The MacGuffin

Spencer interviews Rachael Harris, star of Natural Selection, which screened at SIFF.

This segment is also available on Stitcher and iTunes. The audio version can be downloaded directly from here.

Abe is so conservative he believes his wife’s infertility is a sign from God—they should not have sex. Ever.

Despite the self-enforced “No Sex” law, Abe (John Diehl) still feels compelled to procreate—just maybe not exactly the way God intended. For 25 years, Abe has been fulfilling his need to carry on the human species by making regular deposits at the local sperm bank.

You would think I had produced the film, with how desperately I wanted Bridesmaids to make a ton of money this past weekend. I’m not a person who makes a point to read box office predictions, and in this case I actively avoided it—any prediction, high or low, could only add to my anxiety. Now we know that it landed at number two in its opening weekend, with just under $25 million, around $10 million less than the second weekend numbers for Thor. I hear that this is good, about $10 million above where predictions were tracking last week. And yet, my exact words on hearing that number were: “And when The Hangover 2 makes three times that, I’ll weep.”

Allen Almachar: Bridesmaids (2011) stars the comedian Kristen Wiig, who, for the last couple of years, has been one of the funniest people around, and perhaps one of the last reasons to still watch Saturday Night Live. I for one, am glad to see her finally take the lead role in this film. Here, she plays the lovelorn ex-baker/current jewelry saleswoman Annie. Annie has had bad luck in love and life, with a failed bakery on her resume and brother/sister roommates who seem to be a little closer than is appropriate.

I have been an avid fan of Judd Apatow’s ever since he produced one of the best TV shows of all time, Freaks and Geeks. I’ve loved nearly everything he’s directed or produced in the years since. Superbad is one of my favorite films of all time. The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Pineapple Express are some of the best comedies of the last ten years. Audiences seemed to agree with me on Apatow up until around 2009. None of his films since then have made as much money as those early hits, and aren’t as well regarded. Many people have seen them as more of the same, similar premises featuring all of the same actors. Apatow’s new film as producer, Bridesmaids, comes out today and seems to be made to answer the criticism of his past work. Gone are Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, and in their places is a group of very funny women. The film also sees Apatow re-team with Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig, now a director, and the end result is the best film he’s been involved with since Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Another MacGuffin Film Podcast Top 5′s segment. This time Brandi and Allen share their top 5 overrated films.

Craig is 16 years old, thin and impossibly shy. He’s pretty sure nobody understands him. He’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. He dreams of committing suicide. At one point in the movie Craig (played by Keir Gilchrist) sits in an art class, confined in a psychiatric ward at a city hospital. He’s surrounded by people with all kinds of problems, anti-social tendencies, suicidal tendencies, schizophrenia. Craig came to be here of his own volition and quickly regretted it. He’d be the first to tell you, he doesn’t belong here. But as he sits in this mock classroom with a blank piece of paper and a pile of art supplies before him the teacher urges him to draw something, anything. Finally he relents.

Even if nothing else had worked in Going the Distance, I would have had to thank the film for its lead female character, and in particular for her introductory scene. Running down the hallway at work, her first line of dialogue is an outburst of profanity as she hurts herself; the second, a snarky aside to a co-worker who points out her lateness. Swearing and sarcasm: a girl after my own heart.

Since we aren’t filming an episode of the podcast this week, I wanted to do a post for the DVD picks of the week.  I haven’t consulted with John, but I’m pretty comfortable making these selections.

Spencer is joined by Kevin Malcolm, co-host of the Backroom Comics Podcast.  They open the episode with a discussion of comfort films – films you love to watch after a hard day. Next, they move on to a retrospective of the summer film season. They conclude the episode with a discussion of what they have been watching lately.