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.”

“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)

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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)

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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)

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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.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is purportedly the first in another trilogy of films that will show the evolution of ape society from its current hunter-gatherer phase and develop the character of Noa. As such, director Wes Ball – anticipating a few years’ lucrative employment – has taken his time laying the foundations in that deliberate manner familiar from other Hollywood franchises. This makes Kingdom a slightly ponderous proposition that may satisfy fans who have dutifully followed the previous films, but will do little for those seeking mind-numbing entertainment on a Friday night.

Those areas where the films keep advancing are costume, make-up and special effects, which have rendered the ape impersonation almost perfect. This extends to skillful mimickry of the way various apes move. It’s only when we get up close that we catch a glimpse of the actor behind the elaborate façade. Yet this degree of perfection only tends to throw the leaden nature of the narrative into sharper relief. As the story dragged on and on, I began to feel nostalgic for those days when the movies would just put a guy in a gorilla suit and tell him to start beating his chest.

Monster

Although Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set to be a blockbuster, Monster is one of those critically acclaimed films that can expect to enjoy a modest success at the box office.

Director Hirokazu Koreeda is celebrated for his portrayals of families – big, small, sometimes barely recognisable as such. This time, he focuses on a family that consists of only a single mother, Saori Mugino (Sakura Ando), and her 11-year-old son, Minato (Soya Kurokawa), living in a provincial Japanese city. As they sit together, talking to a photograph of Minato’s dead father, we can see how closely they are bonded. They watch from their apartment window as a downtown building that contains a nightclub goes up in flames.

“If a pig’s brain is put into a human head,” Minato asks his mother, “is that person a human or an animal?” It sounds silly, but this “pig brain” proposition will recur throughout the film, attributed to several different characters.

The mother-son relationship develops cracks when Minato starts acting strangely, snipping away at his own hair, coming home from school with only one shoe. One evening he doesn’t come home at all, being eventually located in an old train tunnel hidden in the nearby woods. When he sustains an injury to his ear, Saori heads to his school to see what’s going on. Minato has laid the blame on his teacher, Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama), who has also allegedly accused the boy of having a pig’s brain.

When Saori confronts the teachers, especially the principal, Mrs Fushimi (Yuko Tanaka), they become a caricature of Japanese shame and conformity, bowing deeply, apologising and promising to do better. Saori is rightly incensed by this behaviour, which does nothing to solve the mystery of her son’s strange behaviour or confirm that the awkward Mr Hori did the things he was accused of doing. The principal, who has recently lost her grandson in a terrible accident, seems almost catatonic. The teachers apologise reflexively, with no explanations. We feel as bewildered as Saori, especially when it seems Mr Hori is continuing to teach as usual, with no action being taken.

Koreeda resolves the mystery by degrees, jumping back and forth in time to show us the origins of the things we can’t explain. These jumps are handled so seamlessly it takes a few seconds each time for us to realise where we are. In this film, nothing is quite what it seems. The crucial figure may not be Mr Hori, but Minato’s classmate, Yori Hoshikawa (Hinata Hiiragi), a small boy who is disliked by most of the class because of his eccentric behaviour. It’s Yori who claims constantly that he has a pig’s brain, and who leads Minato to the tunnel in the woods, where he has a hideout in an old train carriage. Yori is unhappy at home, being raised by a beer-swilling father who is usually at work or in a bar.

It begins to seem as if angelic-looking Yori is a classic bad seed, and for Minato, a bad influence. Yori keeps confessing that he’s a monster. As he carries a stove lighting device with him and roams around at night, it seems likely he had a hand in the fire that burned the hostess club his father frequented. Look closely and one can see the club was called Gilles de Rais, named after an infamous French child murderer of the Middle Ages.

While we are trying to understand the relationship between Minato and Yori, Mr Hori is being persecuted by reporters and slowly driven mad. As we flash back and forth between past and present, Hori’s true role in the story begins to emerge.

Koreeda keeps us wondering about who, if anyone, is the monster. With each part of the puzzle falling into place, the picture keeps changing. It’s not even clear what being a “monster” might mean.

