Latest news with #Pee-wee'sPlayhouse
Time Out
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Katy Perry's viral, quirky 'Lifetimes' tour has hits—and misses
I saw astronaut Katy Perry kiss the sky… and I liked it? Sorta. Actually, I'm kind of torn on my thoughts after seeing Perry's 'Lifetimes' tour in Las Vegas. That's because I was both equally amused and entertained as I was bewildered and frustrated by it. For a lot of reasons. Now granted, I'm comparing it to her Resorts World residency a few years ago, 'Play,' a production she referred to as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets Pee-wee's Playhouse. Yes, it was as odd as that sentence reads. Perry's performance found her singing out of an oversized toilet and dancing in a field of monster mushrooms with a lipsticked frog in a bikini. So that's why, when tickets for 'Lifetime' landed in my lap from a friend, I was intrigued by the opportunity. The night started when a wicked windstorm launched a plastic bag into the air near the Luxor light beam as I walked to the show and, of course, fittingly ended with Perry closing her show with that opening lyric from 'Firework.' Between those moments there was a lot going on. Perry was engaging and spoke to the audience quite a bit. Early on, she poked fun at herself in reference to the backlash from her recent Blue Origin spaceflight, saying she's the 'world's most hated icon.' Later on, Perry thanked the crowd 'for loving me despite all of my flaws.' Her 'Lifetimes' tour, which is crisscrossing the globe through the end of the year in promotion of her album 143, has received a lukewarm reception, with some observers calling Perry a copycat. They note that her opening monologue mimics the one from Taylor Swift's 'Eras' tour and how the portion of Perry's show calling on the audience to scan a QR code and pick a song for her to sing is oh-too-similar to what Sabrina Carpenter has done. But comparisons aside, Perry makes it her own with a five-act video game concept that involves her battling an AI robot. That's… not necessarily a good thing. The storyline is confusing but apparently Perry is half-human, half-machine (which explains the metallic costumes, cone bras and furry moon boots) and in a fight with a cyborg to save butterflies and spread love. It's The Matrix meets Star Wars. At one point, Perry even swings a red lightsaber to destroy her enemies. The stage for 'Lifetimes' is designed in a figure eight pattern allowing her to get closer to the crowd. There is a lot of airtime as well with artists performing Cirque du Soleil-like acrobatics and Perry suspended by wires flying and flipping above the audience on four separate occasions, including when riding on the back of a butterfly while performing 'Roar.' My history with Perry starts at the very beginning. I first heard her in 2008 performing songs off Teenage Dream at the New York-New York's long-closed Rok Vegas nightclub. Then, while working for Us Weekly, I covered the 'Waking Up in Vegas' singer whenever she hit town—including her bachelorette party with Rihanna and numerous appearances and award shows. I even witnessed one of her first flights (albeit above a stage, not into outer space) at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. And while the voice is different and some song arrangements have changed, the one constant from quirky Perry are the campy costumes and hit songs. At T-Mobile Arena, she performed 24 songs and judging from the devoted fans singing along, 'Lifetimes' works.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Where to Watch ‘Pee-wee as Himself'
Director Matt Wolf spent two years interviewing Paul Reubens for his new HBO documentary 'Pee-Wee as Himself,' not realizing that the actor was dying of cancer. As he told TheWrap at Sundance earlier this year, 'I did have the sense that Paul was motivated to tell his story in a way he hadn't been before, that it was going to be challenging for him, but that he threw himself into that process and was fully committed to being himself on camera in a way that was totally uncomfortable and something he had never done.' 'The idea that these would be the last words that he would share publicly with the world was completely off my radar,' he continued. Here's how to watch the two-part documentary about the Pee-wee Herman star. It premieres Friday, May 23, at 8:00 pm ET/PT on HBO and Max. 'Pee-wee as Himself' is a two-part documentary. Both episodes premiere on May 23. Part One, which follows Reubens from his childhood through the creation of Pee-wee and his breakout with the 1985 film 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure,' premieres Friday, May 23, at 8:00-9:40 p.m. ET/PT. Part Two follows immediately, debuting at 9:40 p.m. ET/PT. It covers casting, production design and the creative process behind his Emmy-winning series 'Pee-wee's Playhouse,' which ran from 1986 to 1990 on CBS. It also features the actor's final interview before his death in July of 2023. The documentary is about the late Paul Reubens and his alter-ego persona, Pee-wee Herman. The film features interviews with filmmakers Tim Burton and Judd Apatow, actors Natasha Lyonne, S. Epatha Merkerson, Laurence Fishburne, Debi Mazar, David Arquette, Laraine Newman and Cassandra Peterson, artists Gary Panter and Wayne White and Reubens' sister Abby Rubenfeld. The post Where to Watch 'Pee-wee as Himself' appeared first on TheWrap.
