Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Gail: I hope you like shrimp cocktail, because I want

you to be guests of honor at our wedding next week!

Beth: Well, I hope it's not jumbo shrimp,

because I'm allergic to oxymorons!

A happy 58 to Molly Shannon today!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Reality Bites (1994)

Vickie: You don't understand. Every day, all day, it's all that I think about, OK? Every time I sneeze, it's like I'm four sneezes away from the hospice, and it's like it's not even happening to me. It's like I'm watching it on some crappy show like Melrose Place or some shit, right? And I'm the new character, I'm the HIV-AIDS character, and I live in the building and I teach everybody that it's OK to be near me, it's OK to talk to me, and then I die. And there's everybody at my funeral wearing halter tops or chokers or some shit like that.
Lelaina: Vickie stop, OK? Just stop.
You're freaking out. And you know what?
You're gonna have to deal with the results.
Whatever they are, we're gonna have to deal with
them just like we've dealt with everything else.
Vickie: This isn't like everything else.
Lelaina: I know that, all right? But it's gonna be OK,
you know? I know it's gonna be OK.
Melrose Place is a really good show.

I just noticed that the "voice of a generation" Reality Bites is turning 25 a week from today, and since I'm not going to be here a week from today it seemed a good idea to wish the movie a happy 25 now, while I am here. (PS I will be off-line both Friday & Monday, so adjust yourselves accordingly.) So happy 25, Reality Bites! This remains the best thing Ben Stiller has directed -- yes it's better than Tropic Thunder and The Cable Guy. Well maybe it's not better than the "Legend of T.J. O'Pootertoot," skit on The Ben Stiller Show, but that's a close one.
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I suppose I might be biased about Reality Bites since I was a junior in high school when it came out and it was perfectly timed to shape (read: warp) my idea about imminent adulthood, or thereabouts -- it does certainly have its faults, both of them squarely aimed at Winona Ryder's love interests; Ethan Hawke's "Troy" was unbearably smug in every single frame from where I stood, even back then, and Ben Stiller himself gives a sort of flat and lifeless performance as "Michael." He should've just focused on directing, I think.

online survey

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But I love everything having to do with Winona & Janeane & especially the adorable and relentlessly underrated Steve Zahn, whose coming out sequence (which I've posted about previously) was indispensable to this closeted teen. Turn up The Knack and tell me what are your thoughts or memories on Reality Bites?

Good Morning, Gratuitous Morgan Spector

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I wish I could say that Morgan Spector's been on my mind ever since I saw him on-stage opposite Charlie Cox last year in that play Incognito - it wouldn't be a lie to say he caught my eye up there on that stage, but I was there for Charlie, let's be real. 

And it might be true that me getting around to this post was brought on by this week's tepid viewing of the first episode of The Mist, which I made reference to yesterday - I know that Morgan is better than what he's being handed there. 

But it is actually a conspiracy between two things that's finally got me doing this post. One, Morgan is in that movie Permission that I reviewed at Tribeca (and which I called "surprisingly sexy" in the bald hopes of getting a poster whore quote) that also stars Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall and Gena Gershon (not to mention Francois Arnaud's Penis) and which is, and I quote myself, "surprisingly sexy." 

And bringing a lot of that sex to the film is Morgan himself, who plays Hall's brother's boyfriend and who saunters around the film half-naked a lot and has a hot gay sex scene to boot.

The second conspiratorial factor in today's post is the fact that I only recently (as in a couple of weeks ago, long after seeing Permission) found out that Morgan is married to his co-star Rebecca Hall, and I am obsessed with them, as individuals and a couple, now. There was a really fascinating profile on Hall in The New Yorker a few weeks ago - did any of you read it? And she comes off as, in my boyfriend's words (and he didn't even read the article) "a superior human." Not in that obnoxious better-than-you way, but in that definitely better than all of us way that one should aspire towards. She is smart and she paints - really good paintings too! - and she is a fine actress and she has this regal bearing about her that I love, and she married Morgan Spector the end.

