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Terry Gilliam had the perfect response to his premature obituary

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On Tuesday, Sept. 8, comedy legend Terry Gilliam passed away at age XXX.  

And on the next day, he rose again. 

The Monty Python member and director of Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas leapt into the news in the weirdest way after Variety posted a tweet and story claiming he had died at age XXX. 

Gilliam, ever the team player, jumped in and did his part

Perhaps someone at Variety is a big Monty Python fan and was subtly referencing this sketch?

The obituary's author, Dave McNary, perhaps?

In any event, Gilliam is set to release a memoir next month, Gilliamesque, and has been urging fans not to believe Variety's retraction. Who could ask for better publicity than a fake death?

H/T The Guardian | Photo via colink./Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)


Teens are stumped by these classic '90s theme songs

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Nickelodeon collectively blew the minds of its nostalgic, older audience by announcing it was considering a revival of some of its classic shows (to reportedly result in an Avengers or Justice League-esque movie), but how well does its target demo actually know those shows?

The Fine Bros. introduced some of their teens to classic ’90s cartoon theme songs that appeared on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney, and MTV among other networks. Not only were they asked if they could identify the show but whether they even knew about the show at all.

Some of them are better at guessing the show than others—nobody could identify Tiny Toon Adventures by its theme—but it might be difficult even for the people who grew up with it. Plus, these teens have plenty of thoughts on the shows themselves.

“She was like a Tumblr user before Tumblr existed,” one girl noted about Daria.

That’s actually pretty spot-on.

Screengrab via REACT/YouTube

4 reasons why 'Key & Peele' is one of the all-time great sketch shows

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This week marked the last Key & Peele episode, ever. While comedy fanatics like myself mourn, now is an opportune time to reflect on what made the series so great. I’m aware that explaining why something is funny often sucks the comedy out of it, but the genius of Key & Peele deserves one final blow-by-blow breakdown. 

1) Strong game

Ian Roberts, showrunner and executive producer for Key & Peele, is also one of the founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, along with Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, and Matt Walsh. Some of today’s top comedians—Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson of Broad City, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Kroll, Chris Gethard, SNL’s Bobby Moynihan and Kate McKinnon to name a few—got their start at the legendary improv and sketch theater. (Full disclosure: I am a student there.)

UCB teaches that the key to a successful improv scene or sketch is having a strong game, which is what’s funny and often what’s unusual about a scene or sketch. “It is a consistent pattern of behavior that breaks from the expected pattern of our everyday lives,” the Upright Citizens Brigade's manual states.

Most sketches on Key & Peele have a strong, clear game that is heightened throughout. In “School Bully,” Peele picks on Key like any school bully would but then immediately explains the psychology behind his bullying, all while maintaining a "tough" tone of voice. The scene has a clear game which we could call "honest bully." There is only one unusual thing that continues to be heightened, nothing to distract the viewer from the honest bully, and the show pulls it off perfectly.

“Text Message Confusion” and “Yo Mama Has Health Problems” are two more hilarious sketches that both have strong games.

2) Great acting

Not only are Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Haworth Peele great comedians, but they also have insane acting chops. From Peele’s spot-on impression of President Obama—seriously, this is the best Obama impression out there—to Key’s excellent straight man from “Manly Tears.”

Peele’s performance in “Continental Breakfast” knocks it out of the park. He embodies this ridiculous character so well that the sketch surpasses just being farcical and becomes a work of absurd genius.

3) Meaningful, yet accessible, cultural commentary

Key & Peele never shied away from imbuing the show with cultural commentary. Last night’s finale ended with “Negrotown,” which is arguably one of their best (and most tragic) sketches.

Their cultural commentary was deep while still being accessible— no liberal arts degree needed to understand their humor. And at the same time, they were never laughing at the marginalized—although they come close in their college football sketches, making fun of names like D'Marcus Williums, D'Squarius Green, Jr., and Ibrahim Moizoos. Most of the time, their jokes were based in mocking the oppressor and pointing out the absurdity of systemic oppression itself. “Das Negros,” where both men appear in comically bad white face, and “White Zombies” illustrate this well.

4) Great chemistry

Ultimately the success of the show is rooted in Key and Peele’s excellent chemistry; you can tell the actors genuinely love each other and how much fun they’re having while shooting the show. We see this most clearly in the sketches where Key and Peele’s characters match each other, as well as in their banter on stage or in the car.

Although it’s obviously sad that the show is over, I’m excited to see where Key and Peele’s careers go—separate or together. And we can be grateful that it’s not a great show that fell victim to a decline in quality because it went on for too long.

Screengrab via Comedy Central/YouTube

Joe Biden chokes up discussing his late son Beau in an emotional interview with Stephen Colbert

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Vice President Joe Biden opened up about his son Beau’s death and his potential presidential run in an emotional and sober interview with Stephen Colbert.

When Biden stopped by The Late Show Thursday night, instead of the interview being a simple joke-fest about running for president, it became deeply poignant, as Colbert offered Biden his condolences over Beau's death from brain cancer in May. (Colbert himself knows something about tragedy: he lost his father and two of his brothers in a plane crash 44 years ago today.)

Political interviews on late-night television often risk becoming silly, but Colbert did something somewhat incredible: He just let Biden speak, and he listened.

Calling Beau “better than me in almost every way,” Biden, who was often on the verge of tears, described how selfless his son was, sitting in a hospital at age 4 trying to comfort his younger brother after the car accident that killed Biden’s first wife and his daughter. The vice president also discussed some of his son's last words before he died, and he said he often marveled at how quickly some people could pick themselves back up after such a loss.

"[Beau] said, 'Dad, sit down, I want to talk to you,'" Biden recounted. "And he said, 'Dad, I know how much you love me. You've got to promise me something. Promise me you're going to be alright. He said no matter what happens, dad, I'm going to be all right. Promise me.' This is the kid who—I don't know what it was about him. He had this enormous sense of empathy."

The second half of the interview was closer to what late-night viewers were used to seeing, yet it was still often filled with the same sense of poignancy as the first. Although Biden joked that Colbert, who once fake-ran for president, should be his running mate, he got surprisingly candid about whether he was going to run. He joked about it, of course, but his indecisiveness felt sincere, not like a ploy.

“I don’t think any man or woman should run for president unless, number one, they know exactly why they would want to be president and two, they can look at folks out there and say I promise you have my whole heart, my whole soul, my energy, and my passion,” Biden said. “And, and, I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there. I’m being completely honest. Nobody has a right in my view to seek that office unless they are willing to give it 110 percent of who they are.”

Screengrab via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/YouTube

Nicole Arbour got fired for her 'Dear Fat People' video

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BY LARRY CARROLL

Canadian comedian/actress Nicole Arbour is having a very interesting week. First, she posted the now-infamous YouTube video “Dear Fat People,” in which she attempted to use humor to convince fat people that they should lose weight — fellow vlogger Meghan Tonjes dubbed it “Fat Shaming.” A few days later, “Fat People” was taken down and Arbour claimed “censorship.”

Now, as “Fat People” crosses the vaunted 3 million views threshold, Arbour is being fired from a movie job because her director is outraged over the video he calls “cruel and lame.”

RELATED: Social media star Taylor Caniff posts Instagram of arrest, allegedly faces felony charges

“[I’m making] a dance movie, so obviously we needed a choreographer. We met with a woman who not only did traditional dance choreography, but was a cheerleader as well. She was fun and nice and had a lot of energy,” explains director Pat Mills in a statement to Zap2it. “‘[Arbour told me she] had a YouTube channel and identified as a ‘YouTuber.’ She seemed like a perfect fit for the project. I shared the script with her. She said she dug it and was excited to come on board.”

“I was supposed to get together with her this week for what she called a ‘choreo party’ to watch my favorite dance scenes and talk ideas,” says Mills, the director of 2014’s Guidance. “And then a crazy thing happened on Saturday — I saw something on the Internet that made me never want to see her again.”

As it turns out, Arbour’s video runs contrary to many of the things Mills hopes to achieve with Don’t Talk to Irene, the film she was slated to work on when it begins filming next month.

