Jeff Garlin

TV Review: ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Returns as Funny as Ever With ‘Seinfeld’ Cast

BrianTT — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:02:45 -0600

CHICAGO – You would have to live under a pop culture rock to not know about the big hook that will happen on this season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” - the reunion of the cast of “Seinfeld”. Yes, Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards all return, but the season starts with a pair of episodes that affirm that “Curb” needs no stunt guest appearances to succeed.

Television Rating: 4.0/5.0

In the first episode of the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry is desperately trying to get out of his relationship with Loretta (Vivica A. Fox) while missing his wife (Cheryl Hines) and dealing with a series of disasters surrounding Jeff (Jeff Garlin) and the Funkhauser family.

Larry David, Jeff Garlin.
Photo credit: Doug Hyun/HBO

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” has always excelled by displaying David’s inabilities to deal with normal social conventions. For example, in the first episode, Jeff and Susie (Susie Essman) invite Larry to a dinner party and he has the nerve to ask who else is coming before he decides if he’d like to attend. Of course, that’s a social no-no. But the subversive genius of “Curb” is that the show almost always defends Larry’s social no-nos. In this case, NOT knowing who’s going to be there backfires on Larry.

Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander.
Photo credit: Doug Hyun/HBO

An even funnier subplot in the season premiere revolves around Larry’s shocked reaction when someone in his house just goes in and grabs a drink from the refrigerator without asking. Of course, Larry should have offered, but is it okay to just take a drink if the host doesn’t offer? The line in the ensuing argument - “Don’t condescend me with your tiny pear” - is one of my favorites of the year to date from any show.

The second episode feature Larry discovering a key to getting out of his relationship with Loretta - being a total jerk - and throwing a wrench into Richard Lewis’ latest relationship after he tries to avoid contact with Richard’s new gal (Lolita Davidovich) after hearing what the two of them were doing in the car just before dinner. J.B. Smoove gets a great subplot in episode two after Larry works his magic and turns a harmelss comment into something offensive.

Of course, episode three, “Reunion,” is the one getting the mountains of press surrounding this season, although it really just hints at what’s to come this year. Larry resists a “Seinfeld” reunion until he finds a compelling reason to do so. That reunion will reportedly take up a majority of the rest of this very-promising season of the best show on HBO this fall. Hearing Jason Alexander suggest a “Seinfeld” reunion would be a good idea to “make up for the finale” is something let-down fans of the show have been wanting to hear for years.

Guest stars this season include the entire cast of “Seinfeld,” Ted Danson, Bob Einstein, Fox, Lewis, Rosie O’Donnell, Smoove, Mary Steenburgen, Sharon Lawrence, Catherine O’Hara, Meg Ryan, Elisabeth Shue, Christian Slater, and Sherry Stringfield.

At the start of its seventh season, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” isn’t really breaking any of its own rules, but what struck me about the first three episodes sent for review was how consistent the show has been from year to year. Perhaps the short seasons and lengthy periods between them are some of the reason, but it’s rare to see a show this at or close to the top of its game this far into its existence. Most sitcoms have worn out their welcome by the seventh season premiere. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is not most sitcoms.

‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ which airs on HBO, stars Larry David, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Garlin, and Susie Essman. The show was created by Larry David. The series returns on Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 8PM CST.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: ‘The Rocker’ Hits a Few False Notes

BrianTT — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:21:35 -0700

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Rainn Wilson made the jump from supporting player on NBC’s “The Office” to leading comedy star in the so-so “The Rocker,” a film with a few inspired moments, some great cameos, and talented young actors, but the timing is a bit off with this routine. The Blu-Ray release goes a long way in redeeming the set list, but the entire show is still a little mediocre.

“The Rocker” is a frustrating comedy. Everything that works - Wilson’s fearless performance, great appearances from comedians like Jane Lynch, Will Arnett, Jeff Garlin, and Jason Sudeikis, likable young stars - is usually followed by something that just doesn’t click. There are some jokes in “The Rocker” that hit the floor with the thud of a bass drum. It may make a satisfying rental for some, but with the pedigree of the people involved, this super-band should have been better.

