Just For Laughs Rumour Mill

Confirmed by the warble-voiced Hollywood mentor of Charlyne Yi, the Reigning Queen of Mixed Media Mumblecore Comedy Performance: that fumbled smooch in the film Paper Heart wasn't just acting. The 23 year old Angeleno is dating her co-star, Michael Cera.

Just For Laughs Film Festival Jury Announcement & Paper Heart

I went out last night to catch Paper Heart, the mixed-format documentary (and stop-animation!) film from Nicholas Jasenovec & Charlyne Yi (you'll probably remember her from Knocked Up), documenting Charlyne's aw-shucks search for love, its meaning, and so forth. Jake Johnson (as Nick Jasenovec) as the slightly manipulative, but ultimately well-meaning director, was pretty funny, and while all-in-all the film depended on a certain mannered awkwardness, the essential charm of the cast and their own personalities stopped it from devolving into the unbearable twee-fest it could have been.

Michael Cera, for all his corduroy-clad stammering is a funny guy, and a lot of him in this film reminded me of his short-lived series Clark and Michael. Same apartment, too, I guess. Cameos by Seth Rogen, Demetri Martin, and a number of alt-comedy also-rans. Music production by Montreal's own Alden Penner (lately of Clues, formerly of the Unicorns).

Also on the JFL front, today they announced their jurists for the 13th edition of the film festival. From the press release:

This year's jury will be made up of 5 members of the entertainment industry, including David Greenbaum (Vice President of Production and Development, Miramax Films), Alex Epstein (writer, Bon Cop / Bad Cop), Melissa Auf de Maur (music artist from the band Hole and Smashing Pumpkins), Denis Côté (filmmaker, Carcasses) and Tendo Nagenda (Vice President of Production, Mandate Pictures).

Films are screening from July 16 to 25 at the NFB CineRobotheque on St. Denis, by Berri-UQAM metro.

Evan Dubinsky is still Googling himself, and unfortunately, intrepid searchers, I have no photographs of boys in panties here, just an old post on a Victorian musician named Panty Boy.

Ali Rahman information and whereabouts-seekers, please direct your attention to http://whereisalirahman.tumblr.com/

Q&A: Matt Silver & Pat Kiely (Kidnapper Films, Who Is K.K. Downey?)

Screenwriters, comedians, and mensches Matt Silver and Pat Kiely took some time to answer my questions about their work on the Showcase Series' The Foundation. 2 episodes of the upcoming series will be screened as part of the Just For Laughs Festival, which opens on Thursday, July 16th and occasionally subjects Montrealers to more street theatre than even they can handle.

How did Mike Dowse approach you to work on this project?

We had known Mike for a little while through our mutual friend Paul Spence. He had seen a few of our sketch shows back in the day and so when it came time to put together a writer's room, he gave us a shout. The room included myself, Pat Kiely, Paul Spence, a hilarious dude named Gord Skillet, Mike Dowse, his producer Jennifer Wilson, and a seasoned T.O. writer named Jackie May. It's really the best way to write comedy in my opinion, because you just sit around all day trying to be the funniest guy or girl in the room. (full disclosure: I was never the funniest guy or girl in the room).

You and Pat play the Tak Brothers in The Foundation: can you describe a bit about your characters and their relation to the series?

Pat plays an ex-Olympian who loses his legs to a drunk driver, and I play his skeevy drug-addict brother. In it's simplest terms, Pat is recruited to wheelchair his way across Canada by the head of a charitable organization and I tag along as his manager and drug dealer. Neither of these brothers are the nicest or healthiest dudes, and essentially they figure out pretty quickly a way to cheat the system by attaching the wheelchair to the back of a tour bus.

Both of you, if IMDB is any indication, appear to have had a rather busy couple of years, even besides working on K.K. Downey. Besides your God-given talent, Protestant work ethic and mounds of charm (etc., etc.), do you find that there's anything community-wise that Montreal has, that has kept you steadily working?

We've been lucky enough to have a bunch of friends who, over the last few years, have gone into production with a bunch of stuff. The anglo production community is pretty tight in Montreal, so if someone decides to shoot something (usually on a limited budget) they know that there's a pool of cheap talent out there. We just happen to be the cheapest of the cheap talent.