“It’s a body-positive teen dance movie set in a retirement home,” Mills says of the plot. “It’s about a 16-year-old girl who dreams of being a cheerleader, but she is constantly bullied for being fat. She learns that she doesn’t have to change anything about herself to be awesome because she already is.”

According to the filmmaker, Arbour’s video really hit home. “I’m gay. I was bullied a lot as a kid,” he reasons. “I am no stranger to ridicule and loneliness.”

“[‘Dear Fat People’] is an unfunny and cruel fat-shaming video that guises itself about being about ‘health’,” Mills says of the clip. “It’s fat phobic and awful. It went on for over for six minutes. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I was so upset I was shaking like Shelley DuVall in the ‘The Shining’.”

RELATED: Sam Rader announces ‘Sam and Nia’ vlog hiatus: It’s ‘just not feasible for our life’

“Bullies like Nicole Arbour are the reason I am making this movie,” he says. “I’m tired of body shaming. It’s everywhere.”

This latest development raises an interesting question. A self-professed comedian/actress like Arbour clearly operates her YouTube channel for self-promotion, and posting a vid like “Dear Fat People” aims at courting controversy (she even begins the clip with a mocking “Argh! Some people are already mad at this video!”) that falls in line with the old adage “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” But what good is 3 million views if it gets you fired from the job you aspire to?

“It’s very odd that we live in a world now where people post their opinions on YouTube (to get views), but they cannot say these opinions to our faces,” says Mills. “My film celebrates being different. It celebrates not fitting in. I want to arm teen girls of all sizes with confidence. People like Nicole Arbour strip this confidence away.”

At the end of his statement, Mills directs the YouTuber directly: “Nicole: Did you even read my script? It is a body positive teen movie. It has a message that is in direct opposition to your cruel and lame YouTube rant,” he says. “We will not be working together. You are not hired for ‘Don’t Talk to Irene’.”

Screengrab via Anonymous Friend/YouTube

Comedian Jonah Ray made a hardcore Fun Fun Fun Fest playlist

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Fun Fun Fun Fest is still two months away, but it’s never too early to started getting pumped for it. 

Comedian and Nerdist podcaster Jonah Ray will be performing at the Austin, Texas, festival—which runs Nov. 6-8 and features headlining sets from Jane’s Addiction and D’Angelo—and he compiled a very enthusiastic playlist of his favorite songs from 10 festival artists. The folks at Fun Fun Fun Fest were kind enough to share it with us. 

You can dive in below, or give it a listen here.  —Audra Schroeder


1) NOFX, “Franco Un-American”

For years I hated NOFX. Not because they weren’t good, but because every asshole in high school loved them. They were the punk band for squares where I came from. This song, though, brought me in and showed me that Fat Mike was a great songwriter and lyricist. This is a song pretty much about regretting the times he wasn’t more knowledgeable about things going on in the world. It’s catchy too!

2) Drive Like Jehu, “Golden Brown”

Holy shit I get to see Drive Like Jehu!?!?! Fuck fuck fuck!! This song rips and is essentially the sound that defined an entire scene in San Diego that would become Crimson Curse, Locust, etc. Also, the drummer runs the best donut shop in the world, Donut Friend in Highland Park.  

3) Dag Nasty, “Values Here”

Never got to see them and again, so excited for to see them live! Their first two albums are huge parts of my childhood. Hell, I still pop them on all the time.

4) Chain of Strength, “True Till Death”

As a former straight edge kid, I cannot wait to sing along with all the other drunk former straight edge kids (including the band) to this song. Last year, I got to see Gorilla Biscuits twice at FFF Fest, and I’m just now starting to heal my bruises from the pit.

5) Desaparecidos, “City on the Hill”

Their new album might be the album of the year. Great punk from guys that have been playing for years together. To come back after a long gap after that first album and to have such a great message and even expanding on their sound… It’s a feat, and they’ve pulled it off. This whole album is tits.

6) Mikal Cronin, “Say”

I am in love with Mikal Cronin. MCIII is fantastic, and this song has an amazing video for it. I say that because I wrote and directed it. Check it out!

7) Andrew Jackson Jihad, “Do, Re, and Me”

These guys are some of the hardest working touring bands out there today. Such heart and such amazing ethics. They have the ability to be somber, silly, and sincere all at once. This song also has a great video that Deanna Rooney wrote and animated. Check that out too!

8) Kurt Braunholer, How Do I Land?

Kurt is one of the best comics working right now. First off, he’s on Kill Rock Stars, one of the best labels out there. Secondly, he has this insane ability to be so goofy while having these jokes and stories that are so funny and tight, and on top of that he’s got this overall theme of making the world a better place through whimsy. I can’t say enough great things about this guy.

9) OFF!, “Void You Out”

Don’t ever go see anything Greg Ginn is ever involved in. If you wanna see any form of Black Flag, go to see one of two bands: Black Fag (the all-gay Black Flag tribute band) or go see OFF!

10) Alvvays, "Archie, Marry Me"

One of my favorite new bands. This is gonna be a nice comedown after watching other acts this FFF Fest like Wu-Tang Clan, Doomtree, Jane’s Addiction, Venom, Andrew W.K., and so many more amazing acts. 

Photo courtesy of Fun Fun Fun Fest 

A dancing robot is trying to join the Screen Actors Guild

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If you thought robots taking human jobs were bad, just wait: One of them is already trying to join a union.

IRB 2400, a robotic arm by robotics manufacturer ABB used for industrial automation, has filed to join the Screen Actors Guild after a major television appearance. The robot is usually used for industrial automation, but one model showed up on America’s Got Talent to perform alongside a dance crew called Freelusion.

In the dance segment, the IRB 2400 holds a light and shines it against a darkened background, demonstrating its range of motion next to emotive human dancers. Though the robot doesn’t actually move itself around the stage, the IRB 2400 adds to the spooky vibe of the performance. Eventually some television production magic turns it into a gigantic 3D projection of an evil robot, closing the performance with a bang.

The IRB 2400 makes a compelling, precise dancer, but there’s just about no chance it’ll be awarded union membership. SAG-AFTRA specifies that those seeking membership need to either provide proof of employment in a position covered by the union or be a member in good standing of an affiliated union. Since the robot has neither a Social Security number nor sentience, it will not clear the hurdles required for membership.

“While robotic engineers do not receive recognition on the red carpet at the Emmy Awards, advanced technology manufacturing, from companies like ABB, is certainly something the nation can be proud of,” said ABB North America’s Vice President of Robots and Applications Keith Fox in a press release. “ABB’s IRB 2400 robot does not have a social security number for its SAG application, but we want to recognize the technological innovation and groundbreaking nature of robotic entertainment nonetheless.”

For now, our human dancers appear to be safe from the grips of gigantic robots wanting to take their jobs. But this isn’t the first ABB bot to get some time in the spotlight: Cousins of the IRB 2400 have also appeared onstage with Bon Jovi and in Iron Man 3 and Terminator Salvation.

So even if the robots fail their SAG application this time, to paraphrase the immortal words of Terminator, they’ll be back.

Screengrab via America’s Got Talent/YouTube

Kids reenact 'Homeland,' 'Transparent,' and other Emmy-nominated shows

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The 2015 Emmys take place on Sept. 20, but you probably need a refresher on the nominees. With reenactments by kids, of course. 

The awards are heavy on Netflix and Amazon shows, and the reenactment of Orange Is the New Black zeroes in on Piper’s narcissism, while Transparent does the same with the show’s whole dysfunctional family. The plot of The Last Man on Earth is eviscerated (“The premise of this show is extremely convoluted”), and Homeland offers a chance to hear adorable kids talk about domestic terrorism. 

Kids channeling Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a little too perfect, though. 

Screengrab via mom.me/YouTube 


'Drunk History' couple's wedding dance has magic tricks and choreography

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BY CHRIS HAYNER 

Justin Willman and Jillian Sipkins really are trying as hard as they possibly can to win the award for best wedding of all time. After sharing a video of themselves getting drunk and retelling the story of how they met—in the style of Comedy Central’s Drunk History—the couple is now showing off their first dance.

