David Wain Tagged Articles at Cinematical

By William Goss (reprinted from 10/06/2008 -- Fantastic Fest)

Remember Broken Lizard's Beerfest? Whatever you thought of that 2006 comedy, it's difficult to dispute how incredibly astute the filmmakers were with rattling genre expectations in just a single scene. See, the American team's greatest beer guzzler, "Landfill", has passed away under shady circumstances, and right when everyone's ready to throw in the towel, in walks Landfill's identical twin brother, who they knew nothing about but who happens to have been told everything about each of them. Better yet, he's more than willing to even adopt Landfill's name, in an effort to bypass that whole awkward 'getting-to-know-you' stage.

It's every end-of-second-act "what do we do now, coach?" dilemma from an inspirational sports movie mercifully condensed to a couple of rapid-fire beats, and even if the rest of the film otherwise adheres to said sports movie formula, it's nice knowing that audience and actors alike were not going through the paces entirely unaware of how clichéd the entire narrative was.

Remember Broken Lizard's Beerfest? Whatever you thought of that 2006 comedy, it's difficult to dispute how incredibly astute the filmmakers were with rattling genre expectations in just a single scene. See, the American team's greatest beer guzzler, "Landfill", has passed away under shady circumstances, and right when everyone's ready to throw in the towel, in walks Landfill's identical twin brother, who they knew nothing about but who happens to have been told everything about each of them. Better yet, he's more than willing to even adopt Landfill's name, in an effort to bypass that whole awkward 'getting-to-know-you' stage.

It's every end-of-second-act "what do we do now, coach?" dilemma from an inspirational sports movie mercifully condensed to a couple of rapid-fire beats, and even if the rest of the film otherwise adheres to said sports movie formula, it's nice knowing that audience and actors alike were not going through the paces entirely unaware of how clichéd the entire narrative was.

Earlier this month, we learned that Diablo Cody was taking over LA's New Beverly Cinema to screen some of her favorite films, and she put together some awesome double features. The most recent was a screening of Midnight Madness and Wet Hot American Summer, and as CHUD reports, director David Wain was there for a Q&A with Ms. Cody, and he revealed some little nuggets of news.

First, there's going to be an anniversary DVD release at some point, which would probably means the 10th anniversary in 2011, since new releases usually don't come out on eight or nine-year anniversaries. It would contain more footage, as anniversary editions often do, but Wain also said that it might come with a soundtrack. If you remember the music from the flick, this CD could include Rick Springfield, Kenny Loggins, Loverboy, Jefferson Starship, KISS ... Basically, it would be awesome.

Then he shared some others news -- he might do a prequel to the film. This sounds half serious and half completely ludicrous, but he said that he was scheming up a prequel that would star the same cast -- playing younger versions of themselves. CHUD says: "I didn't know if Wain was kidding, but he seemed pretty serious, and mentioned that he had just worked with a bunch of Wet Hot alums -- including Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks -- on his new movie, tentatively titled Role Models."

What say you? Are you ready to get Wet Hot again?

So, Kim already told you about the insanity going on at last night's Alamo/Magnolia party. It was held at this massive condo with five floors, with lots of action taking place on each level. And the Nachos! Holy crap, were they good. Each tray had several layers of junk on them; no one knew what the hell they were eating, but man, did they hit the spot. Highlights for me include meeting David Wain, Morgan Spurlock (who injured his hand snowboarding prior to the big debut of his much-buzzed about flick Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?) and Michael Paul Stevenson, who's currently in the middle of directing that sweet-looking Troll 2 flick (Best Worst Film) we told you about recently. I met several more people, though I don't remember any names (it was that kind of night if you know what I mean). But props go out to Alamo Drafthouse's Tim League for doing a bang-up job as MC, and for pimping out a Hulk-a-Mania t-shirt all night long.

The line of the night, though, belongs to Scott Weinberg. While chatting with Spurlock in a small circle of friends, Weinberg blurted out, "So Morgan, can you f**king tell us already -- did you find him or not?" There was this awkward pause before Weinberg continued with ... "Did you find the f**king Cloverfield monster, Morgan? Did you?!" I guess you had to be there with beer in hand, but nevertheless I'm still chuckling about it this morning. Today I have three films: American Son, Dear Zachary (Slamdance film with crazy buzz right now) and Bigger, Stronger Faster. Then I shall attempt to drag my ass to the Bigger, Stronger Faster party, though I'm neither strong nor fast -- so we'll see. Look for more pics from last night's party (courtesy of Weinberg) real soon.

