Comedy, Will Ferrell | featured news

Nostalgia hit as the star returned to host the show, resurrecting his favorite routines and paying tribute to Mother’s Day while helming the latest edition of the variety show.

The "Saturday Night Live" star who perfected his character as "President George W. Bush" and later took his presidential act to Broadway is receiving the nation's top humor prize Sunday night in Washington. The TV star went on to make movies and co-found the popular website FunnyorDie.com in a career that won the 44-year-old the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Writer Dante Harper has been hired to iron out the script for "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.""Dead Snow" co-writer/director Tommy Wirkola is helming the project for Gary Sanchez Prods. and Paramount. The Norwegian pitched and plotted out the story line, which picks up the fairy-tale siblings 15 years after their traumatic gingerbread house incident, which provoked them to become witch bounty hunters. Sanchez execs Kevin Messick, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and Chris Henchy are producing the horror-action comedy, which is pitched as having a gory-but-funny "Shaun of the Dead" vibe.

This week at the movies, we've got bachelor party mayhem (The Hangover, starring Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms), space-time continuum wackiness (Land of the Lost, starring Will Ferrell and Danny McBride), and travel travails (My Life in Ruins, starring Nia Vardalos and Richard Dreyfuss). What do the critics have to say?

There's nothing wrong with frat house comedy when it's done right. And critics say The Hangover is one of the best in recent years, a wild ride of debauchery and tastelessness that delivers laughs at a frightening clip.