Entertainment
Even if you know his crowd work clips and not his name, comedian Jeff Arcuri is ready to meet you
Life is a bit surreal for Jeff Arcuri these days. Though he’s been a stand-up comedian for over 14 years, most people in the world never knew it until clips of him joking around with audiences at spots like the Comedy Cellar in New York started going viral a few years ago. But while there’s no shortage of comics who’ve cracked the code to instant follows and likes (and plenty of scorn) by posting crowd work, Arcuri’s path in comedy has always been a coping mechanism for ADHD and razor-sharp situational awareness mixed with an overall lack of filter. At heart he’s always been a people person, even if he believes them less and less when they now say they’re fans of his.
“Is this ‘The Truman Show?’ I have that thought all the time where everyone’s just being nice and following me because they feel bad for me,” he tells The Times. “It’s crazy, all of it is crazy and I appreciate it every day.”
What he’s referring to, other than the millions upon millions of views online, is how recent internet fame combined with long-term anonymity in the comedy scene has fueled the rocket that’s sending him into a new level of notoriety on Netflix when his debut special “Nice to Meet You” drops on Tuesday. The new hour, performed in the round, tests Arcuri’s ability to remember minute facts and callbacks from random people in the crowd as well as his written material about his personal observations on life, family and his wife Katie Thurston — star of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” — who is currently battling Stage 4 breast cancer. Despite the low moments they’ve gone through this year, getting a debut special was his chance to share how he and his reality star spouse have found ways to laugh through their everyday struggles.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s talk about the weird level of fame that you’ve attained right now. You are the guy everyone sees on their Instagram reels but at the same time they’re like, “Who is that guy?”
Oh, 100%! My Uber driver, on a 45-minute ride here, we talked the entire time. As soon as I got in, he goes, “You do comedy?” I go, “Yeah, man,” We start talking, he’s asking me questions, we’re talking about comedy, and then we pull up, and he goes, “What’s your name, by the way?” He was quoting videos of mine the whole time, and then I wrote it down for him, I was like, “My special comes out July 7, give it a watch,” and he’s like, “All right, man, I only have YouTube, though.” I was like, all right, just lie, you don’t need to say that… In the airport I get a lot of people squinting and then I’ll see them look at their phone and try to figure out “how do I know this person.”
How have your crowd work clips on social media changed your career?
Immensely. I think it was the only way for me to put out as much content as I could and still perform live. It’s a beautiful thing, in my opinion. I get to show my improvisation, and yet still work on the written part personally, and like I get to repeat that joke for a year touring, as opposed to a crowd work moment, it happens, it’s done, I’m not gonna ever repeat that moment ever. So I think it’s just kind of a blessing that social media and everything took off at the same time the improvised crowd work took off, something that I had been honing for years prior to that, just because that’s what I did in my comedy, I just never had social media.
There’s so many opinions out there about crowd work, which, as I’m sure you know, aren’t always positive. Why do you think people are so triggered by crowd work?
There’s a lot of bad crowd work out there, just like there is bad anything else — fledgling or whatever rookie stuff. I think it’s died down, if I’m being honest. I think the main reason for the hate is because a lot of people started to try it that weren’t doing it, or whatever. And so there’s a lot of people that tried it because they saw the success. I was fortunate enough that I was already doing it, and so then I just applied it to social media. At no point in my career did I say, “I’m going to start talking to the audience.” I always did that. I’ve done that for over 14 years at that point when I started doing crowd work stuff, where it’s just a fun way to extrapolate on an idea. The fourth wall is broken in stand-up comedy the second you walk on stage. Any comedian that tells you otherwise is a liar. [If a comedian is saying] you don’t get to talk, just watch this, it creates this elitism that I don’t like in comedy. I want it to feel like it’s a conversation, so why would I shut off the other half of that conversation?
Jeff Arcuri considers his stand-up comedy to be a conversation.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
What about comedians who complain about it?
It makes me cringe when I see comedians complaining about crowd work. Why are you worried about what you’re not doing? Do your thing, and then succeed. Don’t try and latch on to whatever the success is, and then complain that it didn’t work for you when that wasn’t your forte to begin with. I’m not gonna say I’m the best at certain things. There are comedians that have way better written jokes than I do, of course, that’s great, and I think that they should follow that.
I would say your skill falls somewhere between like situational awareness and ADHD.
Dude, I’m ADHD mid-sentence. I’ll forget why I was even talking about what I started talking about. It happens all the time. It’s a superpower.
