Latest news with #KateBerlant
CTV News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Comedian John Early's directorial debut ‘Maddie's Secret' to premiere at TIFF
People walk the closed-off streets at the Toronto International Film Festival, in Toronto, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette TORONTO — Comedian John Early will make his directorial debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF announced Wednesday that the satire 'Maddie's Secret' will open the festival's Discovery program, which spotlights first-time and sophomore directors. Early, who is best known for his starring role on the TBS and HBO Max show 'Search Party,' had not previously announced he was making the movie. Programmer Dorota Lech says the film, which was also written by Early, is about a content creator on a food network who's trying to hide her dark past. She says the movie is both a showcase for some of comedy's brightest stars, including Early's frequent collaborator Kate Berlant, and a 'really sincere portrait of girlhood and trauma.' The Discovery lineup includes Canadian filmmaker Eva Thomas's 'Nika & Madison,' a feature-length adaptation of her short film 'Redlights.' The movie follows two Indigenous women who flee their reserve after a violent encounter with a police officer. 'It's a really relevant social drama,' Lech said in a call last week to preview the lineup. Other films in the program include '100 Sunset' by Canadian director Kunsang Kyirong, a noir about Toronto's Tibetan community, and 'The Man in My Basement' from director Nadia Latif, a thriller starring Willem Dafoe and Corey Hawkins and based on the novel by Walter Mosley. TIFF, which holds its 50th edition this year, runs from Sept. 4 to 14. Earlier this week, festival organizers dropped their most robust lineup announcement to date, touting films from big-name directors including Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein,' Benny Safdie's 'The Smashing Machine' and Scarlett Johansson's feature directorial debut 'Eleanor the Great.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2025. Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Get weird (and wise) with ‘Kate Berlant Live'
You might go to a Kate Berlant show for the comic's singular brand of intellectual comedy, but her exaggerated face pulls and cross-eyed expressions are sure to tickle you, too. The comedian/actor's high-low approach to comedy makes the laughs come easy and the deep thoughts percolate well after her set. A Los Angeles native with an artist and a stage performer as parents, Berlant has been experimenting with surrealism and absurdism since the 2010s. Fans know her as a longtime collaborator of comedian John Early: Both had their own sketch specials on Netflix's 'The Characters' (2016) and together, they released a comedy special titled 'Would It Kill You to Laugh?' (2023), in which they play characters with a penchant for pettiness or a tendency toward hilarious self-seriousness. As an actress, Berlant favors roles in movies with a trippy bent, playing supporting characters in movies from Boots Riley's Oakland-set satire 'Sorry to Bother You' (2018) to the surreal dark comedy 'Dream Scenario' (2023). And as a podcaster of 'Berlant and Novak,' she and fellow stand-up Jaquelin Novak chat it up about their dogged pursuit of all things wellness. Berlant's Hulu comedy special, 'Cinnamon in the Wind' and her one-woman show 'Kate' both straddle the tension between authenticity and performance. Don't miss her latest musings with 'Kate Berlant Live.'
The Guardian
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
John Early: The Album Tour review – a rich slice of larky self-mockery
For fans of a certain brand of comedy – the comedy that exposes self-fashioning in the age of social media as ridiculous performance – this flying UK visit by John Early has been keenly anticipated. The outre star of millennial self-satire Search Party and sidekick to the brilliant Kate Berlant, Early has spent his career perfectly situated where generational social commentary meets flamboyant silliness. At his best tonight, he richly delivers on the expectation. And even if his best doesn't sustain from start to finish, in the first half, when the Tennessee man addresses himself to frightened, vacuous, deracinated American modernity, he's riveting. What's interesting about Early's approach is that – unlike Berlant, Leo Reich, and others – he doesn't hide behind a character, or a grotesque version of himself. What we get is seemingly the real Early, larking around, sending up his own prissiness a little, but sharing observations on culture and its discontents that are strikingly idiosyncratic and unmistakably his own. Maybe some of the topics are familiar (pretentious food presentation in restaurants, say), but Early's way of digging beneath them into richer cultural subsoil is distinctive. There's a great routine about circumlocutory waiter-speak, and what it says about our fear of directness. Another skit about visiting the toilet while in company is both a goofy piece of self-mockery and a weirdly eloquent delve into shame and carnality in the era of the curated self. I make it sound heavy; it isn't. Early is always on to the next thing, which is often outrageous and uproarious, like his routine about overinvesting in sexual role-play. ('I went full Meryl on his ass!') All of this is punctuated by covers of pop hits by the likes of Madonna, Britney and – in a lovely closing duet with his musical wingman Hess – Dolly Parton. The songs aren't always as gripping as the comedy. There's a fairly basic audience participation interlude, and a sketch in character as denim-clad southern mom Vicky with a V that's diverting, but lower-wattage than what's gone before. It all adds up to a great show, though: entertaining in lots of ways and electrifying in some.
