The Screengrab : kal penn

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: April 4-10, 2009

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

(siiiiigh). What am I doing here? What the hell do I care about Taxing Time: A Screengrab Salute to Beat-the-Clock Cinema (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six)? Would you ask Tom Petty about some dumbass race-against-time movies? No, because he’s a musician. Like me.

(long, uncomfortable pause)

Are you still here? Shouldn’t you be reading In Defense of Watchmen or "Wolverine" Decapitates Fox News Blogger? I don’t even know what that means. Anna Faris Won’t Apologize? Why should she? Kal Penn Puts Acting Career on Hold to Mind Obama's Front Door? But I bet you’ll still ask him about Henry and Kubal Go to White Castle or some silly shit like that.

Here’s some more mashed potatoes without the gravy:

Reviews: An Unlikely Weapon, Around, Lymelife

Screengrab Q&A: "In A Dream"

Unwatchable #38: “Chairman of the Board”

Many Happy Returns, and a Couple of Not-So-Happy Ones: Vin Diesel and the Movie Brotherhood of Those Who Have Come Crawling Back

2009: First Quarter Wrap-Up

Spring Movie Poster Preview

Kal Penn Puts Acting Career on Hold to Mind Obama's Front Door

Phil Nugent — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

First Joaquin Phoenix, and now this: Kal Penn, the 31-year-old actor best known for his roles in the Harold and Kumar films and the TV series House, has taken what we hope will be a temporary retirement from acting to take a position as President Obama's associate director in the White House office of public liaison, which he describes as an outreach position in what is "basically the front door of the White House." A native of Montclair, New Jersey, the actor was born Kalpen Modi to Indian immigrants in 1977. (He uses the name "Kal Penn" professionally; according to Penn, he originally put the "Americanized" version of his name on his acting resume as an experiment to prove that it wouldn't make a difference to casting directors, then stuck with it when his callbacks instantly rose by fifty percent.) Although the official announcement of Penn's appointment wasn't made until yesterday, savvy House fans first sussed out that something was up on Monday night, when they tuned in to the latest episode and learned that Penn's character, Dr. Lawrence Kutner, had unceremoniously shot himself in the temple. It was a shocking tragedy, not least for special guest sick people Meat Loaf Aday and Colleen Camp, whose storyline had to be awkwardly sandwiched in between extended fits of grieving. It was only the next morning, when Penn broke the story to Entertainment Weekly, that it became clear that TV Land's loss was the White House's gain.

Penn campaigned for Obama in the 2008 campaign and served on his National Arts Policy Committee. More recently, he was one of the featured performers at the Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, where he and George Lopez delivered quotations from Dwight Eisenhower and Barbara Jordan. He has also taught a course in “Images of Asian Americans in the Media” at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, what might be most impressive about the appointment is that Obama wasn't scared off by Penn's stoner movie comedy past. (In addition to the Harold and Kumar movies, he first attracted major attention for his role in National Lampoon's Van Wilder, and starred in the sequel, The Rise of Taj. In a more dignified but possibly less entertaining vein, he also starred in Mira Nair's The Namesake, for which he received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor, and appeared as one of Lex Luthor's henchmen in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. In 2007, Penn also played a terrorist in four episodes of 24; about that role, he's said, "I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it’s repulsive. But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage." The guy's gonna do just fine in Washington. In the meantime, fans needing closure can visit the online memorial to his character that Fox has set up.

Unwatchable #70: “Epic Movie”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:00:00 GMT

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

How could you do this to me, IMDb Bottom 100 list? After all we’ve been through together, how could you make me sit through two Friedberg-Seltzer spoof movies in a single week? It was only last Friday that I took on #72 Meet the Spartans, and now you present me with the diarrhea duo’s previous exercise in pop culture regurgitation, Epic Movie. Look, I was patient and understanding when you made me watch two Kickboxer sequels. At least you gave me a few weeks to recover between them. But now you’ve crossed a line, IMDb Bottom 100 list. We’ll continue to do business together, but we’re no longer speaking.

The only good news is that, much like Spartans, Epic Movie barely crosses the 60 minute mark before the extended credits, complete with dance sequences and hee-larious outtakes, begin. Also, the word apparently had yet to reach the top Hollywood agencies that they would serve their clients best by destroying all query letters from Friedberg-Seltzer Industries; there are actual recognizable faces on display here in addition to the usual sort-of-look-and-sound-alikes. Kal Penn, Jennifer Coolidge, David Carradine, Crispin Glover (!) and perhaps most dishearteningly, Fred Willard, all show up and do their best to survive with their dignity intact.

