R.I.P. Coolaide

The comedian Coolaide, a Detroit native who performed on BET’s ComicView and Bill Bellamy’s Who’s Got Jokes? and was touring with Lil Duval, died earlier this month after living with cancer for the past five years. As Coolaide himself…

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Review: Ellen DeGeneres, “Relatable” on Netflix

Of all of the comedy comeback specials in 2018, Ellen DeGeneres delivers the most fascinating and funniest take. In case you’re keeping track, the other stand-up comedians who returned to the stage after a long break (10 years or more) with new h…

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Review: Pete Holmes, “Dirty Clean” on HBO

Pete Holmes is one of only two people who have called me “Sean L.” in everyday conversation, and it makes perfect sense. Holmes is a comedian who loves the sounds of words. Sean L. becomes Shonnelle, which bequeaths me an alter-ego. In his …

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Review: Vir Das, “Losing It” on Netflix

Vir Das got America’s attention with his first Netflix special, last year’s Abroad Understanding. Filming it in a small theater in New York City, then cutting it together with footage of him performing the same material in an arena in India…

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Review: Russell Brand, “Re:Birth” on Netflix

I’ve long held a love/ambivalence about the comedian and actor Russell Brand. On the one hand, Brand holds a world of ideas within his head and a dazzling gift for sharing his ideas and prompting bigger conversations about life and love and every…

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Episode #238: Adam McKay

Adam McKay won the Academy Award for best screenplay for his adaptation of The Big Short. His newest film at the end of 2018 is VICE, McKay’s darkly satiric yet mostly true retelling of the life and career of Dick Cheney. He has come a long way since h…

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Joe Wong on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Joe Wong has performed on the Ed Sullivan stage before to perform on David Letterman’s Late Show, and returned this past week to tell Stephen Colbert’s audience a thing or two about China, immigration and walls. Roll the clip!

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Pete Lee’s fourth performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Pete Lee is racking up the visits to Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, with four performances in a year’s span. Lee thinks being called “extra” is a good thing, even though he only grew up to be half a man, and had to come out straig…

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Katherine Ryan on The Late Late Show with James Corden

Katherine Ryan is Canadian, so of course she knows how great Celine Dion is, and in this performance on Wednesday’s Late Late Show with James Corden, she explains what Dion does right, what Melania Trump did wrong, and how British television offe…

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Golden Globes will honor Carol Burnett with her own namesake award

Carol Burnett has won lifetime achievement awards from the Screen Actors Guild, the Peabody Awards, the Mark Twain Prize, Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Now she’ll get her own award in her own name from the Hollywoo…

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