artistic license was applied on a few occasions. Each sign of the Zodiac receives approximately 30 seconds of treatment. Aquarius the Water Carrier (Air) January Pisces the Fish (Water) February Aries the Ram (Fire) March Taurus the Bull (Earth) April Gemini the Twins (Air) May Cancer the Crab (Water) June Leo the Lion (Fire) July Virgo the Virgin (Earth) August Libra the Scales (Air) September Scorpio the Scorpion (Water) October Sagittarius the Centaur (Fire) November Capricorn the Goat (Earth) December Follow the Boson Ball (2:30) This is an adaptation of the Higgs Boson (ATLAS Preliminary data) sonification by Domenico Vicinanza. On July 4, 2012, the Higgs boson, an elementary particle, was possibly discovered at CERN. Domenico Vicinanza, a professional composer and particle physicist, took the preliminary Higgs data points from the CERN data and assigned notes to each of the numbers. At 60 beats per minute, the musical piece consists of fifty-eight 16th notes and centers on the key of C Major. This adaptat- Shop: odax
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American Dad!: Volume 11
Get ready for full-scale hilarity and huge laughs with this all-new collection of American Dad! Episodes from the comically oversized minds of Mike Barker, Matt Weitzman and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Bulging with celebrity guest voices, including Kristin Chenoweth, Ted Danson, Kim Kardashian, Dean Norris, Mickey Rooney and Uma Thurman, this outrageous assortment finds Stan miniaturized after seeing a shrink, Steve embracing his inner lesbian, Roger crushing on a crash-landed alien, and the return of Jeff from space.- Shop: odax
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Yesterday / Pitch Perfect
Two-disc set includes: Yesterday (2019)After a decade's struggles, British busker Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) had accepted that musical glory would never come. However, he awoke after an accident to find he was the only person alive who remembered The Beatles-and as he rides the Lennon-McCartney song catalog to immediate global acclaim, will he lose the girlfriend/manager (Lily James) who'd always stood by him? Danny Boyle's engaging tribute-musical/fantasy-with songs performed by Patel-co-stars Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran. 117 min. C/Rtg: PG-13 Pitch Perfect (2012)After a disastrous showing at last year's national competition, Barden University's female a capella group is looking for new blood. Can alt-girl freshman and reluctant recruit Beca (Anna Kendrick) help them freshen up the act and bring them into harmony with the school's arrogant boys' team? Comically choral charmer co-stars Skylar Astin, Anna Camp, Ben Platt, Brittany Snow, and Rebel Wilson as Fat Amy. 112 min. C/Rtg: PG-13 Widescreen, Soundtracks: English, DVS Dolby Digital stereo, French, Subtitles: English (SDH), French, Spanish, alternate opening, alternate ending, deleted scenes, extended scenes, gag reel, featurettes, audio commentary, more.- Shop: odax
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The Office: Season Two
It's time to clock in for Season Two of The Office, the comically honest look at the world of white-collar employment. Steve Carell won a Golden Globe for his role as Michael Scott, the sometimes pathetic but always hilarious regional manager of Dunder-Mifflin paper supply company. Join him and the amazing ensemble cast (Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer and B.J. Novak) as Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam and Ryan navigate the hidden romance and open absurdity of the business world, from the Christmas party to sexual harassment training to the Booze Cruise retreat to the heartbreak of Casino Night. Developed by Greg Daniels (King of the Hill, The Simpsons), fully staffed with all 22 outrageous episodes and packed with hours of laugh-out-loud bonus features, The Office: Season Two is the must-own cure for the workday blues.- Shop: odax
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Girls' Night In: 5-Movie Collection
Five-disc set includes: Bridesmaids (2011)Kristen Wiig co-wrote and stars in this raunchy comedy from "Freaks and Geeks" creator Paul Feig. Romantically challenged and financially troubled, Annie (Wiig) tries to rise to the occasion when she's tapped to be her best friend's (Maya Rudolph) maid of honor. But will Annie's competition with a controlling bridesmaid (Rose Byrne) bring the wedding plans crashing down? With Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, an uncredited Jon Hamm, and Jill Clayburgh (in her final film). R-rated version, 125 min./Unrated version, 131 min. C/Rtg: NR Pitch Perfect (2012)After a disastrous showing at last year's national competition, Barden University's female a capella group is looking for new blood. Can alt-girl freshman and reluctant recruit Beca (Anna Kendrick) help them freshen up the act and bring them into harmony with the school's arrogant boys' team? Comically choral charmer co-stars Skylar Astin, Anna Camp, Ben Platt, Brittany Snow, and Rebel Wilson as Fat Amy. 112 min. C/Rtg: PG-13 Trainwreck (2015)Amy (Amy Schumer, who also scripted) is a hard-drinking, sexually open magazine writer who has grown up convinced that monogamy is not only undesirable, but also impossible. That is, until she meets and begins dating charming sports doctor Aaron (Bill Hader). They start to fall for each other, but can the commitment-phobic Amy change her ways and take a chance on finding true love? Director Judd Apatow's racy comedy also stars Tilda Swinton, Colin Quinn, and LeBron James as himself. R-rated version, 125 min./Unrated version, 129 min. C Sisters (2015)Unemployed, irresponsible Kate (Tina Fey) and straight-laced, recently divorced Maura (Amy Poehler) are fortysomething sisters who are shocked to learn that their parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) have sold their childhood home. The ladies decide to do what any pair of grown women would do in that situation-get their friends and neighbors together for one last wild party. What could possibly go wrong? Maya Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz, John Cena also star in this riotous comedy. R-rated version, 118 min./Unrated version, 123 min. C Girls Trip (2017)When she's asked to address the Essence Festival in New Orleans, self-help media diva Ryan (Regina Hall) decides to invite her college-days crew-scuffling gossip blogger Sasha (Queen Latifah), uptight divorced mom Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith), and never-grew-up loose cannon Dina (Tiffany Haddish)-to have their first reunion in years. Their weekend's escapades will make even the Big Easy blush, in this raucous comic confection. Larenz Tate, Mike Colter, Kate Walsh also star. 122 min. C/Rtg: R- Shop: odax
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