RELATED: Couple’s ‘Drunk History’ video is the ultimate wedding story

Set to “I Put a Spell on You” by “Screaming” Jay Hawkins, the couple’s well-choreographed dance includes props, acrobatics, and even a magic trick. That’s right, the bride levitates the groom in the big finale of the performance.

RELATED: Filming ‘Drunk History’ really is a drinking fest, but hopefully an educational one

It shouldn’t be all that surprising that they manages to sneak an illusion into the dance. Considering Willman is a magician by trade, it’s practically expected. Having Sipkins take the lead on the trick is a great twist, though.

Screengrab via Justin Willman/YouTube 

Vogue takes over YouTube Space NY for Fashion Week

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YouTube Space NY is going high fashion, at least for a week.

To celebrate New York Fashion Week, Condé Nast will bring brands like Vogue and Teen Vogue to takeover the YouTube Space in Chelsea. It announced the takeover with a video featuring model (and newly minted YouTuber) Karlie Kloss packing up all the essentials from the Vogue offices for the big move, under the direction of icon Anna Wintour.

The partnership will bring Vogue and Kloss together with YouTube talent like Amanda Steele, Ann LeRachel LevinFleur De Force, and Chloe Morello

“I am so thrilled to work with such a creative group of YouTube stars for the Vogue Beauty Challenge,” said Kloss in a press release. “The YouTube community and the team at Condé Nast are incredible storytellers—collaborating together is an exciting opportunity to merge fashion with tech and bring the energy, excitement and cool stories from New York Fashion Week to life.”

Over the week the YouTubers and Kloss will recreate runway looks on a $200 budget, complete makeup challenges, and film other videos that will be available on Vogue YouTube channels and the creator channels.

“We are always looking for new and innovative ways to create interesting, multi-platform content,” said Teen Vogue Editor in Chief Amy Astley in a press release. “Through this partnership with YouTube we’re thrilled to offer our audience digital access to NY Fashion Week in a way that’s engaging, interactive and creative.” 

Screengrab via Vogue/YouTube

Artist Amanda Oleander becomes Periscope's first breakout star

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Remember Periscope? People are still using it, and one user in particular is set to become the livestreaming app’s first “star.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, UTA has signed artist Amanda Oleander, the first major talent pulled from Periscope. Platforms like Snapchat have gotten in on the original content game, so it was only a matter of time before Periscope yielded talent that could translate outside the app. THR says UTA is set to “expand her brand both online as well as in more traditional areas of entertainment.”

Oleander, who’s also E!'s online illustrator, often spotlights her artistic process on Periscope, where she currently has more than 250,000 followers. 

There’s no word yet as to how Oleander’s feed will be incorporated into this new deal, but we totally would have watched a reality show about what’s in people’s fridges.  

We’ve reached out to Oleander for comment and will update if and when we hear back. 

H/T The Hollywood Reporter | Screengrab via Allibu/YouTube 

SNL's Pete Davidson posts tribute to father, who died in 9/11 attack

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When Pete Davidson was 7 years old, he lost his father, Scott, in the 9/11 attacks. Scott Davidson was a firefighter with Ladder 118 in Brooklyn Heights, and when the Twin Towers were hit, he rushed across the Brooklyn Bridge with five of his colleagues to help. He was last seen running up the stairs at the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel before it collapsed.

Almost 15 years later, Pete Davidson is a featured player on Saturday Night Live who occasionally makes jokes about his late dad. On Friday, though, he was both wistful and whimsical, using social media to honor his dad's memory—and his, um, father's girth.

Davidson also posted on Instagram.

In the past, Davidson has faced some criticism for joking about how his father died. But damn if it's not completely clear that he misses his dad more than anything.

H/T A.V. Club | Screengrab via Comedy Central/YouTube

The best new movies and shows on Netflix

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We here at the Daily Dot are big fans of streaming TV and movies, but we also know how easy it is to become overwhelmed by the massive lists of Netflix’s comings and goings each month. Here’s our curated take of what’s new on Netflix this month.

September 2015

Pick of the Month: The Walking Dead: Season 5 (Sept. 27)

Fellow cord-cutters, rejoice! The long weeks spent plugging your ears and avoiding social media are drawing to a close, and if you’ve managed to remain unspoiled about The Walking Dead’s most recent season this long, you’ve only got a little while longer to remain in self-imposed exile. Season 4 was a long walk toward the uncertain destination known as “Terminus,” and that supposed safe haven proved about as hospitable as the name suggests. Season 5 finds Rick and his fellow survivors fighting to escape from their (latest) captors and once again in search of sanctuary in a world that seems determined to bury them in a steady torrent of blood and bad days. The Walking Dead has always been uneven, but season 5 is a welcome return to form in just about every way imaginable, and it’s a helluva lot more entertaining than the misguided (and unfortunately named) prequel series, Fear the Walking Dead. (It even includes the return of one fan favorite from the show’s earliest days.)

Best of the rest

Lawrence of Arabia: Restored Version (Sept. 1)

Based on the larger-than-life story of British archaeologist and soldier T.E. Lawrence, this 1962 classic follows Lawrence’s World War I adventures across the Arabian Peninsula, during which he first fought against and eventually found himself sympathizing with the various local tribes. The film won a whopping seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. It’s also jaw-droppingly, eye-gapingly gorgeous, so you’ll want to view it on the biggest screen possible. I personally am planning on breaking into AT&T Stadium and borrowing the Jumbotron.

The League: Season 6 (Sept. 1)

Even if you don’t give a fig about football—of either the fantasy or the IRL varieties—there’s plenty to love about FX’s The League. The show is about a group of friends who compete in an aggressive fantasy league, battling each other for “The Shiva,” an eyesore trophy named for their high school valedictorian. Football may be the ostensible focus of the show, but really it’s just an excuse to watch this crew lie, cheat, manipulate, and screw each over in their dogged pursuit of victory at all costs.

Masters of the Universe (Sept. 1)

Oh lordy, I love it when Netflix drags out a relic like this one. It’s been three decades since I’ve seen this thing, but I’m going to go ahead and guess it doesn’t hold up without the nostalgia filter dialed up to 11. Thankfully, my nostalgia filter is strong, so I’m looking forward to introducing my kids to the musclebound He-Man (Dolph Lundgren), who finds himself transported to Earth to keep the budget down in order to retrieve the magical Cosmic Key before Skeletor (Frank Langella) and his minions can get to it. Also enjoy an embarrassing early-career appearance by a pre-Friends Courteney Cox. Hopefully the new movie will be better....

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (Sept. 1)

Netflix continues its plan to assist me in my master plan to get my kids hooked on every educational staple of my own childhood. First they added episodes of Bill Nye, the Science Guy to the Instant catalog, then Reading Rainbow. Now the gentle, sweater-wearing Presbyterian minister who taught so many of us not to be dicks is available for streaming. The beloved PBS children’s program Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood aired from 1968 to 2001, and this first Netflix “volume” includes 20 episodes from the series’ long history. Hopefully there will be many more to come.

The Monster Squad (Sept. 1)

Ask someone to list off great ’80s kids’ films, and you’ll get stuff like Goonies, Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal. The Monster Squad may not make the top 10 lists as often as those undisputed classics, but it deserves more love than it gets, both because it pits a group of horror-movie-loving kids against versions of Universal’s classic movie monsters and because it gave us the immortal line “Wolfman’s got nards!” Monster Squad was co-written by Fred Dekker, who also penned the ’80s cult classic Night of the Creeps, and Shane Black, who became one of the most highly paid screenwriters of all time with flicks such as Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout. Black has staged a major comeback in recent years with flicks like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, and he’s recently reunited with Dekker for the Amazon Western pilot Edge.

Our Man in Tehran (Sept.  1)

Most people had probably never heard of the events of the so-called “Canadian caper” until Ben Affleck’s Argo brought the daring rescue mission back into the public consciousness. That flick was a rousing good time, but for anyone curious to learn more about the real-life CIA-backed mission to rescue U.S. diplomats from the midst of the Iran hostage crisis, look no further than Our Man in Tehran. The 2013 documentary focuses on the heroic actions of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor and his staff, who put their own lives at risk to shelter six American diplomats and cooperate in a scheme to smuggle them out of Iran.

