Jenna Fischer

Blu-Ray, TV Review: ‘The Office’ Never Better With Amazing Blu-Ray, Season Premiere

BrianTT — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:22:27 -0600

CHICAGO – The Blu-Ray release of the fifth season of “The Office” is a thing of beauty. It is one of the best comedy on Blu-Ray releases to date, not only because the show has arguably never been better but because everything about the season set has been crafted with the fan’s best interests in mind. After you watch the very funny season premiere tonight, go back and pick up a must-own Blu-Ray set.

Television Rating: 4.5/5.0

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

I’m a huge “30 Rock” fan but going back over the best of the fifth season of “The Office” on Blu-Ray and watching the sixth season premiere, it’s definitely a close call as to which one has been more consistent in the last twelve months or so. There were SO many highlights in the fifth season of “The Office” that I don’t think the show has ever been better.

The Office
Photo credit: Universal

With great guest turns by Amy Ryan and Idris Elba book-ending the season, what I truly loved about the fifth season of “The Office” was the effort to turn the show away from being just “The Jim and Pam Story”. Of course, everyone’s favorite workplace love birds were still a major part of the show but Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling, B.J. Novak, and, honestly, the entire ensemble cast worked with better comic chemistry than ever before.

All of the arcs of season five including the Michael & Holly affair, the Angela/Andy/Dwight triangle, and the founding of The Michael Scott Paper Company worked perfectly and stand among the funniest plotlines in the history of the show.

It doesn’t hurt that the Universal Blu-Ray release of “The Office” is perfectly designed for comedy fans. Just the commentary tracks alone make it so. Every single episode includes a commentary track by writers, cast members, and directors, including a great one with Stephen Merchant, who discusses the differences between the original British show and this one on an episode he directed. “One-Liner Soundboard” allows viewers to string together one-liners and quotes from the show in a Soundboard to create their own character audio mix to be shared with friends via BD-Live.

Deleted scenes, a gag reel, promos, webisodes, “100 episodes, 100 moments,” and “Academy of Television Arts & Sciences presents The Office” round out a perfect collection of special features. The episodes themselves look even better than their original HD broadcast. It’s a flawless TV on Blu-Ray release.

The Office
Photo credit: Chris Haston/NBC

“Gossip,” the sixth season premiere of “The Office” does nothing to suggest that the perfection of season five is going to falter any time soon. It’s not as gut-busting as last year’s “Weight Loss” or the best of season five, but it is consistently clever and important to the arc of the show.

Last season ended with the revelation that Pam (Jenna Fischer) is pregnant and the sixth season opens with Jim (John Krasinski) and his baby mama trying to keep it a secret from a gossip-crazy office. Michael (Steve Carell) becomes obsessed with gossip after being the last one to know a few juicy office rumors and so he starts to invent a few of his own to share. In a hilarious twist, a few of the rumors that Michael makes up might even be right, including a tale about a bun in the oven and a guess that Andy (Ed Helms) might struggle with his heterosexuality.

A lot of sitcoms struggle by their sixth season, having pounded the same character tics and jokes for years. You start to get the feeling that even the writers don’t find their characters interesting any more. “The Office” shows no signs of such comedic exhaustion. With pitch-perfect writing and one of the best ensembles in the history of the form, we should consider ourselves lucky that “The Office” is not only as good right now as it’s ever been but arguably better.

The sixth season premiere of ‘The Office,’ which airs on NBC, stars Steve Carell, Ed Helms, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Kate Flannery, Mindy Kaling, Angela Kinsey, Phyllis Smith, Oscar Nunez, Creed Bratton, Paul Lieberstein, B.J. Novak, and Ellie Kemper. The show was created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. The series returns on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 8PM CST.

‘The Office: Season Five’ is released by Universal Home Video. It was released on September 8th, 2009. It is not rated.

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

Post Super Bowl Edition of ‘The Office’ Scores Comedy Field Goal

BrianTT — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:14:25 -0700

Television Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – What a network chooses to put in its post-Super Bowl spot says a lot about what they are most commercially and creatively confident about on their schedule. For NBC, the choice was clearly either “30 Rock” or “The Office,” and the brain trust went with the latter, delivering an expanded version of the Steve Carell hit that will thrill fans of the show and probably even satisfy the viewers who were just too lazy to change the channel after the big game.

The episode of “The Office” that follows the Super Bowl at roughly 9:30 CST is called “Stress Relief” and has been written by Paul Lieberstein (who plays Toby on the show) and directed by Jeff Blitz (“Spellbound,” “Rocket Science”). Guest stars include Jack Black, Jessica Alba, and Cloris Leachman.

Steve Carell as Michael Scott
Photo credit: Paul Drinkwater

In one of the most hilarious pre-credits openings in the history of “The Office,” Dwight (Rainn Wilson) decides to test the fire safety awareness of his staff by staging a fake blaze. He puts a lighter under some of the door handles to give the impression that there are flames on the other side and even blocks a few doors. Then he crumples some paper in a garbage can and tosses in a lit cigarette.

Steve Carell as Michael Scott
Photo credit: Paul Drinkwater

Of course, all that results is panic and one of our favorite workers at Dunder-Mifflin Paper ends up having a heart attack. Because of Dwight’s actions, Michael (Carell) is forced to deal with the heightened stress level in the office. He soon realizes that he is the main cause of most of the stress at work and concludes that the best way to relieve it is to stage a no-holds-barred roast. Anyone who’s seen the show can guess how well that goes.

