Entertainment
Seth Rogen sparks up the laughter with Bill Burr, Snoop, Post Malone and more at the Hollywood Bowl
A mere half-hour late start boded well for the highest-profile comedy, music, and marijuana-themed variety-benefit show of Netflix Is a Joke. May 1’s Bowl kickoff with Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, Nate Bargatze, and Sebastian Maniscalco, for example, had tasked a jazz combo with killing 45 minutes before any stand-ups took center stage.
One week later, sporting a shiny black tuxedo and devilish grin, host Seth Rogen emerged with a oversized match to spark the three-story prop bong commissioned for the festival. As plume of smoke covered the stage, the white-tailed Hollywood Chamber Orchestra blasted “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” and opening rapper Lil Dicky challenged Roseanne Barr for the most strained “Star-Spangled Banner” rendition of all time before launching into “Freaky Friday.”
Rogen lights a giant fake bong during his show Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Randall Michelson / Netflix)
“Even I think this is a little much! Weed’s legal; what am I trying to prove?” Rogen asked back onstage. His thoughts on the Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef — “You don’t hear defensive rapping that often. You don’t hear rap that’s like, ‘I “am” a good father! I “should not” be a registered sex offender!’” — were echoed by “Abbott Elementary” cast member Janelle James. “Men are happy right now,” she observed. “Sports and a rap battle happening at the same time? I caught my boyfriend skipping the other day! Men don’t get to be happy. They’re sitting around dissecting poetry, how lovely!”
From the beginning, the “almost” sold-out audience of 18,000 took happy advantage of the open-air event. A cool evening breeze grew increasingly fragrant and thick under the spotlights and trippy, rotating pastels.
Janelle James at Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl for the Netflix is a Joke Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday.
(Mathieu Bitton / Netflix)
Good vibes continued with “Daily Show” correspondent Ronny Chieng, who tailored his set specifically for the occasion. “It’s great to perform in legendary American venues like this where Dave Chappelle almost got murdered!” he enthused. “America is a country that puts show business above everything. This is how much we love show business in America: You guys remember 10 years ago when Seth Rogen made a movie about Kim Jung Un that almost destroyed the world? ‘The Interview’ almost caused global thermonuclear war! We kinda forgot about that, didn’t we? It was our generation’s Cuban Missile Crisis!”
Ronny Chieng at Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl for the Netflix is a Joke Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Mathieu Bitton / Netflix)
Not much was being remembered at the moment, to be honest. Chieng helpfully revisited the production in minute-to-minute detail for most of his time, noting, “We almost destroyed the world for 59% on Rotten Tomatoes!” Also, “In Malaysia there’s a death penalty for smoking weed… everyone here would all be executed!”
Ramy Youssef at Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl for the Netflix is a Joke Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Mathieu Bitton / Netflix)
Peabody Award and Golden Globe winner Ramy Youssef followed, the non-smoker cautioning, “I don’t think anyone here understands how much weed is being smoked backstage. I know you saw some of it out here, and this was nothing!”
An extended story about adopting a rescue dog had included references to autism and Harry Potter when Youssef suddenly realized “I’ve been up here too long! My time perception is distinctly… I’m high, I’m not gonna be rude, I’ve gotta go!” Which he very promptly and hilariously did.
“I don’t know if you know you are at a charity event right now,” Rogen checked in, offering thanks for the Netflix event and those aiding his Hilarity for Charity foundation combating Alzheimer’s. “Of all the shows at the Hollywood Bowl, this is the only one where the money goes to charity. Jerry Seinfeld kept the money, just know that, to buy one-sixteenth of a f— Porsche!”
Post Malone at Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl for the Netflix is a Joke Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Mathieu Bitton / Netflix)
Immediately after, a surprise eight-song set from Post Malone (“Better Now,” “Psycho,” “Chemical”) got the crowd on its feet, who agreed that yep, it felt hella good to be stretching around, plus standing up was totally better for watching the colorful lasers and bursting pyrotechnics anyway. Ooooh, fire!