Person of Interest(Sept. 1)

What if you had a machine that could predict violent crimes before they could happen? That’s the high concept behind Person of Interest, CBS’ sci-fi procedural created by Jonathan Nolan, brother and frequent collaborator of Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan. What began as a relatively boilerplate sci-fi procedural has evolved into a fascinating exploration of morality and artificial intelligence. Lost’s Michael Emerson stars as Harold Finch, a reclusive billionaire and software genius who created the Machine. Jim Caviezel plays John Reese, a troubled Special Forces/CIA veteran recruited by Finch to be the means to his ends. Seasons 1-3 are currently streaming on Netflix Instant, and season 4 will be available beginning Sept. 22. The show’s fifth season will premiere on CBS this fall.

The Rambo Trilogy (Sept. 1)

Netflix added the first five Rocky movies a while ago, and now it’s lined up Sylvester Stallone’s other huge ’80s franchise. Beginning with 1982’s First Blood, Stallone introduced the world to John Rambo, a battle-scarred Vietnam vet trying and failing to move beyond his traumatic experiences in the war. Based on the novel by David Morrell, the first Rambo movie is a bit less cartoonish than the ones that followed, pitting Rambo against unfriendly small-town cops when he just wants to be left alone. First Blood Part II sends Rambo back to Vietnam to rescue POWs, and Rambo III drops him into Afghanistan to retrieve his friend Col. Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna), who has been captured by Soviet soldiers. (The 2008 follow-up, titled simply Rambo, isn’t currently available on Netflix.)

Sleepy Hollow (Sept. 1)

Tim Burton’s spin on Washington Irving’s spooky 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow envisions the Headless Horseman as a former Hessian mercenary turned supernatural killing machine, and Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) as a cowardly but brilliant New York police constable sent to the titular village to investigate a series of brutal murders. Give it a watch and see if you can erase the memory of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dark Shadows.

Up in the Air (Sept. 1)

George Clooney plays a corporate “downsizer” named Ryan Bingham, a man whose life consists of airplanes and airports, traveling from one city to the next so he can deliver terrible news to people who are suddenly without a job. His comfortable life on the go is threatened by Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a new hire with a plan to replace Ryan’s job with videoconferencing. To make matters worse, he’s assigned the indignity of “showing her the ropes,” a task—along with his relationship with fellow frequent flyer Alex (Vera Farmiga)—that soon has Ryan questioning his whole philosophy on life. (For more from Up in the Air co-writer/director Jason Reitman, check out Men, Women & Children on Amazon Prime beginning Sept. 12.)

Zathura (Sept. 1)

Zathura is based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg, the same guy who wrote Jumanji, so calling ZathuraJumanji in space” isn’t just easy shorthand. Much like in Jumanji, the events of Zathura are driven by a mysterious board game discovered by curious kids, but in this case the game in question unleashes meteor showers and hostile aliens rather than monkeys and Robin Williams. Apparently Chris Van Allsburg was seriously traumatized by a board game at some point in his life. Zathura was directed by a post-Swingers, pre-Iron Man Jon Favreau, so it’s got a good pedigree, if nothing else.

Madam Secretary: Season 1 (Sept. 4)

Tea Leoni stars as Dr. Elizabeth Faulkner McCord, a former CIA analyst and college professor turned United States Secretary of State. Wings alum Tim Daly plays her husband, Cheers’ Bebe Neuwirth her chief of staff, and Keith Carradine stands in as POTUS Conrad Dalton. Madam Secretary follows McCord’s struggles to balance her personal and family life against the demands of one of the nation’s highest offices. The political drama was created by Judging Amy/Joan of Arcadia veteran Barbara Hall, and the show will return for a second season on Oct. 4.

Longmire: Season 4 (Sept. 9)

Fans rallied to try and save Longmire after A&E canceled it last year, and thankfully Netflix eventually agreed to pony up for a fourth season. Based on Craig Johnson’s series of “Walt Longmire Mysteries” books, Longmire stars Robert Taylor as Sheriff Walt Longmire, a gruff and laconic lawman who keeps the peace in the fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming. Walt is still grieving the death of his wife, which was a lot more complicated than the “cancer” explanation he told their daughter, and the truth about what really happened to her forms an ongoing arc as the series progresses. Battlestar Galactica fan favorite Katee Sackhoff co-stars as Victoria “Vic” Moretti, Walt’s deputy and a former Philadelphia homicide detective with skeletons of her own. Lou Diamond Phillips recurs as Henry Standing Bear, owner of the Red Pony Cafe, Walt’s best friend, and a frequent middle man between Walt and the local Native American population. Season 4 will pick up right where season 3 left off, with Walt bent on revenge after having learned the truth about who was responsible for his wife’s death.

The Bank Job (Sept. 14)

I’m a sucker for a good heist flick, and The Bank Job has the added appeal of being based on a real-life robbery from which the stolen goods were never recovered. Jason Statham stars in one of his less punchy roles, playing Terry Leather, a car salesman whose friend talks him into mounting a “foolproof” bank robbery, unaware that his seemingly benevolent friend (Saffron Burrows) has secret motivations of her own. The target is a roomful of safety deposit boxes filled with money and jewelry… but the contents of one of those boxes will put Terry and his crew in the crosshairs of powerful people.

Moonrise Kingdom (Sept. 15)

Wes Anderson’s movies can definitely be love-them-or-hate-them affairs, with his style sometimes hovering right near the border of self-parody. Still, nobody else makes movies quite like him these days, and as long as he keeps attracting casts that include the likes of Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman, I’ll keep on coming back. In Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson conjures an eccentric vision of a 1960s New England summer camp, two smitten 12-year-olds who run away together, and how their disappearance turns the local community on its ear. Moonrise Kingdom was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay award in 2013, and it’s currently boasting a 94 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Blacklist: Season 2 (Sept. 15)

James Spader is at his best when he’s chewing scenery as the smartest man in the room who also knows he’s the smartest man in the room and who is eager to remind the rest of us that we’re a bunch of dolts. That description more than fits Raymond “Red” Reddington, the brilliant criminal mastermind at the heart of The Blacklist. This month Netflix will be adding season 2 of the NBC hit, in which Red continues to assist the FBI—and young profiler Liz Keen (Megan Boone) in particular—in tracking down some of the most dangerous crooks on the planet. It’s pure popcorn television that steps back and lets Spader shine, and you’ve got a few weeks left to binge before the show returns for a third season on Oct. 1.

Keith Richards: Under the Influence (Sept. 18)

Academy Award–winning director Morgan Nevilla helms this documentary look at the iconic Rolling Stones guitarist, currently enjoying his 72nd trip around the sun. Under the Influence follows Richards as he works on Crosseyed Heart, his first solo album in over two decades, and will include interviews, archival material, and “both new and beloved music.” Richards’ new album will release the same day Under the Influence hits Netflix, so Stones fans will have plenty to look forward to. You can listen to “Trouble,” a track off Crosseyed Heart, below.

Gotham: Season 1 (Sept. 21)

Gotham was simultaneously one of the biggest hits and one of the most frustrating viewing experiences of the 2014-2015 TV year. Robin Lord Taylor gave a breakout performance as a cowardly, manipulative young version of Batman villain the Penguin, but too often this “pre-capes” prequel felt like an exercise in pointless wheel-spinning, a never-ending parade of “Hey, look who it is!” without many compelling reasons to actually give a shit about these characters. Still, I’d be lying if I said the show didn’t have its moments—many of them involving Donal Logue’s morally flexible Detective Harvey Bullock—and young David Mazouz does far better with the thankless role of a pre-pubescent Bruce Wayne than anyone could have expected. Am I damning with faint praise? It’s only because you should be watching Arrow/The Flash instead. Gotham season 2 premieres on Fox the same day this hits Netflix, which is decidedly binge-unfriendly.

