Category: Interviews

[Editor’s note: This was meant to be a video interview and going great, until about the last two minutes. Then my computer froze. Much embarrassment. It was finished on a phone where I had to write down answers on notes. Most of the interview the phrasing is accurate as the audio recording saved, magically.]

Review of The Opening Act can be seen here!

Gorgon Reviews: Thanks for stopping by Steve.

Steve Byrne: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it!

GR: First question, what is the first movie you remember seeing in theaters growing up?

SB: Superman! Directed by Richard Donner, starring Christopher Reeve, that’s the first film I remember seeing.

GR: You are the first person I’ve interviewed who had that answer just ready to go, usually people are caught off guard and have to think for awhile.

SB: (laughs) Well its my favorite movie of all time, I remember seeing it, yeah.

GR: Do you remember how old you were?

SB: Well, I must have been 3 or 4 at the time, I just remember a second of it. I remember seeing it. And then I remember seeing it on TV when I was a little kid too, and just being enamored by it. And to this day it is probably one of my favorite films.

GR: Steve, what movie made you cry the most?

SB: (Cringes) Okay this is going to be embarrassing, and I am sure you heard this before from other people. I’ve only seen my father cry once before in my life, and it was when his father died, and my daughter has seen me cry during episodes of Shark Tank, okay?

GR: I let loose pretty easily. I would say I’ve seen Up quite a bit, and and that first 8 minutes of Up has gotten to me every single time. EVERY single time I watch that. And it is on quite a bit in our household, I just get misty eyed.

GR: I am surprised I got such a real answer there, because that question was in your stand up special almost a decade and a half ago. (Steve laughs again). So you had an episode of Comedy Central Presents in the mid-2000s and at the beginning of your movie, you featured a lot of clips from that series. How much did that show mean to you and help advance your own career?

SB: Comedy Central Presents was the first thing I had, at the time it was like, all the young comics in New York City, and across the country, it was their first real kind of break. And for sure that was my first break. Absolutely, without a doubt.

That and BET’s ComicView. (Laughs a lot). I did ComicView twice for some reason, I don’t know how I ended up there, but I got a standing ovation the first time I did it. So that has probably something to do with it. And I got a lot of college work out of it. But Comedy Central Presents was the cool one. I was like, “Yeah, alright, I made it. I’m on my way!”

GR: I watched a lot of those myself during that time so when they all started flashing across the beginning of the movie, I realized I’ve seen all those specials, and that is when it clicked that I knew your name before from your special there.

GR: Stand up and acting have a lot of similarities, but what made you want to transition to directing instead?

SB: Well, I, wrote this script, as an exercise, just to see if I could write a screenplay, if I’d have the discipline to do it. And I thought, well, if I am going to invest my time in writing something, why not write about something that I want to see, and I’ve never seen something from A-Z a film about stand up comedy.

So I just wanted to write about that, and then when it was actually being made, Vince Vaughn [Producer] asked me “Do you want to be in it? It’s being made, what do you want to do?” and I knew I was too old to be the MC of the feature and I am too young to be the headliner. So I thought, “To hell with it, I’m just glad it is being made!” So he said, “Why don’t you direct it?” and I had never directed anything before but he said, “Well you never wrote anything before either, but now you did it, and it’s your story, so direct it!” So I said okay. Never contemplating how overwhelming it was, but I am glad I did it, I am glad I was the purveyor of this story, and I’m really proud of it.

GR: Ah, never had any intentions of being a director until it happened.

SB: Exactly, I knew if it ever got made I’d be too old to play a kid in his 20’s, going on the road for the first time, but I wanted to write a film about a kid driving to Las Vegas for his very first time in his 20’s. Not a man driving home from Vegas in his 50’s. Which uhh, could have been me.

GR: How much of this was based on your own life?

SB: Oh the minute Will hits the road in the film, everything that has happened in the movie has happened to me. That’s why you can’t make this stuff up. All the comics that are in it, they’ve said the same three things to me after they screened it. 1) I loved it, 2) It was so authentic, and 3) And you just retriggered horrible memories from the first few years of my comedy career, now I need to go see my therapist again. So I was really happy to hear that.

GR: How did you pick Jimmy Yang for the lead of this film?

