"Zola" is a must-see

Spend some time in batshit insane Florida this weekend. Writer/Director Janicza Bravo's stripper comedy Zola (co-written by Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris) which was a major Sundance hit way back in January 2020 before the pandemic, is finally in theaters. It was worth the wait. Murtada raved about it last year...

Zola is the first film to get how social media interactions have shaped the way people talk to each other IRL. How many times have you said "LOL" to someone’s face? Admit it, many times. Bravo and Harris manage the find the right speech cadences for that sort of phone jargon. Then, Bravo masterfully realizes them visually so that they are seamless. [Read the full review] 

It's a great and wild time at the movies headlined by fast-rising wonder Taylour Paige (so fun as Viola's girl in Ma Rainey last season) in a nimble deadpan funny star turn. She had me in stitches with a one word line reading "...word" early on in this weekend misadventure before the gallows-humor comedy rubbernecks around its rather serious and frightening sex-trafficking elements. She and the underappreciated Riley Keough are both expert at keeping their performances both real and "in quotes" for the different points of view and emotional facades the women wear to survive. 

Why I love Bo Burnham's "Inside"

by Cláudio Alves

In 2016, Bo Burnham announced he was quitting live comedy. The artist, whose career started on Youtube, attributed the decision to a series of panic attacks he'd had while on stage during the tour of his latest show. When transforming said show, Make Happy, into a Netflix special, Burnham built the ending to resonate with a sense of finality that went beyond the end of the stand-up act. The smirking meta-performance reaches its zenith with a parody of a Kanye West rant, interrupted midway through by unexpected sincerity, a confession of the comedian's anxieties. After saying he hopes the audience is happy, he leaves, and the camera follows. Not backstage, but into Burnham's home, a nondescript white room with a lonely keyboard. The special ends with the instrument left behind after one last song, the funny man exiting through the door on the corner. He goes out of the shot, out of the show, out of his life as a comedian.

Five years later, after redirecting his attention to cinema both as a writer, director, and actor, Bo Burnham is back in that room. He's alone, performing once more. Like most of us, for the better part of 2020, he's Inside…

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Emmy Watch: Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Our team is breaking down the top contenders in all the major Emmy races and highlighting some of our favorites over the next few weeks. Today, we’re looking at Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

 

By Abe Friedtanzer

I was going into this category thinking that it might actually boast the highest percentage of possible returning nominees – a full 50% of last year’s slate, which in this crazy time is actually a lot. But Black Monday and its star Don Cheadle don’t appear to be eligible since they counted the four final episodes of season two, which aired last summer, last year, and even though the show returned a few weeks ago, there just aren’t enough installments for Showtime to bother to submit it (apparently). If it does somehow end up on the ballot, count Cheadle in again. The two surefire returning nominees are Anthony Anderson (Black-ish), vying for his seventh bid, and Michael Douglas (The Kominsky Method), set to earn his third and final nomination for this role. Let’s take a look at the rest of the field…

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Streaming Roulette, June: Streets of Fire, Primary Colors, and The World to Come

Yes it's time for another round of streaming roulette where we point out titles that are new(ish) to streaming and just for fun, freeze frame them at totally random places in the scroll bar and whatever comes up we share. Let's go...

I think 'Oh, if I'm self aware about being a douchebag, it... it... it... will somehow make me less of a douchebag.' But it doesn't. Self awareness does not absolve anyone of anything. Am I balding?

Bo Burhnam Inside
A new comedy special from the writer/director of Eighth Grade and the co-star of Promising Young Woman. We've heard good things but haven't yet screened...

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John Waters @ 75 : Desperate Living (1977)

Team Experience is celebrating John Waters for his 75th birthday this week

by Camila Henriques

The final chapter of John Waters's so called "Trash Trilogy" has everything you would expect from the filmmaker. Except for one pivotal thing: it doesn't have Divine, the iconic star that made the two previous excerpts from the trilogy - "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble" - true camp classics. But even if her magnetic screen presence is always a sight in Waters's filmography, you needn't worry about Desperate Living, as the 1977 film represents the raunchy brand of comedy camp that makes the director one of our most fascinating auteurs...

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