She is smart. Okay I am besotted, it's true. Hall was so so so spectacular in Christine last year though, so I have excuses, and coming along for the ride is this great big hot man she has attached to herself. And here we are. I had to rush this post a little bit - as I gathered it up this morning I realized it was going to be afternoon by the time I got it finished if I didn't, and what good is a "Good Morning" post is it's in the afternoon? Still there's plenty more after the jump (like almost 100 more, and it gets pretty NSFW at that) so hit the jump for plenty more...

Jai's Gotten All Wet & Hot For Us

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I know I watched the Wet Hot American Summer prequel series on Netflix subtitled First Day of Camp when it was released in 2015, I know I watched it like the day it was released, but it's weird - I remember basically nothing about it. I suppose I should re-watch? Any opinions on it from y'all? Anyway the sequel, long promised, subtitled Ten Years Later is dropping on August 4th and look who is showing up!

I might be the only person who watches that trailer, stuffed with comedy legends, and cares most about Jai Courtney being there, but I yam who I yam and who I yam is a Jai stan. (I should have that tattooed on my right butt cheek, probably.) Anyway do you guys think Amy Poehler had her pick of suitor, and she demanded Jai? I like to think that is what happened - she flipped through a catalog - I'll take that one! Here's the trailer:

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In conclusion...

 ... what are you doing, Chris Pine???

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Reality Bites (1995)

Vickie: Evian is "naïve" spelled backward. 

Happy 51, Janeane Garofalo!

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Good Morning, World

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Happy Monday, everybody - so how many of you plowed through all eight episodes of Netflix's Wet Hot American Summer series this weekend? I sure did, and... it had its moments. (Many of them provided by Kristen Wiig, of course.) I actually think it might benefit from spacing the episodes out and not binging though -- I got a little bit numb to the wink-wink absurdity of a lot of it about halfway though. My advice is take the episodes slowly, then. We've had fifteen years with just the original movie - what's a few extra days?

I Am Link

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--- Like An Animal - We learn a few important things about Magic Mike XXL in this interview with Joe Manganiello - firstly, he'll be stripping to the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer" which... well let's just say that song pushes some happy buttons for me. He also says that Matt Bomer sings in this movie! Which is exciting. And Joe once again insists the movie's "out there," calling it "progressive" and "racy." Let's hope so, since Chocolate City (yes I still mean to review that; let's hope it happens today) shit the bed.

--- The Price of Carol - While we're just sitting around waiting to see Carol and feeling left out - even though we were writing about this movie way before anybody else gave a damn! Here's a post from NINE YEARS AGO where I said that Cate Blanchett should play the lead in a movie version, AHEM - director Todd Haynes has been lining up several new projects and Nat takes a look at them over at The Film Experience. I hadn't heard about Wonderstruck, the children's book adaptation yet and that sounds smashing.

--- Raptor Ready - Just about two weeks until Jurassic World opens - I bought my tickets this past weekend! Whee! I was inspired by all of those new Chris Pratt pictures, of course. Speaking of The Playlist gathered up all of the new images and clips from the movie and there were several I hadn't seen yet. The dinosaurs are starting to (finally) look tangible and less CG, thank goodness.

--- Spot Out Damn - I am not going to watch any of the clips from Justin Kurzel's MacBeth beforehand but hey if you're up for it here's the first two clips of Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard doing their Shakespearean thang. (thanks Mac) I'm also not really going to read any reviews beforehand but I did see a few tweets out of Cannes and they seemed very positive! And here's an interview with Fassy from Cannes - he mentions the movies he most wants to see are Yargos Lanthimos' The Lobster and Carol, so clearly my love for him has been justified all this time.