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After Netflix called you, what was the first thing you did to prepare for the special?
So that’s kind of hard, because last year was a big year for, like, health-wise for my wife. She was diagnosed with cancer and everything, so it was a lot of adjusting on the fly. [We found out about the special] within a day or so of finding out that she was misdiagnosed and her cancer was actually in a better place than where we thought it was … so it was a great week for us. So, it was very surreal, but it was then a switch to [prepping for a special] because I’m not going to record a special talking about [my life] prior to my life. It felt weird being able to talk about dating, talking about sex life, things like that when I just got married, so a lot of the special, I would say at least half, was written within a year of the taping, on the road that year, going through what I was going through with my wife. A lot of comics, especially for a special, [are] cooking for 10-15 years, and then you get to put out the body of work.
Your wife Katie Thurston has been the star of hit reality TV shows “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette.”After getting married, did comedy prepare you in any sort of way to kind of take that level of scrutiny?
Yes, I would say so. I had to, you know, take it on the chin, or whatever. Every comic knows when you scroll your video for comments to see what people said, you’re not scrolling to read all the appreciation. You’re scrolling, looking for one person that’s like, “this guy stinks” and then you go, “that’s my day. This is what everyone thinks of me right now.” So, I guess I was used to that in a certain way, a little bit, but her type of fame, I guess you could say, is way different than mine, and that hers is based on her personality and person completely, and mine is my presence on stage. So I always had that separation of privacy versus public. Hers was always intertwined, so that’s something that I didn’t really get used to.
Jeff Arcuri’s written work for “Nice to Meet You” is recent because his and his wife’s lives changed in the last year.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
You guys find a way in the special of battling through it with jokes about Stage 4 cancer.
There’s jokes that she’s made throughout the year that I would do on stage even after clearing it and saying, “my wife said this and she has cancer, and here’s the joke,” I still get people like, “Oh, come on, don’t make that joke, dude.” I’m like, “I didn’t. She did. I’m just telling you what happened.”
So it was kind of like dancing around that. We’re like, “We want to let people know that we make dark jokes about her life, about her cancer, about our situation, and not every joke, just like every couple, not every joke is meant for to be for everybody,” but I really wanted to let everyone know she is so funny, and she handles handles with such a smile. We just deal with it with with humor, and I wanted to express that. I think I did. I think I was able to do that without putting too many people off.
You’ve been a New York guy for a long time. What are some of the main differences between the N.Y. scene and L.A. scene?
I would say I’ve met more comedians that just want to do comedy in New York, met more comedians that love stand-up for stand-up. I’ve met a lot of comedians in L.A. that have five projects going on, and so when I wanted to pursue stand-up further, that’s where I decided to harness and go in there and do that, because I’m like, I don’t care about anything else right now, I want this to work for me. In terms of the comedy, like I do feel L.A. is the more there’s a lot more performance in the comedy, which is great in itself too, but I feel like sometimes L.A. leans more on performance and New York leans more on structure and word economy. There’s a lot more dry comedians coming out of New York. I’m a mix of both. I’m not the best writer, not the best performer. I’m right in the middle there, baby. I can do a little bit of both.
Jeff Arcuri is a New York-based comedian but loves performing in the Midwest.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
What’s the best city you’ve ever experienced for crowd work?
I love the middle of the country. I love the Midwest and the “flyover states.” Because you go there, people will tell you stories that are normal to them and you’re like, what the f—? And it’s their ex, they’re expressing it there, you know. You go to New York and you do a set in Brooklyn or in Manhattan, wherever, that’s the ninth show they’ve seen that week. It’s more of a big deal to people in the Midwest, and you’re getting more real answers, you’re getting people that are going back to work the next day.
Thanks, Jeff. It’s been great talking to you.
That’s it? You sure you don’t have any hardballs?
Which comics do you hate the most?
Oh, s—. OK. Never mind. I take it back.
Earnest, preachy and melodramatic to a fault, “Mississippi Scholar” is exactly the sort of movie that the independent cinema was born to create.
Director and co-writer Marcus Bleecker’s film may traffic in tropes and cliches. But it has a vivid sense of place and a clear notion of the message it wants to send, and that message’s relevence.
Set in an unnamed small Mississippi city — it was filmed in Baldwyn, Saltillo and Fulton — the film is “a mind is a terrible thing to waste” in cinematic form. Our “Scholar” was born into a world of substance abuse, the racist legal traps of the country’s remaining marijuana laws and has a baby-mama-in-waiting and a drunken parent whom our teen hero is responsible for as his burdens.