Meanwhile, Andy (Ed Helms), Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinski) are watching a pirated version of an unreleased love triangle movie starring Jack Black, Jessica Alba, and Cloris Leachman. (Yes, that says “love triangle” with Jack Black and Cloris Leachman. Prepare yourself.) Pam and Jim are concerned about about the rocky relationship of the former’s parents and their discussion of it while watching the awful online movie convinces Andy that they are film gurus.

“Stress Relief” is clearly divided into two plotlines - the funnier material with Michael and Dwight and the more emotional material about the dissolution of the marriage of Pam’s parents and the concerns that raises within her regarding her union with Jim.

The ‘A plot,’ the material with the roast and stress relief techniques, works significantly better. Carell does some of his best work of the year to date and Michael’s response to the roast is a must-see for even casual fans of the show.

The ‘B plot’ isn’t as effective. The Black and Leachman cameos are amusing but Alba barely registers and the Jim/Pam stuff feels a bit overdone and it takes the audience away from the material in this episode that they are really going to want to see after a day of drinking and watching football.

Finally, I’ve never been a fan of 45-minute (running time without commercials) episodes of “The Office”. This show works significantly better in regular, not supersized, format. It’s an incredibly well-paced show. It’s the comic timing of the cast that makes it work. That’s much harder to maintain at twice the length.

Having said that, nothing is normal-size on Super Bowl day and most fans of “The Office” won’t complain about getting more of their favorite show. It may not be one of the best episodes in the history of one of NBC’s most beloved shows, so we can’t credit “The Office” with a touchdown, but they’re definitely walking away with points.

‘The Office,’ which airs on NBC, stars Steve Carell, Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski, Ed Helms, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Kate Flannery, Mindy Kaling, Angela Kinsey, Phyllis Smith, Oscar Nunez, Creed Bratton, Craig Robinson, and Paul Lieberstein. “Stress Relief” airs on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 9:30PM CST.

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

Interview: Director Steve Conrad Elevates Chicago Setting, Sean William Scott in New Comedy ‘The Promotion’

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:41:34 -0600

CHICAGO – Barring extreme wealth or hermetics, everyone uses the grocery store. It is the great equalizer – the marketplace where all socioeconomic groups can co-exist side by side – in pursuit of daily bread. Inspired by this reality, writer and director Steve Conrad turned it into his feature directorial debut.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

It’s a notable comedy that was shot in Chicago with the definitive title of “The Promotion”. HollywoodChicago.com recently interviewed Conrad to glean his take on the dynamics of this unusual movie subject and to offer the lowdown on shooting the film in the city where he also lives.

“Well, it’s home,” Conrad said. “To me, doing a movie in Chicago means putting Chicago natives in a part of town where they live.”

“The Promotion” writer and director Steve Conrad in Chicago on April 22, 2008.
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

Conrad added: “Buildings convey stories, settings convey stories and in order to tell the story right I want to pick the right place. This is easier for me here because these are the places where I walk around. I want to do it better.”

Seann William Scott (left) and John C. Reilly star in Steve Conrad’s “The Promotion”.
Photo credit: Chuck Hodes, The Weinstein Company

“The Promotion” is a story about two assistant grocery-store managers – Doug (played by Seann William Scott, who was Stifler in “American Pie”) and Richard (John C. Reilly) – who are vying for a coveted manager post at the new branch of their Chicago-based grocery chain.

“It was based on a real-life event that happened at a grocery,” Conrad said, “and it seemed the most logical place to set it.”

Conrad described seeing a store employee at a Chicago chain armed only with a yellow courtesy vest break up some unruly loiterers in the parking lot.

“They hurt him so badly just from taunts,” Conrad recalled, “and they absolutely refused to recognize any of his authority. He was completely diminished by it all. He turned around and walked away and I noticed it said on the back of his vest: ‘Have a nice day.’”

“The Promotion” co-star Seann William Scott (left) in Chicago on April 22, 2008.
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

Conrad continued: “So he’s walking back to work instead of quitting, which is what I might do or someone of lesser mettle might do. I thought it was heroic of him to go back. I’m not making too much of this. There’s so much to be admired in that person’s strength.”

Through the awkwardness of the store’s corporate office to the daily grind of customer problems, Conrad and his talented supporting crew – including Fred Armisen, Jenna Fischer, Lili Taylor and Gil Bellows – interpret this real-life scenario with poignant and hilarious observations.

Conrad describes the process with the talented cast: “I started out hiring people who I thought were actors before they were movie stars.”

He added: “I have better luck with actors because they treat the film like a craft. They want it to go well and they will do the work it takes to give the movie a good shot.”

Conrad coaxes great performances out of his two leads.

Williams deftly creates the mask of the everyman who tried to do the right thing while at the same time desiring the prestige and money of the new position. Reilly creates an intricate comic character and imbues him with a Canadian accent and a sad-sack soul.

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

RELATED READING
Read more film reviews from critic Patrick McDonald.

Conrad reflected: “Some people can tell a joke and some people can make you laugh. I was really confident that John and Sean were in that second category. If you asked them, you can count on them to do any number of things.”

“I would always try to measure the comedy through real human behavior,” Conrad said in summary. “Among others things, it’s about carving out the space in America to become your better self, how that challenges you and what it costs. It amounts to the fight of all of our lives. It deserves to be treated with some force and some respect.”

There’s a running gag in the film culminating into a moment of pure joy that’s rarely seen in movies today. Steve Conrad has created a story of everyday people also honoring the small victories that define the meaning of life.

“The Promotion” opened on June 6, 2008. In Chicago, the film is showing at AMC River East and Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema.

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