Thursday, December 5, 2013

December Watch List: An Incomplete List

Grouping these by genre instead of in order of when I watched, for easier reviewing! Here are the standup specials that I watched.

Bo Burnham: What
This is a brand new special that was put out for Netflix just this month. It was an interesting (and expected) mix of singing, playing piano, some skit type stuff and one liners. His stuff isn't stand up so much as it's performance art, but it's very funny regardless. Now that he's older it's interesting to see how his work is evolving, and you can see some typical "No one understands me" angst going on. Which is understandable considering the fact that he's been in the spotlight since before he even graduated high school.

Comedy Central Presents: Donald Glover
This was moderately new, I think from 2012? I had never really seen much of his stand up before so this was totally new for me. It was incredibly hilarious! Riffing on things like race, gender, dating, growing up, politics, etc. He's a very intelligent and perceptive person but isn't afraid to dip into the juvenile humor well from time to time. There was a particular story he told about a teacher farting once that had me laughing for a good minute straight.

Comedy Central Presents: John Mulaney
I had heard most of this special before via Pandora but it was still fun to watch and see the actual physical part of the show. Mulaney is a very dry and sharp comedian that does a lot of storytelling type of stuff and this one has a really funny bit about "What's New, Pussycat?" that is worth listening to. I really like this guy a lot and hope he continues to make stuff!

Comedy Central Presents: Mike Birbiglia
Much like Mulaney I had already heard most of this act before (It was from 2006, I think, well before he became famous) but again, it was nice to see it actually acted out because Birbiglia does some pretty amusing physical comedy stuff that benefits from being able to actually see him. If you like his later stuff, you'd like this. Though I did notice that he's been using some of the same material for awhile now, which I'm not used to after following so much of Louis CK's stuff!

Comedy Central Presents: Marc Maron
Hulu has a lot of Comedy stuff, okay?? This is the second bit of actual stand up type stuff that I've seen from Maron. This was also pretty old, probably 2007? So it was before he divorced his second wife, which was interesting. It reminded a bit of Louis CK's stand up from before he got a divorce, where you could tell they are in an unhappy (or at least not working) marriage and it's not at all surprising that they ended up divorced. I think I liked this better than his newer stuff, because he seemed to be in a more grounded head space.

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