BEFORE: I've got to put the "back to school" films on hold for a couple of days, my chain's going to bring me right back there, I promise. It's very tempting to try to tear the September chain apart and look for a path that will put all the school-based films together, like I could see how Christina Hendricks would link "Fist Fight" to "Toy Story 4", but I don't really want to mess with my chain again, especially since I've got the last 43 films already worked out, to end the year right on time. Skipping ahead is going to throw off my count and my plans. I could also have linked to "Life of the Party" or "Central Intelligence", but right now all the Melissa McCarthy films are together in one chain, which dovetails into the Dwayne Johnson chain, and I want to preserve those groupings. So I've got to resist the urge to find a better order, the one I have planned is fine.
Tracy Morgan carries over from "Fist Fight".
THE PLOT: 15 minutes of fame destroys the life of a man who works as an audience member for TV infomercials.
AFTER: In a way, this film is about someone who's had his whole life yanked out from under him, and the panic that sets in when he sees that might be happening again. I can relate - maybe anybody who's lost a spouse to either death or divorce can. There's a similar grieving process for those situations. Eddie Krumble has managed to rebuild his life, he works as a paid audience member for infomercials, talk shows and the like. It's a weird walk of life, like I'm not even sure whether those people get paid IRL, or if they just walk out of the studio with ginsu knives and ShamWows or whatever. But for the purposes of this film, you have to assume that some fictional production company that makes such things has an army of regular people who are designed to not stand out but blend into the crowd, clap and gasp at the right times, and occasionally ask rehearsed pertinent questions.
Personally, I'm a fan of the "Copper Pan" guy, Eric Theiss. I've seen some of his 30-minute sales pitches so often that I can practically recite them along with the show - they're great to fall asleep to at 3 am, very relaxing. We finally bought one of his copper pans for use at home (though we got it at the "As Seen on TV" store, where everything that was formerly advertised as being "not available in stores" is ironically very available). Eric has since branched out into the Power Smokeless Grill, Power Air Fryer and Power Pressure Cooker markets, but I think we ended up buying an InstaPot instead of the combination slow cooker/pressure cooker/rice cooker/soup and stew maker that he promotes. Still, all of his shows are well-produced and equally soporific. I've tried falling asleep to Emeril's NuWave Bravo XL Smart Oven show, but it's just not the same.
Anyway, the life that he's made for himself as a non-famous audience member is threatened when the host of a late-night talk show plays footage of him appearing in the audience of several different shows, and asks the audience for any information about the mystery man, who they call "The Clapper". And just like that, the career, life and relationships that this man has built up for himself are all threatened, because he was happy working in the background as an unknown. It's easy given the state of the world today, with so much social media, to assume that everyone secretly wants to be famous, and it's easy to forget that some people just don't want excess attention. I can relate to this, too - I'm happiest working in the animation industry as someone mostly behind-the-scenes, arranging festival screenings and directors' travel arrangements and a comic-con booth now and again. If I'm lucky I'll get to do a voice for an animated character, or even sing on a soundtrack, but I don't depend on those things for income.
But what if everything changed for me? What if, one day, I couldn't keep doing what I've been doing for 25 years, and I had to come up with something else? I did have to scramble a bit about 5 years ago, when one of my gigs ended - my boss was a sales rep for animation companies, the business changed over time and he just didn't feel like continuing. After two years of working only part time, I took another part time gig that's almost exactly the same as my other one, so now I do the same things for two different directors. I can't really say that I've stretched myself, although at the new job I have learned new things, like uploading files, filling out exposure sheets and a little bit of compositing work. But since I'm more accustomed to accounting work, festival entry and general clerical work, I still consider myself more of an office manager than a production manager.
