Matt Mayer wrote the original idea and then Matt, Nathan Russell and I kept adding to it until it very organically became something none of us would have thought of on our own.
Also, if you watched the whole thing and don’t understand the ending, it’s a callback to The Brig’s commercial for the depression medication Numbalex.
It’s been a really busy week for my UCB Comedy Beta team, The Brig. We have THREE new videos.
Our latest is Overly Ambitious Ensemble Drama, which Zack Phillips wrote, Jason Guerrero shot and I directed and edited.
The thing about a parody of an overly ambitious ensemble drama is that it’s also an overly ambitious ensemble sketch, but Zack not only wrote such a challenging sketch, he produced it and organized all the actors (Zack and I also probably spent about 8 hours planning out the whole shooting schedule).
Who are the actors? I’m glad you asked. In no particular order: Tim Martin, Amy Heidt, Ben Rameaka, Dru Johnston, Corey Brown, Emily Axford, Shaun Diston, Alex Charak, Rob Michael Hugel, Matt Fisher, Kim Ferguson, Verónica Osorio, Jason Saenz, Don Fanelli, Will Hines, Jon Gutierrez, Amber Petty, Dan Hodapp, Brandon Gardner, Josh Patten, Molly Lloyd, Keith Bethea, Jordan Hirsch, Matt Starr, Eddie Brawley, Will Storie, Matt Cutler, Amanda Hirsch, Drew Tarvin, Jeff Wisniewski, Scott Yacyshyn, Dave Bluvband, Ben Ragheb, Matt Mayer, Adam Sacks, Morgan Evans, Zack Phillips and Jason Guerrero.
Also out this week is Time Life’s Rough Drafts Music Collection. Written and directed by Matt Mayer, and featuring the singing of Eliza Skinner, Morgan Phillips and Matt Mayer.
The latest from my UCB Comedy Beta team, The Brig. If there’s one thing I learned from this, it’s that I enjoy writing cheesy awards intros way too much. Keep that in mind, next year’s Oscars producer.
For movies, January and February are usually a boring time when the Hollywood studios, after blowing all their cash promoting year end oscar-baiting films, release sub-par movies no one cares about. But not this year! In the coming weeks, a battle of epic proportions will be waged in theaters across the country by Hollywood’s A-list talent. I’m speaking of course, about the Hollywood Walk-Off.
The battle begins January 22nd with the release of Extraordinary Measures.
Which tells the stirring story of Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, reprising their roles from Indiana Jones and The Mummy, as they walk through a hallway paved in brick, or some sort of indoor horse stable. Advanced buzz says Brendan Fraser’s performance is so good Harrison Ford generously gave him top billing.
The next week, Mel Gibson walks out from the Edge of Darkness.
Mel Gibson plays a married cop angrily walking around, looking for his gun holster. Word on the street is Mel intentionally starred in a bad studio film to prove the Jews in Hollywood are ruining America.
Soon after, John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers join the fray in From Paris With Love
Travolta plays a chemo patient who decides traditional treatment isn’t working and decides to walk to cancer’s front door and kill it once and for all. Rhys Meyers plays a straight laced cancer specialist who initially tries to stop Travolta, but then realizes gun battles are the only way to defeat such a terrible disease. Since this is based on a story by Luc Besson, the movie probably thinks it’s a lot better than it actually is.
And for those concerned this Walk-Off is a total sausage fest, comes Girl on the Train.
About a girl cursed to walk the earth surrounded by a radial blur that obliterates any person who tries to get physically or emotionally close to her.
I’m excited. I don’t think we’ve seen walking of this caliber since 1992′s Reservoir Dogs.
Since my post about the Avatar trailer was popular, I might as well say something about the movie itself. If you’re afraid of SPOLERS, stop reading.
First off, whoever made the trailer to Avatar deserves a big Christmas bonus. Because I hated the trailer so much, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the movie. One day later though, there’s not much that stands out to me, in stark contrast to my experiences with Terminator 2, Aliens and The Abyss. The best praise I can give Avatar is that the 2.5 hour run time didn’t bother me (which, I’ll be honest, does say a lot for how good James Cameron is at keeping things moving), and that after a while I got over how much the color scheme owed to badly airbrushed vans.
From the trailer I also pointed out how much Avatar looked like Ferngully. It seems a lot of people agree with me. Here’s a list of all search results that brought people to my website over the course of one hour, just two days after Avatar was released.
After seeing the movie though, I think Avatar is really much more like Dances With Wolves.
The Na’Vi, Avatar’s indigenous population, have a lot in common with Native Americans, while the invading, technologically advanced humans bear a striking resemblance to the U.S. government. Because of this, many people claim Avatar is anti-American.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Avatar is actually deeply anti-Native American.
In Avatar, the Na’Vi defeat the humans because their God is real and helps fight against the helicopters and mech-suits. But in American history, the Native Americans lost. Which, by Avatar’s logic, means Native Americans believe in fake Gods or else right now they’d be playing Blackjack against European immigrant run casinos.
That’s a pretty harsh message James Cameron is selling, but I guess that’s what happens when you give your movie an ending as unrealistic as the Titanic sinking an iceberg.
How exciting does Jackie Chan’s The Spy Next Door look?
This has the potential to make Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Kindergarten Cop look like Vin Diesel’s The Pacifier.
But The Spy Next Door won’t just revolutionize the “action star babysitting” genre. Look at what Jackie Chan’s neck can do.
That’s not Photoshop. Jackie Chan does all his own stunts, which means his neck is made of rubber.
For a spy movie, this changes EVERYTHING. If a villain tied James Bond to a chair, but left a knife dangling directly behind his head, Bond would be powerless to get the knife and cut himself free before the excruciatingly slow moving laser cut him in half. But with Jackie Chan, there is literally no trap he can’t get out of, provided the key to his escape is within his 360 degree biting radius.
Sorry super villians, your plans for world domination are no match against Jackie Chan’s Exorcist neck.
And if you’re still not excited about The Spy Next Door, check this out.
That’s right, it also features the creators of Miley Cyrus and Lopez Tonight. How they got the man responsible for some of most stupefyingly childish television of all time and Billy Ray Cyrus together, I’ll never know.
This weekend, Couples Retreat debuted number one at the box office making 35.3 million dollars.
For those who don’t know, Couples Retreat is the hilarious story of four average to unattractive guys who don’t want to go on vacation with their hot girlfriends.
Contractually I wasn’t allowed to say anything until after the premier, but I wrote the original screenplay. Here’s the movie poster I mocked up when shopping around the script.
As you can see, Hollywood completely ruined my original vision. There are tons of women who relate with Kathy Bates’ struggle to be accepted based on her talents instead of looks; Kirstie Alley’s battle with weight gain; Whoopi Goldberg’s quick wit; and Rhea Perlman’s brash, take-no-guff personality; and these women would pay good money to vicariously live out their fantasy of having super hunky boyfriends. I fought with the studio for months over casting, but in the end a movie exec told me point blank, “No one would ever believe Daniel Craig could find Kathy Bates attractive.”
Apparently, this couple is more believable.
Was I angry? Of course. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Here are a few other scripts I wrote that Hollywood totally destroyed.
Advertising, Movies, The Brig, Video | Adam | 
June 20, 2011 9:57 am | 
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