Here's a really silly interview between musician John Vanderslice and Stella (Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, David Wain) that serves as proof that the Stella guys should never be apart from each other.
Since their time with the sprawling 90’s MTV sketch group The State, David Wain and Joe Lo Truglio have gone on to, respectively, direct and act in several successful films including Wanderlust, Role Models, and the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer. Yet, prior to gaining recognition on the big screen, the duo made a brief foray into the theater with their 1998 play, SEX (a.k.a Weiners and Boobs). Written along with fellow State member and Wain’s oft co-writer Michael Showalter, the play is an irreverent comedic romp, which in its original production starred the writers, and most notably, featured a scene from David Mamet’s GlenGarry Glen Ross that [...]
Max Greenfield will play Paul Rudd's younger brother in the David Wain romantic comedy satire, They Came Together. Earlier this year, Wain directed an episode of the New Girl so one can only assume he caught a look at Greenfield's thoroughly impressive Jewish abs and knew he had to cast him in one of his movies.
Lost Roles is a weekly column taking a particular subject and exploring all of their movie and TV projects that came close to happening but didn’t for one reason or another. This week, we turn our attention to David Wain, whose new film Wanderlust opens tomorrow.
David Wain spent the early part of his career jumping from cult hit to cult hit as a writer, director, and actor on The State, Stella, and Wet Hot American Summer. Wain's comedies never achieved much mainstream success until he signed on to replace the original director of Role Models and rewrote the movie's script with his friends and frequent collaborators Ken [...]
The red band Wanderlust trailer is out, now with 100% more Joe Lo Truglio butt, goat-milking ejaculation analogies, and Paul Rudd giving himself a sex pep talk in the mirror. Whew. That's a lotta red band material. Hope they left some surprises for next Friday when the full movie comes out in theaters. Until then, let's all drink some strong tea with hallucinogenic properties and sit by the fire to wait.
As as an uber-fan of the famed nineties sketch group The State, it delights me that several of the members have continued to collaborate over the last twenty years. In 1998, a few short years prior to the production of the comedic masterpiece Wet Hot American Summer, State members Michael Showalter, David Wain, and Joe Lo Truglio wrote and produced the play Sex a.k.a. Weiners and Boobs over the course of four days. Showalter, Wain, and Lo Truglio and a majority of the original cast reunited this past weekend during the San Francisco Sketchfest to perform the play for only the second (and perhaps the last) time.
As David [...]
Great acting, Lutz! Sorry you're typecast as a hotel front desk person. Have you seen Sleepwalk with Me yet? Is it just 90 minutes of comedians watching other movies and resting their heads on each other's shoulders. If so, two tickets, please. If not, only one ticket, please.
It seems like, regardless of tonight's election results, Leslie Knope and Bobby Newport will be able to work together in the future. Variety is reporting that Poehler and Rudd are set to star in the David Wain and Michael Showalter written romantic comedy parody, They Came Together. The script was written soon after Wet Hot American Summer and has been sitting unproduced since. Wain will direct the faux-rom-com that will have everything: knick-knack stores, autumnal New York City, a talking dog. I know it's supposed to be a parody and all, but, guys, I still hope they end up together because, guys, that would be cute, totes cute, [...]
David Wain's answering questions on Reddit right now. Re: Wet Hot American Summer, and I quote, "We are working on the sequel (me and Michael Showalter). Original cast will return. Storyline is secret!" Huzzah!
The cast of Wet Hot American Summer teamed up with some guest stars at San Francisco Sketchfest this week to perform the film as a live radio play and make everyone who wasn't there about as jealous as we were back when we read the oral history of the making of the film.
Most of the cast played their original roles, with the additions of David Wain as the narrator, Busy Phillips and David Cross in the parts originated by Janeane Garofalo and David Hyde Pierce, Bobcat Goldthwait as the can of vegetables, and Andy Richter, Gillian Jacobs, Jessi Klein and John Hodgman filling out various [...]
Writer/director David Wain spoke to Laughspin today, confirming that he and co-writer Michael Showalter are working on a Wet Hot American Summer sequel. Wain says, "It is slowly but surely in the process of being made." When asked if they've written at least a few pages of the script, Wain laughed and replied with, "I would say we have more than a few pages."
Wain continued, "Seriously, we’re doing it. I know everyone wants to know. I’m flattered and thrilled, but the creative process has its own time schedule. And meanwhile Michael [Showalter] and I are in the editing process of the movie we shot over the summer [...]
Back in June, David Wain said he was working on an idea for a Wet Hot American Summer prequel that would be set in the same summer as the original, meaning "40-year-olds playing 16-year-olds." Well, if Judah Friedlander is to be trusted, we might see Wetter Hotter Americaner Summerer next summer. He told Columbus Alive:
I’ve been told that they’re making the prequel to Wet Hot American Summer and that I’m going to be in that. I don’t know any firm start dates, but I heard it might be happening in January.
For those who follow the calendar, January is pretty soon! Though he might not be 100% [...]
The reviews for the David Wain-directed, Paul Rudd-starring Wanderlust are here, and they're…disappointing. The story of two type-A New Yorkers learning to live in a hippie commune has a 55% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and most reviewers seem to feel that it's too heavy on improv and light on humor.
"Most of the funniest bits of this film already are in the commercials and the trailer," complains Marshall Fine of the Huffington Post. "[F]or every few jokes that hit…one sputters and dies," agrees the New York Times' Manohla Dargis. Roger Moore of the Chicago Tribune railed against the film as "a random, tedious and [...]
There's a lot of interesting stuff in this piece on David Wain — his movement between the mainstream and the esoteric, for one — but one especially interesting thread is the description of how his real-life stress gave him the idea for Wanderlust:
“You always fantasize about: Could I just pick up and completely do something else?” Mr. Wain said. “Who says you have to go to a job, and who says you have to earn money? Who says you have to have a bathroom with a door? All these things are societal assumptions, and how far can you go with that?”
