NEWS IN FILM AND VIDEO, REGURGITATED HERE >>>

These days in Tinseltown, comedy icons are dropping like flies (or really old white males in poor health). A few weeks ago we mourned the passing of 84-year-old Leslie Nielsen, which I commemorated by renting Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, and aiming heavenward votive candles arranged to read "RIP Shirley."

Then on Dec. 15, pneumonia struck another blow to the old-school funnyman ranks and took writer-director Blake Edwards, husband to Julie Andrews and best known for the roughly 9,000 Pink Panther movies he made with Peter Sellers. Other directors of Edwards' time wouldn't touch the lowbrow slapstick or political incorrectness in which he happily wallowed for much of his career, and still don't even today (not counting Dinner For Schmucks). Edwards' efforts made the world a little more insane, which I thank him for.

And finally, we lost a third funny artist earlier this month, Wesley Snipes - not to the Reaper's cold hand but to the chillier confines of federal prison. Apparently the IRS doesn't find tax evasion amusing. But how can you lock up an actor who accumulated such a collection of classic lines in the ‘90s?

Demolition Man: "Simon says, ‘Bleed.'"

Blade: "Some motherf***ers are always trying to ice-skate uphill."

Passenger 57: "Always bet on black!"

Snipes better hope his fellow inmates don't call him Noxeema.