The Screengrab : jeff garlin

Unwatchable #36: “Daddy Day Camp”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Or is he? Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

I’ve got good news and bad news, Unwatchable fans. The bad news you probably already know. There’s no way I’m going to be able to complete my march to the top of the IMDb Bottom 100 list before the Screengrab shuffles off this mortal coil. The good news is that, despite this devastating setback, I am determined to complete the Unwatchable project one way or another.

Wait – that’s the good news? Well, it may not be good news for me or my psyche, but I’d hate to leave you all hanging. I’m searching for a new home for Unwatchable (make me an offer!), so be sure to check my blog frequently for updates.

There’s no time for eulogies just yet, however! Unless we’re talking about eulogies for Cuba Gooding’s career. Perhaps you dimly recall Daddy Day Care, one of Eddie Murphy’s more insipid family-friendly vehicle of recent vintage. Murphy opted out of the sequel – probably to make Norbit or Meet Dave or some other ungodly piece of shit – and the producers were left to rack their brains for a replacement. Could they possibly find an even more shameless, milquetoast, edgy-as-a-marshmallow African-American actor than Murphy has become over the past fifteen years? Who better than the star of Snow Dogs, Rat Race and Boat Trip – yes, none other than Radio himself, Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Gooding reprises Murphy’s role of affable dad Charlie Hinton, while some random fat white guy takes over for Jeff Garlin in the role of Charlie’s fat white guy friend, Phil. Having achieved tremendous success as the owners of Daddy Dad Care, Charlie and Phil face a new challenge when they take over the rundown summer camp they attended as youths. Camp Driftwood is facing foreclosure thanks to the popularity of the upscale camp across the lake, Camp Canola, run by Charlie’s childhood tormenter, Lance Warner (Lochlyn Munro).

Once the kids arrive at camp, we’re treated to two of the highest forms of humor: adorable tots who all speak like Catskills comedians, and emissions both gaseous and tangible emitting with increasing frequency from every bodily orifice. There’s a recreation of the famous Blazing Saddles campfire scene, except with belching instead of farting. But don’t worry – there’s also farting! Also vomiting, pooping, nut-punching and balloons filled with piss. All the classics! Gooding brings his usual dignity to the proceedings, which means his face is perpetually plastered with the same expression my dog sports whenever he’s left a special present hidden somewhere in the house. Speaking of which:

Previously on Unwatchable:
37. Bad Girls from Valley High
38. Chairman of the Board
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: July 5-11, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:00:00 GMT

And so ends another thrilling week at the Screengrab. It’s always hard to say goodbye, but let’s concentrate on the good times we’ve shared.

Paul Clark and Leonard Pierce divulged their favorites from the first half of 2008. Always a ray of sunshine, yours truly brought you the Unwatchables from the year so far.

Speaking of Unwatchables, Anus Magillicutty definitely qualifies. And though it’s not an official entrant, it sounds as if Three on a Meathook gets an honorable mention. But The Quick and the Undead deserved (slightly) better.

We shared two summers in one week: Summer of ’42 and Suddenly Last Summer.

We finished up our trilogy of patriotic lists with America the Dissonant: Seven Movies That Send Mixed Messages About U.S. And we asked for your help in picking the lists of the future.

We looked ahead to Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, remakes of Red Dawn and The Day the Earth Stood Still, Alex Cox’s proposed Repo Chick, and…Beverly Hills Chihuahua?

We listened to the He Got Game soundtrack while enjoying a big bowl of Jeff Garlin. Then we looked at pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal in her underwear.

And we wrapped the whole thing up with our favorite Psychics. My crystal ball says: it’s Miller Time.

WALL-E’s Big Bowl of Jeff Garlin

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Sure, everyone adores the cute little robot who crushes garbage into a cube, and that’s perfectly fine. But how about a little love for the Captain? The blobby, genial pilot of the space cruiser Axiom could have easily let the remains of humanity drift forever through the cosmos, but darn it, he showed initiative! And dare I say, pluck! And who better to voice this genial blob of pluck than Jeff Garlin, best known as Larry David’s agent/sidekick on Curb Your Enthusiasm?

