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    Paige DeSorbo of ‘Summer House’ Adds Author to Her Resume With ‘How to Giggle’

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    When Paige DeSorbo graduated from college in 2015, she scored a full-time position at a TV station in her hometown, Albany, N.Y. She’d always wanted to be an on-air personality, so the job seemed perfect, at least on paper. As her mom put it at the time, Ms. DeSorbo could work her way up to anchor, get married, have kids, and live down the street.But she imagined something different for herself.“I remember just getting the biggest pit in my stomach of like — no, that’s not my life. No way,” Ms. DeSorbo, now 32, said in a recent interview.Instead, she persuaded her parents to foot six months of rent in New York City so that she could try to find something better. She took a job as an executive assistant at ABC before landing a role on “Summer House,” a Bravo reality show that follows young New Yorkers as they spend debaucherous summer weekends at a shared house in the Hamptons.“​​I called my dad crying when they offered it to me because I was like, ‘I think I’m actually too sensitive to do this,’” Ms. DeSorbo said. “And I remember him saying: ‘Do it for the first summer, and if you hate it, we’ll get you out of it. You never have to go back. And if you love it, you’ll never wonder, Oh, imagine if I didn’t do this.’ And honestly, after the second weekend, I was like, ‘I love it.’”So began Ms. DeSorbo’s unexpected career as a reality star.Paige DeSorbo worked at a television station in Albany, and was an executive assistant at ABC, before breaking into reality TV on the Bravo show “Summer House.”Eugene Gologursky/BravoTo date, she’s appeared on three Bravo shows — “Summer House,” “Winter House” and “Southern Charm” — despite the fact that, in many ways, she’s the antithesis of the modern-day reality personality. She has a New Yorker’s authenticity: direct, assertive and unafraid to voice her opinion even if it might make her look bad. She lacks pretense and showiness, which has earned her fans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Adam Sandler’s ‘Love You’ and Other Netflix Specials to Stream Now

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      The star is in fine, filthy form under the direction of Josh Safdie (“Uncut Gems”). Hannah Berner and Langston Kerman also deliver standout hours.Adam Sandler, ‘Love You’(Stream it on Netflix)When Barack Obama made a reference to the size of Donald J. Trump’s, ahem, crowd size, in his speech last week at the Democratic National Convention, he brought a category of lewd joke into the absolute center of the mainstream. This unlikely achievement owes a debt to Adam Sandler, who has been consistently committed to the art, at least since writing a dirty rhyme in a classmate’s middle-school yearbook.Now 57, Sandler is still at it, and judging by his new special, “Love You,” he hasn’t lost a step. Before he became a huge star, Sandler made proudly filthy and beloved comedy albums full of irreverent sketches that chronicled subjects like an extremely long bout of urination. This new special can feel like a throwback to that era. If anything, age allows new avenues for potty humor. Have you considered the bountiful comic implications of how botoxing away the wrinkles on a penis could lead to mistaking a flaccid member for an erect one? Adam Sandler has.“Love You” begins with Sandler heading to a stand-up show and everything going wrong. His car’s windshield gets busted, and then he requires a last-second costume change. There are tech issues. From his car to the dingy hallway backstage, we see him, via frenetic, crooked camerawork, being bombarded by people making demands — some annoying, others disturbing, all gradually ramping up a vague sense of anxiety.If it feels as if it’s a sequel to “Uncut Gems,” that may be because the special is directed by Josh Safdie, who along with his brother, Benny, made that jittery, giddily caffeinated drama, a high-water mark of late-career Sandler. Whereas Benny Safdie followed that up by collaborating with Nathan Fielder on the TV show “The Curse” to push his genre-blurring style in more narratively complex directions, Josh wasted no time putting his mark on the aesthetic of another comedy star.Sandler’s last special, “100% Fresh” (2018), was a key stage in his transformation from critically dismissed superstar of man-child comedies to widely beloved éminence grise. He hasn’t exactly matured — that would destroy his comedy — so much as allowed sentimentality to overtake the humor. He had help from family. His wife (who shows up at the end of the new special) and daughters are now as much regulars of his work as Chris Rock, David Spade and his old friends from “Saturday Night Live” are.Sandler’s family and old friends are regulars in his work. His pal Rob Schneider gets a cameo in his special doing an Elvis impression, the sweaty Vegas version.NetflixWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More