What's the dream for me? What should I be aspiring to do with whatever time I have left? If my job went away tomorrow, what would I do, where would I go? These thoughts have been coming up lately - should I transition to working at some film festival? The problem with that is, though I have a background in coordinating events and screenings, I'd probably have to start at the bottom, I probably couldn't become a festival programmer overnight, though I'd love to watch movies all day and help select them for a festival. My fear is that I'd end up in ticket sales or promotions or some grunt job like folding chairs for events because all the good jobs at the festival are already taken, and it would take years to work my way up to where I'd want to be. Same goes for moving to San Diego and trying to get a job working at Comic-Con. The other problem is that those jobs are seasonal, they'd go away for 6 months out of the year, so there could be a few months of steady prep-work, a month of frantic activity, then nothing for the next 6 months.
What about working with something else I love, like at a brewery or a BBQ restaurant? I'm great at coming up with the ideas for restaurant names or beer flavor names, but I don't think somebody just gives you that gig. Plus I have very little experience in the food & beverage industry, unless you count the summer I worked the popcorn counter at a big movie theater. I've eaten enough BBQ and watched enough TV shows about it to consider myself an expert, but am I? Plus again, I'd have to start at the bottom in a restaurant, unless I just sank my savings account into opening my own place, but if that didn't work, I'd be out of a job AND money. So maybe this is why I feel like I'm stuck right where I am, because even when I identity a place I'd like to be, I don't seem to have the ability, means or drive to get there.
But I feel sort of OK about that, because whatever might be wrong or annoying about the life I've crafted for myself, it's MINE and I don't want anything interfering with it. I'm at least comfortable with where I am and what I've done to get here, and if I don't get any farther than this because I'm afraid to push myself, I'm oddly OK with that too. My mother worked for 40 years as an elementary school music teacher, and my father just as long as a truck driver. At different points he tried getting back into baking or selling water filters on the side, both ventures were disasters. Maybe that's what subconsciously urges me to stay in my lane and not even try to branch out.
Eddie does have his close friend, and is working on establishing a relationship with the cashier at the gas station, but honestly it's a little hard to see why, from an audience perspective. They didn't really do much to give her a personality, all we (and Eddie) know is that she likes taking care of animals and Brian Wilson music. That doesn't seem like a lot to work with, but I guess it's enough for Eddie - she felt like a big blank to me. But hey, we all just want someone to spend our time with, somebody to have running jokes with, somebody who gets our references - liking the same foods, TV shows or music isn't everything, but it's a big plus.
I think it would have been better if the film had something constructive to say about fame and its potential, both good and bad, but the message here is so muddled, if there even is one at all. Instead it just came off to me as a series of nearly random occurrences, barely strung together. It's hard even to see what the producers of the late-night talk show were trying to do when they made Eddie and his friend Chris recurring characters with their own segment. Network time is valuable, so it's hard to imagine a production company giving up such a large block of it if the segment doesn't promote another TV show or a big-budget movie. But then again, they never said WHICH network the Stillerman Show is on - so it could be one of the smaller ones that would be willing to take these chances at a potential financial loss.
Also starring Ed Helms (last seen in "Tag"), Amanda Seyfried (last seen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"), Brenda Vaccaro (last heard in "Kubo and the Two Strings"), Leah Remini, Adam Levine (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Russell Peters (last seen in "Chef"), James Ransone (last seen in "Mr. Right"), Alan Thicke (last seen in "Alpha Dog"), Roger Guenveur Smith (last seen in "Marshall"), P.J. Byrne (last seen in "Green Book"), Nico Santos (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"), Mickey Gooch Jr. (last seen in "How to Be Single"), Todd Giebenhain (last seen in "The Hero"), Greg Vrotsos (last seen in "Lovelace"), Robert Axelrod (last seen in "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie"), Wendy Braun, Sara Sampaio, Don Cheto, Marcela Macias, with cameos from Billy Blanks (last seen in "The Last Boy Scout"), Mark Cuban (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Rob Gronkowski, Vince Offer and archive footage of Brian Wilson (last seen in "The Wrecking Crew!")
RATING: 5 out of 10 costumed weirdos on Hollywood Blvd.
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