10 Possible Movie Character Spin-Offs.

With the recent release of the Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off, Get Him To The Greek, we seem to have begun the new Hollywood Trend. Remakes might not be out the door immediately, but now we can add the "spin-off" to the list. It was recently announced that Tom Cruise's character from Tropic Thunder, Les Grossman, will be getting his own movie. While both of these characters were funny in their respective films, we wonder if they can hold their own movies (according to those who have seen Greek, at least one of them can, apparently). But this made me raise the following question: Who's next? Or, rather, who could have the potential for a spin-off, what would it be, and would it even be very good? I've put together a list of 10 possible character spin-offs that could be in the foreseeable future... whether we want them or not.



Character: Uncle Rico
Portrayed By: Jon Gries
Original Film: Napoleon Dynamite
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Over the Mountains
Other Possible Cast Members: Some popular football players and/or celebs
Spin-Off Synopsis: After getting back together with his girlfriend at the end of Napoleon Dynamite, Uncle Rico realizes he needs now, more than ever, to make enough money to support the both of them. After moving to the big city, Uncle Rico goes back to his old ways of trying to scam people out of their money. His newest scam, selling what is essentially a steroids equivalent, ends him up in the penthouse of whatever famous football player the movie can afford. The football player, impressed with the product, pimps out Uncle Rico to his team, where he tells all his glory day stories. And instead of taking money, Uncle Rico is given the option of playing for the team in exchange for his product. But how long will it be before his new companions realize his scams and that he cannot, after all, throw a football over the mountains?



Character: Elias
Portrayed By: Trevor Fehrman
Original Film: Clerks II
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Trip to the Bay
Other Possible Cast Members: Mostly major cameo appearances.
Spin-Off Synopsis: Working at the video store wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. With people constantly coming in requesting the likes of Transformers 2 because of how amazing they say it is, Elias is fed up with the people. So when he hears of the upcoming Transformers 3, he wants to do something about it. Fellow businessmen Jay and Silent Bob reiterate a time when they traveled to Hollywood to stop a movie they didn't want made, which sparks Elias' sense of adventure. Elias must find a way to travel all the way to L.A., whether via bus or hitchhiking, to find Michael Bay and stop him from destroying his much-loved franchise. In the process, much antics ensue, such as getting involved with a Live-Action Role Playing (LARP) game and arguing whether or not The Hobbit prequels will be better than the Star Wars prequels. Not to mention once he actually gets to L.A., will he be able to survive morally in a city so full of immoral people?



Character: Steve the Pirate
Portrayed By: Alan Tudyk
Original Film: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Tentative Spin-Off Title: The Exciting Adventures of Steve the Pirate
Other Possible Cast Members: N/A
Spin-Off Synopsis: After discovering a map in the locker room of his much-loved gym, Steve the Pirate finds himself on a journey to find a secret treasure. But was this really fate, or was it a long-planned revenge from an old foe? (Yeah, this was my least thought-out one.)



Character: Brick Tamland
Portrayed By: Steve Carell
Original Film: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Anchorman Zero: The Rise of Brick
Other Possible Cast Members: Returning cast from Anchorman, sans Will Ferrell (maybe cameo at end)
Spin-Off Synopsis: The untold story of how Brick came to work at the famed San Diego news station and how he fared before the arrival of 70s celebrity Ron Burgundy. This includes many rivalries not only at his own station, but at other stations around town.



Character: Kuzzik
Portrayed By: Joe Lo Truglio
Original Film: Role Models
Tentative Spin-Off Title: No Place Like Foam
Other Possible Cast Members: Vincent Martella, Matt Walsh, Clark Duke
Spin-Off Synopsis: Kuzzik, who demands to be called Kuzzik at all times, gets fired from his job for constantly being late, being unproductive, and for just overall being weird. Because of this, he gets behind payment on his rent and worries that he'll end up homeless. But after seeing an online advertisement for a major L.A.I.R.E. (LARP) tournament in Canada with a hefty prize, Kuzzik and his fellow LARPers (Vincent Martella and Clark Duke) must take all the money they have left to make the trip, but that's not enough. Kuzzik must ask his enemy, Davith of Glencracken (Matt Walsh), to help. And he agrees... for mysterious reasons. So together they must all travel all the way to Canada with nothing but their fake weapons and the costumes on their backs. But tempers start to rise as the friends start getting tired of each other on top of the insanity of the reactions they get everywhere they go... and does any of it have to do with Davith? Is he really trying to help, or is he along to sabotage the team? Can they make it to Canada without beating each other senseless with foam swords? (Note: Potential tie-in with Clerks II Elias spin-off.)