USA Today
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
'Pee-wee as Himself' examines Paul Reubens' controversial past, delivers final message
'Pee-wee as Himself' examines Paul Reubens' controversial past, delivers final message Show Caption Hide Caption The most anticipated TV shows of 2025 USA TODAY TV critic Kelly Lawler shares her top 5 TV shows she is most excited for this year You remember the distinctive laugh, the gray, slender-fitting suit and the cherry red bowtie. But do you have any recollection of the man who brought Pee-wee Herman to life, save for a fuzzy memory of a few incriminatory headlines? In 'Pee-wee as Himself,' Paul Reubens makes it clear that he didn't want the two-part docuseries debuting in its entirety on May 23 (HBO, 8 ET/PT and streaming on HBO Max) to be a 'legacy movie.' 'I really want to set the record straight on a couple things, and that's pretty much it,' says Reubens (born Paul Rubenfeld). But unbeknownst to director Matt Wolf and the public, Reubens had been privately battling cancer for years. He died on July 30, 2023, at 70, while fighting acute myelogenous leukemia and metastatic lung cancer, according to reports. 'I was completely unaware that he was sick,' Wolf tells USA TODAY. 'I could tell something was up, but I had no sense of the gravity of it. So when he died, it was a complete shock to me, and I went to work immediately to figure out how to make meaning out of these extraordinary circumstances and to better understand the relationship that I had with him and what unfolded through the process of making this film.' Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox Throughout 40 hours of interviews, Reubens, a perfectionist, and Wolf verbally tussle over control on the project. The entertainer opens up about his decision to allow his avatar Pee-wee, star of 'Pee-wee's Playhouse,' to swallow Reubens in a stop-at-no-costs search for stardom ignited at an early age. Reubens grew up performing plays on a stage that his father built in the basement of their home in Sarasota, Florida, with early aspirations of becoming an actor. 'I wanted to be the focus of everyone's attention,' he says. Reubens also addresses topics more difficult for him to talk about, including his sexuality and trouble with the law. Reubens was arrested in 1991 and charged with indecent exposure for allegedly masturbating at an adult movie theater. Following a raid of his Los Angeles home in 2001, Reubens was charged with possessing child pornography. Wolf, a filmmaker interested in 'unconventional visionaries who beg for reappraisal,' investigates the incidents in search of the truth. Paul Reubens 'was anxious' about coming out as gay In 'Pee-wee as Himself,' Reubens remembers he 'fell in love instantly' at a party with a painter named Guy, who inspired some of Pee-wee's mannerisms. But Reubens says their relationship eclipsed his sense of self and ambitions, and that was a threat too great to bear. 'When we split up, I just made a conscious decision and went, 'I'm not doing this again,' ' Reubens says. 'I not only wasn't going to be openly gay, but I wasn't going to be in a relationship. 'My career would've absolutely suffered if I was openly gay, and so I went to great lengths for many, many years to keep it a secret.' Wolf says Reubens wanted to come out in the docuseries but 'he didn't know how he was going to do it, and he was anxious about it.' 'He pulled me aside while we were on set and said, 'I don't know how to do this,' ' says Wolf, who told him, "All you have to do is say, 'I'm gay' (and) take it from there.' Reubens didn't want his sexuality to define him, Wolf says. 'He didn't want his work to be seen through a gay lens or to be perceived as a gay icon,' Wolf says. 'That just wasn't how he defined himself.' 'We loved you right back': Bette Midler, Tim Burton, more stars remember Paul Reubens Paul Reubens' arrests: 'It was important to really go there to clear his name' The film examines what happened in both of Reubens' arrests, and 'it was important to really go there to clear his name,' Wolf says. 'The response that I've heard is that people really believe that what happened to Paul was unjust, and I feel that way based on having absorbed and looked at the facts very closely.' Reubens denied the masturbation accusation at the time and says in 'Pee-wee as Himself,' 'I still feel the effects all the time.' He pleaded no contest to move on. A decade later, authorities raided Reubens' home, where he kept an art collection of gay erotica. Reubens was charged with one count of misdemeanor possession of child pornography. A plea deal was made 'that addressed this being material that was offensive somehow, but on an obscenity standard, not anything to do with child pornography,' Reubens' attorney Blair Berk says in the docuseries. The charge was lessened to one count of possession of obscene material, and Reubens pled guilty. Still, he needed to attend mandatory counseling and register as a sex offender for three years. The message Paul Reubens recorded a day before his death Reubens died before he could sit for a final interview with Wolf. 'In the last months of Paul's life, he was in a loving relationship,' Reubens' assistant Allison Berry says. 'He was surrounded by his closest friends. He had a lot of joy. I think he was embracing the fullness of his life in those last days and in awe of the life that he had lived.' The day before he died, Reubens recorded an audio message for the docuseries. 'The reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn't,' Reubens says in part, seemingly putting in great effort to speak. 'I wanted people to understand that occasionally where there is smoke, there isn't always fire. 'I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love and my desire to entertain and bring glee and creativity to young people and to everyone.'