Bill Burr at Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl for the Netflix is a Joke Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Mathieu Bitton / Netflix)
Surprise comedy guest Bill Burr followed “Congratulations” with a few minutes up top about Hollywood pedophiles and decrying cancel culture. Right around the time he mentioned punching a baby, the scene shifted to the women’s restroom: clean, minimal foot traffic, the floor painted a mossy, foresty green that looked way more soft and spongy than concrete has any right to look. Don’t bother trying to touch it. And wash your hands. Back and safely seated, Burr was continuing, “You’d better have a Black guy in the trunk, or you, sir, are in trouble!”
Daz Dillinger, Snoop Dogg, Kurupt at Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl for the Netflix is a Joke Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Rob Liggins / Netflix)
Nearing the unconventional benefit’s end, Rogen announced a hot tip: The Hollywood Chamber Orchestra’s trumpet player wasn’t merely one of the best trumpet players alive, but the guy responsible for the “Jeopardy” theme song! The Bowl grooved its ass off to both the classic jam and a new, “sexy smooth jazz version” before losing its collective mind for final act Snoop Dogg, his “The Next Episode”’s refrain to “Smoke weed everyday!” and the call and response of “Nothin’ But a G Thang.” Plus how does it get any better than “Gin and Juice” for charity?
Lighting up a joint, Snoop took a spin directizzing the orchestrizzle and giving props to the musicians, “Give it up for my band!”
L.A. becoming home to the largest comedy festival in America reminds fans how lucky it feels to exist amid the most important, innovative, genre-busting live performers of our time. Amazing musical moments like the conclusion of Seth Rogen Smokes the Bowl with Snoop rapping hip-hop classics “Jump Around,” “Drop it Like It’s Hot,” “Who Am I (What’s My Name?),” an orchestral “Zarathustra” reprise and a shower of celebratory fireworks remind us how far we’re capable of going… and growing.
Movie Reviews
Miyamoto says he was surprised Mario Galaxy Movie reviews were even harsher than the first | VGC
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto says he’s surprised at the negative critical reception to the Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
As reported by Famitsu, Miyamoto conducted a group interview with Japanese media to mark the local release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
During the interview, Miyamoto was asked for his views on the critical reception to the film in the West, where critics’ reviews have been mostly negative.
Miyamoto replied that while he understood some of the negative points aimed at The Super Mario Bros Movie, he thought the reception would be better for the sequel.
“It’s true: the situation is indeed very similar,” he said. “Actually, regarding the previous film, I felt that the critics’ opinions did hold some validity. “However, I thought things would be different this time around—only to find that the criticism is even harsher than it was before.
“It really is quite baffling: here we are—having crossed over from a different field—working hard with the specific aim of helping to revitalize the film industry, yet the very people who ought to be championing that cause seem to be the ones taking a passive stance.”
As was the case with the first film, opinion is divided between critics and the public on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. On review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a critics’ score of 43% , while its audience score is 89%.
While this is down from the first film’s scores (which were 59% critics and 95% public) it does still appear to imply that the film’s target audience is generally enjoying it despite critical negativity.
The negative reception is unlikely to bother Universal and Illumination too much, considering the film currently has a global box office of $752 million before even releasing in Japan, meaning a $1 billion global gross is becoming increasingly likely.
Elsewhere in the interview, Miyamoto said he hoped the film would perform well in Japan, especially because it has a unique script rather than a simple localization as in other regions.
“The Japanese version is a bit unique,” he said. “Normally, we create an English version and then localize it for each country, but for the first film, we developed the English and Japanese scripts simultaneously. For this film, we didn’t simply localize the completed English version – instead, we rewrote it entirely in Japanese to create a special Japanese version.
“So, if this doesn’t become a hit in Japan, I feel a sense of pressure – as the person in charge of the Japanese version – to not let [Illumination CEO and film co-producer] Chris [Meledandri] down.
“However, judging by the reactions of the audience members who’ve seen it, I feel that Mario fans are really embracing it. I also believe we’ve created a film that people can enjoy even if they haven’t seen the previous one, so I’m hopeful about that as well.”