August 2015

Pick of the Month: Reading Rainbow: Volume 1 (Aug. 1)

The beloved children’s program was back in the news last year after host LeVar Burton launched a massively successful Kickstarter campaign to both resurrect the show and bring it to as many schools as possible, free of charge. Now Netflix is bringing the classic original series to its streaming catalog, hopefully exposing a whole new generation to Burton’s infectious love of reading. Between this and the May arrival of Bill Nye, the Science Guy, Netflix seems to be making a run on the educational shows of my youth, and I couldn’t be happier. My kids are just getting old enough to have an interest in storybooks, so I can’t wait to work through the Reading Rainbow catalog with them. This first “volume” includes such classics as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Aesop’s “The Tortoise and the Hare,” along with 23 other episodes.

Best of the rest:

1) Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front (Aug. 1)

This 2014 documentary follows five Israeli high school graduates as they transition into their compulsory military service in the Israel Defense Forces’ army paratrooper brigade. For those unfamiliar, citizens of Israel are required to serve in the military after reaching the age of 18 (although there are exceptions), often for three years or more. Beneath the Helmet is presented as a coming-of-age story, exploring the lives of an Ethiopian immigrant, a female sergeant, a Swiss volunteer, a soldier descended from Holocaust survivors, and the unit’s commander, all struggling to balance their service with their personal lives and family commitments. It doesn’t look like Beneath the Helmet has a Rotten Tomatoes page at the moment, but it’s currently rocking an impressive 9.4 user rating on IMDb.

2) Chronic-Con, Episode 420: A New Dope (Aug. 1)

In 2003, documentarian Morgan Spurlock subjected himself to ungodly amounts of McDonald’s for his movie Super-Size Me. Stoner comedian Doug Benson responded in 2008 with Super High Me, which was sort of the same thing but with Benson consuming enough marijuana to give most of the West Coast the munchies. Now Benson is nipping at Spurlock’s heels again with Chronic-Con, Episode 420: A New Dope, which riffs on Spurlock’s 2011 flick Comic-Con: Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope. Chronic-Con follows the comedian through a hazy landscape of cosplayers, fans, and celebs, including Spurlock, Joe Rogan, Brian Posehn, and fellow stoner Kevin Smith, to name just a few. Having been several times over the years, I can only imagine the surreal experience of Comic-Con is even weirder when viewed through an ever-present fog of pot smoke. I just hope Benson brought his own snacks; convention center food is crazy expensive.

3) Dogs on the Inside (Aug. 1)

Netflix is kicking off the month with several intriguing new documentary additions, and this one is pretty much guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of any animal lover. Dogs on the Inside explores a program that pairs abandoned rescue dogs with inmates at a Massachusetts prison. It’s about more than just companionship: Many of the dogs have been abused or mistreated, so their new human partners must first earn the animals’ trust, a commodity unquestionably in short supply behind bars. The inmates help save dogs that would otherwise likely be euthanized, and both human and canine partners help rehabilitate each other and hopefully put their darker times behind them. Honestly, I can already tell you I won’t be making it through this one without choking up a little.

4) Enemy at the Gates (Aug. 1)

Set during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, Enemy at the Gates stars Jude Law as Vassili Zaitsev, a former shepherd serving as a sniper in the Russian Army. After saving the life of one Commisar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), Vassili becomes a propaganda tool for Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev, with the army newspaper spinning tales about the young marksman’s heroic exploits against the invading Nazis. The Germans soon take notice and deploy their own lethal sniper, tasking Major Erwin König (Ed Harris) with putting a bullet through Vassili’s brain. Loosely based on the experiences of the real-life Vassili Zaitsev, Enemy at the Gates follows the dueling snipers as they lead each other on a game of cat-and-mouse against the backdrop of one of the bloodiest battles in history.

5) The Hurt Locker (Aug. 1)

From the rubble of World War II-era Stalingrad, venture forward 60 years and into another war entirely. Written by Mark Boal, a journalist who was embedded with an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Baghdad in 2004, The Hurt Locker follows Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), a veteran assigned to lead a bomb disposal team after his predecessor is killed by an IED. His maverick—or reckless—approach to an inherently dangerous job does little to endear him to his new squad, who are convinced he’s more interested in chasing an adrenaline high than trying to keep them all alive. The Hurt Locker took home six Academy Awards in 2010, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director for helmer Kathryn Bigelow.

6) Russell Brand: End the Drugs War/From Addiction to Recovery (Aug. 1)

British comedian/author/activist Russell Brand is a love-him-or-hate-him personality on the best of days, but even if you have no patience for his politics, there’s no question that he’s got some valuable insights when it comes to addiction. Brand has talked extensively about his struggles with substance abuse—and the fact that he knows he could very easily slip back into it at any time, even after over a decade of sobriety. Brand explores society’s attitudes and approaches to the problems of substance abuse—and substance abusers—in a pair of BBC Three documentaries hitting Netflix in August. In End the Drugs War, Brand explores how various countries handle the problem and questions whether criminalization is the answer. In From Addiction to Recovery, Brand shines a light on his own troubled past, including his addiction to heroin and the death of his friend, performer Amy Winehouse.

7) Welcome to Me (Aug. 6)

Kristen Wiig plays Alice Klieg, a TV-obsessed woman with borderline personality disorder who spends most of her money on lottery tickets. Except she actually beats the odds and wins, netting an $86 million jackpot. She celebrates by moving into a casino hotel, but after she gets booted off the news right in the midst of delivering a speech she’d prepared—one that inexplicably includes mention of masturbation—Alice decides she wants her own show, so she can say whatever she wants to say. In addition to the always wonderful Wiig, Welcome to Me’s stellar cast includes Wes Bentley, James Marsden, Linda Cardellini, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Robbins, and Alan Tudyk.

8) HitRECord on TV: Season 1 (Aug. 7)

Actor/director Joseph Gordon-Levitt has forged a career as one of the most interesting young performers of his generation in movies such as Brick, (500) Days of Summer, and Looper, but since 2005 his passion project has been the website/collaborative production company he founded with his brother, Dan. HitRECord on TV is the culmination of that work, a series that premiered on Pivot last year and which compiles user-contributed short films and performances, with each episode’s content focused on a particular theme. The eight-episode first season includes explorations of fantasy, trash, space, games, money, patterns, and more. The show just aired its second season on Pivot last month, so expect it to show up on Netflix eventually. In the meantime, there’s plenty more to explore on the HitRECord website.

9) Doctor Who: Season 8 (Aug. 8)

For the fourth time in Doctor Who’s “modern era,” a new actor stepped into the TARDIS and the iconic role of the nigh-immortal Time Lord. And new lead Peter Capaldi was a very different Doctor indeed than David Tennant or Matt Smith: darker, less given to whimsy, and at times much colder than his recent regenerations. This is a Doctor who describes his companion Clara as his “carer”—she cares so he doesn’t have to—and while he’s not nearly as callous as he pretends to be, Clara’s doubts as to whether she can trust the Twelfth Doctor underscore the entire season. Capaldi’s Doctor is set to return for a new season of adventures in September, so now’s the perfect time to jump aboard if you’ve ever been curious about what all the fuss is about. If nothing else, watch “Listen,” arguably one of the finest episodes of Doctor Who ever.

10) Two Days, One Night (Aug. 11)

The talented Marion Cotillard landed a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as Sandra, a worker at a solar-panel factory in Belgium. After a nervous breakdown forces her into a brief leave of absence, she returns to work to discover that she’s been rendered redundant: management is paying her co-workers a significant bonus to pick up a few extra hours so they don’t have to keep her on. With a family to care for and desperate not to lose her job, Sandra spends the weekend appealing to each of the 16 co-workers who hold her future in their hands. But she’s got a hard sell: Times are tough, and all of them could use that extra money. If the synopsis doesn’t win you over, listen to the Tomatoes: Two Days, One Night is rocking a damned impressive Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97 percent Fresh. That’s even Fresher than Will Smith during the Bel-Air years.

11) Alex of Venice (Aug. 15)

Because one dynamite female lead performance deserves another, we recommend following up Two Days, One Night with Alex of Venice. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, probably best known as the crushworthy Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, stars as the Alex in question, a workaholic lawyer whose life is thrown for a loop after her stay-at-home husband bails on her. Now she must reinvent her life while caring for and reconnecting with both her young son and ailing father (Don Johnson). With the exception of interesting highlights such as Scott Pilgrim and Death Proof, Winstead has usually been better than the material she’s been cast in, so it’s great to hear so many critics singling out her performance in Alex of Venice, with Variety calling her “extraordinary.”