But he has a world of promise that one dedicated teacher, his dead father (whom he still converses with) and even he himself can see if he can just “stay focused” and keep his eyes on this very personal prize — college and a better life beyond Ole Miss.
Shannon Brown is James, a kid with great grades and an ill-tempered mother (Gisla Stringer) who crawled into the bottle a long time ago and has no interest in crawling out.
But he’s got an ad hoc support system helping him through his senior year. His aunt (GiGi Marie Gaines) feeds him and keeps him advised of his mother’s latest tumbles. His dead dad (co-writer Obba Babatundé) passes on wisdom about his mother in fortune cookie-sized bites when father and son chat — at the cemetary or elsewhere.
“Hurt people hurt people.”
His English teacher, Mr. Keating (Sonny Marinelli) has high hopes for him, hopes he’s willing to nag the kid to achieve — “It takes only five seconds to get in trouble, and 25 years to get out of it!”
His school principal (Lance E. Nichols) expects greatness, but has learned to never get his hopes up over any Black boy at his integrated high school.
Even Ray-Ray (Jeremy Isaiah Earl), the ex-con drug dealer, takes a brotherly interest in the kid who is his “best distributor.” That money is what keeps a roof over James’ and his mother’s heads, and pays for his Jordans.
His white boy bestie (Dominic Arvielo) may act “Black,” but will he have James’ back when things get real?
And girlfriend Tammy (Aysa Branch) may be far and away the prettiest girl in school. But she’s taking the easy route, relying on her looks to achieve the limited goals the script sketches out for her.
“We’re gonna have ourselves a baby as soon as we graduate!”
Bleecker’s film covers all of the bases, all of the tropes and most of the cliches as James faces Big Choices with perils to his plan at every turn. Maybe taking him to visit the football-mad University of Mississippi isn’t the deal-maker his teacher hopes it is, as James doesn’t “see anybody who looks like me.”
Only a real civil rights hero (Dr. Donald Cole) can set him straight, relating the story of what James Meredith and generations before him did to give James this chance. Or can he?
“Mississippi Scholar” is well-crafted and an easy film to like, with relatable if “stock” characters and decent performances from all but the most amateurish (James’ classmates) cast members. But it’s entirely too predictable to surprise and too pre-digested to have an edge.
Worthy subject and novel setting aside, we’ve seen this story on the big screen and the small one too many times to count, seen this kid’s hand played out in every variation the cards have to offer.
But it makes a fine calling card for its cinematographer turned director, and let’s hope we see Bleecker’s name and hear his voice in another Deep South indie film, and soon.
Rating: TV-14, violence, profanity
Cast: Shannon Brown, Gisla Stringer, Sonny Marinelli, Jeremy Isiaah Earl, Aysa Branch and
Obba Babatundé
Credits: Directed by Marcus Bleecker, scripted by
Obba Babatundé, Marcus Bleecker and P.J. Leonard. A Narrative Distribution release on Amazon Prime.
Running time: 1:24
Entertainment
Dan Finnerty profaned Bonnie Tyler’s hit in ‘Old School.’ He regrets the f-bombs at her shows
For a certain swath of millennials, Dan Finnerty’s rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of The Heart” in the frat comedy “Old School” is its definitive performance.
In the 2003 film, the Dan Band’s sweaty, inappropriately exuberant version of the ’80s power ballad upstages Will Ferrell’s wedding. The scene forever changed the lyrics of Tyler’s hit to something much more profane, but no less yearning.
After Tyler’s death at 75, Finnerty (who played a similar role in “The Hangover,” among many other comedies) reflected on his sideways journey into Tyler’s career, and how one quick scene on a two-decade-old comedy still endures.
You’ve had a pretty unique relationship to Bonnie Tyler’s music, how are you feeling after she passed?
It’s definitely sad. Everybody is texting me. I never met her, but what an impact she had on me. I grew up right when “Total Eclipse” came out in the ’80s, and it was such a huge song at the time. It had never left my head. I was always just belting that song out because it’s so epic, from Jim Steinman’s writing to Bonnie’s performance.
Why does that moment from “Old School” still endure? It arrived at the last cusp of the DVD era before culture transitioned into the internet and streaming video.