When will the series debut on Showcase?

I'm not 100% sure when The Foundation will be on Showcase. I'm thinking sometime in Autumn but again I'm not totally sure about that.

Pat Kiely: The only thing I can add is that "The Foundation" premieres on Sunday nights, starting September 20th at 10pm (after Weeds and before Kenny vs. Spenny).

Are there any plans for anything from Kidnapper Films in the works?

Kidnapper is cooking a few things up. We're hard at work on the script for our next feature, ostensibly a Montreal period piece where three idiots fix a horse race. We're also putting the finishing touches on another script which is being produced by Mike Dowse (FUBAR, Pete Tong) and John Hazlett (Suburbanators, These Girls). Besides that...shit I think that's it.

And... WHERE IS YOUR SERIES?

Where indeed, my friend. Where indeed. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Matt Silver as Mark in the film One-Man Party. Directed and shot by Mark Slutsky for the 2008 Montreal 60 Second Film Festival. This year's edition will be taking place on September 9th through 11th at Sala Rossa.

Thanks for the shout-out, Pardon My Hindi!

The Foundation at the Just For Laughs Film Festival

We're in the final stretch of the Montreal Jazz Fest, and while it was kind of interesting to press myself up against 100,000 other people for Patrick Watson's performance on Sunday night, truthfully, I've neglected my duties as a newly minted Quebecker (I declared my residency last Friday, after five years of living here), which, at this time, include wandering buzzed around the Quartier de Spectacle, fondling produce at a Farmer's Market or two, and playing pétanque in a city park.

Yes, I've been lazy, but now I'm summoning up all the civic pride I can to get involved, even if that means sitting in a dark theatre on a summer evening. (Thankfully, the weather's been mostly miserable...) The Just For Laughs Festival, widely known across the rest of Canada as the place where they film all of the filler stand-up comedy for Saturday night emergency programming on CTV, is here, and truthfully, I can take or leave stand-up comedy and comics. (And circus acts and the tam-tams and many other of Montreal's summer delights. Thank God they don't hold poetry slams outdoors.) But as it goes, there's something very compelling about this year's festival, and that's a screening of two episodes of a new television series on Canada's Showcase network (which re-broadcasts American cable shows, used to show a blue movie or two, and occasionally produces some Canadian shows) which stars two of the principals involved with last year's film, Who is K.K. Downey?, which premiered at Fantasia.

Kidnapper Films' Pat Kiely and Matt Silver make an appearance as the Tak Brothers, in an episode of a new five-part series called The Foundation, which is screening two episodes at the Just For Laughs festival. (Contrary to past years with this blog, I won't delve needlessly and deeply into the arcane details and connections, I'll just say that these are two very talented and very hard-working young men, and their lengthy CVs attest to that.)

From the trailer, it looks like it's just as funny, quick, offensive, and also features just as many questionable hairstyles and incidents of hard-drug use. Mike Wilmot (from It's All Gone, Pete Tong) stars as a morally bankrupt family patriarch, with Mike Dowse (Fubar, It's All Gone, Pete Tong) at the helm.

The Foundation at the Just For Laughs Film Festival
Thursday, July 23rd, 19h
NFB CineRobotheque
1564 rue St. Denis

I'll have a brief Q&A to post with the duo in the next day or so, but in the meantime, to give you a bit of context, here are some audio pieces. The first is a mock college radio show hosted by Terrance and Theo Huxtable that takes place prior to the events in Who Is K.K. Downey, and features an animated and aggravating caller, as well as selections from the film's spectacular soundtrack (Miracle Fortress, CFCF, Duchess Says, and others.). Unfortunately, we weren't able to re-create the smooth reggae sounds that follow on The Natty Dred Show. Production was by Ali Rahman and Martin Horn of Digital Bird Studios, with a little help from yours truly.

Who Is K.K. Downey? K.K. Cast (MP3 format)

Against Film Schools is a 2008 piece produced by Cristal Duhaime, who works on CBC Radio 1's Wiretap with Jonathan Goldstein, for the sadly short-lived and ambitious Savfaire magazine. The voice you'll hear is that of Matt Silver, expounding wisdom to the fresh and naive souls who wish to make it as film-makers.