list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Special on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Special/274205/default.aspx Title: Special
Year: 2008
Director: Hal Haberman, Jeremy Passmore
Plot: An unremarkable parking-enforcement officer living a low-key existence of solitary lunches in the park, lonely dinners at home, and superhero comics that at least afford him the quiet release of fantasy enrolls into a clinical trial for antidepressant pills, only to find that it has some decidedly unexpected side effects, in directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore's quirky comic book superhero comedy. Les Franken (Michael Rappaport) leads an unassuming life that rarely deviates from a strict regiment of working, eating, sleeping, and comic book reading. His only two friends a pair of stoners who own a local comic shop, Les determines to shake things up a bit by volunteering as a test subject for an experimental drug designed to curb depression. When the drug appears to give Les special powers, the doctor in charge of the clinical controlled test insists that Les is simply experiencing an unanticipated psychological reaction to the medication. But Les is convinced that his powers are genuine, and as he ditches his work uniform in favor of more superhero-appropriate threads, he is about to find out once and for all whether he truly is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or his depression, combined with the strange side-effects of the drug, have somehow propelled his superhero fantasies to the forefront of his damaged psyche. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 4
Number of Lists: 4
Number of blog posts: 1
Number of discussion threads: 3
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Fri, 22 May 2009 05:32:42 GMTSpecial2008Hal Haberman, Jeremy PassmoreAn unremarkable parking-enforcement officer living a low-key existence of solitary lunches in the park, lonely dinners at home, and superhero comics that at least afford him the quiet release of fantasy enrolls into a clinical trial for antidepressant pills, only to find that it has some decidedly unexpected side effects, in directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore's quirky comic book superhero comedy. Les Franken (Michael Rappaport) leads an unassuming life that rarely deviates from a strict regiment of working, eating, sleeping, and comic book reading. His only two friends a pair of stoners who own a local comic shop, Les determines to shake things up a bit by volunteering as a test subject for an experimental drug designed to curb depression. When the drug appears to give Les special powers, the doctor in charge of the clinical controlled test insists that Les is simply experiencing an unanticipated psychological reaction to the medication. But Les is convinced that his powers are genuine, and as he ditches his work uniform in favor of more superhero-appropriate threads, he is about to find out once and for all whether he truly is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or his depression, combined with the strange side-effects of the drug, have somehow propelled his superhero fantasies to the forefront of his damaged psyche. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide4Slightly Tagged (1-5)4133http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s274205.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Special/274205/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/groups/Filmgaming/Re_SPECIAL_win_a_poster_I_have_the_ability_to/563/37627/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: awaid
Post To: Filmgaming
Post Date: 11/25/2008 2:07:55 PM
Body: [quote user="Spout-Contests"] You could win a poster from the movie Special. Michael Rappaport thinks he has special powers. Do you have special powers? Here's how you can win:1. Add Spout-Contests to your contacts if you haven't already.2. Send a message to Spout-Contests with "Special power" in the subject line. Answer one of these questions in your message, and you're golden.Q: Were you ever convinced you had a special power?Did you ever fall off a roof, do a backflip, and land on your feet? Or maybe for one day in high school, every time you sang a song it would suddenly come on the radio.Q: Do you have a special power now?Can you brew the perfect cup of coffee? Do you have the ability to not smell farts?We'll select one winner at random on Friday, 11/28, so check back to see if you've won.Watch the Special trailer.Rate Special if you've seen it. Did you like it? We'd love to see your review.Share your thoughts on Special in the Coming Soon group.Discuss movies like Special in the Sci-Fi group. [/quote]
]]>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:07:55 GMTawaidFilmgaming11/25/2008 2:07:55 PM[quote user="Spout-Contests"] You could win a poster from the movie Special. Michael Rappaport thinks he has special powers. Do you have special powers? Here's how you can win:1. Add Spout-Contests to your contacts if you haven't already.2. Send a message to Spout-Contests with "Special power" in the subject line. Answer one of these questions in your message, and you're golden.Q: Were you ever convinced you had a special power?Did you ever fall off a roof, do a backflip, and land on your feet? Or maybe for one day in high school, every time you sang a song it would suddenly come on the radio.Q: Do you have a special power now?Can you brew the perfect cup of coffee? Do you have the ability to not smell farts?We'll select one winner at random on Friday, 11/28, so check back to see if you've won.Watch the Special trailer.Rate Special if you've seen it. Did you like it? We'd love to see your review.Share your thoughts on Special in the Coming Soon group.Discuss movies like Special in the Sci-Fi group. [/quote] http://www.spout.com/groups/Filmgaming/SPECIAL_win_a_poster/563/37606/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Spout-Contests
Post To: Filmgaming
Post Date: 11/25/2008 10:03:56 AM
Body: You could win a poster from the movie Special. Michael Rappaport thinks he has special powers. Do you have special powers? Here's how you can win:1. Add Spout-Contests to your contacts if you haven't already.2. Send a message to Spout-Contests with "Special power" in the subject line. Answer one of these questions in your message, and you're golden.Q: Were you ever convinced you had a special power?Did you ever fall off a roof, do a backflip, and land on your feet? Or maybe for one day in high school, every time you sang a song it would suddenly come on the radio.Q: Do you have a special power now?Can you brew the perfect cup of coffee? Do you have the ability to not smell farts?We'll select one winner at random on Monday, 12/1, so check back to see if you've won.Watch the Special trailer.Rate Special if you've seen it. Did you like it? We'd love to see your review.Share your thoughts on Special in the Coming Soon group.Discuss movies like Special in the Sci-Fi group.