Without YouTube and the internet, you really had to grab pop culture moments from your memory. That’s definitely one of the reasons why pulling it out seemed obscure when we did “Old School.” People were like, “Oh my God, yes, I love this f— song.” Which is so different now because everything’s at your fingertips, so you can’t really rely on like pulling back some nostalgia moment because it’s always around anyway now with the internet. But people were reacting as much to me dropping the f-bombs as the nostalgia of the song, and rediscovering it and realizing that the song kicks ass and never stops kicking it.
Was the song already in your repertoire when you filmed “Old School?”
I was doing my show with the Dan Band in Los Angeles, and [director] Todd Phillips ended up coming to one of the performances. I met him afterwards, and he was like, “There’s actually a wedding scene in this movie. What song would you sing at a wedding?” I had just started working on a medley of “Total Eclipse,” and I think at the time I was going to do “Holding Out for a Hero,” but then I just merged it with “Private Dancer,” and he was like, “Oh my God, I love it.” The following Monday, he called and he’s like, “Can you put that together?”
The bit works because you totally commit to the song’s hugeness, and the profanity slips by like it’s spontaneous. You can tell you love the song on the merits.
I had never done it before. But Todd had seen my show, and when we went to do the first take, I didn’t think I was allowed to swear. But I obviously was swearing during my live show in all my little medleys. He came running up and he’s like, “Are you gonna swear like you do in the show?” I’m like, “Am I allowed to?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” So I’m like, “Buckle the f— up.”
But basically, what I was doing was honestly trying to match Bonnie’s commitment at the level she did with her voice, which is what I loved about all of her performances and Jim Steinman’s music. It’s just over-the-top commitment and drama. The swearing was just me being like, “How can I bump this up one notch when they’ve already just nailed it?”
Did you ever hear from either of them about what they thought about the film?
I’d tried to get Bonnie to do a duet of “Total Eclipse,” and I reached her management. He was like, “Well, Bonnie’s willing to do the song as long as there’s no profanity because she’s not a profane person.” I was like, “Well, neither the f— am I. I was an altar boy.” It didn’t end up working out, because I knew if I did the song without the swearing, people would be like, “What the f—?” But later, met Jim Steinman. I mentioned it to Steinman, and he was like, “Oh, I wish they called me because I can make Bonnie do anything, she’d love the swearing,” which killed me.
You did kind of alter her song forever for a certain generation.
I was just picturing them both hating how I bastardized their song. So when I finally met Steinman, he was like, “No, no, no! I f—ing loved it. In fact, I’ve always thought of all those epic booms, the Kurzweil, all the big hits in ‘Total Eclipse,’ those were musical f—s.”
Mostly I wanted to just find Bonnie and apologize to her for all the drunk guys I have pictured over the years at her concert screaming “F—” ever since that movie.
That song became your biggest hit as a comedian. How’d it change your life?
It got funnier the older we got. When I would do “Total Eclipse” right after “Old School” came out, it would get the biggest reaction. There was one set early on at the Playboy Mansion, we were hired to play some party there. There were just a bunch of drunk guys at the mansion and a couple Playboy bunnies that were contractually hired to walk around and wave. They’re like, “Play ‘Total Eclipse,’” and so I did. Then they’re like, “Play it again.” I’m like, “OK.” Then “Play it again.” I was like, “Here we go, give them what they want.” It was the least amount of work I had to do for a song that was pre-loved from a moment in a movie.
God, I hope she knew how much I loved her and apologize for all the drunk guys that had probably f-bombed the hell out of her concerts.
Before that song, people were like, “Do you have a flier for your next show?” I’m like, “For what?” But once “Old School” happened, suddenly a record label was like, “We want to do a live album.” I’m like, “Who’s gonna buy it?” But my manager is like, “Don’t say s— like that. There’s a record label that wants to make an album with you, dumbass.”
The whole thing has just been a surprise, but it’s been a good one. We’re playing this festival in Canada next weekend, and God, that song’s going to be such a big moment.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: July 11th, 2026 / 10:07 PM
EVIL DEAD BURN movie poster | ©2026 New Line Cinemas / Screen Gems
Rating: R
Stars: Soheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Errol Shand, Maude Davey, George Pullar, Greta van den Brink
Writers: Sébastien Vaniček & Florent Bernard, based on characters created by Sam Raimi
Director: Sébastien Vaniček
Distributor: New Line Cinema/Screen Gems
Release Date: July 12, 2026
The first THE EVIL DEAD was released in 1982, launching the careers of (among others) filmmaker Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell. The film had two direct sequels, 1987’s EVIL DEAD II and 1992’s ARMY OF DARKNESS, both also directed by Raimi and starring Campbell. A three-season TV series, ASH VS EVIL DEAD (2015-2018), executive-produced by Raimi and again starring Campbell, continued the narrative.
The franchise was resurrected for the big screen with a quasi-remake, 2013’s EVIL DEAD, followed by 2023’s EVIL DEAD RISE, and now EVIL DEAD BURN. The latter three have Raimi and Campbell among the producers, but not as immediate creative participants.
The Raimi-directed EVIL DEAD movies centered on Campbell’s Ash, who found himself battling relentless Deadites (think chatty, sadistic rotting undead) summoned by the (fictional) forbidden text THE NECRONOMICON (originally invented by writer H.P. Lovecraft in the 1920s for his Cthulhu Mythos). The Deadites delight in transforming luckless humans into, well, the evil dead.
The first three films and the TV series were splat-stick comedy, with jokes cheek and jowl with the gore.
The subsequent films have flashes of humor, but they are much more focused on straight horror, as well as family drama.
This is absolutely the case with EVIL DEAD BURN, written by Sébastien Vaniček & Florent Bernard and directed by Vaniček.
Here, the family at the center of events is on the verge of imploding, even without demonic intervention.
EVIL DEAD BURN is tangentially related to EVIL DEAD RISE, insofar as the earlier film’s wraparound deposited Deadite Jessica (Anna-Maree Thomas) in a lake. At the start of BURN, two unfortunate fishermen snag a Deadite played by Greta van den Brink, who was Thomas’s stunt double on RISE, so this may be the same character.
Meanwhile, Joseph (Hunter Doohan) is in a dusty upstairs room, curiously perusing clippings, writings, reel-to-reel tape recordings and more amassed by his grandfather. We’ll learn that Grandpa is considered the family flake because he declined to spend time with his wife and daughters in favor of traveling the world investigating the occult.
A recording Joseph’s grandfather left behind conveniently provides us with what we (and Joseph) need in terms of exposition. This includes a bit about the Kandarian dagger, which the Deadites want to obtain and destroy, as it’s the only item that can permanently kill them. Grandad has left it somewhere on the premises.
It’s Joseph’s birthday, and there’s a celebration for him at the party club owned by his older brother Will (George Pullar) and Will’s French wife Alice (Soheila Yacoub). Joseph’s supportive girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) tries to mediate as Will first condescends to his little brother, then gets into an aggressive fight with Alice.
The argument spills into the club parking lot, where we see further evidence of Will’s controlling, contemptuous and violent personality before he gets into his car and drives away at top speed.
Meanwhile, our lake Deadite has taken to the road, where she easily causes Will to crash. The car erupts in flames.
At the sparse funeral held at a crematorium, Alice is wearing running shoes, to the great displeasure of her grieving in-laws Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Errol Shand). Susan’s elderly mother Polly (Maude Davey) is in a wheelchair and keeps confusing Susan with Susan’s deceased sibling Bonnie.
Susan and Edgar generally resent Alice and blame her for Will’s death. They also disapprove of Joseph, who they view as a slacker. He hasn’t done a good job of maintaining the isolated two-story family home he’s been given by his parents, and Susan takes a very dim view of Joseph’s investigation into his grandfather’s interests.
So, this is a toxic setup even before Edgar decides he must take one last look at Will in his coffin before the cremation. Then everybody heads back – Edgar is infected, but not “showing” yet – to the house.
From here, EVIL DEAD BURN goes pretty much where we anticipate, and where the subgenre demands, with almost nonstop violence, excellent practical effects, lots of gore, and admirable acting of that encompasses unhappiness, terror, and taunting Deadite glee.
Director Vaniček makes sure to incorporate some of the EVIL DEAD touchstones, including the racing low-to-the-ground shots (using one for a nice in-joke), chainsaws, and some catchphrases. At the same time, there are plenty of new set pieces and types of physical altercations.
With no forcing at all, EVIL DEAD BURN serves as a solid metaphor for both spousal abuse and what happens when parents turn a willful blind eye to the nature of a favored child, to the detriment of everyone and everything in the vicinity.
For those who care about these things (does this really even count as a spoiler?), the dog dies, albeit there’s at least a plot logistics reason here.
There are a couple inconsistencies, like why some people become infected so fast while others take much more time and still others seem immune. Mostly, though, EVIL DEAD BURN does what it’s supposed to do as a horror movie overall and as part of its specific lineage.
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