Filed Under Movies
Though Tina Fey didn’t write “Baby Mama”, she did make the movie before the strike, so her writer brain was still on. So I’m optimistic. What do you think?
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Filed Under Movies, Sketch Comedy
Today The Ten
Sketch comedy movies are often described as hit or miss. Do you think that’s a fair criticism? It seems like an obvious thing to say about any movie – there will be parts you like more than other parts.
It makes sense that one would feel this way about sketch comedy because each part has a different premise, different set of characters, different style—not everyone is going to like every sketch. Also there’s an inevitable “dip” in a sketch-based film, when you’re not following a three-act story, where no matter how funny the jokes are, it can start to get tedious. In The Ten we tried to combat this phenomenon by keeping the whole movie relatively short, and by imbuing each piece with more than just jokes.
It’s interesting that a film using the Ten Commandments only has one segment (Gretchen Mol with Jesus Chriso) that plays with religion. Did you consciously want to stay away from religion?
It wasn’t a conscious choice so much as just where our taste lies. I’ve never been too interested comedy that’s overtly political or religious. In The Ten we were more interested in the underlying moral/ethical themes of the Ten Commandments as basis for a variety of comic stories.
When you’re doing a film that’s not necessarily for a mainstream audience, do you still have audience expectations that you have to deal with?
Of course. Even small independent movies take millions of dollars to make, and must connect so some sort of audience. That said, I’ve been extremely lucky that my first two movies (Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten) were made with almost zero influence from financiers, and we were largely allowed to freely explore our instincts and tastes (with certain casting requirements). As with most everything I’ve done, I just trusted that what we find funny, others will. How many others, I can never predict. Most things I’ve done has been met with obsessive worship from some, and abject hostility from others.
It seems with a sketch comedy film that once you move on to a new sketch that it’s hard to keep momentum. You’re setting up the next bits and what not. Do you think the ways that the characters in “The Ten” interconnect help to keep the momentum going?
Definitely. More than I anticipated, actually. We thought the way the characters overlapped was just icing on the cake of The Ten, but it turns out to have been a crucial element of the film that I’d have done much more of, in hindsight.
There’s a real love of the absurd in a lot of your comedy. How grounded does a scene or a sketch have to be before you can go off on a non-sequitur?
There’s certainly no formula. That kind of thing is entirely a matter of instinct and taste.
Are there times you have to throw away a gag because you have to serve the scene?
All the time. There’s a ton of deleted material on The Ten DVD that is exactly that. Of course The Ten had a much higher threshold for tangents and absurdity because we didn’t have an overall story to serve, to keep moving forward. The jokes were the first priority. In Wet Hot and Stella we more often had to throw out jokes that took away from the story drive, but those too were sketch-like narratives. The movie I’m working on now (currently untitled comedy for Universal) is a much more “straight-forward” narrative, and it’s an interesting and satisfying discipline to try to keep every scene and every joke as on-topic, on-character, and on-story as possible, while still making you laugh.
Is there a point where absurdity can change the tone so much that a film becomes like “Airplane”?
Well in infer from the way you word the question that you don’t like “Airplane.” I think “Airplane” is a classic comedy and far more sophisticated than it appears on the surface. This is why its myriad imitators (and sequels) haven’t worked, but the original “Airplane” lives on. It’s much more than just string of puns and sight gags. On the other hand, I have to admit I have always been wary of having too many “airplane jokes” in what I do, but that’s because I want to be true to my own specific voice and no one else’s. The Ten and Airplane share the idea that anything goes, in service of comedy. Narrative structure, logic, continuity, emotional reality, character depth—they all take a back seat. I can understand why this puts off some people. And truthfully, it puts me off too, when done recklessly. Nor would I want to have a movie diet of only absurdist comedies. But when done well, whether it’s Monty Python, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Cohen Brothers, Peter Sellers, whoever… they can be sublime. The audiences and critics who have embraced The Ten have seen it as a whole movie, that even though it doesn’t the conventional earmarks of most feature films, there’s a cohesiveness to the point of view.
Editor’s Note: Just to be clear, I love “Airplane.” The reason I asked David about this is simply, “Airplane” is one thing and generally I think the aesthetic aspired to by Wain is another. It seemed like a pretty fine line to tread.
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Filed Under Movies, Stand-Up Comedy
Doug Benson is essentially taking a punch line form his act and making it into a movie. Super High Me is using the template of Super Size Me to make a movie about marijuana effects, with Benson abstaining from smoking pot for 30 days and then getting baked for 30 straight days ("Business as usual” as he describes it).
After viewing the teaser below, I think I actually want Super High Me to be a little serious at times. There’s definitely a suggestion that it’s more documentary than a funny riff on a format, so I might be very pleased. I laughed pretty hard at Super Size Me at times, much of it because the core it was important - the public health risks of how we eat. Of course this subject matter is, arguably, not as serious unless Benson is going to look at something like mandatory sentencing laws putting away relative minor offenders. Not sure Benson has something like that in him, but at least the film will have some cameos from folks like Bob Odenkirk and Brian Posehn. That ain’t so bad.
