Part of the fun of attending Fantastic Fest are the Secret Screenings, which aren’t announced until right before the film rolls. This year there were leaks, whispers and rumors galore, with the most rampant one being that we were going to get treat to Oliver Stone’s W, which sadly didn’t happen. It was have been great to see this on a week that ended with an Obama/McCain debate.
Instead, the secret screenings included The Brothers Bloom, Appaloosa, RocknRolla, and the surprise dark horse in the bunch, Role Models. It definitely sticks out among the entire Fantastic Fest lineup like the Sesame Street “One of these things is not like the others,” and it joins Kevin Smith’s Zack & Miri as the only other raunchy comedy in the Fest. The film stars Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, and is directed by comedian David Wain, best known for Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten. Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott) work for Minotaur energy drink (Rudd is the motivational speaker, and Scott wears an oversized Minotaur suit), and they visit schools in their Minotaur-mobile to pump kids up with sugar and pep talks. Everything moves along fine until Rudd’s girlfriend dumps him, and he goes into a downward spiral and takes Scott with him. They destroy the Minotaur truck and are assigned to 150 hours of community service, which they elect to pay off by working at Sturdy Wings, a Big Brothers & Sisters type organization.
Rudd gets assigned to Augie, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (better known as McLovin from Superbad; he basically plays the exact same character here), and Scott gets a foul-mouthed, tough-as-nails, boobie-obsessed kid played by Bobb’e J. Thompson. As you’d expect, there’s friction between the pairings, but eventually they come to understand each other and there’s a great big happy ending with a bow tied all the way around it. Unfortunately, the only real comedic moments come from Rudd and Mintz-Plasse’s characters as they get into LAIRE. That’s Live Action Interactive Roleplaying Experience: it’s like LARP and SCA mixed into one.
Many different players from the Apatow-verse are sprinkled throughout: Jane Lynch as the woman who runs Sturdy Wings, Elizabeth Banks as Danny’s girlfriend, and Ken Jeong as King Argotron. The dialogue and comedy also feel straight out of an Apatow flick, which is surprising for David Wain who normally aims a bit off-center in his choices. Still, the Apatow crowd will enjoy this movie, but hopefully we’ll see better stuff from Wain down the line. Like perhaps a feature film version of The State? Find out about that––as well as Rudd’s rumored involvement in the Ghostbusters re-imagining, and Rudd and Wain’s best psychedelic drug stories––in our brief interview below
David, we’ve seen a lot of State cast members getting together in various movies. Are we ever going to see a full on reunion?
You know, the entire State reunited onstage in March in LA, and we did a brand new one hour show of sketch comedy, sort of under the radar secretly. And that was sort of a test for a special that we’ve been trying to do, a whole new special for Comedy Central, but it’s just not happened yet. But maybe.
Paul, you’ve spoken about this before, but they are writing a Ghostbusters remake/re-imagining right now, and if you were asked would you be a part of it?
Paul: Yeah, I had only heard about that when I read about it online, and then somebody asked me about it in an interview. I mean, Ghostbusters is so awesome that it seems kind of…
David: Plus, it was sweet in Be Kind, Rewind. Did you see Be Kind, Rewind?
Paul: …. I wanted to, I wanted to. Yeah, I mean, my god, those are pretty big shoes to step into. But depending on, like, if it was a real thing, and somebody was interested in me being in it, with other people, that… I don’t know, that would be pretty awesome actually! Fucking great!
David: I wouldn’t go see that.
Paul: No?
David: If somebody asks you if you’re a Ghostbuster, do you say yes?
Paul: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I’m trying to be diplomatic.
David: Yeah, right.
Paul: Yeah, I’d do it in a second!
David: Maybe on a plane, I would watch it on a plane, anyway.
Paul: Have to… you’re just going to have to.
David: Yeah, but I’d get the headphones, I guess.
Paul: Well, would you Netflix it? I mean, would you even do that? What if it was on cable and you were at home?
David: There’s always so much else on cable…
Paul: But the thing is, there’s so many channels and it’s like there’s nothing to watch.
David: [cross talking] It’s like, there’s Olbermann, and you know… I don’t know.
Paul: All right.
David: Let’s see what the reviews are.
Paul: OK. Well, we would have a lot of fun making it, I can tell you that.
Paul, have you ever actually done mushrooms and gone to see Cirque du Soleil?
Paul: No… I did mushrooms one time in college and that was it. I went down to this area. It was all lit up. It was Christmas. It was called the Country Club Plaza, that’s this area in Kansas City. And there were some guys in college, and we went into a toy store, and then everything was hilarious, and then one guy… I remember there was a Santa Claus, and one of the guys, my friend John, got his picture taken with Santa, but he was standing behind the sleigh. And Santa was just in a sleigh.
David: That must’ve cracked you up.
Paul: Oh, my god. Funniest thing I had ever seen in my life. But then one guy did not have a great time, and then they left me with him. They all went off, and then it was not so fun anymore. And that was it. That was my experience.
David: I have one. I took mushrooms with a bunch of friends in Amsterdam and went to the Rembrandt museum and had a revelation about how Rembrandt does his etchings, and I had gathered everyone in the museum around, even people I didn’t know, and I was like, “Listen, listen, I figured it out!” And then I was laughing, and I couldn’t get it out, but it took me like 10 minutes to say that he does the pencil sketch first.
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