--- New Boy - I don't watch New Girl but they sure do have plenty of attractive menfolk over there so I know of New Girl, and so I similarly know of Max Greenfield. (See some of him here previously.) Well he's just signed on for what I assume is a small role in the next season of American Horror Story, which Ryan Murphy says will be showing us a Max like we've never seen before. I'm just feeling anxious that we haven't heard anything about Finn Wittrock returning, and since Max & Finn seem really similar to me that's making me more anxious.

--- Night Owls - There was a Twin Peaks fan event this past weekend and original stars Sherilyn Fenn and Sheryl Lee told the crowd that David Lynch (who's back on the new season; did I forget to post about that? I think I might have, somehow) will be directing a total of EIGHTEEN new episodes. Eighteen! And also original composer Angelo Badalamenti, so important in creating that world, will return as well. 

--- Lunch Laddy - A ton of pictures from Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Netflix's prequel series to the cult hit, popped up online over the long weekend, huzzah! Click on over and see all of your favorite characters playing younger versions of themselves ten years later. I was most surpised by how on the money Janeane Garofalo looks since I saw her on the street a few weeks ago and she was practically unrecognizable.

--- Cool Girls - Amy Schumer and her sister (who writes and acts and produces Amy's show) are working on a script sticking a mother and daughter team into an action-comedy where the two women get woefully in over their heads while on vacation. I think it's safe to assume Amy's the daughter -- who would you cast as her mother? In last week's episode of the show having Jennifer Coolidge play her mother struck me as genius so I vote for her.

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Camp Rudd

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It's Paul Rudd's 46th birthday today and so this week's Wet Hot edition of "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience is smearing some mud on its ass just for him - head over there to vote!

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Wet Hot Hamm

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I think each and everyone of us should check our email, maybe our spam folders if we don't see it right away, because it's pretty clear that the Netflix sequel-thing to Wet Hot American Summer is inviting every single person on Earth to be in it. They've just announced a new batch of names, and yes the handsome Hamm seen above is there, and also Kristen Wiig, Jason Schwartzman, and Chris Pine. This is on top of all the original folks, plus that other group announced a couple of weeks ago. Oh and in case you missed the teaser trailer, which is basically just a roll-call acknowledgment of all the gigantic names present and accounted for, here:

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Time To Fondle Our Sweaters Again

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The actors returning for Netflix's eight-episode Wet Hot American Summer sequel have been announced by Deadline and it's pretty much everybody -- is there anybody major that you don't see in this list: Elizabeth Banks, H. Jon Benjamin, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, Judah Friedlander, Janeane Garofalo, Nina Hellman, Ken Marino, Zak Orth, David Hyde Pierce, Joe LoTruglio, Christopher Meloni, A.D. Miles, Marguerite Moreau, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Marisa Ryan, Molly Shannon, Michael Showalter and Kevin Sussman? The greatest inclusion to me though is the return of H. Jon Benjamin: he voiced the Can of Vegetables!!!

I'm gonna go smear some mud on my ass.

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Get Your Moose Prepped

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E!News is reporting that David Wain's Wet Hot American Summer limited-run sequel series for Netflix, which we heard rumblings of way back in May, is actually happening and they'll start filming in January! Nobody's confirmed this - not Netflix, not Wain, not the nerdy dude who had the 20-sided die that saved Camp Firewood, not nobody. But consider that the original was made for fifteen bucks in the off-season of a campground in rural Pennsylvania and it seems possible that they could get it done if they can just get a little time from the much-more-famous-now folks in the cast.

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Which Is Hotter?

I suppose it depends on if you're in the kitchen or in the bedroom when the mood strikes you, but which is your preferred tool of choice for singing into when your life needs a random musical sequence?

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poll by twiigs.com

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This poll, like my list earlier, was also inspired by Joe Reid's ranking of Winona Ryder performances - she was always doing this. Dancing in the kitchen with Cher and Chrsitina Ricci, dancing in the convenience store with Janeane Garofalo, dancing in the air when she gets good grades in Beetlejuice. She really took this places.

