It’s that time of year again: Amazon pilot season. The streaming service is once again letting you play Network Executive and decide which of their new pilots become series. You watch the pilots, then take a brief survey. Using this data, Amazon will decide which of their new shows get orders for more episodes. This […]
Continue ReadingMy latest Humor In Hindsight column for Decider looks back at the start of Trevor Noah’s rapid rise through the stand-up comedy ranks, which began in his native South Africa. You Laugh But It’s True followed Noah at 25, directed and produced by David Paul Meyer (now a producer for Noah’s version of The Daily […]
Continue ReadingThe comedy boom of this decade has given rise to plenty of gimmicky live shows, plenty of ways performers have tried to jazz up stand-up comedy to attract audiences. Somehow The Comedy Jam has risen above its gimmick. Born in 2014 as a showcase of comedians rocking out with a live band in Los Angeles, […]
Continue ReadingDave Chappelle’s two new standup specials The Age of Spin and Deep in the Heart of Texas debuted on the streaming network today, and so far critics are showering Chappelle’s big comeback with mostly positive reviews — though there are a few critics who have called out some of Chappelle’s more questionable bits as transphobic, “unfortunate,” […]
Continue ReadingDave Chappelle’s two new standup specials The Age of Spin and Deep in the Heart of Texas debuted on the streaming network today, and so far critics are showering Chappelle’s big comeback with mostly positive reviews — though there are a few critics who have called out some of Chappelle’s more questionable bits as transphobic, “unfortunate,” […]
Continue ReadingNow this is what you’ve all been waiting for. The Art of Spin, an hour-plus of hot firepower comedy from one of the all-time greats in Dave Chappelle, came out today on Netflix along with his previously unreleased 2015 special, Deep in the Heart of Texas. Chappelle recorded The Art of Spin in the days […]
Continue ReadingReally interesting to watch Dave Chappelle’s Deep in the Heart of Texas special on Netflix after first hearing about the taping two years ago from my close friends who attended the show, and then watching a later stop on the 2015 tour up in Montreal during his Just For Laughs record-breaking ticket-selling run. Also interesting […]
Continue Reading“We’re the last philosophers. Everybody now that talks is reading from a pre-approved script. Even our alleged smart people are corporately controlled. So there’s only one group of people that can kinda say what they want to say: Stand-ups.” So says Chris Rock, in the opening moments of the new documentary Dying Laughing, which premiered in […]
Continue ReadingThe Last Laugh opens with a quote onscreen from the noted non-comedian, German novelist Heinrich Mann, who wrote: “Whoever has cried enough, laughs.” Mann fled Nazi Germany while Hitler’s soldiers burned his books in public. The documentary then cuts to a Nazi-uniformed figure skater, then to present day. Yes, this is going to be about Jews […]
Continue ReadingAfter Henry Phillips released his semi-autobiographical movie, Punching the Clown, in 2010, Showtime expressed interest in developing a companion series. That series never came to fruition. But the awkwardness of that failure inspired Phillips and Gregori Viens to co-write and direct a sequel. Originally titled And Punching the Clown when it premiered a year ago […]
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