]]>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:03:56 GMTSpout-ContestsFilmgaming11/25/2008 10:03:56 AM You could win a poster from the movie Special. Michael Rappaport thinks he has special powers. Do you have special powers? Here's how you can win:1. Add Spout-Contests to your contacts if you haven't already.2. Send a message to Spout-Contests with "Special power" in the subject line. Answer one of these questions in your message, and you're golden.Q: Were you ever convinced you had a special power?Did you ever fall off a roof, do a backflip, and land on your feet? Or maybe for one day in high school, every time you sang a song it would suddenly come on the radio.Q: Do you have a special power now?Can you brew the perfect cup of coffee? Do you have the ability to not smell farts?We'll select one winner at random on Monday, 12/1, so check back to see if you've won.Watch the Special trailer.Rate Special if you've seen it. Did you like it? We'd love to see your review.Share your thoughts on Special in the Coming Soon group.Discuss movies like Special in the Sci-Fi group. http://www.spout.com/groups/sci_fi/SPECIAL_movie/4/37582/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: SkyPilot
Post To: sci-fi
Post Date: 11/24/2008 11:25:38 AM
Body: Has anyone seen Special? Would you recommend it? I don't think I've seen anything quite like it before. (Watch the trailer.) It kind of has the feel of Hancock, only it looks funnier. It also looks kind of sad. The story is that when Michael Rappaport volunteers to take a new antidepressant, he thinks the drug gives him special powers. It really just makes him think he has powers. I'm interested for a few reasons. First, I like the theme -- when someone is convinced of something, how do you show them they're wrong? Secondly, I think Michael Rappaport is really likable, in a pathetic sort of way.
]]>Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:25:38 GMTSkyPilotsci-fi11/24/2008 11:25:38 AMHas anyone seen Special? Would you recommend it? I don't think I've seen anything quite like it before. (Watch the trailer.) It kind of has the feel of Hancock, only it looks funnier. It also looks kind of sad. The story is that when Michael Rappaport volunteers to take a new antidepressant, he thinks the drug gives him special powers. It really just makes him think he has powers. I'm interested for a few reasons. First, I like the theme -- when someone is convinced of something, how do you show them they're wrong? Secondly, I think Michael Rappaport is really likable, in a pathetic sort of way. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/1/31952.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/1/2008 11:00:51 AM
Body: Will Smith’s new superhero movie, Hancock, may be receiving terrible reviews, but it’s sure to make a lot of money. It is a Will Smith movie, after all. The fact that it’s an original superhero title (meaning not adapted from a comic book or other source material), however, means that if it is a success, it will be the rare movie of its kind to be such. Superhero movies may be huge right now, but really only the pre-sold properties, those with a build-in audience, make the big bucks. A number of original superhero movies are just as worthy of your attention as the Spider-Mans, the Iron Mans, the Batmans and the X-Mens. Sure, much of the time, non-adapted superheroes are lame, as in the cases of Blankman and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But just check out any of the following ten titles and see why it sometimes pays off to put your trust in an unfamiliar hero. The Incredibles - This one did it all: won an Oscar; received favorable reviews across the board; did blockbuster business in theaters and ancillaries (its the sole original superhero movie to break $100 million, domestically, a feat it far surpassed by actually grossing more than $260 million); and featured the single greatest superhero gag (above) ever seen. So there’s proof that a superhero movie can be good and do well without being based on another property. Unbreakable - The only film by M. Night Shyamalan I can enjoy repeatedly and perhaps the only superhero movie besides Batman Begins that audiences can kind of believe might be plausible in the real world. Also, it is perhaps the one origin-story superhero tale that doesn’t necessitate a sequel. The ending may have been anticlimactic, but the scene shown above (I wish the clip began earlier, from the train station scene forward) is one of the greatest superhero fight sequences ever put on film. The Matrix - Meanwhile, this is one origin-story superhero movie that shouldn’t have received a sequel, despite it’s needing one. Or maybe it just shouldn’t have been given the sequels it was given. In a way, the first installment is the perfect superhero movie for the age of video games, because Neo really only has powers in the virtual world. Unfortunately, the subsequent installments ruin this concept. Sky High - It looks really cheesy, but this Harry Potter for the superhero set is actually really clever and consistently entertaining. The common high school plot, in which an unpopular kid becomes popular and ends up screwing over his old friends, is ingeniously lent to the superteen subgenre. It may not hold a candle to the teen metaphors of X2: X-Men United, but it makes those initial Xavier School scenes from the first X-Men look wasteful. Darkman - Long before he sold his soul to the Spider-Man franchise, Sam Raimi created this original superhero tale. I wasn’t really a fan when it came out, but I’d now take it over any of the Spidey movies — even Spider-Man 2. RoboCop - The best superhero tales are really about humanity, not superhumanity, and this satirical sci-fi actioner certainly fits that qualification. It’s not surprising that for the sequel to RoboCop, comic book legend Frank Miller was brought in as a screenwriter, nor is it surprising that the franchise spawned multiple comic book series. Super Fuzz - This one is purely a guilty pleasure, as it was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It’s kind of like Police Academy meets Superman meets Ernest Borgnine. Supah Supah! The Toxic Avenger - Another guilty pleasure, but also a great idea for a superhero movie. These days it’s uncommon to see such a ruthlessly violent superhero, but in his time, Toxie was like a parallel to supervillain protagonists of horror movies, like Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger, for who we continually rooted. Mr. Freedom - Change the communist villains to terrorists, and this would have been ripe for a remake a few years back. The Bush Administration was actually referring to this 1969 superhero farce, about a costumed crusader single-handedly battling the Cold War, whenever it uttered the phrase “enemies of freedom.” Special - I haven’t actually seen this movie, and I’ve been told it’s not quite as great as I expect it to be, but the trailer alone is good enough for me. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:00:51 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/1/2008 11:00:51 AM Will Smith’s new superhero movie, Hancock, may be receiving terrible reviews, but it’s sure to make a lot of money. It is a Will Smith movie, after all. The fact that it’s an original superhero title (meaning not adapted from a comic book or other source material), however, means that if it is a success, it will be the rare movie of its kind to be such. Superhero movies may be huge right now, but really only the pre-sold properties, those with a build-in audience, make the big bucks. A number of original superhero movies are just as worthy of your attention as the Spider-Mans, the Iron Mans, the Batmans and the X-Mens. Sure, much of the time, non-adapted superheroes are lame, as in the cases of Blankman and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But just check out any of the following ten titles and see why it sometimes pays off to put your trust in an unfamiliar hero. The Incredibles - This one did it all: won an Oscar; received favorable reviews across the board; did blockbuster business in theaters and ancillaries (its the sole original superhero movie to break $100 million, domestically, a feat it far surpassed by actually grossing more than $260 million); and featured the single greatest superhero gag (above) ever seen. So there’s proof that a superhero movie can be good and do well without being based on another property. Unbreakable - The only film by M. Night Shyamalan I can enjoy repeatedly and perhaps the only superhero movie besides Batman Begins that audiences can kind of believe might be plausible in the real world. Also, it is perhaps the one origin-story superhero tale that doesn’t necessitate a sequel. The ending may have been anticlimactic, but the scene shown above (I wish the clip began earlier, from the train station scene forward) is one of the greatest superhero fight sequences ever put on film. The Matrix - Meanwhile, this is one origin-story superhero movie that shouldn’t have received a sequel, despite it’s needing one. Or maybe it just shouldn’t have been given the sequels it was given. In a way, the first installment is the perfect superhero movie for the age of video games, because Neo really only has powers in the virtual world. Unfortunately, the subsequent installments ruin this concept. Sky High - It looks really cheesy, but this Harry Potter for the superhero set is actually really clever and consistently entertaining. The common high school plot, in which an unpopular kid becomes popular and ends up screwing over his old friends, is ingeniously lent to the superteen subgenre. It may not hold a candle to the teen metaphors of X2: X-Men United, but it makes those initial Xavier School scenes from the first X-Men look wasteful. Darkman - Long before he sold his soul to the Spider-Man franchise, Sam Raimi created this original superhero tale. I wasn’t really a fan when it came out, but I’d now take it over any of the Spidey movies — even Spider-Man 2. RoboCop - The best superhero tales are really about humanity, not superhumanity, and this satirical sci-fi actioner certainly fits that qualification. It’s not surprising that for the sequel to RoboCop, comic book legend Frank Miller was brought in as a screenwriter, nor is it surprising that the franchise spawned multiple comic book series. Super Fuzz - This one is purely a guilty pleasure, as it was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It’s kind of like Police Academy meets Superman meets Ernest Borgnine. Supah Supah! The Toxic Avenger - Another guilty pleasure, but also a great idea for a superhero movie. These days it’s uncommon to see such a ruthlessly violent superhero, but in his time, Toxie was like a parallel to supervillain protagonists of horror movies, like Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger, for who we continually rooted. Mr. Freedom - Change the communist villains to terrorists, and this would have been ripe for a remake a few years back. The Bush Administration was actually referring to this 1969 superhero farce, about a costumed crusader single-handedly battling the Cold War, whenever it uttered the phrase “enemies of freedom.” Special - I haven’t actually seen this movie, and I’ve been told it’s not quite as great as I expect it to be, but the trailer alone is good enough for me. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/drugs/MemberTagFilms.aspxdrugs
Number of films tagged: 1643

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