Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I’ve got a set visit report later this week for PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, one of the new films from the Judd Apatow team, and I’m getting ready to go to Hawaii to see what they’re doing with FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Quint’s got a SUPERBAD interview he’s about to publish, as well. They’re a busy bunch of very funny people right now, certainly. In the meantime, it looks like they’re already test-screening DRILLBIT TAYLOR, and we’ve got our first peek at it tonight courtesy “cakebite,” one of our semi-regular reviewers:
Hey, this is cakebite again! I caught a test screening last night for "Drillbit Taylor" Drillbit Taylor uses the painfully trite formula of awkward, nerdy freshmen standing up to an unrealistically mean high school bully. The screenplay was based on an idea from teen movie master, John Hughes and "developed for todays audiences" by Kristofor Brown ("The Tom Green Show", "Beavis and Butt-Head"), and the progressively more amazing, Seth Rogan. (Three people in America may know Seth as Ken Miller from the short-lived "Freaks and Geeks", but I'm guessing even less know him as one of the writers behind "Da Ali G Show", or a producer of "the 40 Year Old Virgin". He's only 25 years old and is more accomplished than an ending to Mission Impossible). The film is produced by Judd Apatow, and for those three people that knew Seth from "Freaks and Geeks" will probably know that Judd, the director of that series, has kept most of that failed show's cast alive, from "Undeclared", "Anchorman...", "the 40 Year Old Virgin", "Knocked Up", "Superbad", "the Pinapple Express", and so on, it's almost a game of spotting these actors pop back up. Look for Steven Bannos, he's hidden in this one. The film was directed by Steven Brill, who doesn't really have too much to brag about on a resume. He worked with Apatow on 'the original Zoolander', "Heavy Weights" and helped Adam Sandler get out of comedy with "Little Nicky" and "Mr. Deeds". The film focusses on three kids, the chubby Troy Gentile (the young Jack Black in "Nacho Libre" and "... The Pick of Destiny"), who does a great performance. A few times during the film I wished that they were making another Goonies so that this curly haired kid could play Chunk (and that means a lot from me, Goonies is very close to my heart. Literally. I got One-eye'd Willy tattooed on my chest). The tall and amazingly skinny, Nate Hartley. Mostly an unknown actor, I've seen him a few times in the audience of the Upright Citizen's Brigade LA theater, and speaking of the UCB, Ian Roberts plays this kids bully-like step dad, Matt Walsh is the principle, and even Matt Besser is thrown in for a great cameo as a pawn shop owner. The third kid is an unwanted edition by the two others. He out-geeks them with his tiny size and big braces smile. He's played by David Dorfman, the little creepy kid from the Ring. During their first day of high school they run into a bully, played by the Columbine shooter in Elephant, Alex Frost, and he has a sidekick, the fat bully from Mean Creek, the now slimmed out Josh Peck. Strange coincidence or bully type-casting? Scared to fight for themselves the three kids put out an add for a bodyguard. In one of the most amusing scenes in the film we see several well played personalities of hip hop thug, triad, mobster, and so ons interview, to only turn down the job down when they find out how little it pays. Here where Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson) comes in. Drillbit is a homeless guy, who went awol after refusing to fight in the middle east, and now wants to move out of LA up to Canada. He needs money for the trip so he takes the job after having the kids stare in his weathered eyes for a resume. His homeless friends convince him that he should milk the kid for all their worth, and plan to rob their parent's home. Predictably Drillbit begins to like the kids and changes his mind. To protect the three kids Drillbit poses as a substitute teacher and monitors the bullies. While at the school Drillbit goes by the screenplay numbers and finds a love interest, played by Leslie Mann (part of the Freaks and Geeks ongoing crew), predictably she falls for him, but he has a secret to tell her, he's not a teacher or a doctor, yada yada yada, will she still like him? Of course. Sorry for the spoiler, but even the bugs in the theater's popcorn saw that coming. This film is a work in progress, listed as a March 2008 release, so I won't get into details over how some scenes may not flow well. Overall speaking, the heart of the story is childish and contrived, but the humor is a little edgy (a surprising amount of swearing) and very teen-20s suitable. It really feels like the crew was having fun and the cast was free to play with their characters. Sure, there's a fairly recycled plot and even some jokes (when two kids are running from a bully they stop to take photos with some hot girls, a nod to Ferris Bueller) but will probably be fresh to a lot of kids today. I'd call it the freshmen version to the upcoming senior-based film "Superbad". Head and shoulders, and stomach above any sugary Disney film.
