David Wain & Other Alums of The State

[domino harvey]

Pre-order the State and get a free t-shirt and over 40% off retail

[domino harvey]

Having worked my way through the entire set in the past week and a half, I feel a little exhausted but I have to chime in with some brief thoughts on what has to be the greatest extra ever released on a sketch comedy DVD. MTV told the members of the troupe that they were going to include shot sketches which they owned the rights to and so it was sort of out of their hands, but the fifth disc features truly excellent sketches that just bombed in front of an audience. At first I literally thought the laugh track was recorded on a different track and it got lost. But no, the studio audience is just literally not laughing at the sketches. It's unnerving and you can see the reaction it elicits from the performers-- there's a terrifying moment in a cut third season skit about a raver where you can see Tom Lennon pause for a brief second to recoil at the audience not laughing at the first big joke upon which the whole sketch more or less depends on. The hour and a half of sketches are almost all as good as anything in the series proper, but it really shows what a difference an unresponsive audience can have!

[Antoine Doinel]

trailer for The Ten

Meh.

"Meh" is too enthusiastic for this piece of dreck. My God, I thought Transformers 2 was bad, but The Ten is operating on a whole other level of terrible. My friend and I eventually started skipping segments to see if it would get better and eventually gave up about halfway through. It's a miracle that any studio let David Wain get behind a camera after this. Brutally, toxically unfunny and illconceived.

[LQ]

My friend and I eventually started skipping segments to see if it would get better and eventually gave up about halfway through.

Antoine, I wanted to give up too- until the CAT-scan machines segment. C'mon, that was funny.

AV Club interview with Wain.

[domino harvey]

Just when you thought the complete set of the State told the whole story, they go and upload over two dozen skits the troupe shot for You Wrote It, You Watch It. I haven't gotten through all of them yet but so far they're as good as anything in their own show. The basic premise is that they take an anecdote from some Gen Xer and present it as a comedy sketch, but the troupe is not always strictly loyal to the tale-- One of the more amusing things they do is to occasionally change the logic of the skit midstream to match new information from the person telling the story, as in the skit where Kerry Kinney's representative mentions she was loud, after which Kinney just shouts every subsequent line at the top of her lungs. Other highlights include Tom Lennon as Fred Schneider from the B-52s and an excellent Reservoir Dogs parody involving Bubble Yum

[domino harvey]

Showalter and Black's new show got picked up by Comedy Central for the summer =D>

Great news! Even if it only lasts one season like Stella did.

Apparently Michael and Michael Have Issues is out on MOD via Amazon, FYI

[mfunk9786]

Problems, eh?

[domino harvey]

Michael and Michael Have Solutions:

[mfunk9786]

Wanderlust follows that tried and true (to me, at least) David Wain formula of getting together a bunch of funny people, turning on the cameras with a limited story, and letting them make jokes. Like in all of Wain's films, not every joke sticks, but there are enough attempts to make the completion numbers rather stunning. Justin Theroux is a little exhausting, as he tends to be - and I guess that's the point in this one - but Paul Rudd provides the everyman center of the film and really knows what to do to help everyone around him shine. Scenes like a news report (featuring Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black) and Paul Rudd trying to psych himself up in a mirror are pure State shenanigans, and you don't want to miss Michaela Watkins and Kathryn Hahn's breakout performances, or Joe Lo Truglio's novel -

SpoilerShow

It really takes off when you find out that the main character is in DC - he's a creature of the beltway!

[domino harvey]

Among the announced bonus features of the Blu-ray for Wanderlust is an alternate cut of the film with different jokes! Looks like a stacked release, to put it mildly

Commentary with director/writer/producer David Wain, writer/producer Ken Marino, actor/producer Paul Rudd, and impressions by Kevin Pollak
God Afton! behind-the-scenes featurette
Penis Envy mockumentary
The Elysium Campaign skit
"Elysium" webisode of Wainy Days
Deleted scenes
Extended/alternate scenes
Gag reel
Line-O-Rama feature
Blu-ray-exclusive:
- "Bizarro Cut" of Wanderlust featuring eighty minutes of alternate jokes

[cinemartin]

I was at a screening with Wain, Marino, Rudd, Kerri Kenny and Alan Alda where Alda was talking about how amazed he was during the shooting because they would do a scene a different way almost every time - to the point when things improvised would determine the outcome of the plot so by the end the script supervisor had to stay on top of all these various plot points that were created in alternate versions of scenes. Wain assured me that the "bizzaro" would explore some of these alternate plot lines created on the spot and be very bizarre indeed.

[mfunk9786]

I posted about Wanderlust here, so maybe it's time for mods to shuffle things around and give the film it's own thread!

[mfunk9786]

Among the announced bonus features of the Blu-ray for Wanderlust is an alternate cut of the film with different jokes! Looks like a stacked release, to put it mildly

Commentary with director/writer/producer David Wain, writer/producer Ken Marino, actor/producer Paul Rudd, and impressions by Kevin Pollak
God Afton! behind-the-scenes featurette
Penis Envy mockumentary
The Elysium Campaign skit
"Elysium" webisode of Wainy Days
Deleted scenes
Extended/alternate scenes
Gag reel
Line-O-Rama feature
Blu-ray-exclusive:
- "Bizarro Cut" of Wanderlust featuring eighty minutes of alternate jokes

Blu-ray.com review

SpoilerShow

He's a creature of the beltway!

[The Narrator Returns]

I just found out that David Wain and Ken Marino had a hand in rewriting the Adam Sandler vehicle/abomination to God and all that is holy That's My Boy. Not since Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor were credited for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry have I felt so disappointed about the writer of a Sandler movie.

[mfunk9786]

Those guys have families to feed, and people in the industry genuinely like Adam Sandler as a person and would likely be more than happy to help out with a screenplay. I don't really see the problem here. While they're critically panned and certainly haven't been for me since the brilliantly unhinged The Waterboy (non-Happy Madison productions like Punch-Drunk Love obviously excluded), a whole lot of people enjoy the guy's movies, and they certainly aren't promoting any particular hate or negativity that keeps me up at night.

[The Narrator Returns]

Shut up while I irrationally froth at the mouth over something that is incredibly trivial!!

[Brian C]

Shut up while I irrationally froth at the mouth over something that is incredibly trivial!!

Why is there no emoticon for this condition? Seems like it would get far more use than the one with the tape over its mouth.

[domino harvey]

What if That's My Boy is funny? It's possible, isn't it?

[mfunk9786]

The trailer certainly makes the film appear much funnier than any Sandler film in recent memory, but early reviews are far from promising.

[knives]

My problem is that the trailers seem to suggest that Samberg will be the one who will need to change rather than Sandler's man child. Otherwise I would be interested in the film.

[mfunk9786]

Really? That particular supposition is your dealbreaker on this of all movies?

[knives]

Yeah.

[mfunk9786]

It actually turns out that Sandler's character is a toy, if you're cool with that

[knives]

I wouldn't mind that actually. I just really dislike the tone that irresponsibility and juvenile should be held in higher regard as if it were the qualities of a bodhisattva rather than having the responsible person who overcame a terrible situation being the positive role model for the kids watching.

[mfunk9786]

They'll probably just learn to find the good in each other. You know: Samberg can loosen up, Sandler can buckle down, Schneider can yell "fuck" from a crowd - the usual