Although the greatest scene of this sort would have to be...

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

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Gene: Can I make a quick announcement
before we finish up?

Beth: Sure.

Gene: I wanna thank all of you for a terrific Summer.

Cooking for all of you nice people has really helped me

deal with the fact that I fought in the Vietnam War. 

Have a great Winter!
I'm gonna go hump the fridge.

Beth: What?

Gene: Yes folks, it's true. I said I'm gonna go hump the fridge. What you may not know is I also own a bottle of dick cream, I fondle my sweaters and I often like to smear mud on my ass. You're probably asking yourselves, isn't he a weirdo? An outcast. A loose cannon. Maybe. I don't think so. I wanna introduce you guys to someone. [holds up a can of mixed vegetables] This is my friend. Well I don't know who he is but I do know this - at a time when I was trying to hide myself from myself he was there to show me a new way. And I couldn't hide from him! And I can be proud of who I am! I put it to you - Camp Firewood, as we spend the last day together, be proud of who you are! Look at me, Ma! I made it! I'm okay! Now, if you don't mind, I have some unfinished business to attend to.

Happy 52, Christopher Meloni!

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)

Christie: No offense, Michele, but how in the world did *you* think of Post-Its? 

Michele: Uh... Actually I invented a special kind of glue. 

Christie: Oh really? Well then I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving us a detailed account of exactly how you concocted this miracle glue, would you? 

Michele: No. Um, well, ordinarily when you make glue first you need to thermoset your resin and then after it cools you have to mix in an epoxide, which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? And then I thought maybe, just maybe, you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process and it turns out I was right.

Can you believe that Romy and Michele turned 15 back in April? Gah we're all old. Every one of you! Even you, just born baby scanning the internet on your crib-side iPad - you're old, too! And you look like a monkey. Ahem. So shouldn't we be going to the movies to see Romy and Michelle's 25th High School Reunion? Dammit. Anyway hey look Romy and Michele's getting the super duper Blu-ray treatment in August. That's awesome, at least.

I Am Link

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--- Blue Suede Bana - Eric Bana is not going to play Elvis, says him, after all. We heard that was a possibility back in October. Then what the hell are you going to do, Eric? Because I sure ain't seeing you enough. Well here's something - he told this to reporters at Tribeca, where his latest movie, a thriller called Deadfall in which he plays a bad guy, was premiering. Him being a bad guy is exciting and THR calls it gory and violent, so cool, but it got mixed reviews and co-stars that Olivia Wilde person I just don't like, so any enthusiasm here is dampened somewhat.

--- Speaking of hot guys playing bad dudes, Til Schwieger and Mads Mikkelson are both playing bad dudes in a movie called The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, says DH. The movie actually stars Shia LaBeouf though, so it won't just be two hours of Mads and Til making out on a pile of corpses, unfortunately.

--- Lizard King - Stephen King's 1987 fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon is getting turned into something or other - a long-form series? A set of movies? - for SyFy. The arbiter of quality entertainment! I swear I read this book way back when but seeing the title was this whole, "Oh yeah, that's a thing" experience so I'll be damned if I remember shit about it. There are probably dragons? Singular maybe?

--- Got Bank - A crime thriller called Cut Bank has just lined up a bunch of people I really want to watch in a movie together - Armie Hammer, Ben Kingsley, Michael Sheen, John Malkovich and the delightful Theresa Palmer, who was totally charming in the otherwise mostly terrible 80s-set comedy Take Me Home Tonight that I've been clamoring for more ever since. She's also got the zom-rom-com Warm Bodies with Nicky Hoult coming up. All you need to know about this Cut Bank movie's director is that he's directed episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Win!

