Tomorrow night, Adult Swim is airing Dinner with Friends with Brett Gelman and Friends, a new half-hour special starring comedian Brett Gelman and directed by Jason Woliner, who co-wrote the script with Gelman. Beginning as a talk show Gelman hosts over a meal with six Hollywood actors a la Jon Favreau's Dinner for Five, Dinner with Friends with Brett Gelman and Friends quickly takes a turn and descends into an evening of psychological torture. Like Eagleheart, the Adult Swim show Gelman acts on and Woliner is a writer, director, and producer on, Dinner with Friends is fast-paced, funny, and unlike anything else on TV.
I recently talked with Brett Gelman [...]
Rich Stevens’s comic strip Diesel Sweeties is an odd creation. An online strip with pixelated artwork, it features a strange cast of characters including an emotional robot, an ex-pornstar, and various humans, cats, and mechanical devices. He’s also the man behind merchandise including a “Fuck This” ice scraper and a mug “What Do We Want? Coffee. When Do We Want It? I’ll Fucking Cut You!”
Since 2000, he’s been making daily comics for the web about veganism, music, technology, and celebrating and eviscerating hipsters before the term was widely used. He has a new book just out, Bacon is a Vegetable; Coffee is a Vitamin, and I [...]
Long established on the San Francisco comedy scene, W. Kamau Bell was relatively unknown nationally when he began hosting Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell on FX in 2012. But following the internet outrage over the show’s cancellation this past November, Bell and Totally Biased received more critical attention, posthumously praising the show for its unique blend of humor and socio-political commentary.
Now, Bell is full steam ahead with his "Oh Everything!" tour, which will include doing standup at the Atlantic Ocean Comedy & Music Festival July 25-28, a comedy cruise put on by Jesse Thorn’s podcast and radio organization Maximum Fun. Before that, he’ll be in [...]
Most comedians are lucky to land a bit part for their first television gig, but New Zealand standup Rhys Darby struck gold when his friends Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement cast him in their HBO series Flight of the Conchords as the two-man band's incompetent manager Murray Hewitt. It's been five years since Flight of the Conchords ended, and during that time Darby has toured his standup around the world, appeared in a handful of films and television shows, and also developed a set of original characters that evolved into his new series Short Poppies, now available on Netflix. Ahead of the Short Poppies premiere, I recently got [...]
Rachael Harris's most recent appearance in Jason Bateman’s first foray into directing, Bad Words, was brief. Nevertheless, her time on screen occupied some of the funniest moments of the movie. She is largely known for her acerbic, caustic roles in comedy (like as Ed Helms's mean girlfriend in The Hangover) , yet she has also proven herself to be a talented actress in a wide range of roles (like earning awards attention and acclaim as the lead in 2011's Natural Selection, where she played a soon-to-be widowed, sheltered, Christian housewife, whose life is rocked by the news that her dying husband had an illegitimate son living in Florida).
Harris [...]
