SlamminSalmon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Fans of the comedy troupe Broken Lizard won't have to wait much longer to see the group's latest film, The Slammin' Salmon. Variety reports that Anchor Bay has acquired theatrical rights and will open the film on Dec. 11. No word yet on how wide the release will be, but all of Anchor Bay's previous titles (including Spread and While She Was Out) have been fairly limited.

Broken Lizard's first film, Super Troopers, premiered at Sundance in 2001 and earned a cult following when it hit theaters a year later. But the follow-up efforts, Club Dread and Beerfest, failed to recapture the magic. Slammin' Salmon, which premiered at Slamdance this year and subsequently played at South By Southwest, is a return to form. It's about a boxer-turned-restaurateur who bullies his waitstaff into a contest to see who can sell the most food in one night, all to help him repay a gambling debt; Cinematical's Eugene Novikov said the Broken Lizard guys demonstrate their "singular, goofy, off-the-wall sense of humor, refined and sharpened from their prior efforts."

Eugene wasn't alone, either. The film got several other rave reviews at SXSW, nearly all of them calling it the best Broken Lizard film to date. I was afraid the last two disappointments would doom this one, so I'm glad Anchor Bay stepped up and will let audiences see it. Best of all: now you can enjoy the insane magic that is Michael Clarke Duncan's performance. It truly is a thing of beauty.

Strange Wilderness is a new comedy starring Steve Zahn as the host of a wilderness television show with plummeting ratings. To increase viewership, he assembles a motley crew and sets out on an expedition to find Bigfoot. The cast includes Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Ashley Scott, Peter Dante, Jeff Garlin, and -- believe it or not -- Ernest Borgnine! The red band trailer for Wilderness just hit the internet. (Need a little incentive to check it out? There's nudity. You're welcome.) Cinematical spoke with two of the film's stars -- Kevin Heffernan (of Broken Lizard fame) and Allen Covert (pretty much every Adam Sandler movie, Grandma's Boy) -- about this film and their careers. First up is Kevin Heffernan...

Cinematical: Who do you play in the film?

Kevin Heffernan: I play a character named Whitaker. When they go out on this trip, they need to hire an animal wrangler. I'm a car mechanic and I have no animal wrangling experience. Basically, I'm just looking for a job. So I go and interview with them and I win the job but I have no knowledge of animals. I don't even like them that much really! It's got this great ensemble cast and some great cameos...

Cinematical: It does have such a great comedy cast, was improvisation encouraged on the set?

KH: Yeah man. The script was so good, I mean it was written by Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke who have a lot of comedy writing experience, but it was just one of those kind of movies where there's always like six or seven people on the screen. And they left it free for us to do the improv stuff that we all love to do. So there were a lot of people going off, and they had to kind of pull you back to the script a little bit.