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Tara Ariano

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Writer, editor, and snack enthusiast Tara Ariano is the co-founder of TelevisionWithoutPity.com and Fametracker.com (RIP). She has contributed to New York, the New York Times magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Decider, Salon, Collider, and Slate, among others. She also co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great (on TV); Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place); and The Sweet Smell Of Succession (about the HBO drama). She lives in Austin.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Iliza Shlesinger: A Different Animal (2025) C- EDIT “If Shlesinger’s vision accurately represents what millennials think feminism is, I think I get why Gen Z is so mad at them.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review The Parenting (2025) 49% C EDIT “The Parenting fizzles as horror and as comedy. And if you’re still considering watching just for the Brian Cox nude scene? Don’t bother. It’s probably a stunt butt.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review Chelsea Handler: The Feeling (2025) C- EDIT “That’s the thing about a Chelsea Handler special: When you fire it up, you can’t say you don’t know what you’re going to get.” – Cracked Apr 18, 2025 Full Review Ilana Glazer: Human Magic (2024) B EDIT “The most astonishing trick in Ilana Glazer's new special, Human Magic — considering that it opens with a joke about sleep deprivation causing them cognitive decline — is how much parenthood has coincided with a notable sharpening of their comic focus.” – Cracked Feb 20, 2025 Full Review You're Cordially Invited (2025) 48% B EDIT “Look, I also saw the alligator. I get that you think I’m crazy. But try to overcome your entirely justified prejudice and you will probably have a good time.” – Cracked Feb 20, 2025 Full Review Liza Treyger: Night Owl (2025) B EDIT “In Night Owl, Treyger has written not just what she knows but, through a lot of it, what we all know, resulting in a remarkably assured début.” – Cracked Feb 20, 2025 Full Review Kinda Pregnant (2025) 27% B EDIT “Kinda Pregnant is as focused on the reality as I should have expected a movie by two mothers, at least one of whom has definitely been pregnant, would be.” – Cracked Feb 20, 2025 Full Review Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025) 88% A- EDIT “While the original Bridget Jones’s Diary is untouchable among both romcom AND Christmas movies, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy seems to have been made by people who know that, and know what you loved about it.” – Cracked Feb 20, 2025 Full Review Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking (2024) 100% B+ EDIT “The special helps define Meyers’ stage persona as a likable family man with an edge.” – Cracked Dec 19, 2024 Full Review James Acaster: Hecklers Welcome (2024) B+ EDIT “If James Acaster’s new special, Hecklers Welcome, is anything to go by, maybe a comedy audience is only as obnoxious as the comic they’re seeing, even when said comic explicitly gives them license to pop off.” – Cracked Dec 19, 2024 Full Review Fortune Feimster: Crushing It (2024) B EDIT “Her craft and skill are so finely honed that you might mainly remember her having a good time all the time, and only notice long after her set is over how much it actually affected you.” – Cracked Dec 19, 2024 Full Review Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees (2024) 100% EDIT “It diminishes Get on Your Knees to compare it to any of Netflix’s worst specials starring male comics. But good comedy on the platform only makes the bad comedy look worse.” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Jenny Slate: Seasoned Professional (2024) 100% EDIT “Slate’s particular gift, as displayed here, is to wring goofiness from even the most emotionally fraught moments.” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (2024) EDIT “Brady is hilariously frank making herself the butt of jokes, while also pointing out the absurdity of the social conventions she knows she’s supposed to observe in order to be, as she frequently puts it, “normal.”” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Unfrosted (2024) 39% EDIT “Maybe The Lonely Island or Lord and Miller or Rogen and Goldberg would have struck the right tone of absurdity to make this story pop. But probably no one could have, because it’s too high-fructose corny an idea to work under any circumstances.” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Nikki Glaser: Someday You'll Die (2024) EDIT “For now, at least, Glaser seems very committed to childlessness, and has a lot of excellent reasons for it. Cynicism has never seemed more fun. Or sensible!” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go (2024) EDIT “Everything Must Go can be off-putting. We don’t understand why these aesthetic choices were made, and though her stories are candid, her affectations keep her from seeming particularly vulnerable in telling them.” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Jackpot! (2024) 32% EDIT “The way the characters’ periodic moments of attempted emotional resonance stop the action dead made a lot more sense once I found out that screenwriter Rob Yescombe has spent most of his career writing video games.” – Cracked Aug 28, 2024 Full Review Hysterical (2021) 90% EDIT “Even a comedy dabbler will, I think, find this vague mess frustrating, shallow, and amateurish.” – Primetimer Apr 2, 2021 Full Review
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