“A.D.D.” band members Amelia (Emma Stone, left), Curtis (Teddy Geiger) and Matt (Josh Gad) behold the splendor that is Fish.
Photo credit: George Kraychyk

Wilson plays Robert “Fish” Fishman, a drummer for the eighties hair band Vesuvius (which also features Will Arnett, Fred Armisen, and Bradley Cooper). The movie opens with a blistering set by the band, after which an exec offers them a breakthrough deal, but they have to axe Fish.

Photo credit: Fox

Twenty years later, in a world where grunge never killed hair metal, Vesuvius is the biggest band on the planet and Fish is working a desk job that he hates. He loses his job and is forced to move in with his sister (Jane Lynch), brother-in-law (Jeff Garlin), and musically-inclined nephew Matt (Josh Gad).

The young fellow happens to be in a band called A.D.D. with his friends (Emma Stone & Teddy Geiger), who reluctantly recruit Fish after their drummer gets grounded just before a prom gig.

Being back in the spotlight makes Fish think that he can turn A.D.D. into a mega-success and he tries to take the band on the road and reclaim the rock-god throne that he’s envied for twenty years. Of course, one of his band mate’s mother happens to be the super-cute Christina Applegate to give the movie a third act love story.

A little bit of “School of Rock,” a little bit of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” a few references to other man-child movies, and too much physical humor derail the awkward and often derivative script. But the cast is great. Wilson doesn’t hold back and you can’t do much better than Lynch, Garlin, Arnett, Armisen, Cooper, and Sudeikis in your back-up band. Even the young cast is excellent in roles much deeper than teen stars usually play.

The script may not work, but, unlike a lot of awful comedies, the cast make it out completely unscathed. If anything, “The Rocker” is more proof that even the most likable cast does not make a complete comedy. Just as in music, the lyrics matter as much as the person who’s singing them.

Newly-restored rock god Fish (Rainn Wilson) and band chaperon Kim (Christina Applegate) enjoy a rare moment of quiet.
Photo credit: George Kraychyk

The Fox Blu-Ray presentation for “The Rocker” is a great one with a nearly perfect 1080p transfer in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The colors are not too vibrant but the picture is always clear and the sound matches it with a great 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.

The last few Fox Blu-Ray releases have featured excellent technical presentations. They struggled a bit at the beginning with Blu-Ray, but appear to have turned it around. In general, Fox Blu-Ray still doesn’t stand up to the best of Warner Brothers, DreamWorks, or Sony when it comes to video and audio, but they’re getting closer.

And they have put together a completely comprehensive collection of special features for “The Rocker,” including two commentary tracks - one by director Peter Cattaneo and Wilson and one by Gad, Geiger, Stone, and Sudeikis - “MTV Panel,” internet podcasts, deleted scenes, a gag reel, Vesuvius gags, Matt gags, Pete Best interview, Vesuvius public service announcements, “Rainn Wilson Office Rocker,” “Behind the Band,” “Rock Tales,” “The Music,” “Rock Band with Fish Fishman,” and a music video for “I’m Not Bitter”. The film also comes with a digital copy so you can rock out on your portable device. Good luck with that.

Clearly, the Blu-Ray release for “The Rocker” is excellent. I wish I could say the same for the movie itself.

‘The Rocker’ is released by Fox Home Video and stars Rainn Wilson, Josh Gad, Emma Stone, Christina Applegate, Jeff Garlin, Jane Lynch, Teddy Geiger, Jason Sudeikis, Will Arnett, Fred Armisen, and Bradley Cooper. It was written by Maya Forbes & Wally Wolodarsky and directed by Peter Cattaneo. It was released on January 27th, 2009.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Rainn Wilson Lays Down Tracks Beyond ‘The Office’ in New Film ‘The Rocker’

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:10:08 -0600

CHICAGO – Rainn Wilson is more than just the popular NBC character Dwight Schrute. The bespectacled antagonist of “The Office” is nowhere in evidence this time around as Wilson sat down with HollywoodChicago.com to talk about his new film “The Rocker”.

