This is from the end of my favorite musical biopic, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It’s a beautiful ride, indeed.
Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Jake Kasdan
The TV Set (2006, directed by Jake Kasdan)
Mike Klein (David Duchovny) is a scriptwriter who suffers from chronic backpain and whose wife (Justine Bateman) is pregnant. Mike has developed an autobiographical TV dramedy about a young man trying to come to terms with the suicide of his brother. He’s sold it to one of the networks but, when he tries to shoot the pilot, he watches as his original concept is continually compromised and diluted by Lenny (Sigourney Weaver), the president of the network. After rejecting Mike’s choice for the lead role because the actor had a beard, Lenny forces him to cast Zack Harper (Fran Kranz), a mugging young actor who lets pre-stardom go to his head. Lenny continues to change Mike’s concept until he can barely even recognize his pilot. Will Mike be able to retain his vision or will network TV continue to be dominated by shows like Slut Wars?
Occasionally, you’ll see a film that was obviously made by a writer/director who was obviously looking to settle some old scores with the studio execs that he had to deal with in the past. Christopher Guest’s first film as a director was The Big Picture, a sharp and clever satire with Kevin Bacon as a film student who discovers there’s little he won’t compromise on to get his film made. Before Guest’s film, Blake Edwards lost a fortune making a film called S.O.B. because he wanted to get back at the people who he blamed for ruining Darling Lili. Continuing the tradition of those films but moving the action to the networks, The TV Set was directed by Jake Kasdan, the son of Lawrence Kasdan. Jake worked on a number of TV shows with Judd Apatow (most famously, Freaks and Geeks) and The TV Set feels like his chance to get revenge on any number of real-life studio execs. It’s an insider’s view of what’s wrong with television but sometimes it becomes such an insider’s view that it becomes hard to relate to Mike and or really care about his show, which sounded pretty bad even before the network suits got involved. Too often, it feels like the movie itself is more about settling personal grudges than saying anything about the state of television.
The TV Set has got a large cast, some of whom manage to create an interesting character despite Kasdan’s overstuffed script. I especially liked Judy Greer, who played Mike’s always-positive agent. I got the feeling that we were supposed to be as annoyed with Greer’s character as Mike often was but Greer gives such an energetic performance that it’s impossible to dislike her, no matter how far she went in her attempts to always put a positive spin on the bad news coming from the set of Mike’s pilot. I also like Fran Kranz and Lindsay Sloane, who played the two actors forced on Mike by the studio. Indeed, probably one of the film’s biggest problems is that all of the characters that we’re supposed to find annoying are played such likable actors that it’s hard to really sympathize with Mike when he starts complaining about them. David Duchovny sleepwalks through the role of Mike but he’s not helped by a script that can never seem to decide if Mike’s supposed to be a visionary or just a hopeless naïve victim of the industry.
The TV Set, which was made a few years before the start of the streaming revolution, ends with a warning that television will soon be full of shows like Slut Wars and there won’t be any room for artists like Mike Klein. The TV Set wasn’t wrong but what it failed to predict was that there would soon be other platforms on which the Mike Kleins of the word could broadcast their shows.
Red Band Trailer: Sex Tape
Hey there, loyal Shattered Lens readers.
So, as you may have noticed, I am running really far behind as far as getting all of my film reviews done. Along with reviewing the two films that tied for first place in my latest What Should Lisa Watch Poll, I also need to review the last few films that I saw in theaters and on Lifetime.
I apologize for all of the delays but fear not — I will get caught up!
Until then, here’s a red band trailer to consider. Just judging from this trailer, Sex Tape appears to be a one joke film. However, I like Jason Segal and I enjoyed Bad Teacher so I will keep an open mind as far as Sex Tape is concerned.
A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Bad Teacher (dir. by Jake Kasdan)
So, last Friday night, I went and saw the new Cameron Diaz comedy, Bad Teacher. Right now, all sorts of mainstream critics are running out of ways to trash this film but, for the most part, they seem to overlooking one important fact. Flawed and unfocused as this film may be, it’s funny. It made me laugh, it made Jeff laugh, it made my sister laugh, and it made my friend Evelyn laugh. (Of course, according to Evelyn, I laugh at everything, even if it means I’m the only person laughing, but that’s another story. Hi, Evelyn!) It also made almost the entire audience laugh. Admittedly, it was a small audience. I guess everyone else was busy crying at Cars 2. (It’s a Pixar film after all.) As for Bad Teacher, it may not be a great film but it works.
Anyway, Bad Teacher tells the story of a very bad teacher, played by Cameron Diaz. She doesn’t care about her students, goes out of her way to antagonize her fellow students, and shows up to work everyday either hungover or stoned. She’s also snobbish, petty, shallow, and you’d totally hate her except for the fact that 1) you can’t help but admire the way that Diaz throws herself into being as crass and as shallow as possible (she may be playing a vain character but there’s no vanity in her performance) and 2) every other teacher in the school is so annoyingly perky and movie perfect that you can’t help but share Diaz’s disgust with them.
Anyway, Diaz is teaching because her rich fiancée has dumped her. (One of the better jokes in the film is the number of lies that Diaz comes up with to explain why her engagement ended.) She is content to spend the school day asleep while her class watches movies featuring other, better teachers. However, then she meets the new substitute teacher who is really kinda creepy with his constant “up with humanity” perkiness but is also 1) rich and 2) played Justin Timberlake so he’s like totally hot. However, Timberlake is dating Diaz’s sworn enemy, the incredibly upbeat Amy Squirrel (played by Lucy Pond). Diaz realizes that the only way she’ll ever capture Timberlake’s attention is if she can raise the money necessary to get bigger boobs. The rest of the film basically deals with Diaz’s efforts to raise the money for her boob job (among other things, she accepts bribes from parents and embezzles from the school car wash) while continuing to pursue Timberlake and be pursued by the gym teacher (Jason Segal).
That’s actually a lot of plot for an 89 minute film and, as a result, Bad Teacher does feel overly episodic and ultimately disjointed. But so what? I laughed consistently for 89 minutes and that’s the important thing. It’s not that the film itself is filled with witty lines as much as it’s the fact that the entire cast so totally throws themselves into playing these genuinely odd characters. Pond steals every scene she’s in and Timberlake especially seems to be having fun spoofing his own image. If you think that watching people dry hump while fully clothed can’t be hilarious, than you haven’t seen Justin Timberlake in Bad Teacher.
For me, there were two other things that made Bad Teacher a success.
1) It confirms what we all always suspected and knew in middle school and high school — that our teachers were a bunch of horny, pot-smoking degenerates. Admittedly, I used to actually get high with my drama teacher — shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone! — but I’ve always figured that same was probably true of every high school drama student. This film confirms that the history and math teachers were just as stoned.
2) It features this scene, which got laughs and applause from the Dallas audience that I saw it with:
Through the Shattered Lens 