Yup, it's getting late in the day and we're going there. For those of you out there who've always wanted to see Winona Ryder doing the nasty with a puppet, now is your chance. So dim the lights, pour yourself a glass of wine and bring over that box of tissues (in case you accidentally spill the wine), then settle in to watch this ridiculous clip from The Ten (whose DVD hits streets early next month). JoBlo has the first clip, which is unedited, and features Winona Ryder ... well ... riding her way toward a comedic gold medal. The second clip, posted after the jump, features a press conference with Gary the puppet -- as well as snippets of his rendezvous with Ryder -- as he fields questions from the press regarding this explosive sex tape.

The Ten features all sorts of names, and the comedy presents ten different stories; each based on one of the ten commandments. In his review from last year's Sundance fest, Cinematical's Scott Weinberg called the film "a skit-intensive (and entirely bizarre) amalgam of ideas -- clever, silly and just plain stupid. Those who don't see the humor in this sort of stream-of-consciousness, ultra-strange and intensely self-referential material will walk out of The Ten with their reaction phasers set firmly on "hate" -- but I discovered a solid handful of worthwhile chuckles in the flick, most of which come from the smoothly reliable Paul Rudd and the still-adorable Winona Ryder." Oh yes, she is definitely adorable in this scene. Additionally, check out our interview with The Ten's David Wain and Ken Marino for more on the film. Head over to JoBlo for the first taste, and we have the second clip for you after the jump (though be warned there's some foul language and gratuitous human-on-puppet sex to be found).

Big Brother was supposed to start production in January of this year, at least, according to early reports when Seann William Scott was cast. But what movie ever sticks to a schedule? When Paul Rudd joined in December, production was pushed back to April. But as of September, McLovin -aka- Christopher Mintz-Plasse signed on and production still hadn't started. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Elizabeth Banks has also signed on, to play Rudd's girlfriend who gets him into the Big Brother program -- and, it's finally into production.

Unfortunately, it's still having name issues. First, it was Big Brother; then, it became Little Big Men, which wasn't so good as it sounds like some sort of orphan drama or something; now, it's currently an "untitled mentor project." I have to admit, I'm pretty psyched about this flick, mainly because it was written by The Ten's David Wain (who is also directing) and Ken Marino, along with Rudd. Between Marino's work as Vinnie Van Lowe, Rudd's involvement, and James Rocchi's great interview with Wain and Marino back in August, you couldn't keep me away from this picture. Now that they've finally begun shooting, maybe we can see this sucker some time in the new year.

He will always be "McLovin", but at least newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse has found another role to follow-up his hilarious debut in Superbad. The actor told Moviehole in an interview hat he has been cast in Little Big Men alongside comedy vets Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. This is apparently the movie formerly known as Big Brothers, which was written by Timothy Dowling (George Lucas in Love) and which was to be directed by Luke Greenfield (The Girl Next Door). According to Mintz-Plasse, though, Little Big Men will now be helmed by Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten director David Wain. The movie's plot involves two wild and crazy guys who end up sentenced to community service in the form of the Big Brothers mentoring program. Why a judge would think a couple of party boys would be suitable mentors to kids is beyond me (the program does have very strict guidelines against drug users, and I'm sure these guys are probably potheads), but it should at least make for some funny situations.

It isn't clear what kind of role Mintz-Plasse will have (the mentored kid, perhaps?), but I see him having difficulty shedding his persona as Fogel/McLovin, which was so perfect I almost found the guy funnier than Michael Cera. The actor may end up like Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, who similarly came on the scene with a quirky, imitable character and has had trouble finding another movie that audiences accept him in (he succeeded marginally by co-starring with Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory). Interestingly enough, Heder even played a Big Brother in School for Scoundrels -- at least, his character was in the program until being let go for being too much of a loser. If Mintz-Plasse can join the ranks of Wain's usual crop of collaborators -- which spans the State/Stella/Reno 911! crowd and the Apatow/Stiller "Frat Pack" group -- then he should be able to make a decent career for himself.

There aren't too many movies that necessitate sequels. Unless a movie is part of a pre-proposed series or is an adaptation of a series of books, it should probably be able to stand alone. But a lot of sequels come from movies that are perfect by themselves -- sometimes the sequels compliment nicely; sometimes they are easily ignored; occasionally they actually take away from the previously regarded original.