The theater and TV veteran expressed a thoughtfulness and gratitude about his journey to this first feature-film lead role and spoke more about the craft of acting than the virtue of his celebrity.

Rainn Wilson in Chicago (left) for “The Rocker” with HollywoodChicago.com film critic Patrick McDonald (right).
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

Rainn Wilson is “The Rocker” (also known as Robert “Fish” Fishman) who joins his nephew’s band “A.D.D.” and finally reclaims the rock-god throne he has always thought he deserved in the film “The Rocker”.
Photo credit: George Kraychyk

“The Rocker” is a comedy about Richard “Fish” Fishman (Wilson): a drummer from the 1980s whose hair metal band “Vesuvius” is about to hit the big time.

Unfortunately, he isn’t going with them. The band decides to dump Fish right before the breakthrough. Distraught, Fish goes on a downward spiral for a few decades and ends up living in his sister’s attic in Cleveland, Ohio.

Rainn Wilson was able to play a drummer because he had a music background.

“I had a little bit of experience when I went to New Trier Township High School (in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Ill.). There was a short-lived band I was in called Collective Moss,” he said. “We only played two gigs. We were the world’s worst cover band. We were just awful.”

Rainn Wilson in Chicago for “The Rocker” on June 10, 2008.
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

Rating: 2.0/5.0

Wilson added: “But I could read music and that’s how I learned the tracks for ‘The Rocker’. I would tape the ‘score’ on the drum set and learn to play that way. This made it easier for me to pick up the rhythm.”

When Fishman’s nephew (Josh Gad) finds that his fledgling band “A.D.D.” is in need of a drummer, he turns to his now-older uncle to sit in. In a calculated turn of events, this new band (with old-man Fish on drums) becomes an up-and-coming sensation.

They go on the road with their parents (including Christina Applegate) and a new manager (Jason Sudeikis) in tow.

“A lot of dialogue was improvised,” Wilson said. “Jason Sudeikus would say some of the most wildly inappropriate stuff that would come out in a stream of consciousness. Josh Gad had the strangest wiring of his brain. You never knew what he was going to do.”

Christina Applegate is Kim: the mother of and chaperone to a young rock musician in “The Rocker”.
Photo credit: George Kraychyk

Rainn Wilson in “The Rocker”.
Photo credit: George Kraychyk

He added: “It was nice to see everyone doing their thing and being allowed to do their thing. Everyone was allowed to be funny.”

Strangely enough, it is Fish who’s the wild and inappropriate child on the tour. His antics almost derail the entire band. There is one last concert chance, though, at the Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame against his old 1980s band mates.

How did the normally lower-key characters that Rainn Wilson plays get morphed into a wild-man rock star?

“It was studying the drums. There is something about a drummer,” he said. “They’re not cerebral. I have a tendency in my life to be more cerebral and a bit reserved. But he’s a big puppy dog, a physical person and a ‘talk first, think later’ type with his heart on his sleeve. It was lot of fun to plunge into that.”

“There was no specific drummer who I based my character on,” he added. “It was a compilation of watching the heavy-metal drummers on YouTube. I recommend that to anyone. Start researching hair-metal drummers.”

Wilson also talked about the inevitability of comparisons between his essential Dwight Schrute character on “The Office” and drummer Fish in “The Rocker”.

“There are similarities between Dwight Schrute and Fish and there are differences,” he reflected. “But there has to be enough similarities so ‘The Office’ fans will line up when ‘The Rocker’ opens to see the guy who plays Dwight play a heavy-metal rocker dude. It was just a blast to enter into that whole genre of music.”

RELATED IMAGE GALLERY
View our full, high-resolution “The Rocker” image gallery.

RELATED READING
More film reviews from critic Patrick McDonald.

Finally, Wilson discusses his experience in working at “The Office”.

“I’ve been very fortunate because Dwight Schrute comes from the writers and creator Greg Daniels. They aren’t interested in doing things the normal way things have been done,” Wilson said. “They want to find different facets and different sides to all the characters.”