12) Byzantium (Aug. 27)

We just recently broke down some of most interesting vampire movies currently available on Netflix and Hulu, and if Neil Jordan’s Byzantium had already been up, we definitely would have included it. Byzantium stars Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan as a mother and daughter pair of vampires who have been alive since the Napoleonic era. Byzantium unfolds both in modern day and through flashbacks, exploring how the two became immortal bloodsuckers, and their pariah status within the secretive echelons of the vampire elite (there’s always a vampire elite, isn’t there?). The flick got mixed reviews, currently sitting at 63 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes, but critics praised its moody atmosphere, and frankly, I’d watch Ronan in damn near anything.

13) Narcos (Aug. 28)

Netflix has had a busy few months, introducing two new series in the form the sci-fi epic Sense8 and the Wet Hot American Summer prequel First Day of Camp, not to mention returning favorites Orange Is the New Black and BoJack Horseman. Now the streaming giant is wrapping up the summer with a bang, courtesy of Narcos, a new crime drama centered around Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and law enforcement’s attempts to curb the flow of cocaine into the United States in the 1980s. Created by Chris Brancato (Hannibal, Law & Order: SVU), Narcos will trace the rise of the Medellin Cartel, an empire that eventually made Escobar one of the wealthiest criminals in history. Even better, the series is being directed by José Padilha, best known for the Elite Squad movies and the better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be RoboCop remake.


July 2015

1) An Honest Liar (July 1)

Stage magician James Randi has spent the last several decades using his knowledge of illusion and deception to debunk self-proclaimed psychics, faith healers, and other con artists who use their skills to prey on the emotionally vulnerable. An Honest Liar chronicles Randi’s long career as an icon of reason and skepticism, including his frequent appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and his crusading attempts to make life difficult for people like spoon-bending celebrity psychic Uri Geller. In addition to the main attraction of Randi himself, the filmmakers also interview luminaries from the worlds of magic, science, pop culture, and skepticism, including “Science Guy” Bill Nye, MythBuster Adam Savage, illusionists Penn & Teller, and rock legend Alice Cooper.

2) Set Fire to the Stars (July 1)

British TV helmer Andy Goddard (Torchwood) makes his feature directorial debut with Set Fire to the Stars, which stars co-writer Celyn Jones as legendary Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. (One of Thomas’ best-known works was “Do not go gentle into that good night,” which featured prominently in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.) Elijah Wood co-stars as John Malcolm Brinnin, a meek poetry professor who gets the chance to host his literary hero, Thomas, during a weeklong visit to the States. Brinnin’s uptight nature clashes with Thomas’ heavy drinking and larger-than-life hedonism, and the trip soon becomes an object lesson in why it’s sometimes best not to meet your idols.

3) Knights of Sidonia: Season 2 (July 2)

Netflix boasts a decent selection of anime, but in 2014 it expanded the variety of its Netflix Originals catalog with Knights of Sidonia, based on the manga series by Tsutomu Nihei. Knights is set in the year 3394, a millennium after the Earth was obliterated by a race of giant alien monsters and the remnants of mankind regrouped and fled, Battlestar Galactica–style. The Sidonia is the last-known surviving ship of this exodus, a massive vessel populated by over 500,000 people. Having grown to adulthood living in the bowels of the ship and training on a mech simulator, the heroic Nagate Tanikaze is perfectly suited to join the fight when the deadly Gauna creatures threaten his home once again.

4) Faults (July 3)

Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a strong-willed cult member kidnapped and forced into a round of deprogramming at the behest of her desperate parents. Her guide back to “normality” is Ansel Roth (Leland Orser), one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of mind control. Suffice to say, Claire isn’t giving up her convictions without a fight, and the power struggle between the two makes Faults both funny and ferocious. Faults premiered at South by Southwest in 2014 and balances dark humor and satire against more serious commentary about manipulation and brainwashing. Winstead in particular has been singled out for giving perhaps the best performance of her career thus far. It currently holds an 88 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

5) Monsters: The Dark Continent (July 9)

Gareth Edwards’ understated creature flick Monsters posited a world where huge, tentacled alien beasts had overtaken much of Mexico, forcing the country into military quarantine. Monsters was a deliberately paced, ground-level look at fantastic events, even holding off the really good looks at the creatures until the film’s climax (a trick he repeated with Godzilla). This sequel runs counter to that philosophy in just about every way. Set 10 years after the first Monsters, The Dark Continent takes a more action-oriented approach that drops four soldier friends into a Middle East positively swarming with the alien creatures. So long, character work and nuance; hello, explosions and monster stampedes.

6) Serena (July 9)

Based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Ron Rash, Serena stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as a pair of newlyweds running a timber company in Depression-era North Carolina. Anyone who saw Cooper and Lawrence’s chemistry in Silver Linings Playbook would be excited to see the actors playing an on-screen couple again, but unfortunately the pair’s performances are one of the only things critics praised about Serena. It’s rocking a cringe-inducing 20 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment, so if you’re curious, watch it for Cooper and Lawrence and moderate your expectations appropriately. (Fun fact: Serena was originally going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky and star Angelina Jolie.)

7) Creep (July 14)

The found-footage horror/comedy Creep stars co-writer director Patrick Brice as a videographer who answers a cryptic Craigslist ad from Josef (co-writer Mark Duplass), a terminally ill man who wants someone to film him in a series of videos for his unborn son. The situation soon takes a turn for the, well, creepy when it becomes clear that Josef may be… shall we say “less than stable.” Creep scared its way to a 91 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, earning positive reviews from outlets such as the Hollywood Reporter and Indiewire. Bonus points if you pretend Duplass is playing his character from The League the whole time.

8) Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau (July 14)

Director Richard Stanley was fired by New Line a mere three days into filming his 1996 attempt to bring H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau to the big screen. Things didn’t get any better from there. John Frankenheimer stepped into the vacated director’s chair, but he faced a sea of troubles that included script problems, production delays, and a pair of uncooperative egos named Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. The end result is one of the worst movies ever made...which, thankfully, makes for a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary. In addition to revisiting the shitshow that was The Island of Dr. Moreau’s actual shoot, Lost Soul examines Stanley’s original vision for the film, including his plans for Bruce Willis to play the role that eventually went to Val Kilmer.

9) Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (July 15)

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus tells the story of Dr. Hess Green (Stephen Tyrone Williams), a respected anthropologist who is inflicted with a hunger for blood after an encounter with a cursed African artifact. Director Spike Lee actually turned to Kickstarter to fund Da Sweet Blood of Jesus—a first for Lee—and the movie was filmed in only 16 days.

Lee describes this particular “joint” as being about “Human beings who are addicted to blood. Funny, sexy and bloody. A new kind of love story (and not a remake of Blacula).” It received a VOD release this past February, just in time for Valentine’s Day. And am I the only one disappointed that it isn’t a remake of Blacula though?

10) Changeling (July 16)

Based on strange-than-fiction real-life events, Changeling stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a woman in 1920s Los Angeles whose son vanishes. Her relief when the LAPD announces they have found him is soon dashed by the discovery that the kid they bring forward isn’t actually her boy—even if they keep insisting he is. Soon the scandal-plagued department is trying to shut her up and brush the case under the rug, but Collins never gives up hope or stops trying to find her son. Writer J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Netflix’s Sense8) spent a year researching the real-life Collins case, and even included newspaper clippings in copies of the script to remind people that this bleak and bizarre story was based on true events.

12) BoJack Horseman: Season 2 (July 17)

Easily the weirdest original show in Netflix’s stable, BoJack Horseman stars Will Arnett as the titular Horseman, a washed-up sitcom star in a world where humans share the planet with anthropomorphic animals who are apparently not very creative when it comes to choosing last names. BoJack is eager to try and rekindle his fame, just like any other has-been celebrity—horse-headed or neigh. In addition to Arnett, BoJack Horseman’s impressive voice cast includes Amy Sedaris, Paul F. Tompkins, Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Patton Oswalt, Stanley Tucci, J.K. Simmons, and Community’s Alison Brie as BoJack’s ghostwriter/love interest. Season 2 also adds Friends star Lisa Kudrow into the mix.

