About KEVIN MAHER

Kevin Maher is an Emmy-nominated comedy writer, whose work has been seen on HBO, AMC, CNN, Comedy Central, VH1, TV One, FEARNet, and Nickelodeon.  His short films have been shown everywhere from MOMA to Troma, with screenings outside of Sundance and Cannes.


WATCH KEVIN'S REEL

Working with Kanbar Entertainment, Kevin co-authored seven treatments for animated feature films, developed two animated television series and co-wrote a sequel/Holiday special to the hit animated movie Hoodwinked!

Kevin created three original web-series including AMC's The Sci Fi Department (short-listed for a Webby) and Comedy Central/Atom's Old People News.

On stage Kevin created the multi-media shows Video Vaudeville and Kevin Geeks Out, a monthly confabulation of vintage film clips, guest experts, interactive games and curiosities.  Over the course of the run, Kevin "geeked out" about Bigfoot, Robots, KISS, Video Games,  Dummy Deaths, Alien Encounters and Batman. (For that show he wrote 100 haiku about Batman.) The show was a favorite of critics, from The New York Times to Scientific American.

Before that, he performed solo comedies including the off-Broadway show "Lone Drifter."  Before that, he was one-third of the sketch comedy trio TV Head.

Journalists have compared Kevin to Ernie Kovacs and Jonathan Winters, but his highest praise came from Tiger Beat who called him "funny!"


Kevin Maher's Writer-Producer Reel from Kevin Maher on Vimeo.


UPCOMING EVENTS: 

Kevin hosts the Paley Center's Oscar Viewing Party. (Sunday 2/27)

Kevin screens his short film Puppet Rodeo at the PUNCH Puppet Film Slam (Thursday 3/10)

Kevin co-hosts MEET THE LADY: DREAM SEQUENCES with Tom Blunt. (Friday 3/25)

Kevin emcees MOVIEOKE (that's movie karaoke) at 92Y Tribeca. (Saturday 3/26)

INDEX OF COOL STUFF: 

Kevin Geeks Out: 

Kevin Geeks Out About Shark Cinema

Kevin Geeks Out About Visions of the Future

Kevin Geeks Out About Monkeys

Writing on Film/Pop Culture:

Who Owns "They Live"?

Shock Waves: or How I Learned to Overcome Zombie Fatigue

Werewolf Obituary (Paul Naschy)

Sex Love and Bachelor Party

AMC's The Sci Fi Dept: 

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

The Barbarella and Other Sci Fi Cocktails

The Monster Self-Defense Test

The Toxic Avenger - the Musical

Who owns "They Live"? : a half-assed essay

Author Jonathan Lethem has a boner for the movie They Live (1988).  So much so that he's just written a book about it.  And this week he's hosting a screening of the film, followed by a conversation with John Hodgman. 

It's curious that over 20 years after its release, this B-movie movie has gotten the attention of academic-types.  They Live is an excellent combination of form and content: if you want to make a message-movie for blue-collar audiences (about how they're being systematically screwed) make a sci-fi action movie starring a professional wrestler.  But if you attend Lethem's screening at the  Greenwich Village IFC theater, do you expect the audience to be made up of "haves" or "have-nots"?

John Carpenter's They Live has something in common with George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978): both feature bit characters that reflect the bearded Lefty intellectuals (they're not wearing leather-elbow patches, but they might as well be.)  In both cases, these talky apparitions appear mostly in TV screens (as if they exist inside the television and not in the same world as the characters, the same way some would criticize academics who live inside the Ivory Tower.) Their ideological ramblings are fragmented throughout each film.  In They Live, a character listed as "bearded man" hacks into network television signals and gives a direct-address about how "They" have created a repressive society that's turning "us" into livestock  (watch a clip here, from 2:01 - 3:55)  Dawn of the Dead's nameless, bearded "TV Commentator" insists on the need for logical behavior, and then calls the studio audience "dummies!" (watch a clip here)