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Director Duke Johnson made his feature debut with 2015’s Anomalisa, a film he co-directed with Charlie Kaufman, a filmmaker whose name alone conjures up strange, idiosyncratic projects. As a stop-motion animator, Johnson’s projects have equally been unconventional, with Johnson working on such wild Adult Swim projects as Moral Orel and Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole, as well as Community and, most recently, working as the animator on the season two premiere of Severance, “Hello, Ms. Cobel.”...

Neon and Anomalisa director Duke Johnson are bringing something twisty and mysterious this Wednesday with a trailer for The Actor, a bizarre amnesiac tale filled with mischief, misinformation, and malcontents. It stars André Holland as a man with no memory surrounded by suspicious characters and a beautiful stranger who wants to help him solve the mystery of his past and become a part of his future.

Here’s the official synopsis for The Actor courtesy of Neon:

“Based on the novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake, The Actor finds Paul Cole (Holland) stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer (Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery,...

Have you ever noticed that some concepts are so prevalent in popular culture that you’re already familiar with them long before you engage with the stories that spawned them? For example, I can almost guarantee that your very first exposure to vampires was not through a vampire movie, but instead something more innocuous like a cereal mascot or a surprise cameo in a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon ever since filmmaker Robert Eggers publicly acknowledged that Count Orlok’s brief yet unforgettable appearances in SpongeBob SquarePants were responsible for introducing Nosferatu to a whole new generation – something that undoubtedly contributed to his new film’s success. And in honor of this surprisingly influential cameo, we’ve decided to compile a list celebrating six other memorable Nosferatu appearances in media. After all, some horror legends are simply too powerful to be contained by a single medium!

It's been almost four years since the events of January 6th at the U.S. Capitol building, and people are still being sentenced for their participation in the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election (also known as an insurrection or a coup). Perhaps the most famous of those individuals, aside from the QAnon Shaman, is the ever-mustached Jay Johnston, a long-time comedic mainstay who has been in the alternative comedy scene for more than 30 years. First famous for his work with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross on Mr. Show and then on Sarah Silverman's TV show, Johnston went on to become a big voiceover artist with roles in Bob's Burgers, Moral Orel, Mr. Pickles, Rick & Morty, and many more series.

More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the events of Jan. 6, and now Johnston joins their ranks, having been sentenced to one year and one day of prison time today,...

Jay Johnston, an actor on “Bob’s Burgers,” “Arrested Development” and more, was charged by the Department of Justice for participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents.

Johnston was arrested Wednesday in California, according to NBC News, which broke the news. He faces charges for felony obstruction of officers during civil disorder, in addition to other misdemeanor offenses.

In March 2021, the FBI tweeted a photo of Johnston in the crowd of rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and requested information on his identity. In the court documents, the DOJ identified Johnston via multiple images of him captured on officer body-cam footage, bystander video and CCTV feeds. Johnston could be seen wearing a green camouflage neck gaiter and a dark leather jacket on Capitol grounds. With other rioters, he took a stolen Capitol Police riot shield to create a “shield wall” and push against a line officers.

Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson aren't exactly the most obvious of creative pairings. Charlie Kaufman is an Oscar-winning screenwriter (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), while Duke Johnson is best known for his work in stop-motion animation with Moral Orel, Mary Shelley's Frankenhole and directing the Community stop-motion episode Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas. Thankfully, they both came together to create the truly unforgettable Anomalisa, which was my favorite movie of 2015 (check out my full review), and is now available on Digital HD.

The story follows a successful self-help author named Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) who can't escape the mundane nature of his life while on a business trip to Cincinnati, until he meets a unique young woman named Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh). Literally every other character in the movie is voiced by Tom Noonan, which is just as strange as it sounds. If you haven't seen the movie,...

Screenwriter turned director Charlie Kaufman is known for many a mindbending contemporary classic —he wrote Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind,” Spike Jonze’s “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” and directed his own feature “Synecdoche, New York” starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. If there’s one overarching theme in his work, it's the surely the crushing existential weight of life itself. Read More: Review: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson's Animated "Anomalisa," Voiced By David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh & Tom Noonan This certainly appears to be the thread Kaufman is picking up on with “Anomalisa,” his first venture into the world of stop-motion animation: it's a fable about a motivational speaker seeking to transcend his monotonous existence. Voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan and David Thewlis, “Anomalis” is co-directed with Duke Johnson (“Mary Shelley's Frankenhole”) and frequent Coen...

A Charlie Kaufman script brought to life in stop motion animation? Under the watchful eye of Community creator Dan Harmon? Completely crowd funded to avoid studio interference? It's happening and you can get yourself involved via the project's page on Kickstarter.Titled Anomalisa the film will be directed by Duke Johnson, the man behind the stop motion episode of Community and a frequent collaborator with Exec Producer Dino Stampatopolous - the creator of Moral Orel, Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, a long time producer on MADtv and Starburns on Community. Harmon is also on board as an Ep with Rosa Tran producing. Story?The film follows a celebrated motivational speaker travelling the country, changing the lives of countless people. But in the course of transforming others, his life...

This is what Kickstarter is meant for. Community creator Dan Harmon encountered trouble working within the system, so he has turned to the public to fund a very exciting new project, Anomalisa. Charlie Kaufman scripted the stop-motion animated film about a motivational speaker who travels the country, but his life has become meaningless: "Suddenly one day, a girl’s voice pierces through the veil of nothingness. She fills him with such a rush of 'aliveness', he’s willing to abandon everything and everyone, including his own family, and escape with her to a better life." As if Harmon and Kaufman weren't enough, Dino Stamatopoulos is also producing. You may know him best as Starburns on Community, but Stamatopoulos is also the authority on iconoclastic stop-motion animation. He helped Harmon write the Community stop-motion Christmas special and created Moral Orel and Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, two gems in the Adult Swim catalog.

In Season 2 of Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, we find Victor Frankenstein a lot more domesticated, a little more vulnerable, but with the exact same amount of narcissism coursing through his immortal veins. Together with his wife Elizabeth, their adopted artificial son The Creature, and a bunch of other idiots they tackle various mortal problems such as: Who are your biological parents when you're stitched together from cadavers; how can you destroy vampires when there's a group of undead rights activists protecting them; and who's better at giving birth-men or women?

Mary Shelley's Frankenhole is created by Dino Stamatopoulos (Moral Orel and Mr. Show with Bob and David) with writer/producer/director Scott Adsit (30 Rock: Dance Like Nobody's Watching), and voice talent Britta Phillips (Satisfaction), and Jeff Davis (Arli$$: The Immortal).

Here is a new photo from Mary Shelley's Frankenhole Season 2, Episode 2.01: H.G. Wells' Scary Monster Contest.

Mary Shelley's Frankenhole...