SB: (Sighs), Well, I didn’t pick Jimmy Yang, he held me up at gun point, after a missed connection on Craig’s List, he met me in Wal-Mart,

GR: And he said “Gimme Dat Dick!”

SB: That’s right, yeah, “Gimme Dat Diiiick!”. Good call back by the way. [Editor’s note: That is a quote from the movie.]

SB: When you’re casting this, because it was semi-autobiographical, I thought I might as well cast somebody that kind of looks like me, and I didn’t do it for diversity sake, I hate when people do that, I hate when people make it an agenda, it is certainly not that. But there are very few stand up comedians that are Asian, and there are very few stand up comic Asians that are also working actors, so Jimmy was the first one we went to, Jimmy took it and I didn’t have to talk to anyone else after that.

GR: Was there any celebrity that was the inspiration behind Billy G?

SB: Ah yes, there was an inspiration behind Billy G. His name is Billy G, because he was named after Billy Gardell. And most people know Billy Gardell from the show Mike and Molly, I’ve had a lot of mentor’s along the way, and I’ve had a lot of people give me sage advice, and I toured with Billy Gardell, along with brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Editor’s Note: This is when my computer froze. I know, in the middle of a probably touching answer. Once my compute restarted, it also decided to do an update and I realized it was a lost cause, but Steve waited for me to get back on Zoom on my phone, and we finished the interview there.]

GR: Okay, one of the things I really appreciate is the is that all of the side characters in this film have personality and a reason for existing, without still taking away from Will’s story. The DJ is mysterious and crazy, but it never gets fully explained. Chad is an interesting comic, the girlfriend is actually supportive the whole time…and then there is Chip. What is up with Chip?

SB: (Laughs) Well, Chip is like the gatekeeper to Will’s dreams. He is the one who ultimately is giving Will a shot by letting him MC at the club, and there are a lot of managers like that who have to book for multiple clubs across the country, so if Will can succeed, it leads to a lot more opportunity. And uhh, he is based on two managers in particular, ones who pushed a lot of boundaries.

GR: You mentioned earlier that all of these things happened to you. So you had the radio interview gone wrong, the hecklers and all of that?

SB: YES! In Raleigh, NC was the story about going to the trailer park with the girl who had a, well, Marine boyfriend. The Radio interview was from LA, and the hecklers was in Dallas.
[Editor’s Note: I hope I got the cities right for that. Damn chicken scratch notes.]

GR: Thank you so much for stopping by to talk Steve, sorry about the tech issues there. The Opening Act opens this weekend at least in The Alamo Drafthouse if not more places.

SB: Thanks for taking time watch and review and give the film some buzz. I appreciate it.

Click HERE for an interview with the director of the film, Maria Bissell!

Sometimes a title is all you need. How To Deter A Robber. There. Five words, with two that really stand out. Who talks like that? Why are they talking like that? Is this a film to talk about keeping robbers away from your home?

You’d like ask is this a remake of Home Alone? That kid knew how to keep away some potential robbers, with some sadistic methodology.

Is this a film that will up the ante? Change the type of lead? Kill someone? Go hard R? Or will it not seem like Home Alone at all?

I do know that no matter what, just by title alone, I am curious and immediately comparing it to an awkward classic.

Being tied up with your crew is not a good way to deter a robber.

Young (eh, 28 year old actress) little Madison Williams (Vanessa Marano) is trying to pine the perfect essay for getting into college after she finishes high school. She is running out of time. It is winter. But the inspiration she seeks and craves fails her, and she realizes the writing she is creating is really not up to her standards. Her mother is constantly on her case about things, never trusting her, and judging her, so she feels trapped.

But she is with her boyfriend (Benjamin Papac) and they sneak out one night to a friend’s cabin, to check to make sure things are okay. They end up staying the night, and when they wake up, the place was robbed! Damn! People came and ransacked the place, and now they will be blamed, damn teenagers. They couldn’t even deter a robber (that’s the movie !!) by being in the home, so they need to up their game.

Madison’s uncle (Chris Mulkey) takes the two of them to his own cabin to spend some time away from her mom, while also teaching them some better tactics to keep the place secure. And sure enough, the robbers (Abbie Cobb, Sonny Valicenti) are coming their way next, so they are going to do their best, or their worst.