The best I can say about Epic Movie is that it’s not quite as slapdash as Meet the Spartans. (I’ll dismiss the fact that it’s actually ranked higher on the list as a statistical quirk.) There’s a sort of plot, at least for a while, involving four orphans, each of whom secures a golden ticket entitling them to a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. (Wonka is played by Glover, doing a twitchy but uninspired take on Johnny Depp’s version.) Wonka takes the orphans prisoner in order to use their organs as the secret ingredient in his candy, but they escape through the wardrobe into Gnarnia. (The ‘G’ is what makes it a parody, right up there with those Cracked issues of the mid-70s featuring “The Fonze.”) There they battle The White Bitch (Coolidge), enlist the aid of Captain Jack Swallows, and get Punk’d by an Ashton Kutcher-alike in a trucker hat.

There are fleeting indications in Epic Movie that Friedberg and Seltzer have some dim awareness that making a pop culture joke involves putting some sort of twist on that which is familiar. For instance, turning the Mutant Academy into a high school where the X-Men are the cool kids is an amusing notion. Turning the Da Vinci Code phrase “So dark the con of man” into “So lame the hair of Tom” as a poke at the follicular follies of Tom Hanks in that particular movie – that’s moderately chuckle-worthy. Having the characters break into hip-hop musical numbers every ten minutes, however, is not funny. It’s not funny the first time, it’s not funny the fourth time, and it only calls attention to the fact that you’re desperate to pump up the running time.

There are indications that the game is up for our friends Iceberg and Salsa. (See what I did there? I spoofed ‘em! I spoofed ‘em good!) Their latest atrocity Disaster Movie did not approach the box office success of its predecessors, and it became the first movie ever to score a perfect 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now that’s funny.

Previously on Unwatchable:
71. Gigli
72. Meet the Spartans
73. Fascination
74. You Got Serve d
75. The Last Sign

Take Five: Weed

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:00:00 GMT

We were going to call this Take Five "Buddha", and then, like, totally blow your mind by not including Kundun, but frankly, we're just too, you know, we're too, uh...what were we talking about? Oh, right! That weed! The chronic! Sweet Mary Jane! A favorite in Hollywood for so many years that it doesn't even seem like a vice to some people (remember Tom Hagen warning the movie producer in The Godfather that one of his stars was about to 'graduate' from marijuana to cocaine), it was a while before social pressures eased up enough to portray herb in anything but the most hysterical terms. How far we've come, bros! Today, only a few scant days after 4/20 (the national stoner's holiday), we can each of us get nicely toasted and ditch work early for a matinee of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, which posits that even our Commander-in-Chief enjoys a good bong hit now and again. The noir classic The Sweet Smell of Success contained a plot point that expected us to believe that a jazz musician -- and a white one, at that! -- might see his career ruined by the mere possession of the devil weed, while the new Kal Penn/John Cho vehicle implies that toking up on a regular basis is the best career move you can make. Here's five more films that deal with the sweet leaf in all its hazy glory.

REEFER MADNESS (1936)

This absurd scare-flick is typical of the anti-drug hysteria of the 1920s and 1930s; it's only exceptional in that it's exceptionally over-the-top in its woozy narrative, lurid dialogue, and bizarrely sensationalistic vision of what marijuana will do to you. (Apparently, it turns you into a murderer or a sex fiend instead of a lazy Xbox-addicted dolt.) Directed by French-born Louis Gasnier (whose other major claim to fame was the Perils of Pauline serial), it's unintentionally hilarious to the degree that it's been reissued endlessly in every format imaginable for new generations of potheads to giggle at. In fact, for a film that did poor business, featured no stars, and is incompetently made at every level, it very well may be that Reefer Madness is the most-watched film of the 1930s. Ah, irony.

CHEECH & CHONG'S UP IN SMOKE (1978)

You simply can't talk about dope movies without mentioning Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, the guys who turned them from a taboo into a franchise. Although it's easy to condemn the boys for how quickly their on-screen efforts turned into dogshit (I'm still reeling from The Corsican Brothers), those only familiar with how bad things eventually got might want to go back and give their motion picture debut another look. It's not great art or anything, and Lou Adler's direction is strictly syndicated sitcom level, but it's got a number of genuinely funny moments, some hilarious dialogue, some swell celebrity cameos from Tom Skerritt and Stacy Keach, and all in all, it's exactly what a stoner comedy shoud be: a good-natured, consequence-free thumb in the nose to petty authority. Good afternoon viewing for a baked summer day.