It isn't often that a movie screams out for a sequel, but I think I've come up with seven that at least whisper a request for one. Two actually have source sequels that they would be adapted from. One has a lot of history to mine material from. Three of them have been discussed at length at different points in time by makers of the original(s). The problem is that none of these sequels is likely to ever grace your DVD player let alone your local theater. For whatever reason, they simply have too much against them in the minds of studio execs. For now, though, we can dream.

1. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Even with the incredible cast and the surprisingly faithful-enough script, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was not the epic that I was hoping for. It also wasn't the blockbuster that Disney was hoping for. The filmmakers, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (aka Hammer and Tongs) and the necessary actors had signed on for the sequel, to be adapted from Adam's follow-up, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but it appears to be dead in the water. Despite my few reservations with the first film, I would love to see the sequel, as well as the rest of the series (they could end before The Salmon of Doubt, I guess). I remember being bored with some of the prehistoric Earth sequences in Restaurant, but I think they'd make for great cinema. In any event, I think Martin Freeman and Mos Def were a great duo in the original, and they alone should have been propelled to stardom following its release. Maybe they can appear in something else together.

It happens every year: films go to Sundance, play to packed crowds, win Jury prizes and/or score big deals ... and then essentially disappear. It happened in 2005, when Ira Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue took home the Dramatic Grand Jury prize, only to open nine months later on just three screens and eventually gross barely $75,000 in its 84 day release. It happened again last year, when The Darwin Awards and Right at Your Door landed multi-million dollar deals with major distributors, only to be shelved indefinitely. I guess if you're an acquisitions exec, it's easy to get carried away up there on the mountain, but sometimes the same picture that thrilled a packed crowd at the Racquet Club looks downright unmarketable back at the office in L.A. So, with the caveat that I have neither a crystal ball nor any sort of reliable inside information, here are my picks for five Sundance '07 films that will actually see a meaningful release sometime before Sundance '08.


1) The Ten (Cinematical review)


Stu Van Airsdale thinks Manohla Dargis was talking about this film in the NY Times, when she described a distributor who sat through a "bad comedy that features a clutch of low-level film and television actors" whilst fantasizing about "all those recognizable [actor] names once they are printed on a DVD box." I'm actually convinced Ms. Dargis was referencing Gregg Araki's Smiley Face, a stoner comedy starring Anna Faris and half the cast of That 70's Show, which was apparently so awful that even die-hard Araki fans couldn't sit through it. I think if Dargis had attended a public screening of The Ten -- or if she had even caught a glimpse of the hundreds of high school and college kids lining up for the wait list as long as eight hours in advance of the picture's second-to-last show -- she would have a hard time condemning a distributor for trying to cash in on it.

The movie, which was written and directed by David Wain of Wet Hot American Summer fame, consists of ten short segments, one representing each of the ten commandments, strung together by some filler involving Paul Rudd not being able to decide if he'd rather screw Jessica Alba, Famke Janssen or (this is not a typo) Dianne Wiest. It may be less engaging than a 90-minute stint watching old clips of The State on YouTube, but it's got huge college-campus potential, where boys and girls have been known to consume comedy without bothering to consult the second film critic for the New York Times to see if she approves. With savvy marketing, and maybe a few structural tweaks, this could be the sleeper comedy hit of the summer.

Want to see a satire about the Ten Commandments? ThinkFilm is hoping you will -- the company just partnered with City Lights Home Entertainment to buy the North American distribution rights to The Ten, which premiered at Sundance this week. The deal was estimated at $4.5 million to be shared between the two companies. ThinkFilm will handle the theatrical distribution, and City Lights will work with Warner on DVD and digital distribution.

The Ten was directed by David Wain, one of the comic talents behind the TV show Stella. The cast includes Jessica Alba, Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol, Oliver Platt, Famke Janssen, Winona Ryder and a bunch of other actors you probably know that I don't have space to list here. In his review for Cinematical, Scott Weinberg called it "a skit-intensive (and entirely bizarre) amalgam of ideas -- clever, silly and just plain stupid." This sounds like a fun (if uneven) movie, although admittedly I'm a sucker for anything with Paul Rudd. And Oliver Platt, for that matter. No word yet about when the movie will be released, although it would be awfully nice to have even a semi-intelligent comedy opening during the summer as an alternative to the big dopey blockbusters.

In other deal news, Variety is predicting a bidding war over The Good Night, another star-filled film that premiered at Sundance, written and directed by Jake Paltrow. Two other high-profile films, Hounddog and Chicago 10, still haven't found distributors.