One noteworthy aspect of the film is the music, which was the final score by Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023), best known for his haunting themes in Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983) and Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). It’s a typically subtle score, hardly more than a few touches of the piano where a scene requires a little emphasis.

Monster won the Queer Palm, at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, which is a somewhat dubious honour in that it narrows the way we read the relationship between two 11-year-old boys. Minato and Yori are only on the cusp of puberty and whatever the nature of their friendship, it would be ridiculous to label it “queer”, in the way that word is now used to denote self-conscious gender non-conformity. Surely, it’s not unusual for children of that age to become passionately attached to their friends, often at the expense of their families. Are they considered “monsters” because of the closeness of a relationship that even makes Minato feel uncomfortable?

Koreeda makes no moral pronouncements, showing huge sympathy for all his characters, from the boys to Saori, Hori and the principal. Everyone has a hard time in this story, but they are given ample opportunity to declare their innocence to the audience, and the ending is not at all what one might expect. Perhaps the monster is no more than a red herring.

The way she tells it, Bette Midler’s short-lived sitcom “Bette” was more like a comedy of errors.

The singer-actor’s semiautobiographical CBS show premiered in 2000 and was canceled 18 episodes into its 22-episode order. Midler dissected her self-declared “big flop” Tuesday on David Duchovny’s podcast, “Fail Better.”

“I did a television show, ‘Bette.’ Does it get any more generic than that?” the “Hocus Pocus” star joked. “A big, big, big mistake.”

Midler cited a number of reasons for the show’s failure, including her poor understanding of serial television production. She’ had worked extensively in theater and film, she said, but sitcoms were uncharted territory.

“Filming a show a week is warp speed for Midler, more accustomed to the studious pace of a movie shoot,” The Times’ Carla Hall wrote in an October 2000 story about her and the show. “The sitcom films on Friday nights before an audience at the Culver City studios starting around 6:30 p.m. and ending in the wee hours, driven by Midler’s desire to get it as perfectly funny as she can.”

The week that story was reported, a coordinating producer won a pool the crew regularly held, where they put in $5 each and guessed when filming would wrap. The winning guess that week was 1:11 a.m., or nearly five hours to film a half-hour show.

“It was a form, a part of the media, I simply did not understand. I watched it. I appreciated it. I enjoyed it. But I didn’t know what it meant to make it,” Midler said on the podcast. “I didn’t realize what the pace was, and I didn’t understand what the hierarchy was, and nobody bothered to tell me.”

Midler was effectively sidelined on her own show.

“Because I was so green,” she said, “I didn’t know that I could have taken charge.”

That’s why, when a teenage Lindsay Lohan bailed out on “Bette” after the show’s pilot — despite being under contract — Midler didn’t fight it.

“If I had been in my right mind, or if I had known that part of my duties were to stand up and say, ‘This absolutely will not do, I’m going to sue,’ then I would have done that,” Midler said. “But I seem to have been cosseted in some way that I couldn’t get to the writers’ room. I couldn’t speak to the showrunner. I couldn’t make myself clear.”

Midler said she aired her grievances on “The Late Show With David Letterman” and was fired the next morning.

“Bette” aired Wednesdays against “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” which was then a juggernaut. In March 2001, The Times wrote about “Bette” getting canceled, saying, “The show, in which Midler plays a diva not unlike herself, has been a ratings disappointment since its debut, and Midler herself had hinted at various times that she found the experience of starring in her own television show arduous.”

“I said, ‘Oh, isn’t that fantastic?’” Midler told Duchovny. “I was so thrilled not to have to continue because I could not gather myself enough to make it work. I didn’t know how to make it work — for so many reasons, not least of which was that it was a completely different situation than I thought it was going to be.”

However, it seems not everyone disliked the sitcom.

Days before Midler’s podcast appearance, Lohan posted a throwback photo of herself and her former “Bette” co-star on Instagram.

“Had such a blast filming,” Lohan wrote in the caption, “with the incredible @bettemidler 💕 #tbt.”