Mooney, Kyle

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    What’s So Funny About These Albums?

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    Comedians have always wanted to be pop and rock stars — or at least, enough of them have gotten comfortable with a guitar and a drum track to make it seem so. It’s a long and eclectic tradition, including Steve Martin, Weird Al, Bo Burnham, Rachel Bloom, Donald Glover, Randy Rainbow and John Early.Now there’s a new crop of albums from entertainers across the comic spectrum. Some of them regularly use music as part of their act, like Cat Cohen, whose repertoire is all cabaret style. And some are left-field turns, like the profane opus from the writer and actor Jordan Firstman, or the thoughtful, genuine emo tunes of Mae Martin. Then there’s Kyle Mooney, whose record is either all gags — or none. In comedy, like music, it’s all in how you hit the beat.Jordan FirstmanJordan Firstman’s “Secrets” is a concept album built out of confessions strangers sent to him over social media.Ariel Fisher for The New York TimesThe social media favorite Jordan Firstman didn’t expect to release a record, let alone a concept album based on the private confessions of strangers on the internet. But on “Secrets,” out this month, he lets it rip, in ways that are almost entirely unprintable here. Its party anthem single describes a dude quest to bond over anatomy. (The video, directed by the boundary-pusher Cody Critcheloe, has more than a quarter-million views.)“Secrets” began as a pandemic-era riff, when Firstman, 33, publicly responded to his Instagram DMs. He accumulated tens of thousands of private missives — he requested the most “depraved” but also “Beautiful. Lyrical. And Random” stuff; endless inspiration.A few years later, with a friend — the musician and producer Brad Oberhofer — he began song-ifying them. “I’m like, such a lyric queen,” he said, and the secrets were ready-made titles, misspellings and all, like “I’m I Lesbian,” the album’s Lilith Fair-flavored closer. Capitol Records bought his pitch before he even left its parking lot, he said in a video interview.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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      12 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

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      Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.The dog days of motherhood.Amy Adams channels her feral side in “Nightbitch,” directed by Marielle Heller.Searchlight Pictures‘Nightbitch’Amy Adams stars as a stay-at-home mother who turns into a feral dog in this adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel directed by Marielle Heller.From our review:The movie doesn’t need to convince its target audience that there’s something gravely wrong with contemporary American motherhood. … Every thinking woman who watches “Nightbitch,” and a fair share of men, too, already know that score. Given this, it’s frustrating how eager to please the movie is.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickGoing out with a bang (and a song).Tilda Swinton in “The End.”Felix Dickinson/Neon‘The End’This musical directed by Joshua Oppenheimer follows a well-off family (led by Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton) in their lavish underground bunker as the world literally burns above them.From our review:“The End” is about one version of the end of the world, and about how the people who could have prevented it might feel when they get there. But to watch it is to think about yourself, at least if you have a conscience, and to ponder the sort of cognitive dissonance you live with every day.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickTwo sisters in a singular drama.Marianne Jean-Baptiste, left, and Michele Austin play polar-opposite sisters in “Hard Truths,” directed by Mike Leigh.Simon Mein/Thin Man Films Ltd, via Bleecker Street‘Hard Truths’The latest from the writer-director Mike Leigh centers on two sisters, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Chantelle (Michele Austin), who have vastly different dispositions and outlooks on life.From our review:Leigh doesn’t put his characters on the couch or disgorge the traumas that are etched in every word and gesture. He doesn’t smooth any edges, express his views on race and class, nature and nurture, or float theories as to why Pansy seems so damaged while Chantelle shoulders life with grace. Instead, with deep feeling and lacerating and gentle words, Leigh creates a world that, like the vast, mysterious one hovering outside its frame, can seem agonizingly empty if you can’t see the people in it.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickRichard Gere and Jacob Elordi in confessional mode.Richard Gere in “Oh, Canada.”Kino LorberWe 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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      ‘Y2K’ Review: Dying Like It’s 1999

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      A computer glitch makes electronics go haywire in this zany and nostalgic horror-comedy from the comedian Kyle Mooney.The first 20 minutes of the director Kyle Mooney’s “Y2K” are so densely packed with references to turn-of-the-millennium pop cultural ephemera — AND1 apparel, “That 70s Show,” devil sticks, Tae Bo and the Dancing Baby, to name a handful — that I was exhausted by nostalgia before the end of the first act.Mooney’s ordinarily eccentric, heavily ironic sense of humor, honed over many years on his cult-favorite YouTube channel and later on Saturday Night Live, seemed to have been replaced by something more cloying and conventional, where simply reminiscing about 1999 was a substitute for actually writing jokes about it. (Mooney and Evan Winter penned the screenplay.) Where was the genius behind such classic sketches as “ball champions,” an early forerunner of “How To With John Wilson” and “I Think You Should Leave”?But then the movie takes a sudden, jarring pivot, and Mooney’s unique sensibility aggressively (and thankfully) reasserts itself: A familiar story of teenage slackers at a New Year’s Eve party transforms into an anarchic, over-the-top Armageddon picture, as the “Y2K problem,” the computer coding crisis that incited much fear on the eve of the year 2000, turns all electronics evil and bloodthirsty at the stroke of midnight. A beard trimmer leaps into jugulars, a VCR shoots tapes like a cannon, and the carnage of consumer goods is nasty, gory and cruel, with a darkly comic mean streak that recalls Joe Dante’s “Gremlins.”Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison and Rachel Zegler, as the teens tasked with thwarting the apocalypse, make charming heroes — but it’s Mooney himself, as the loquacious stoner Garret, who is the film’s dopey MVP.Y2KRated R for strong language, frequent drug use and intense graphic violence. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More