Boston Globe
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Pee-wee as Himself' is a bittersweet look at the price of fame
Former Groundlings Laraine Newman (of 'Saturday Night Live' fame) and Cassandra Peterson (a.k.a. 'Elvira, Mistress of the Dark') appear as talking heads here. The late Phil Hartman, alum of both 'SNL' and The Groundlings, is seen in archival clips. Hartman, along with Reubens and Michael Varhol, wrote the 1985 box office hit, 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure,' the movie that put both Pee-wee and its novice director, Tim Burton, on the map. Additionally, Laurence Fishburne and S. Epatha Merkerson appear to remind us they were on ' A frame of Tim Burton and Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman while filming 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure" at the Alamo in the documentary "Pee-wee as Himself." Warner Bros. With documentaries like this one, I've often wondered how much control, if any, was ceded by the filmmakers in exchange for access. Especially when the subject is credited as an executive producer, as the late Reubens is here. Wolf pulls back the curtain by providing clips of Reubens talking about how upset he is at not being in control of the footage. There's even a scene at the beginning of the second episode where Reubens FaceTimes Wolf to ask if he can submit questions for the other interviewees. Advertisement 'You know the answer to that question is no,' says a stunned Wolf after a brief pause. We're privy to Wolf's relieved response when Reubens reveals that he's pranking him. 'Do you trust me?' Wolf is heard asking at another point. Reubens responds that he never will, though he admits there might be a little bit of trust between them. It's occasionally hard to ascertain how serious Reubens is in his responses; even without his trademark makeup, the familiar, mischievous Pee-wee smirk appears in those moments. Actor Paul Reubens transforms himself in the mirror into his character Pee-wee Herman in May 1980 in Los Angeles. MichaelThe title 'Pee-wee as Himself' is an intriguing summation of the documentary. Reubens, The title is also bittersweet. As the first, and more interesting, episode reveals, Paul Reubens was always himself until he tasted enormous success. Those of us old enough to have seen 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' in theaters, or watched the five seasons of the CBS hit 'Pee-wee's Playhouse,' remember the darker elements that populate the second episode. Advertisement But despite watching ' 'I was as out as you can be,' he tells us, 'and then I went back in the closet. Because I could pass.' Being identified as gay was always potentially career-ending, which is why so many Hollywood stars, like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, stayed closeted at the height of their fame. Reubens's situation is the opposite, and much of 'Pee-wee as Himself' implicitly deals with the psychological repercussions of going into the closet after tasting the freedom of avoiding it for so long. A frame of Pee-wee Herman's playhouse in the documentary "Pee-Wee as Himself." Warner Bros. Still, there was plenty of gay subtext on 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' (and some of the clips here highlight how sneaky the show could be). But not enough to negate plausible deniability. And when folks expressed concern about the believability of Pee-wee's relationship with his girlfriend in 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure,' Reubens counter-attacked by staging that ridiculously long kiss between him and Valeria Golino in the box office flop, 'Big-Top Pee-wee.' In a way, the success of Pee-wee Herman was a reward for Reubens hiding his true self. I found this idea to be so profoundly sad that the overall documentary left me somewhat depressed. I can imagine how painful it would be if I had to go back into the closet, so my reaction is strictly personal. Advertisement The saddest part of 'Pee-wee as Himself' is that Reubens's death from the cancer he privately battled for six years prohibited him from appearing on camera to speak about his most devastating scandal. Not the 1991 Overall, 'Pee-wee as Himself' is a worthwhile documentary for fans of Pee-wee Herman and for folks who want to know more. But even at its most entertaining, it can be an emotionally difficult viewing experience. PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF Starring: Paul Reubens On: HBO Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
Time Magazine
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
How the Director of Pee-wee as Himself Convinced Paul Reubens to Finally Open Up