Book Review
Dear Monica Lewinsky
By Julia Langbein
Doubleday: 320 pages, $30
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First loves can be beautiful or traumatic, sometimes both. They are almost always intense, with emotions on speed dial and hormones running amok. Nothing like the durable consolations of late-life romance, but headier, more exciting and, in the worst cases, far more damaging.
Even decades later, Jean Dornan, the protagonist of Julia Langbein’s smart, poignant and involving novel “Dear Monica Lewinsky,” can’t recollect her own first love in tranquility. Its after-effects have derailed her life, and an unexpected email invitation to attend a retirement party in France honoring her former lover sends her into a tailspin.
An agitated Jean finds herself praying to none other than Monica Lewinsky, the patron saint of bad romantic choices, or as Langbein puts it, “of those who suffer venal public shaming and patriarchal cruelty.” In Langbein’s comic, but also deadly serious, imagination, this is no mere metaphor. The martyred Monica has literally been transfigured into a saint. And why not? Surely, she has suffered enough to qualify.
Jean and Monica have in common a disastrous liaison with an attractive, powerful, married older man. Monica was humiliated, reviled, then merely defined by her missteps. Meanwhile, her arguably more culpable sexual partner survived impeachment, retained both his political popularity and his marriage and enjoyed a lucrative post-presidency.
Jean’s brief fling during the summer of 1998 coincided with the public airing of Monica’s doomed romance. Jean’s passion took a more private toll, but she still lives with what Monica calls “this deepening suspicion that your existence is a remnant of an event long since concluded.”
Though framed by a fantastical conceit, “Dear Monica Lewinsky” is at its core a realist novel, influenced by the feminism of #MeToo and precise in its delineation of character and place. Langbein’s Monica — having finally transcended her past and ascended to spiritual omniscience — becomes Jean’s interlocutor. Together, they relive the fateful weeks that Jean spent studying the Romanesque churches of medieval France and charming David Harwell, the Rutgers University medieval art professor co-leading the summer program.
Every now and again, Monica, as much savvy therapist as all-knowing seer, interrupts Jean’s first-person account to offer guidance. Threaded through the narrative, as contrast and commentary, is a martyrology of female saints. These colloquially rendered portraits, reflecting a punitive, patriarchal morality, describe girls and women who would rather endure torture or even death than sully their sexual purity — stories so extreme that they seem satirical.
The portraits play off the novel’s milieu: a series of churches, as well as the medieval French castle that is home to an eccentric and mostly absent prince. The utility of religious doctrine and practice is another of the book’s themes. One graduate student, Patrick, is a devoted Roman Catholic, unquestioning in his faith. Others are merely devout enthusiasts of medieval architecture. Judith, a doctoral candidate at Harvard, has an addiction of her own: an eating disorder that threatens to disable her.
A rising junior at Rutgers, Jean is one of just two undergraduates in the program. Her initial dull, daunting task involves measuring and otherwise assessing the churches’ “apertures” — windows and doors. Later, she is assigned to collaborate on a guidebook and write a term paper.
A language major unversed in art, architecture or medieval history, Jean feels overwhelmed at times. But she does have useful talents: fluent French and the ability to conjure delicious Sunday dinners for her bedazzled colleagues. (The author of the 2023 novel “American Mermaid,” Langbein has both a doctorate in art history and a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for food writing, and her expertise in both fields is evident.)
As the summer wanes, Jean’s fixation on David grows. Langbein excels at depicting the obsessive nature of illicit, unfulfilled desire — how it swamps judgment and just about everything else. A quarter-century Jean’s senior, David is trying to finish a stalled book project, laboring in the shadow of his more prolific and successful wife, Ann. An expert on the erotically charged religious life of nuns and the art it produced, she shows up briefly in the story and then conveniently disappears.
David is smooth, seductive and, to 19-year-old Jean, far more appealing than the fumbling schoolboys she has known. But he turns out to be no more grown-up or emotionally mature. After the flirtation and its consummation, David beats a hasty (and unsurprising) retreat. Then he does something worse: He allows his guilt to shred his integrity.