Also starring Nikki Crawford, Jonah Ray, Leah Lewis, and Gabrielle Carteris.

Trigger Warning: Green Face!

First cat out of the bag, this film never feels like Home Alone, and that is obviously a good thing. It needs to be able to stand on its own legs. Sure, some traps maybe get set up and attempted, but the important note here is that some teenagers who aren’t sociopaths aren’t amazing engineers to do elaborate pain enduing schemes, they just are not. How to Deter a Robber goes for a more realistic approach to the being in the same house as a robber, by, you know, being caught almost immediately.

But how do you get away from the robbers? How do you make the cops find them? How do you avoid death and unravel their trust? These are all important aspects as well, and where a lot of the film lies.

The main thing I love about this movie is the chemistry between the cast. I will admit I haven’t seen anything Marano has been a major part before (just side roles in TV shows that I didn’t notice), but she definitely brings it this time. Her relationship with her family members, the boyfriend, and the robbers are all believable. She is a talkative charmer.

The movie is a bit of a comedy more than anything, and despite not being laugh out loud funny most of the time, it is still amusing, and I still smirked throughout. It was one of those films that could be sweet, yet still have some darker parts throughout it. And now that I have seen this movie, I know what a Hodag is, and learning about new monsters is always worth your time.

3 out of 4.

On the second night of Fantastic Fest my screeners gave to me, a film with a non-descript title!

Girl premiered on Friday, September 25, the second night of Fantastic Fest, but the review is coming late (despite me watching it early) because I wanted to also be able to link a review with the director. That interview is here.

Girl is unique in that out of all the movies coming out this week for the festival, it already has a publisher (out in November) and actually has some actors your are likely to recognize! And that probably makes it the most hyped up film of the festival.

This is the most non-descript Thorne has ever looked. Girl (Bella Thorne) travels home. Girl has letter. Girl mad at someone? Girl mad at daddy. Girl want kill daddy!

Girl in small town. Girl don’t remember others. Girl go to house. Girl can’t find daddy. Girl eventually find daddy. Daddy dead! No! Girl want kill daddy! Daddy already dead. 🙁

Girl tell cop (Mickey Rourke). Girl tell others. Girl fend off Charmer (Chad Faust). Girl sleuth. Girl figure out mystery. Girl find daddy killer.

Also starring Lanette Ware, Glen Gould, and Elizabeth Saunders.

A lot of zoomed in faces, what is this, Les Miserables? Girl gives off a real small town vibe in a few ways. One, small amount of locations. Two, the locations used are run down. And three small amount of characters.

Speaking of characters, they all are not given names that are given to us, but referred to by other things like Girl, or Charmer. It gives a unique “everywhere” feel to the film, and lets you insert your own character names into the roles if you’d like. It also makes the IMDB page for these actors look like they did when they first were getting roles in tv and film.

The story for this movie is really simple, but one that has emotional weight. This is all mostly due to Thorne in the lead role. I know she has a lot of flack lately for various reasons, but she does nail this role.

Given the simplistic nature, I did want something a bit more overall still. I personally could never feel attached to the store and only maintained a small interest in its resolution. I needed some other hook to really go hard with the emotional journey they went on.

It definitely is a film with promise and does a lot with its presumed limited resources at the disposal. And worth it for those fans of Thorne.

2 out of 4.

Click HERE to see my interview with the director and HERE to see my interview with the main star of the film!

One of the scariest concept horror movies you could probably watch this year would definitely be about getting a hair cut. Why the battle of the lockdowns started with people protesting hair care, I don’t know. I haven’t had my hair cut since January (and it is a lot of hair now), but I am not dying from it, you know?

In The Stylist, we are going to have people dying from getting their hair cut. Okay, they don’t die from the hair being cut actually, it is usually the other parts of the body that get cut that really does the job.

But maybe the whole movie is a metaphor? A quiet virus waiting to strike in the most unlikely of places? Let’s run with that.

Yeah, I’d be nervous with anyone behind me trying to cut my hair. Claire (Najarra Townsend) is a quiet hair stylist. She is good at her job. People often compliment her skills. She doesn’t force extra small talk, but does what is required. Hell, some people love her for that, because they can do all the talking.