In an interview with The Guardian, Garlin discusses the early, not-so-hopeful days of his career. “I played the villain on Baywatch once, an evil disc jockey who tries taking over the beach, fights with David Hasselhoff and has a fantasy sequence with Pamela Anderson. I think it was the best acting I've ever done - even though when you watch it, it's obviously not good acting - but when David Hasselhoff is yelling at you, you try not laughing. And I didn't laugh, so I think it's pretty fantastic on my part.”

Things have improved career-wise for Garlin since then – not that he had much of an idea what he was getting into with WALL-E. “I really didn't have a clue that I was as much of a hero as I am. That was a huge surprise to me. It's like doing a radio show. I'm doing it scene by scene in a vacuum, not paying attention - you're wrestling this guy and that guy, talking to this one, doing all this and all that - so I'm totally out of it.”

Garlin has also been busy behind the camera, directing This Filthy World, a recording of a John Waters one-man show (“what a fine gentleman!”) and his debut feature, 2006’s I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. We’re still waiting for a rematch with Hasselhoff.

Related:
Separated at Birth: "Wall-E" and "Silent Running"
Andrew Stanton's Retro-Futurism

Vanishing Act: The “Greenlight” Gang

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:30:00 GMT

For three seasons (two on HBO and a final one on Bravo), Project Greenlight attempted to capture the filmmaking drama found in documentaries like American Movie or Overnight. Since Greenlight was a reality show, a certain amount of the drama was contrived: the subjects were contest winners, and despite the stated intentions of producers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, their projects were not necessarily selected on the basis of artistic merit.

For the inaugural season in 2002, apple-cheeked neophyte Pete Jones and his family-friendly script Stolen Summer were selected for production, with budget to be provided by Miramax (which also produced the series). Jones directed his own script (an arrangement that would not be repeated in subsequent seasons), and while the series documenting his efforts proved to be quite entertaining, the resulting film was neither a critical nor a commercial success. Still, even though he came off as somewhat oafish and full of himself on the show, the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity held true. Jones made enough of a name for himself to take some meetings in L.A. and pitch a new comedy about a closeted gay man who decides to come out to his family, only to find they don’t believe him. No deal materialized, and eventually Jones and his brothers financed the movie, Outing Riley, themselves. Jones took on the title role and snagged Nathan Fillion and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin for the supporting cast. The film played some festivals in 2004 and was released on video last year.

Project Greenlight’s second season suffered from sequel-itis. Producer Chris Moore, breakout reality star of the first season, apparently read his reviews and played up his villainous persona to an embarrassing degree. The victims were screenwriter Erica Beeney and co-directors Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle, the mismatched creative team behind The Battle of Shaker Heights. Rankin and Potelle have talent, as evidenced in their wacky short films like Pennyweight, but seemed ill-suited to bring Beeney’s coming-of-age story to life. Nonetheless, Shaker Heights has enjoyed a long afterlife on cable, probably because it stars current It Boy Shia LeBeouf. Beeney has no writing credits since, but Rankin has written and directed the horror-comedy Infestation (with Potelle producing, acting and supervising the special effects), due later this year from Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions.

After the second season, HBO cut ties with Greenlight, which relocated to Bravo. In a desperate attempt to keep the series going – and keep the money flowing from the Weinstein brothers – Moore, Damon and Affleck announced that the third Greenlight movie would be a commercial genre piece. This turned out to be good news for the winning screenwriters, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, whose horror screenplay Feast led to gigs writing later installments of the Saw series, as well as a remake of Hellraiser. In addition, the DVD release of Feast was successful enough to spawn two sequels, both penned by Dunstan and Melton and directed by John Gulager, Greenlight III’s designated goofus. In this respect, the show’s third season can be regarded as the most successful, but the producers’ hoped-for outcome never materialized, as future installments of the series got the red light. Still, we’ll always have Feast: