Satire

JON BENJAMIN HAS A VAN Starring: H. Jon Benjamin, Leo Allen, Nathan Fielder, Gary Wilmes On: Comedy Central Time: Tonight, 10:30-11 H. Jon Benjamin is best known for his voice work on animated shows. He’s currently Archer on “Archer’’ and Bob on “Bob’s Burgers,’’ and his resume includes “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist’’ and “Home Movies.’’ Why, he’s just about TV ’toon royalty. But henceforth, I hope, Benjamin will also be known as the lead crazy in “Jon Benjamin Has a Van,’’ a new Comedy Central series in which he actually shows his balding...

The UMass Lowell Connector has published an end-of-the-year satirical issue, typically dubbed the Disconnector, for a number of years. But this year, some are saying the student-run newspaper took the joke too far. "It is their annual satire edition, which has been coming out for years, and up until this year it really hadn't crossed the line," Dean of Student Affairs Larry Siegel said. "This year, almost the entire university community, and predominantly our student leaders, believe that it crossed that line.

PARIS - A firebombing that destroyed the offices of a French satirical weekly newspaper that "invited" the Prophet Mohammed to be its guest editor was denounced yesterday by Muslim leaders and politicians from all sides. But behind the public show of unity was a fear that the spoof could trigger a wave of violent protests among Western Europe's largest Muslim population, and beyond. No one was injured in the blaze, which started around 1 a.m. in the offices of Charlie Hebdo in eastern Paris, hours before the issue featuring a caricature of Mohammed on its front page hit the newsstands.

Local political junkies have a couple of interesting events they can take in this week. On Tuesday, comedian Bill Murray will moderate a Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University as political satirist James Downey is presented an award for his work at "Saturday Night Live. " Murray, who started on the show the same year as Downey, will moderate the discussion on Downey's long-running career in political satire. This event is free, open to the public, and will be held from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Walsh Theatre at Suffolk University.

Anyone who has ever argued that feminists have no sense of humor needs to go directly to the Stuart Street Playhouse, where "Broad Comedy" is settling in on Saturday nights for an open-ended run. If this irreverent, giddy, snarky-perky collage of satire, sketch comedy, and cheerleading doesn't make you laugh, then either you are incapable of laughter or you are Dick Cheney. Or, of course, both. The six members of the "Broad Comedy" troupe, led by writer/composer/director/performer Katie Goodman, get the audience warmed up before letting loose with the more political numbers of the 90-minute...

WELLFLEET — Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s plays go over the top and then keep going — until the bottom drops out. At times scabrously funny, crude to the point of incredulity, and relentlessly satirical, they would be brilliant if only they were . . . brilliant. That is, if they were as smart and original as their author evidently thinks they are. Instead, they’re merely clever and mean. And while that can be fun for a while — in a late-night sketch, say, or a high-school cafeteria — over the course of a full-length play it starts to wear a little thin.

CAMBRIDGE -- How do we know if we can handle the truth if it's impossible to tell what the truth is? In a world in which one ranting voice drowns out another and 24-hour news channels careen from the war in Iraq to Tom Cruise's personal life, it's getting harder than ever to tell what's what. Enter the Civilians, a vibrant sextet of satirists who charge their way into our contemporary Tower of Babel, taking the measure of what we know and what we don't know. Or what we think we know and what we think we don't know.

Has Ryan Landry gone straight? Just one look at him as Buffy Loman, daughter of Wilma, in his heavily padded brassiere, long blond wig, and spangly red high heels will tell you that he's not that kind of straight. But amid all the usual gender-bending high jinks in his new show, there is a serious, sad side to "Death of a Saleslady. " Landry tends to pick top American artists to send up in his often hysterical satires, such as Tennessee Williams in "Pussy on the House" and Edward Albee in "Who's Afraid of the Virgin Mary?"

Alain Mabanckou’s river of consciousness novel, “Broken Glass,’’ examines the colonial heritage and current social (dis)order experienced by people in his native Congo. Mabanckou, a high velocity, much vaunted author who has published five books of poetry and seven novels since 1995, teaches Francophone literature at UCLA. He sets this picaresque satire in a seedy bar, Credit Gone West, in the Trois-Cents district of Congo-Brazzaville and fills the stools with outsized characters like Broken Glass, Pampers, the Printer, Robinette, and Stubborn Snail.

"Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk. " So says Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), tobacco lobbyist extraordinaire, in the ridiculously entertaining satire "Thank You for Smoking. " Like its protagonist, the movie is smart, soulless, glib, and utterly charming -- just the thing to warm up a movie season that's been late to bloom. Sticking close to the 1994 Christopher Buckley novel from which it's adapted, "Thank You for Smoking" gives the devil his due in the person of Nick, an unapologetic proponent of the all-American right to puff yourself to death.

"I never had any intention of urinating on Sarah Palin," one of the two mismatched narrators informs us toward the end of "Lunatics," the screwball comedy of errors co-written by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. It's a significant moment, not only for its ability to project Snapple from a reader's nostrils onto the printed page, but because it captures the novel's lowbrow humor aimed at leaders who could stand to loosen up a little. The story recounts the madcap adventures of Philip Horkman and Jeffrey Peckerman, a straight man/funny man pair of New Jersey dads who are, through an absurd series...

For readers who relish a traditional mystery with a satiric edge, perfect for a cozy fireside read, try G.M. Malliet's "Wicked Autumn. " It's set a world away from London and a breath away from Agatha Christie's St. Mary Meade in Nether Monkslip, a quaint, isolated village with copious bucolic charm but not a smidge of ethnic diversity. Where once there were blacksmiths and wheelwrights, now shopkeepers peddle New Age crystals and organic jellies and jams. The story opens with the formidable Wanda Baton-Smythe organizing the village's annual Harvest Fayre as if she were staging...

Agatha Christie awake and return! You have a rival in the chess world, one Andrew Soltis, a premier columnist for Chess Life for many years, a NY Post chess columnist and author of many chess texts, and an accomplished tournament player. He has written a book, "Los Voraces 2019" (McFarland) or shall we say a chess satire wrapped in an engaging mystery that competes with the very best of whodunits. "Los Voraces" concerns a tournament heavily endowed in the will of a deceased wealthy businessman that provides abundant and irresistible appearance fees and prizes for the greatest...

Who: Linda Keenan What: Keenan, a New York City transplant now living in Wellesley, is the author of "Suburgatory," a new fictional, semi-autographical book that takes sharp, satiric aim at life in the suburbs. Q. "Suburgatory," the ABC series about a New York teenager transplanted to the suburbs, was based on your book proposal. But in the book, the transplant is an urban mother. What was your proposal, exactly? A. It was about me being a very urban speed junkie, cast out into what I called "suburgatory" and feeling very...

PARIS - A firebombing that destroyed the offices of a French satirical weekly newspaper that "invited" the Prophet Mohammed to be its guest editor was denounced yesterday by Muslim leaders and politicians from all sides. But behind the public show of unity was a fear that the spoof could trigger a wave of violent protests among Western Europe's largest Muslim population, and beyond. No one was injured in the blaze, which started around 1 a.m. in the offices of Charlie Hebdo in eastern Paris, hours before the issue featuring a caricature of Mohammed on its front page...

A teacher friend of mine has written the first draft of a novel and asked me to give him notes. I want it to be my best effort – he's a decent writer, and with some polishing, this could be a good young adult novel. What advice can you give me about approaching it as a project, as opposed to something I'd read for pleasure? I spend my days reading the tortured prose and florid poetry of the newly pubescent. What he has given me is a little beyond what I'm used to! K.B. / Fort Worth, Texas It sounds as though you've gotten the most important prep work done – figuring out what...

Until it spins manically out of control in the last act, “Easy A’’ is a charmer: a high school satire with a lethally sharp script and a big, smart, adorable star performance from Emma Stone. The movie bites off much more than it can chew — virginity and the double standards surrounding it, social media, Jesus freaks, gay teens, and the 1995 Demi Moore version of “The Scarlet Letter’’ are just some of the targets it skewers — but it’s nice that someone’s at least trying to push us out of our comfort zone.

"I never had any intention of urinating on Sarah Palin," one of the two mismatched narrators informs us toward the end of "Lunatics," the screwball comedy of errors co-written by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. It's a significant moment, not only for its ability to project Snapple from a reader's nostrils onto the printed page, but because it captures the novel's lowbrow humor aimed at leaders who could stand to loosen up a little. The story recounts the madcap adventures of Philip Horkman and Jeffrey Peckerman, a straight man/funny man pair of New Jersey dads who are,...

**½ ATTACK THE BLOCK Written and directed by: Joe Cornish Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, and Nick Frost At: Kendall Square Running time: 88 minutes Rated: R (monsters, drugs, profanity, violence, blood, guns) There's a smart moment in the new alien-invasion action-comedy "Attack the Block" in which a young black hood named Moses (John Boyega) speculates that the monsters roving around his South London high-rise apartment complex must have been sent from the government to kill black people.

A film with just half of the cast of “Salvation Boulevard’’ would be well worth seeing. But despite the talents of Greg Kinnear, Pierce Brosnan, Marisa Tomei, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Ciaran Hinds, Yul Vazquez and Jim Gaffigan, “Salvation Boulevard’’ is far less than the sum of its fine, character-actor parts. And it seems so promising. A religious satire based on the book by Larry Beinhart (“Wag the Dog’’), “Salvation Boulevard’’ gathers an intriguing group of characters — evangelist zealots, aging Deadheads, academic...