But Claire also, you know, sometimes, if the feeling is right…kills her clients. You know, ones who wouldn’t be repeat customers, or who wouldn’t have people looking for them, and don’t know they are at that specific shop. Thank goodness these women like to say so much personal stuff to someone they don’t know!

Claire doesn’t just kill them though. she does the full descalping, making sure the hair that was cut is preserved and then she can wear it herself! She can pretend to be another person, yay!

The plot of this movie comes about when one of Claire’s normal clients, Olivia (Brea Grant), is in desperate need of a new stylist for her wedding. This puts Claire into her social circle, with new women friends, and into Olivia’s home. What’s a murder stylist to do, you know?

It would be creepier if she worse the face too, we all agree, right?

As already mentioned, The Stylist potentially picked the perfect time to come out during the virus issues that have plagued the US this year. But really, any movie coming out now has picked a bad time to come out, so it is a hard balance.

The Stylist was based off of a short of the same name, same director and star, and led to a successful crowdfunding campaign to make it into a full film. In this film, we figure out what is going on with this stylist, why does she do the things she does (sort of), and all of this leads to a logical conclusion by the end.

Because it is a logical conclusion, it does take away some of the weight or shock of its impact, but I am a little disappointed in that what is happening can be predicted with ease.

The film shines in its early moments and in the general creepiness of the lead, when she isn’t even going for creepy, but because she is atypical in her actions that is how it comes across, digging her deeper into despair.

I know so little about hair styling for weddings that I had to ask my wife, “Wait, why would someone get their hair done days before the wedding, don’t they sleep and get messed up with pillows?”. Ah test styling. That is a thing.

Overall, this is a film that works well when focusing on the strong lead acting and strange nature of her job and uh….side job?, telling a story that is believable for the most part, but little shocks along the way.

2 out of 4.

[Editor’s Note: Wow do I suck! This was a phone interview, and the phone interview didn’t save record. It is the right length, but no sound at all thanks to my phone’s settings. I did write notes during the answers to the questions, but not all of the wonderful detail that he gave, so these answers are going to not be as great or detailed as Screwball McGee requested. ]

Gorgon Reviews: Thank you for this interview! First of all, would you like me to call you Pauly or Mr. Shore or something else?
Pauly Shore: I want you to call me Screwball McGee!

GR: I can do that! Definitely one to remember. Again, thank you for the interview. I want to say that I saw all of the 90’s films a lot growing up, so I am a fan, but clearly my dad is a bigger fan of you, since someone had to buy all those VHS tapes. As soon as I got the interview I called him up to let him know and he is finally proud of me.
Screwball McGee: Sweet, dude.

GR: Here is the question I always ask people right away, what is the first movie you remember seeing in theaters?
SM: Ahhhh, fuck man. Let me think. It was probably the Marx Brothers. My mom would take me and Peter down to the theater, right on Sunset Boulevard. Yeah it was definitely the Marx brother films.

GR: Sorry about the recent passing of your parents by the way. You obviously got your start working in The Comedy Store your parents founded and it is said you used to open for Sam Kinison. Do you think he had the biggest effect on your comedy career? Were there other comics you idolized around then as well?
SM: Yeah for sure Sam, watching him was something incredible and unique, his emotion and energy he brought to the stage. But also at the time Richard Pryor, Eddie murphy, and Jim Carrey.

GR: When you developed “The Weasel” character for your show, was it based on someone in particular or just a fictional version of your self?
SM: Oh it is based a little on everyone, my friends, my parents, Sam, random people I’ve met. The community really brought him out, and I was the only doing something like that at the time, with the unique pauses between words and dialect. But I didn’t go out and say “Oh, this is the Weasel idea” and make him, but it just came about all together. Like sometimes when you are setting up a one person show, you don’t even necessarily know what the name of the show is until you actually make the show.

GR: Do you ever get worried that people will never be able to separate “The Weasel”, from you, the real Screwball McGee?
SM: When you get older and past 50, you don’t really worry about how people see you. Adam Sandler said something similar in a quote [Editor’s note: Which I won’t even pretend to write down, but its you know, similar.] You can be all these different things to so many different people.

