Season 3 of Starz show “Survivor’s Remorse” premiered on July 24 on Starz.
If you have ever seen ‘Magic Mike’, and wondered if men like Channing Tatum and his crew really do exist in real life, come watch the Aussie Hunks.
We attended an advanced screening of Quitters at The CORE: Club Thursday July 21st.
With the third installment in the rebooted Star Trek series, we are greeted with a safe and saccharine foul ball that sort of gets the job done.
Brady Corbet’s ambitious period drama examines young evil to mixed results.
Every night in Las Vegas, at 9 p.m., the V Theatre in Planet Hollywood hosts the Las Vegas Live Comedy Club.
Before entering the theatre, while you are lining up to collect your tickets, make sure that you look up. Although Planet Hollywood is inside, the dome shaped ceiling is painted like a pure blue sky with clouds, giving you the illusion that you are still outside. This incredible sky, mixed with the Planet Hollywood air conditioning, makes the lining up experience unusually enjoyable and picturesque. That being said, I recommend you either purchase the tickets in advance, or show up an hour early for the show, so that you are not tight for time.
Once you collect your tickets and enter the V Theatre, if you are early, you have the option to sit down in the V Theatre Lounge, and relax until the show is ready to start. The lounge is equip with comfortable chairs, and a bar, so you can purchase a drink to consume before, during, and after you watch the show
When the show is close to starting, you are ushered into the stage area. The space in intimate, with no more than 8 rows of chairs, that span across the entire room. At the front of the room is the stage, with a microphone and chair placed in the middle. To the back of the stage are televisions mounted on the wall showing music videos, which are accompanied by tunes blasting through the speakers.
I attended the show on the 20th of July, 2016. The audience spanned a variety of ages: from young adults, to the elderly – and they were all from a variety of different backgrounds, States, and even countries.
The lights then went down, to signify the beginning of the show, and 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ song started playing on the TVs and loudspeakers – the old school classic put the attendees in a playful state of mind
There are T-Shirts available for purchase from the show, and 5% of the proceeds go towards children with arthritis, aptly linked to the fact that the headlining act, Edwin San Juan, suffers from this illness. The shirts are titled ‘Socially Acceptable’ – which is more than fitting to describe the entire show: every single act told jokes that were walking that thin line between socially acceptable, and downright offensive; each comedian hovered over that fine line, sometimes teetering dangerously over the edge, but always able to reign it back in.
Opening the show, the host – a self-proclaimed heavyset Asian man – started his set declaring that ‘no one wants to sleep with an Asian man’. This set the tone for the entire show, the comedians told very self-deprecating jokes about their race, and then moved onto highlighting comedic stereotypes of other ethnicities, subtly or overtly bashing each group of people.
The next comedian to grace the stage was Manfred Hein. He is a 26-year-old with long hair, a baseball cap, and a stoner vibe. His set focused on how he came from a small town, his age, and the fact that he suffers the misfortune of being mistaken for a girl when he is around people who are inebriated.
Following Manfred was the featured comedian, Joe Caliz, who placed runner up in the 2014 World Series of Comedy. His style of humor is very similar to that of the English comedian, Frankie Boyle. His jokes were dark, straight-faced, and highly racy – however if you appreciate humor with wit and intelligence Joe Caliz is the comedian for you. The topic of joke spanned from Transvestites, to same-sex relationships, to Jews. Of all the comedians, he was the one who seemed to push the boundaries of what is socially acceptable the most.
Finally, the headliner, Edwin San Juan came to the stage. He has appeared on shows such as Showtime, and Comedy Central – and he is also currently a permanent feature of the Las Vegas Live Comedy Club show. Like many of the other comedians, he mocked numerous types of ethnic groups, including his own, which is Pilipino. He joked about how his race pronounces ‘F’ sounds as ‘P’s. For example, ‘Fuck You’ sounds like ‘Puck You’ – which led to him creating a new T-Shirt with the logo ‘What The Puck?’, that he sells at the end of the show. One of his final, and perhaps the best, joke he told was the story of how he was caught by the police when he was high, and the entire experience was filmed by TruTV. The live reenactment of this event was truly hilarious.
As the show ended, and the audience stood up to leave, their descent was halted by a clip that began to play on the TV monitors. It was the part of the TruTV episode when San Juan was getting arrested. Already this clip was funny, but when the audience could see how accurately Edwin recreated this occurrence, the clip was downright hysterical. Once this clip came to completion, so did the show, and the audience left the room feeling utterly satisfied.
When you leave the show, you have the option to purchase the previously mentioned T-Shirts, and you are also able to take a photo with Edwin San Juan for free.