On July 31, 2023, Matt Wolf received news that no documentarian wants to hear: The subject of his uncompleted film was dead. This was no mere talking head. It was a man who left an indelible mark on pop culture, whose manic persona, gray suit, and bowtie helped define the 1980s. On a personal note, says Wolf, it was someone who 'changed who I was through his art.' The subject was Paul Reubens, the actor best known as Pee-wee Herman, who had been diagnosed with cancer six years prior. 'Paul was very preoccupied with the film being finished before he died,' says Wolf, whose two-part HBO documentary, Pee-wee as Himself, debuted at Sundance to rapturous praise and premieres on May 23 on HBO and Max. Though Reubens never said his death was imminent, or even told Wolfe of his cancer diagnosis, his legacy was clearly on his mind. 'Every day I woke up saying, 'You must rise to the occasion. Do not drop the ball,'' says Wolf, whose previous documentary subjects include the musician Arthur Russell and the Biosphere 2. Reubens was, according to Wolf, intense, complex, and 'the funniest and one of the smartest people I've ever met.' He was also a 'resistant subject.' That resistance plays out onscreen and distinguishes Pee-wee as Himself from other celebrity bio-docs. This one tells, but it also shows. The telling comes via recollections from Wolf's talking heads—drawn from 40 hours of interviews with Reubens, plus friends, family, and colleagues—as well as Reubens' career archive, including 1,000 hours of video footage and tens of thousands of images. These take us from Reubens' early life as a precociously creative child growing up not far from the Ringling Bros. Circus headquarters in Florida, through his work in the improv group the Groundlings, to his career successes: creating and starring in the hit 1985 film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and practically rewriting the book on children's programming during the five-season run of his Saturday morning CBS show Pee-wee's Playhouse. Where the doc shows rather than simply tells, however, comes when Reubens breaks the fourth wall about the process of making it, including wanting to be more hands-on with the production and his suspicious regard of Wolf. The tension is palpable. At one point, Reubens tells Wolf that he made 'one documentary that I liked out of, what—six?' 'There were times I was angry at Paul,' recalls Wolf. 'I accepted this was great material for the film, and he knew it.' Reubens, who admired people 'living conceptually' during his college days at California Institute of the Arts, had devised Pee-wee as a character meant to exist in the real world as well as showbiz. He was often billed as Pee-wee Herman during interviews and in movies, rarely letting his real self show in service of his full-time performance art piece. For Wolf, the trick was to pull back the curtain on the performance to reveal the man himself. Reubens was Wolf's 'dream subject.' They connected in 2020, during the height of pandemic lockdown, after Wolf caught wind that Reubens was interested in making a film about his life. So began a series of FaceTime and Zoom interactions that would number in the hundreds of hours. 'With Paul, there was no 15-minute conversation,' Wolf says. Reubens, unsure whether Wolf was the right guy for the job, proceeded begrudgingly. And then one day, the resistance just abated. 'He said, 'I'm in. Sometimes you gotta take a leap of faith,'' remembers Wolf. Though the line between director and subject was fixed, Wolf nonetheless considered Reubens a collaborator. But the question of just how much Reubens was to contribute added to the strain. Before Wolf had completed his interviews, Reubens went incommunicado. 'We were at an impasse as to what post-production would look like, and I was holding my ground that I would be doing that independently, and that he would have opportunities to see the cut,' says Wolf. 'And that didn't feel like enough to him.' 'Paul was very particular,' says Cassandra Peterson (better known as Elvira), who befriended Reubens in the 1970s when both were in the Groundlings and who appears in the doc. 'He wanted to control things, and have things exactly the way he wanted, to a really extreme degree. So I kind of felt sorry for the filmmakers. I knew it would be a tough road.' Peterson recalled falling out with Reubens due to a work issue that she did not specify. It happened not long after the 1986 debut of Pee-wee's Playhouse and lasted for years until they found themselves reunited while presenting an award together. 'It was great to be friends with Paul,' she says. 'He was funny, brilliant and a fantastic friend, but I really had to separate the work from the friendship.' She expressed great admiration for her friend's creativity. 'One of Paul's strong points was remembering how he was and what happened to him as a child,' says Peterson. 'He kept ahold of that childhood thing that everybody wishes they could hold on to. The freedom and creativity that you had when you were a child, Paul never let that go.' Wolf was initially reluctant to include his own presence in the movie, but he and Reubens decided together to explore their dynamic on-screen. Control was a frequent topic behind the scenes and in front of the camera, where Reubens openly pondered if he should be the one making the film. Wolf attempted to shoot candid footage of Reubens to augment the talking-head material, but it didn't work. 