GR: I guess I will talk about the movie too. Guest House felt like a more R Rated version of your early 90’s work. Is that how you took it too?
SM: This is actually the first R rated film I have ever done, even though my stand up pretty R Rated.

GR: How did you land the major role in Guest House after so long away from movies?
SM: Actually, they brought me n to be like a police officer for the film, but once the director found out that they had access to me, and after he saw my interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, he wanted instead to get me in the lead spot. So he went around and just asked the whole cast and crew if it was fine and everyone loved it, and it went that way

GR: Final question, which of your old co-stars would win in a fight between Stephen Baldwin, Andy Dick, Sean AStin, or Brendan Fraser?
SM: Oh uhhhh, I think Stephen Baldwin, he is a beast.
GR: 90’s Baldwin or now Baldwin?
SM: Either of them. Both of them. Have you seen him and his family?

GR: Thank you again for chatting with me barely about your new movie and more about your life!
SM: You’re welcome, tell your dad I said “hey. “

How many people here have dogs? Are you a fancy enough dog owner to get them groomed to looking their best? I know I am not fancy enough for that. I have a hard enough time cleaning up my dog’s sleeping area to worry about how pretty she feels. But that is why I cheated and got a dog with short fur that handles her own business.

Assuming you actually get your dog groomed, you might already be aware that there are dog grooming competitions out there! To see who can style their dogs to look the neatest, with the most precise cuts, and best brushed hair, I guess. Well, if you are interested in that, then this is not the documentary for you.

No, Well Groomed goes that step further. Because there is dog grooming, then there is creative dog grooming. Where you take your precious fluffy, and you add color, bling, art style, pizzazz, the whole nine yards. You make them into a real life pinata, or statue, and you show off your “doggy sculpture.”

No really, this is a real thing with competitions and judges, and trust me, people love it.

The dog is now multiple chickens.

The creative dog groomers end up doing a whole lot to make their pets stand out. They dye their hair, they add other accessories, and they still get all the normal grooming aspects, like nails cut and everything in its perfect place.

But is it cruel? Well, it could be. But if you talk to the dog owners, they go out of their way to make sure anything they use is safe for their pets, especially the dyes. They make sure their pet is loved, and only do it to pets that show a willingness for the act. They aren’t forcing a dog to accept it, the dogs look happy to be receiving so much attention, even if they don’t get it themselves.

I will admit, I expected to hate this documentary. It has been available on HBO for awhile, and I never got around to it, but the version I watched is a longer version, with 20ish more minutes of footage, and it was a delightful evening.

The documentary follows four contestants through a normal circuit of competitions, so we get to see them hone their craft and designs, take their ideas and turn it from concept to actual doggo. The women that are seen are very different, at various stages of their careers as competitors, have businesses related to dog grooming and really explain their drive and why they are passionate about this competitive scene. After all, that is what really matters, having passion (and fine, pet safety, get out of here PETA).

Without Well Groomed, I likely wouldn’t have known about the creative side of dog owning. I would have just continued happily with my Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show knowledge (which is close to zero) and been content. But it is fascinating to watch what people can still learn to do as a new form of pet owning, and that we still have somewhere to go creatively as a species. Even if it means dressing up other species.

3 out of 4.And you can see a video interview with the director of Well Groomed, Rebecca Stern, here!

Stephen Merchant did not grow up watching wrestling. He didn’t start watching wrestling in his adult life either. In fact, his interests in wrestling were close to none. So how did he come about directing what seems one of the first biography wrestling movies?

Well, we can blame the Tooth Fairy for that.

That is where Merchant met Dwayne Johnson, formerly The Rock, a man larger than life it seems. Johnson first heard about Paige’s upbringing in a documentary about her household, The Wrestlers: Fighting With My Family. He loved it, wanted it to be a feature film.

According to Merchant, he was contacted by Johnson with the idea to make the film. Merchant believes because he is potentially one of the few British directors/writers he knows. Below are some exerpts from our talk, including how he got into writing and directing at all, how that developed into directing Fighting With My Family, and various aspects of nerd culture in film.

Stephen Merchant is SM, Gorgon Reviews is GR, and Other Interviewer is OI.

