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| Where to Watch | IMDb |
If you like these things, then you'll like the film.
→ Wet Hot American Summer. Insert any other David Wain comedy. This film requires the cast to get silly and newcomers to David Wain’s crew (Zoey Deutch, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Ben Wang, John Slattery) admirably uphold the standard.
→ Cameos playing themselves. It’s funny when celebrities play heightened versions of themselves and you know it. One of my favorite performances like this was James Marsden on the television show, Jury Duty.
→ A whole lot of little jokes. These are the sort of fun and unserious movies that you can tell were made by actual, real-life friends. The film is chock-full of little jokes and though not all of them land, the Wain crew throws enough of them at you that you’re too busy laughing at the hits to dwell on the misses.
→ Shopping with DiabolikDVD. (a sponsored bullet point).1 I asked Jesse, the owner of DiabolikDVD, for nine horror picks for the month of October. Drew and I marked our favorites on his list below. For a limited time, TNMN members get 10% on purchases $50 or more from Diabolik.
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What I think.
For the people who think Wet Hot American Summer was one of the funniest films ever made, this one’s for you. There’s something so unpretentious and childish about David Wain’s comedy that gives a weightlessness to the viewing experience and seemingly to the actors who participate in the making of his films. It’s a good fucking time for everyone involved.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass adds some new cast members to his always-growing entourage but the formula remains relatively unchanged: get several very funny people onto the same set and let them be funny. Zoey Deutch plays the titular Midwestern bride with an absurd, over-the-top earnestness in her quest to lay Jon Hamm in order to save her forthcoming marriage.
The film’s premise gradually outs itself as a clever comedic twist on the classic narrative (I won’t give it away here) and quickly as one that could have only come from the minds of David Wain and frequent collaborator Ken Marino. If you disagree with me, I’m going to have to make you really sick.
| oh, neat. |
A fact or two about the production that makes you say "oh, neat."
→ The writers locked themselves in a room together for 12 hours a day, 7 days in a row, to write the script. This is David Wain and Ken Marino’s process, apparently. Marino explains, “I pace around the room and act things out, and David types and throws stuff at me, and I’ll say ‘No, this is a better line.’ The goal is to come out with a first draft, because once you have the bones of something, maybe 20 percent of it is good, so then you can spend the next however many months doing rewrites.”
→ The working title was I’ll Take the Hamm. On agreeing to star in the film, Jon Hamm says, “I mean, having yourself projected through the lens of Ken Marino and David Wain is pretty fun experience. When you get an offer to go to work and it’s, ‘Come and laugh for 12 to 14 hours, and you’ll also get a very meager paycheck, as well.’ You go, ‘OK, that sounds fun.’
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The results are in from last week’s poll.
Your significant other falls asleep during a movie. What do you do? 59% of you would just keep watching the movie. 25% of you kind-hearted souls would pause it and continue the next day, together. And only 15% would “accidentally” wake your partner up to finish the movie. I’m not sure what to make of this.
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