In the aftermath of that summer, a wounded Jean stumbles through her last two years of college, “berserk, unfocused, humiliating.” She abandons her academic and career ambitions, takes a job as a court interpreter, and marries Michael, an affable nurse who has little idea of her emotional burdens.
Then that invitation, inspiring “a racy heat,” arrives, and Jean must decide whether to confront her past or keep running from it. Is there really much of a choice? Fortunately, she has the saintly Monica as her guide. More clear-eyed now, Jean must reject her martyrdom and reclaim her own truth and agency. If she does, David, at least in the realm of the imagination, may finally get his comeuppance.
Klein, a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia.
The sixth outing in the director’s chair for filmmaker Kirk Jones, I Swear dramatizes the real-life story of touretter John Davidson (played by Robert Aramayo). Tourette’s Syndrome, for those unfamiliar with the condition, is a nervous system disorder that causes various tics, the most prolific being erratic and explicit language. However, as I Swear expertly showcases, the syndrome is far more than ill-timed outbursts of curse words. Davidson’s story is one of societal frustration, finding your people (both with and without the condition), and using your voice to help others rise. The subject and subject matter are handled with absolute care and understanding under Kirk’s measured vision and Robert Aramayo’s BAFTA-winning performance.
The film kicks off with the greatest exclamation to democracy ever uttered (*%#! the Queen!), as a nervous John Davidson prepares himself before entering an awards ceremony hosted by Britain’s royal family. Right away, the film tells us what it is: a triumph over adversity that blends humor and human drama with education. It’s an important setup, as the film flashes back to Davidson’s 1980s youth, where we see his time as a star soccer recruit flatline as his condition takes hold. Davidson’s life spirals from there. Some aspects, like school bullying and accidental run-ins with authority figures, are expected but important to empathizing with young Davidson’s (young version, played with heart by Scott Ellis Watson) new everyday life. The more tragic, a complete meltdown of his family system, is unsettling if quick. His father (Steven Cree) is never given enough screen time to explore his alcohol coping tendencies. However, his mother Heather’s descent into easy fixes and blaming is crushing and convincing. Harry Potter series actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) gives a layered performance as Heather. Someone who loves her son, but also feels cursed by him as the entire family exits the picture. It’s bitter, she’s tired, and fills each conversation with ‘only medication and your mother can save you’ energy.
From there, the viewer and Davidson find refuge in a host of characters. Maxine Peake plays Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend and a retired mental health nurse. Screen vet Peter Mullan plays maintenance man Tommy Trotter. Together, they help Davidson build a life and an understanding of himself that carries the film forward into its second half. After that, the film is primarily a 3-actor show as director Kirk fills the screen with these tour-de-force performances. Peake and Mullan are great vessels to get the film’s main message across: patience, love, and a shared responsibility between the diagnosed and those who understand their struggle can help change the path for people quickly left behind by a normative world. Together, they are the soul of the movie, with the filmmakers clearly hoping the audience will follow their lead after they exit the theater (in my case, the beautiful Oriental Theater for the Milwaukee Film Festival). Both performances are perfectly warm and reflective and shouldn’t be left out in discussions of I Swear.
I say this because the movie is anchored by The Rings of Power actor Robert Aramayo, who leaves Elrond’s elf ears behind to bring an acute naturalism to his performance of main character John Davidson. Aramayo’s physicality and timing of the fitful Tourettes Syndrome never feel out of place or overplayed. In fact, the movie as a whole does an amazing job of never veering into sentimentality. While many moviegoers left with tissues dabbing their eyes, the filmmaking never felt like it was forcing that reaction out of audiences. It straddles the line between feel-good and reality with every story beat and lands squarely on the side of letting the real inform our feelings. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will grasp the film’s message and hopefully take it with them into life.
I Swear continues at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Tuesday, April 21st, and releases nationwide April 24th, 2026, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
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