“It works well,” he added. “When you see Dwight’s vulnerabilities, people respond to it and are more likely to tune in. Then we get to make more episodes.”

Note: In a unique viral marketing promotion, Rainn Wilson has “kidnapped” “The Office” mate Jenna Fischer and will not free her until “everyone” sees “The Rocker”. Visit FreeJennaNow.com to play along.

“The Rocker,” which features Rainn Wilson, Josh Gad, Christina Applegate, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Teddy Geiger, Jeff Garlin, Jane Lynch, Fred Armisen, Will Arnett and Jane Krakowski, opens on Aug. 20, 2008 everywhere.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘WALL-E’ Earns Accolade as 2008’s First Perfect Film, One of Best Pixar Films Ever

HollywoodChicago.com — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:01:00 -0600

CHICAGO – While perfection can be characterized in many ways, there’s only one way to define perfect in film: one with everything you could ask for and nothing you could cut. Though this a highly unlikely proposition, “WALL-E” has become 2008’s first perfect film and one of the best Pixar projects of all time.

Rating: 5.0/5.0
(rarely perfect)

The man with the ingeniously imaginative story and the decisive direction to be credited with every inch of success “WALL-E” is destined to reap is none other than Andrew Stanton.

Stanton is intimately familiar with what it takes to scribe a successful animated story of gargantuan proportions after having done so with “Finding Nemo” (nearly $865 million in worldwide box-office receipts), “Monsters, Inc.” ($525 million), “Toy Story 2” ($485 million), “A Bug’s Life” ($363 million) and “Toy Story” ($362 million).

Read Adam Fendelman’s full review of “WALL-E” in our reviews section.

View our full, high-resolution “WALL-E” image gallery.

Listen to our episode-two podcast on “WALL-E” and more.

Read more news on “WALL-E”.

In total, that dossier of animated success – every one of them under the Pixar umbrella using its own PhotoRealistic RenderMan computer interface for high-quality image generation – earns Stanton the plaque of most profitable and successful screenwriter for Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios.

Stanton, who also executive produced the wildly successful 2007 animated film “Ratatouille,” not only again brings on the magic with “WALL-E” but even manages to best himself in pure originality and the creation of characters you can’t help but to fall madly in love with.

While the animated Pixar film “Cars” was a paper financial success ($462 million in earnings on a $120 million production budget), at the heart of Stanton’s style is the opposite: a rock-solid story, characters who are evocatively etched into your brain and personalities who tug at your heartstrings.

Despite public outcry, WALL-E is nothing like the robot Number 5 from 1986’s “Short Circuit”. While he’s the furthest species from humanity, his personality traits epitomize everything that’d make a human perfect: he’s a hard worker, adorable, perpetually devoted and perhaps most important he has a love-craving heart of gold.

“WALL-E,” which will open everywhere on June 27, 2008 from Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios, is written and directed by Andrew Stanton and features voice work from Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy and Sigourney Weaver.

Continuing reading for Adam Fendelman’s full “WALL-E” review.

WALL-E in “WALL-E”.
Photo credit: Disney/Pixar

WALL-E (left) and Eve (right) in “WALL-E”.
Photo credit: Disney/Pixar

Continuing reading for Adam Fendelman’s full “WALL-E” review.

Second ‘WALL-E’ Trailer Now Online; Will Package With ‘National Treasure: Book of Secrets’

HollywoodChicago.com — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:08:00 -0700

A second trailer for Pixar’s “WALL-E,” which will be packaged with “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” for its Dec. 21 release, is now online. “WALL-E” is slated to open on June 27, 2008.

The Disney film is said to be vying along with “The Dark Knight,” “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” as the most anticipated film of 2008.

“WALL-E”.
Image credit: IMDb
“WALL-E” comes from the creators of “Finding Nemo”. Director and writer Andrew Stanton also wrote “Monsters, Inc.,” “Toy Story 2,” “A Bug’s Life” and “Toy Story”. Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin and Ben Burtt are currently attached to “WALL-E”.

The “WALL-E” movie poster.
Image credit: IMDb