THE BIG LEBOWKSI (1998)

It's downright shocking that such a successful dopehead comedy was made by the Coen Brothers. While I certainly can't speak to their own habits of indulgence or not, their filmmaking is incredibly tight and unbelievably disciplined, exactly the opposite of most art created by the Cheeba-American community. And yet along comes The Big Lebowski: a movie that, aside from being an unbelievably funny comedy and an eerily precise if cleverly disguised Raymond Chandler detective story, is probably the most perfect stoner flick ever made. The Dude is the ultimate slacker hero, lighting a J when he gets bored listening to the title character rattle on about hard work and responsibility, as well as the roach-butt of many a joke, as he smashes up his much-abused car after dropping a maggot on his pants while driving.

HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE (2004)

Of course, we can't praise the sometimes subtle, sometimes anvil-heavy stoner comedy of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay without mentioning its predecessor, a hugely successful cult flick that came out of nowhere and captured the public imagination in just the right way with its combination of gregarious dope jokes and over-the-top grossout comedy. It launched the careers of appealing leads Kal Penn and John Cho; it proved that you can make a successful buddy picture without a white guy; and best of all, it was funny as hell and forced beloved/reviled mini-hamburger chain White Castle to acknowledge its existence with an extreme line-toeing ad campaign that tried to capitalize on the movie's success without explicitly avowing the truth: that White Castle is the preferred 3AM nosh joint for the seriously blunted.

SUPER HIGH ME (2007)

Explicitly lifted from Morgan Spurlock's anti-McDonald's stunt documentary Super Size Me, and based on little more than a two-minute comedy routine by star Doug Benson, Super High Me -- which combines a fairly legitimate section on drug law reform, straight-up concert footage of Benson's act, and extended segments of his attempt to get high every day for a month -- isn't the most coherent or well-presented film you'll ever see. Which, given the topic, is pretty understandable. But it's got its funny moments, and if nothing else, it allows you to see that Benson is none the worse for wear after his 'experiment' (which, let's be honest, would represent cutting back for a lot of people), and the movie is stocked with successful actors and comedians who are successful and yet get stoned quite regularly. It's a good thing Benson's not black, though, or this movie would probably be used as evidence at his trial.

SXSW Review: "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay"

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:15:00 GMT

After the surprisingly good-natured and occasionally hilarious Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle became a huge cult hit on DVD, it was only a matter of time before we were treated to a sequel. Writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg picked up the directorial reins as well, and brought back Kal Penn and John Cho as the leads. This was an absolute necessity, as it was their insouciant stoner charm that gave the first movie its lasting appeal; the big surprise came when it was announced that the new film would feature the boys being arrested and incarcerated in the most famous prison in the world. Would the Harold and Kumar franchise become a sounding bell for radicalism? Would the bodily secretion jokes and dope references take a back seat to fiery condemnation of America's notorious prison camp on foreign soil? Was this movie actually going to teach us something?

Come on, folks. It's Harold and Kumar, not Vidal and Chomsky. The boys spend all of five minutes of screen time in Guantanamo Bay and the rest of the movie is devoted to more of the low-comedy high-jinks that one would expect from the people who made America's favorite stoner road picture. George W. Bush is brought in mostly to make a weed gag, the bits where people learn a valuable lesson about racial profiling are as subtle as a hailstorm (if occasionally quite funny, as when Harold and Kumar encounter gangs of rural whites and urban blacks, and a memorable scene where Klansmen refer to the duo as "Mexicans"), and the movie's main argument against terrorism is to bellow "Fuck you! Donuts are awesome!" No one should go into this thing expecting carefully crafted political arguments from any point on the political spectrum, nor should they go into it expecting subtle comedy, crafty worldplay or an absence of jokes involving pubic hair.

The real question is, should they go into it at all? As long as they know exactly what to expect, of course they should. While there are a ton of gags that fall flat, the movie never stops trying to make us laugh, and that's admirable. The relentlessly good-natured comedy barely gives us time to breathe, and in fact, two of the movie's biggest laughs come after the end credits have already started to roll. Penn and Cho are as entertaining as they were in the last film, and while their romantic interests are a snore, the writers wisely bring back Neil Patrick Harris, playing a fictionalized version of himself as rampaging monster from the id. Rob Corddry is also a good addition to the cast, playing a Homeland Security agent who delivers on some of the movie's funniest moments thanks to his out-of-control stereotyping of every non-white person he encounters. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay isn't going to make anyone's top ten list or replace The Road to Guantanamo in the public imagination, but if you liked the first one, you'll likely have a good time at this one as well. (It helps to see it, as I did, in a theater packed to the rafters with a wildly repsonsive crowd who are likely stoned off their gourds. That's the way Harold and Kumar would watch it.)