My Favorite Shapes by Julio Torres (2019)

My Favorite Shapes feels like a comedy special beamed in from a gentler, weirder universe—part stand-up, part theater piece, part art installation, all filtered through Julio Torres’s singular, brilliant sensibility. Using a conveyor belt of odd little objects as his co-stars, he turns the mundane into miniature epics, spinning absurdist stories with such precise imagination that you start caring about a plexiglass square the way you’d care about a character in a movie. The vibe is dreamy, deadpan, and surprisingly tender, the kind of immersive comedy that doesn’t chase punchlines so much as it builds a whole world where punchlines bloom naturally. If you prefer traditional stand-up with rapid-fire riffs, it may feel too stylized—but if you’re on the fence and crave something genuinely unique, this is a delightful reminder that comedy can be art without losing its laugh.

My Favorite Shapes is trying to turn a stand-up special into a tiny art exhibit—odd objects, meticulous visuals, and whimsical stories that feel like sketches from a very specific dream. If you want punchline-heavy comedy or a clear narrative, this can come off more like an eccentric mood piece where the “jokes” are as much about tone and design as they are about laughs. The high bar of weird is the whole point, but it also means you might spend stretches admiring the craft while feeling emotionally left outside the joke. If you enjoy surreal, deadpan, hyper-specific humor and don’t mind something that plays more like performance art than a conventional comedy special, it’s a distinctive treat.