13) Tig (July 17)

On Aug. 3, 2012, comedian Tig Notaro walked on stage at Largo in Los Angeles and opened her set with these words: “Good evening, hello, I have cancer. How are you?” The crowd laughed, expecting a bit. Instead, Notaro delivered a set that has become justifiably legendary in the standup world, with the comic opening up about her diagnosis, only days before, of invasive stage II breast cancer. The documentary Tig explores Notaro’s fight against her illness, her reignited career in the wake of that unforgettable Largo set, and even her finding love in the wake of a dark and difficult time. On a related note, you should definitely listen to Tig’s bit about how she is cosmically bonded to former ’80s teen pop icon Taylor Dayne.

14) Teacher of the Year (July 23)

“Surrounded by the eccentric faculty of Truman High School, Mitch Carter wins the California Teacher of the Year award and immediately receives a tempting offer that may force him to leave his job.” Key and Peele’s Keegan-Michael Key co-stars as a character named Ronald Douche (pronounced “doo-shay”), so on the surface this flick could easily be a trainwreck. However, Teacher of the Year did well on the festival circuit, the reviews currently listed on Rotten Tomatoes are mostly positive, and the trailer actually looks like this one might be worth your time. Honestly, I’d check it out for Key’s presence alone, but throwing the Sklar Brothers into the mix just cements the deal.

15) The Guest (July 25)

Director Adam Wingard gave the world the outstanding 2011 slasher flick You’re Next. With 2014’s The Guest, Wingard reunited with You’re Next screenwriter Simon Barrett for a thriller about a family mourning the loss of their oldest son, Caleb, a soldier who died in Afghanistan. When a stranger named David shows up claiming to be a friend of their late son, the family embraces him and welcomes him into their home. David is polite, helpful, and seemingly a great guy… but events soon begin to suggest that he harbors dark secrets and a violent streak that could put the entire family in danger. (July 25 is a long way away, so we highly recommend checking out Wingard’s You’re Next in the meantime if you haven’t already.)

16) Comet (July 28)

I’m a sucker for Emmy Rossum, but ever since Tusk, I can’t see Justin Long without subconsciously superimposing the walrus mustache back onto his upper lip. That’s bound to interfere with my enjoyment of this high-concept romantic comedy/drama that explores a six-year star-crossed relationship in non-linear fashion. Writer/director Sam Esmail received a “story by” credit on the 2014 found-footage horror flick Mockingbird, and more recently he created the thriller series Mr. Robot for USA. If nothing else, the fact that this isn’t a guy I’d expect a rom-com from intrigues me, and Comet looks to be playing with stylistic and narrative flourishes that could be interesting. Plus, let’s be honest: I’ll follow Emmy anywhere.

17) Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (July 31)

Wet Hot American Summer was a flop when it was released in 2001, but it’s since become a cult classic thanks to a script that deftly skewers ’80s teen sex comedies and a dynamite ensemble cast that includes Paul Rudd, Janeane Garofalo, Elizabeth Banks, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Molly Shannon, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Poehler, to name just a few. A decade and a half later, Netflix is taking viewers back to Camp Firewood in this prequel series. And yes, you can be sure there will be plenty of jokes about the fact that the “teenage” cast is now several decades past their first pimple. First Day of Camp is set earlier in the same summer explored in the original movie, and includes appearances by Jon Hamm, Chris Pine, Jason Schwartzman, Kristen Wiig, Judah Friedlander, Michael Cera, and “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Screengrab via Trailers/YouTube

The Streamys grow up, will feature performances from Future, Hailee Steinfeld, and OMI

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Music is a major part of the YouTube community, so it’s no surprise that musicians are taking a major part in The Streamys.

At the event to honor the year’s best and brightest of digital video, viewers will be wowed with a who’s who of musicians, including new breakout stars like OMI, and legacy acts like Sir Mix-A-Lot. Rapper Future will also perform, marking the television debut of his latest single, "March Madness.”

While last year the musical performances at the event tended toward the homegrown YouTube fare like Pentatonix and Postmodern Jukebox, this year the inclusion of VH1 into the mix and a televised event has drawn in names whose origin stories are not solely from the YouTube community. Other performers include Hailee Steinfeld and A Great Big World featuring Futuristic. However, Assaf Blecher, VP of programming and development for Dick Clark Productions, which puts on The Streamys, told the Daily Dot that each performer would have a connection to the digital world, citing Future's "March Madness" performance as a clear example.

"It's based on the events that happened in Ferguson and Baltimore," Blecher said. "You'll see it in the show, it's all based on the people who were on the streets and covered the song on their phones. That made this a topical conversation.It's going to be a combination of mainstream together with the online community that's going to be show on the screen. It's going to be an amazing moment."

The event will air Sept 17 on VH1, hosted by vloggers Grace Helbig and Tyler Oakley. Ten awards will be televised, with the others awarded at a small event at YouTube Space prior to Thursday.

Photo via The Streamys

What I learned from teaching a standup comedy class to college students

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In June, Jerry Seinfeld caught heat for saying that comedians don’t like to perform at colleges because the institutions are too politically correct.

This summer, I spent a week at my alma mater, Williams College, teaching a weeklong workshop in standup comedy. With his words ringing in my head, I started class.

The first thing I did after asking students about their favorite comedians—a list that favored the relatively soft Robin Williams accompanied by the occasional “I don’t really watch standup"—was ask them for a story. I figured, even if classic Catskills-style joke-telling isn’t for everyone, something funny happened to them. 

They were downright petrified of being offensive, especially when it came to talking about gender, sexuality, and dating. And I was surprised to find that a white male was most worried about potentially offending his audience. 

He told a story about being cast in a co-ed play while attending a boys’ school, and asking a girl out. It’s a funny and relatable story about teen anxiety and how much it hurts when someone lets you down easy. The problem was, the storyteller was afraid of admitting he had sexual desire for this girl. 

We talked long about this hesitance and I’m not sure he would have believed me if I’d been a man telling him it was OK for him to have sexual desire. It was as if he needed permission from a woman to acknowledge his heterosexuality. He didn’t want to offend anyone because he didn’t want to be the sort of person who had offensive beliefs. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being labeled a misogynist just because he wanted a date with a girl—he was afraid his desire actually made him one.

Each day in class, this student told the story again and again. As we workshopped it, he found the confidence in its humor and in his right to be himself and tell the honest truth on stage. But from now on, when I hear someone say that political correctness doesn’t affect comedy, I will think of this funny story I almost never heard. 


Standup comedy is a powerful art because there is no barrier between the artist and the audience. We laugh when we feel a connection with or relate to the person speaking, whether it’s a friend or a paid professional with sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. 

The antagonism between artists who work in the medium of honesty and audiences who want to make the world a better place is the perfect war for the Internet. The mob mentality allows factions to fight each other without having to listen to opponents. The secondhand information gleaned from 140-character retweets of something someone else is pissed about is all that’s needed to open the floodgates for an outpouring of the perfectly reasonable surfeit of rage felt by those who don’t enjoy living in a world where date rape is a frat ritual and black lives mattering is up for debate.

In a 2014 Vulture interview, Chris Rock told Frank Rich: 

It is scary, because the thing about comedians is that you’re the only ones who practice in front of a crowd. Prince doesn’t run a demo on the radio. But in stand-up, the demo gets out. There are a few guys good enough to write a perfect act and get onstage, but everybody else workshops it and workshops it, and it can get real messy. It can get downright offensive. Before everyone had a recording device and was wired like fucking Sammy the Bull, you’d say something that went too far, and you’d go, ‘Oh, I went too far,’ and you would just brush it off. But if you think you don’t have room to make mistakes, it’s going to lead to safer, gooier stand-up. You can’t think the thoughts you want to think if you think you’re being watched.

Internet visibility of artists has created a backlash against the medium. Now instead of just telling a joke or slamming a heckler live, the comic can go online and tell their audience why they are wrong for not laughing. Audiences and performers are often at each other’s throats because the focus has moved away from communicating with and relating to each other and towards defensiveness and alienation.