If you get easily offended, the Las Vegas Live Comedy Club is probably not the event for you, but if you go into the show with the understanding that the comedians are often just trying to shock you, and take every joke lightheartedly, then you will find the show highly entertaining. The V Theatre is a great space, and the ticket prices are extremely reasonable.
Should you wish to attend the Las Vegas Live Comedy Club at the V Theatre, follow this link: https://www.vtheaterboxoffice.com/las-vegas-shows/live-las-vegas-comedy
And if you would like to see some of the TruTV clip of Edwin San Juan getting arrested, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhfSuA0Mk7
On Wednesday July 20th, we were invited to attend a special preview screening of Brady Corbet’s new film The Childhood of a Leader at The IFC Center.
The latest from writer/director/actor Mike Birbiglia with all-star comic cast.
The New York Musical Festival is in its thirteenth year. Having birthed three Broadway shows (Next to Normal,
The plot is compelling through and through, really resting on developing characters both individually and through their relationships with one another. Throughout the show you really get to know the characters, all of which Raúl interacts with on the beautifully designed beach of his childhood home. It would be hard to speak too highly of the actors’ performances in this show, offering both quiet moments and belting cathartic numbers with equal grace, though the highlight comes in the form of star Mauricio MartÍnez’s performance of the number Enough is Enough, leaving the audience applauding loudly enough to cover their own tears.
Unfortunately, as compelling as the plot is and in spite of the actors’ best efforts, the show’s lyrics are wanting. It never is a rewarding theatrical experience to sit in the audience and be able to anticipate an upcoming line in a song. This would be a miniscule problem, if not for the fact that 20 songs are crammed into the 90 minute show. Both the book and lyrics were penned by Lauren Epsenhart, but the dialogue is without a doubt the most emotionally compelling aspect of the show, in spite of the majority of it being filled with beautiful music by Jaime Lozano, tainted at least slightly by amateurish rhyme schemes that leave the impression that it may be better to see the plot develop through dialogue rather than mostly solos and duets.
In spite of this, the show truly transports you to a beach in Mexico, both pure and local in flashbacks and also implied as modernized and touristy in present day. The real shining moments happen when Raúl faces his past, which is beautifully juxtaposed against the scenes which slowly develop exactly what it is that he ran away from to begin with. There is no happy ending necessarily, but it isn’t exactly a sad one either. Instead it settles somewhere between the two, leaving the show on a note that feels happy initially through the final number, Tomorrow Starts Today, but doesn’t imply that everything has been worked out over the course of one visit back home, which really caps off the sense of realism that the show creates between characters. All in all, Children of Salt is a show worth seeing, if not for groundbreaking lyrics, then for earth-shaking performances and beautifully written dialogue.
Children of Salt is running at the Pearl Theater through July 26th.
-Adam Seighman
After I headed through the revolving doors of 225 Liberty Street for the premiere of Director Clay Tweel’s, “Gleason,” I spotted actors Eric West and Tashiana Washington on the red carpet and listened to Orange Is the New Black actress Laura Gómez talk about Steve Gleason’s resolve and spirit.
Catching producer and former New Orleans Saints linebacker Scott Fujita before he walked off the carpet, I asked him how his role in the documentary had changed his perspective on Steve’s story. He told me that it was “twofold.” First, he spoke of learning about the process of creating the documentary itself, mentioning that “it’s fascinating to see people being exposed to the story for the first time,” before looping around to greet Roger Goodell on the carpet.
Seeing Scott Fujita and Roger Goodell smile with one another in front of the camera was a significant moment on the red carpet. Let me explain by veering off topic into the NFL in the late 2000s. Scott Fujita was one of a few New Orleans players who was suspended by Goodell during “Bountygate,” in which New Orleans franchise members were accused of paying out bounties for injuring other players. Fujita and the rest of the players were ultimately exonerated.
Alongside more recognizable faces were Steve Gleason’s wife Michel and her parents, Paul and Jill Varisco. Paul Varisco spent a great deal of time around my end of the carpet. First, before joining Fujita and Goodell for a photograph, Clay Tweel stopped by to chat with Varisco out of the line of sight of cameras or microphones. Not long after, Michael Strahan approached Varisco to say hello and the two had a brief conversation about Strahan’s cousin having worked with Varisco in Dallas years ago. It was innocuous small talk above all, but it —1) Michael Strahan is hulkingly large. 2) Michael Strahan was among several other hulkingly large NFL players who had shown up for the event, several of which (the likes of Terrell Owens, Zak DeOssie, and Justin Tuck) had played on opposing teams of the Saints.
The film is now playing.
-Adam Seighman