--- Toni Time - I am totally indifferent to Dev Patel, so the only reason I'm mentioning his next movie which is called Defiant is because it will co-star someone I am the opposite of indifferent to - Toni Collette. It's about honor killing in India and yadda yadda Toni! This reminds me, I need to check and see what's going on with her reunion with director PJ Hogan called Mental. Shouldn't I be sitting in a damn theater watching this already?

--- High School Debate - All kinds of possible cool casts unloading today - Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche are lining up to star in a movie called Words and Pictures about a high school art teacher getting into a rivalry of sorts with the resident English teacher, over which is for lack of a better word, better - words or pictures. And because it's Juliette Binoche, we will cry. And cry, and cry.

--- Naive Spelled Backwards - Glenn's taking a look back at the year 1994, which he calls his favorite year in film, for a new project, and he starts right off with a winner in the wonderful Reality Bites. My "Wino Forever" tattoo is ringing!

The Moment I Fell For... Janeane Garafalo

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Sammy: I have something to tell you. 

I am... a homo... homosexual.

Vickie: [beat] Oh, Christ.

(inspired by this) The undersung heroes of Reality Bites! The way that Janeane delivers that "Oh Christ" still makes me laugh so hard tears spill down my face til this day. And then after that how she says "Oh pah-flag. I'm beginning to like the sound of that!"

And Steve Zahn is just adorable, so you can count this as the moment I fell for him too. (Let us forget how horribly depressing all this gets in like thirty seconds.) And then he went and did naked yoga (that's one of MNPP's most popular posts) and walked around naked with a naked Paul Walker and cemented my affection for eternity.

Wet Hot American Reunion

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Yes, as teased in my previous post I went and saw the 10 anniversary celebration of David Wain's Wet Hot American Summer hosted by Stella (Michael Showalter, Wain and Michael Ian Black, as seen above) in Brooklyn last night, and I took some pictures and some videos to share, hooray! Let's get right to the good stuff.

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The above video is thirty seconds of five people fondling sweaters while being cursed at, and if you don't get that then you should probably stop reading this now.

Michael Showalter and Marguerite Moreau,

doing their awkward thing.

There be Janeane Garofalo, telling all the Jews in the audience that they'll have their pick of shoes when the Rapture comes. She was wearing a pillowcase. Unfortunately she never did her moose (mousse) impersonation.

On the left there is Gideon Jacobs who played Aaron, the little boy that Molly Shannon falls in love with. He got some lusty whoops for growing up good. Beside him is Gabriel Millman, who played the caped boy (the one with the twenty sided die that takes douchebag as a compliment). He did not get any lusty whoops. 

In the right-hand picture Showalter's doing his Alan Shemper shtick. Cavemen thought I was old, arrr, et cetera.

That's adorable AD Miles, who played Gary (the one who keeps hearing Christopher Meloni's bizarre comments), interviewing Can Of Vegetables. (Can of Vegetables as voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, otherwise known as Sterling Archer, my cartoon sex crush.)

And finally, we have Ken Marino and Marisa Ryan in character as the boastful virgin Victor and the gum-snapping slut Abby. If you've got a thing for Ken Marino's legs then this was must-see. Oh and he sang "Danny's Song" which happens memorably in the movie! Which you can watch right here!

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That is one of the best things ever. There were videos from several of the no-shows - Amy Poehler's character is apparently now a costume designer on a semi-animated film exclusively for Hulu, while Paul Rudd reenacted his tray-smashing routine for Judd Apatow. They showed a couple of audition tapes too - Bradley Cooper being kind of terrible, Amy Poehler hitting it out of the park from word one, and Naomi Watts (!!!) reading for the part that Marguerite Moreau got in a terribly sleazy-seeming video that felt like the opening scene from a lost 80s porn.

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Now Finish Up Them Taters

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I'm gonna go fondle my sweaters.

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Today's Mood

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Make sure to take a moment today to do this dance
in honor of Janeane Garofalo's 46th birthday.
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"Moose? As in...?"

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Happy 45, Janeane Garofalo.
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