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Filed Under Movies, Stand-Up Comedy
It’s a little strange when you’re more excited by the promotional efforts for a movie, rather than the movie itself. I suppose it’s common in our culture for action films (”Cloverfield Happy Meal - with Hazy Photos of the Monster Inside!"), but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced with a comedy.
For Semi-Pro, an upcoming sports comedy from Will Ferrell, they’re going to promote the movie with a stand-up tour entitled “Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die Comedy Tour Presented by Semi-Pro.” Included on the tour are some favorites of mine(and yours too) including Zach Galifianakis, Nick Swardson and Demetri Martin.
And the bizarre thing, at least according to the cast list, none of those guys are in Semi-Pro. It’s almost completely tangential. I can even see how some might argue that comedians like Demetri and Zach aren’t comics that Ferrell fans know or love. From the look of the trailer (included below), Semi-Pro doesn’t excite me, but it does look a lot like what people want from Will Ferrell. Nobody knows anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if stand-up comedy tour or no stand-up comedy tour, the film would make exactly the same box office.
So with the film’s likely strength and the completely unrelated talent, I really think this tour is going to more for stand-up than it will for the movie. And considering the top-notch talent involved who will get that bump, I think I love Semi-Pro.
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Filed Under Comedy Writers, Movies
...if only so Lorne can grab two SNL writers and stick them in a room to write a movie around Armisen’s studio executive character Roger Trevanti.
“Hope You Get Ass Cancer” might wear as a catchphrase, but the blatantly obvious double-talking is just brilliant. There have been thinner characters for SNL sketch-based films.
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Filed Under Movies
The much mistreated Mike Judge film “Idiocracy”
We never see an ad for Brawndo in “Idiocracy” but this commercial posted on YouTube seems pretty on point. And it’s hysterical.
(It’s also very similar to a video for “Powerthirst” by the sketch group Picnicface. I’m told it was all on the up and up. Picnicface cast member Mark Little does the voice for both Brawndo and PowerThirst. So don’t worry about getting outraged or anything. Just enjoy.)
According to Brawndo’s website, the drink is to be in stores Dec 15th. (BTW, the Brawndo website was previously owned by Vintage Cotton, a funny T-shirt site with quite a few Idiocracy inspired designs including “Camacho for President” and “Ow My Balls”, I don’t know how well they sell, but the fact that people wanted to make them is further proof to me that 20th Century Fox didn’t have a clue what a piece of comedy gold that they had.)
Of course, Brawndo in the movie is responsible for a famine and a dustbowl that’s destroying the country. So it’s not exactly a positive association. Still, that’s not really going to bother the drink makers, who are also the creators of the Cocaine Energy Drink. Here’s the Daily Show segment on Cocaine and its creator Jamey Kirby:
Update: In a further sign of Fox waking up to the film, there are now officially licensed T-shirts for Idiocracy available.
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Filed Under Movies, Stand-Up Comedy, The Comedy Festival
“Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project” portrays a performer who’s one of the last of his kind, but who’s still packing them in today. It’s also a little bit about how casino entertainment has changed (Bob Newhart even sounds nostalgic for how the mob runs a showroom). The doc captures Don’s life story, but it’s not much for looking too closely at why or how Don does what he does.
But considering some of the rarely seen archival footage in the doc, it’s hard to be disappointed. Like this exclusive clip, which talks about Johnny Carson and his relationship with Rickles:
Of course, there’s plenty from contemporary comics too about Rickles influence. Check out the lesson that Sarah Silverman claims to have learned from Rickles, delivered completely deadpan:
Though there much made of how Rickles isn’t offensive when he does his bits about racial stereotypes, director John Landis knows how fine a line that can be and how times have changed. When the infamous Tonight Show cigarette box incident is shown, the part when Johnny Carson imitates a black guy is cut.
A fair amount of the doc was filmed at last year’s Comedy Festival including Rickles performance and several of the interviews with comics (although there’s none of the Ceasar Palace Laurel Award ceremony, where I first learned about the project).
“Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project” debuts on HBO tomorrow at 8PM.
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Mike Judge tells MTV he's kinda warmed up to the idea of doing a live action Beavis and Butt-Head movie. He just animated a short segment with the duo for the upcoming "The Animation Show."
John McCain will make a guest appearance on SNL this week. The host will be Steve Carell, who covered McCain for the Daily Show in 1999.
Andrew Dice Clay: "I think girl comics are doing better than guy comics today. They're more exciting than guy comics." Later, tells interviewer about a girl coming over who a "10-and-a-half." (AV Club)
Rob Corddry gets first staring role in the movie "Project A", a comedy about a man trained by the U.S. Gov't to be a jerk. Ben Stiller is a producer.
The good: CBS adds two sitcoms to schedule. The bad: Mike Birbiglia's show appears to have not been picked up. You can watch previews of what they did order.
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