A recent example of a comedian being taken down for working through an honest thought and turning it into a joke took place on Conan last month. Bill Burr was slammed as “hateful” and “transphobic” for his observation on Caitlyn Jenner: “You shave your beard off, people are like, ‘Oh my god, that’s your chin, wow.’ This guy walked out a dude, came back a woman, and you’re just supposed to be like, ‘Oh yeah, so anyways, Caitlyn, what I was saying...." 

The hate and violence transgender people face isn’t funny, but in no way is Burr saying that it is.

Comedy is often found in a broken pattern. That minor cosmetic alterations like haircuts and weight gain are acceptable observations while the radical change of switching genders is off limits is funny. What’s happening when Burr talks about Jenner isn’t an attack on her. It’s a thoughtful, intelligent cisgender human being doing the work of understanding what it means to be trans.

Even when Burr slips and uses “he” rather than “she” and has to correct himself (“They really freak out about the pronouns,” he adds), he isn’t condemning or shaming Jenner. He isn’t saying she doesn’t have a right to live as female. Burr misspoke, acknowledged his mistake, and corrected it.

Attacking a comedian for something like this does more harm than good to equality and acceptance because it discourages people from thinking through their preconceived notions.

It’s a conversational medium. The performer succeeds when the audience feels they have been let inside the comedian’s mind. They tell and revise their jokes and stories again and again, looking for the moments that resonate with the audience. And they know what does or doesn’t. We’ll laugh or we won’t.

A comedian doesn’t need a Twitter horde to tell them their racist joke isn’t funny, or another telling those tweeters to STFU. They feel it in their bones when the look out at the silent scowls of the unamused.

Angry audiences like to claim that there are certain topics that are just not funny. This is empirically untrue. Anything that has ever caused the involuntary physical response of laughter has had power because the person laughing found it funny. That means on some level it is funny, even if only to assholes. 


In the fight against hate, we are so eager to break down the doors of intolerance that sometimes we just start smashing whatever’s nearby. We see someone getting joy from a subject that doesn’t make us laugh and we want to attack that person for making us feel marginalized.

College kids are at a point where they’re deciding what to do with their lives. It’s a place of lofty goals and self-importance. A name makes it into the headlines associated with something approximating intolerance and people join the attack to feel like they are making a difference. They wield their pitchforks in the name of goodness, and think hashtags make the world a better place.

Caitlin Sullivan, director of the Williams College Summer Theater Lab, told me she’d overheard two students saying they thought standup “was just an excuse for ignorant asshole dudes to say mean shit.” I think that notion came from their prior experience of the medium: hearing about the celebrities off stage with very little exposure to the art itself.

Over the course of the class, these two young women struggled with the same thing. They talked fast, like they wanted to just hurry up and get off the stage, and they apologized a lot. A lot. It seemed to me they didn’t feel they had the right to be up there, saying whatever they thought was funny.

We’re all familiar with the wildly misogynist assertion that women can’t be funny, least of all pretty women. This rage-making claim has encouraged lots of great ladies to go out and be funny in public, but the less fortunate side effect is that it has made a lot of ladies afraid of not being funny.

For the first time, I could see why a co-ed would go online to rail against men who make bad jokes about socially relevant subjects. They felt ill equipped for or unwelcome in comedy, but instead of wanting to break down the walls keeping them out, they want to take down what's behind those walls.

I don’t know that these two individuals ever tweeted anger at “ignorant asshole dudes” for their “mean shit,” but I certainly could see why they might want to and why doing so might make them or those like them feel less oppressed by the schmucks who’ve grown up thinking their shit is so hot that everyone will want to listen to whatever nonsense they feel like shouting at an audience.

Daniel Tosh, you know who you are.

After the class, I asked the students if they had anything further to say. One of the women wrote me, saying:

I'm guessing you may have already written things about how much women are or are not encouraged to speak, and how that manifests itself in standup. [We] were both very much impacted by what you said about having the same right to 'tell long drawn-out stories.' It's just such a true way to put it. Ever since that day we've noticed more and more how we both apologize and speak quickly a lot, and we've attempted to correct it, not in a bad or punishing way, but in a kind way. I've become so much more aware of how my voice and others' voices sound when telling stories. I always get all squeamish about ‘gendering’ things or whatever, but thinking about all of this has been very illuminating and helpful for me.

These women were fucking hilarious, but standup is a process. You throw a bunch of shit against a wall again and again and see what sticks. And it won’t all stick.

It isn’t that audiences are too sensitive or don’t have a sense of humor, rather that people who believe in racial equality, gender neutrality, and general non-violent kindness feel adrift in a sea of racists, rapists, and Goldman Sachs executives.  

I say, let the rape jokes flow like wine. The laughs will let know if you’re funny, not the comments. 

Illustration by Max Fleishman 


Donald Trump interviews his mirror image—with some help from Jimmy Fallon

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Jimmy Fallon has Stephen Colbert to contend with now, so he's got to step up his game. Enter Donald Trump

Last night, Fallon channeled his inner Trump on The Tonight Show, as the real Trump became his literal mirror. We also get a glimpse at how he might answer questions at next week's Republican debate. And since he's Jimmy Fallon, he has a hard time not cracking up as he mirrors Trump.  

If only Fallon could have gotten him to lip sync battle.  

Screengrab via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube 

Demi Lovato had an amazing answer for this boring interview question

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Demi Lovato is currently on a European press tour for her upcoming album, Confident, dropping Hozier covers like a boss. A recent stop brought her to a Berlin radio station. 

On Friday, an interviewer asked Lovato about, among other things, her favorite dish. She went for it: "I like mugs." 

Lovato hasn't commented about it on social media, but her fans are having a great time. 

While some people are making fun of Lovato for not understanding the question, maybe she did understand the question, and she just has a really great sense of humor? Either way, her promo tour is going great. 

You can find the full interview here

Photo via Neon Tommy/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

Would you use an app that plays Nickelback when you look at your ex's Facebook photos?

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You won't want to "look at this photograph" anymore, thanks to Nickelblock, the app that plays Nickelback every time you try to look at your ex on Facebook.

Unfortunately, it's totally fictional, but the sketch comedians of Lady Products really make us wish we could program ourselves to stop looking at our exes with the help of our phone and Chad Kroeger.

There's even a provision in the fictional app if you get desensitized to "Photograph": For just $2.99, you can upgrade to the entire Nickelback discography, meaning you'll never run out of songs to turn you against your ex.

Screengrab via Lady Products/YouTube

YouTuber Chester See to star in ABC Family show based on his life

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Chester See is the latest YouTuber to make the leap to television, with comedy drama series Over the Top coming to ABC Family. 

See is known to is 1.6 million subscribers for his original music and short skits, as well as a turn on Broadway in Rock of Ages and on the AwesomenessTV series Side Effects. The series will follow a fictionalized version of See's life as a failed musician who turns to YouTube after moving to Los Angeles. Each episode will be capped by a song or skit immediately available online. 

See isn't the first YouTuber to nab a television deal in the past year. Todrick Hall just launched a docu-reality series with MTV about his video creation, and Flula Borg and Rachel Bloom will both helm fictional comedies on network television this fall. See's show seems to be a midpoint—a series focused on the life of a YouTuber, but fictionalized.

Maker Studios, which Disney purchased in 2014, will produce the series for ABC Family, which is also a Disney-owned property.

H/T Tubefilter | Screengrab via Chestersee/YouTube

Tom Hardy continues his mission to befriend every dog

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Tom Hardy's love of dogs is well documented—painstakingly so, in the case of the Tom Hardy Holding DogsInstagram account. If you're ever feeling low, all you have to do is Google "Tom Hardy dogs" and let the pure adorability flow over you.

It's with this in mind that British talk-show host Alan Carr knew exactly what to do when Tom Hardy visited his show. He decided to introduce Hardy to some new doggy pals.

The Tom Hardy Holding Dogs page had long been searching for photos of the actor hanging out with a bassett hound and a great dane, so Carr was happy to oblige by bringing both dogs on set. The resulting introductions are just as cute as you'd imagine.

As of this morning, that Instagram account now has more than 21,000 followers. We totally understand why.

Screengrab via Alan Carr: Chatty Man/YouTube

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