GR: “You said before you got your start writing reviews at a local paper, and they sent you to the movies that they didn’t know about or didn’t care. And that after you saw the movie Swingers, it sort of changed for you and inspired you to get into writing yourself, can you speak upon that?”

SM: “I don’t know if you’ve seen Swingers but it is Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, just like a real gang of friends. That was a movie about handsome guys dating in LA, trying to inspire to be actors, and I’m this geeky kid in Bristol, in England, and yet that felt like it could have been my friends. It was so specific, to LA, the way they spoke, all that stuff. And yet it felt completely relatable. The observations felt authentic and true and they rang true. And I just thought that it was really inspirational to me, ‘Oh maybe I can do this.’ So I did some student films at the university, and then got into comedy and the radio, always with that thought that if we got the right gang together we can do this ourselves.”

“And in a way that’s how The Office was made. ”

GR: “You got Ricky,”

SM: “Yeah we had a similar sensibility, just hunkered down, did it ourselves, BBC left us alone, they didn’t know what we were up to and away we went.”

OI: “I love that they hired you and let you both do it alone.”

SM:“That was the thing about having Ricky, because Ricky was…14 years older than me. He was in his mid-30’s and I was in my early 20s when we did The Office, so I had all this sort of youthful excitement, enthusiasm, and ambition, he had the kind of [attitude] like, ‘I don’t care, I’m not going to do a dance for these people,’ he had that confidence! Just to walk out of a meeting and go, “Alright guys, no no no, if you don’t want to do it this way, it’s fine, we will just go elsewhere,” and I’m like ‘what are you fucking doing, idiot!’ ”

“But at the same time I got this weird, sort of youthful arrogance, where I remember at a meeting where they said, ‘Why should we let you and Ricky direct it?’ and I said, ‘We might be the next Orson Welles!’” And in my mind it didn’t even sound crazy, none of us know! Well maybe, we’ve never done it! We might be! Who knows?”

OI:“How did you go about directing these bigger stars on what to say, and deliver the level of intensity needed?”

SM: “Well I first of all really encouraged improvisation and I wanted that going on. Vince is the master of that, it goes back to the fact for Swingers, (which was an amazing thrill for me) and I wanted that character to have humor because the guys she trained with for real are really tough, they put you through the mill, because wrestling fans are abusive. If they don’t like you, they will tear you to shreds. You have to be made of iron to survive. It seems to me that Vince needed to be someone that trash talked all the time, as a way of testing your metal. ”

“When Florence [Pugh] went out in front of the real wrestling fans to recreate that match-up, they were giving her shit. She said she was on the mat at one point, and there was like an eight year old boy just shouting, ‘You suck!’ to her and shes an actress, not even a real wrestler. And what do you do? You use it as fuel I guess.”

GR: “On that note, you’ve been to cons before due to some of your past work, you’re aware of certain people’s intensity in these subjects and video games. How do you think those type of fans compare to wrestling fans in terms of their passions?”

SM: “I think if the internet and twitter existed when I was 17 or 18 I’d have been one of those people. I remember being so angry when the original Tim Burton Batman came out because they made the Joker the person who killed Batman’s parents, like ‘No, that was Joe Chill, what are you talking about?’ And I was FURIOUS! Like If I could have tweeted Tim Burton, I would have been all, ‘Oh you asshole, how dare you!’ I would have been one of those guys. ”

“And as times have gone on, and I made movies and TV myself I understand that passion but I also understand that when you’re on this side of the fence, there’s no malice. I’ve had to make choices in this movie. The real story took place over four years, I can’t press even half of all that into a movie. They changed the WWE logo in the middle of her story, they changed the name of the NXT…like, I can’t put that in the movie. No one’s going to be able to follow what’s going on. So you know, you have to make choices, but I am sure there will some fans like, ‘Well that doesn’t make sense! That logo was different in 2010…’ Well okay you guys, you’re right, you got me. I’m going to fan jail. ”

“If you’re making a Batman movie, you’ve got what is it, 60 years of that character now? You can’t get every factor of him the same, you’ve just got to make choices, and that’s what I did.”

————-

Fighting With My Family is getting a wide release on February, November 22, and my review of the film can be read here.