'If anything that wasn't planned happened, he would be unhappy,' Wolf recalls. As to Reubens' need for control, Wolf has some theories. 'Many exceptional artists are incredibly controlling,' Wolf says. But also: 'He was controlling because he lost control of his personal narrative in the media.' Wolf is referring to two arrests that resulted in career-upending scandals. The first occurred in 1991, when Reubens was picked up in an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Fla., and charged with indecent exposure. This resulted in the effective cancellation of Pee-wee's Playhouse; he pleaded no contest and maintained publicly that the allegations were false. The second happened in 2002, when Reubens was charged with possession of child pornography. He eventually took a lesser plea of obscenity, while maintaining that nothing in his archive of vintage gay erotica constituted child sex abuse material. The impasse between Wolf and Reubens occurred before Wolf got to ask about these arrests in detail. Those parts of the movie are largely told through the recollections of his friends and family. Wolf did capture Reubens discussing his sexuality, which Reubens had never done publicly. Though he had relationships with men, he was closeted for the sake of his career. In the film, Reubens seems at ease discussing his life as a gay man, but Wolf says the filming of that interview 'was not a chill, easy day.' Sexuality was both a point of connection and tension among director and star. Wolf, too, is gay, but came out at 14 and values his sexuality as a key feature of his identity, a position Reubens didn't share. When Wolf engaged Reubens about his sexuality, he noticed his subject was 'squirmy and procrastinating a lot' then spoke only in vague terms. Finally Reubens took Wolf aside and said, 'I don't know how to do this.' To that, Wolf had a simple directive: 'Just say, 'I'm gay.'' Once the cameras were back rolling, Wolf asked Reubens point blank, 'Are you gay?' Reubens joked and then 'snapped in,' discussing his sexuality freely. 'It was extraordinary, and I felt very proud of him,' Wolf says. In July 2023, Wolf and Reubens resumed communication and agreed to proceed with the shoot. But the interview they planned never came to pass—Reubens died at 70 just two weeks later. Peterson says she was aware of the cancer 'from day one'—Reubens had called her crying the day he received his diagnosis of lung cancer. But he fought it and seemed to recover completely only to find out that he had a brain tumor some time later. Treatment for that also seemed to go well. 'He never dwelled on it,' Peterson recalls. 'He never talked about it. He ate healthy. He really turned his life around.' But then maybe a month or two before his death, Reubens told her that he wasn't feeling well. 'He'd had a few episodes of feeling sick, and I was getting worried,' she says. As indicated in the documentary, Reubens left behind a partner when he died. Peterson could not recall how long they were together before Reubens' death, but she said that their bond was undeniable. 'It was the first time I heard Paul talk about somebody who he really, really liked,' she said. 'It was nice that Paul had somebody at the end, a very nice person who really cared about Paul. I was so happy to see that.' The day before he died, Reubens recorded a voice note in which he reflected on his 2002 arrest and sent it to his publicist, Kelly Bush Novak, who passed it on to Wolf. Toward the end of the film, a frail-voiced Reubens says, 'More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn't. The moment I heard somebody label me as, I'm just going to say it, a pedophile, I knew it was going to change everything moving forward and backwards.' Reubens' death put Wolf in a shaky position. He pushed down feelings of grief in order to finish his film. The stakes couldn't have been higher. 'I've never felt so trusted to take on such a big thing,' Wolf says. Peterson loves the resulting film. 'I really felt like Matt got Paul. He had a handle on what he was doing,' she says. The documentary is an honest portrait of a creative technician, his drive, his process, and the way he negotiated life in the public eye. The film rather explicitly asks a question that has preoccupied the culture on conscious and subconscious levels in the age of social media and scorn for traditional media: Who gets to tell people's stories? It seems clear that, had Reubens been in creative control, we wouldn't have seen the glimpses of his humanity that, while not always flattering, make Pee-wee as Himself so riveting. And, while they might not have been what Reubens wanted, they are the product of the deep respect and admiration Wolf had for his subject. 'I was determined to make meaning out of this,' says Wolf. 'I said to Paul, 'I will do right by you.' I meant it.'