Character: Fogell/McLovin
Portrayed By: Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Original Film: Superbad
Tentative Spin-Off Title: McLovin!
Other Possible Cast Members: Bill Hader, Seth Rogen, Danny Trejo, Rick Gonzalez
Spin-Off Synopsis: Officers Slater and Michaels have been working heavily to lessen gang violence in their city. But when a Gang Lord (Danny Trejo) sees the officers hanging around Fogell, the gang (including member Rick Gonzalez) targets him as a way to get to the men attempting to bring them down. But Fogell, not being home at the time, lucks out... for now. But the gang finds his old driver's license in his room and uses it to hunt him down, just knowing his picture and his supposed name--McLovin.



Character: Jedediah & Octavius
Portrayed By: Owen Wilson & Steve Coogan (respectively)
Original Film: Night at the Museum (both)
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Jedediah & Octavius' Big Adventure

Other Possible Cast Members: Jonah Hill (perhaps reprising his role from NatM2), Ricky Gervais
Spin-Off Synopsis: After Larry Daley calls in sick, the museum curator (Ricky Gervais) must call in a last-minute replacement guard (Jonah Hill) from the day shift, who also happens to be new, and who doesn't exactly know the craziness of the night shift. After the museum comes to life, everything comes to life, but things go wrong. After a bird snatches up the two figurine buddies and flies them out, they end up in the middle of the big city. Now, Jedediah and Octavius must battle the dangers of the night and make it back to the museum before the sun rises, or else both of them will turn to dust.



Character: Dr. Kuni
Portrayed By: Ken Jeong
Original Film: Knocked Up
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Mixed-Up
Other Possible Cast Members: Whoever can pull off rich families... and J.K. Simmons
Spin-Off Synopsis: Dr. Kuni is under a lot of pressure. He's in charge of two major baby deliveries in one day, both for very rich and powerful families who just so happen to be business rivals. And when it's time for the kids to go home, Dr. Kuni gets the paperwork mixed up and the wrong babies go home with the wrong families. And after Dr. Kuni realizes his mistake, he knows he has to do something about it, but he can't do anything about it straight-up. Why? Because the hospital director (J.K. Simmons) tells him that one more big issue for the hospital could cause the hospital to lose major funding, and the reveal of the baby switch could also cause heavy repercussions between the families. Now Dr. Kuni must find a way to switch the babies without anybody finding out.



Character: Chazz Reinhold
Portrayed By: Will Ferrell
Original Film: Wedding Crashers
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Get Rich or Crash Trying
Other Possible Cast Members: Jay Baruchel
Spin-Off Synopsis: After Chazz gets arrested for funeral crashing, his whole life goes into a downward spiral. He realizes that he no longer found enjoyment out of wedding or funeral crashing. But while in jail, he meets a young man (Jay Baruchel) who is in much need of money to help his family. And when both get out, they devise a plan to amp up the game. Chazz can use his crashing experience to con rich families. He and his new protegee get involved with an elderly member of a rich family at the wedding of her grandchildren and try to get put in the Will... as the grandmother is close to death. But what Chazz didn't expect was fighting the moral obligations of his new protegee, as well as the friendships and relationships gained with the family.



Character: Gayle Sweeney
Portrayed By: Jane Lynch
Original Film: Role Models
Tentative Spin-Off Title: Saving Sturdy Wings
Other Possible Cast Members: A.D. Miles
Spin-Off Synopsis: The Sturdy Wings Program is in a lot of trouble. It's losing its funding due to increasingly difficult kids who can't keep their "Bigs." So now she must sink back into her old ways of drugs and sexual favors to find a way to get enough money to keep the program running. And she can't do this alone... she must also bring in the help of Sturdy Wings veteran Martin Gary (A.D. Miles), though can he handle the degradation and rough underworld that Gayle will pull him through?


So what are your thoughts on these potential spin-offs? Do you have any of your own you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments!

2 In 1: Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

So I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall (a long time ago, actually… as this review has been sitting on the shelf for a while, so to speak), and I knew I’d have to put the review in with a 2 In 1, but couldn’t figure out the other movie to do it with. But then I finally decided to pair it up with another Judd Apatow film (and both including Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, and Jonah Hill... and possibly others), Knocked Up. And both films seem to be a little overrated. And, it seems that both are the best when the smaller characters are on screen, including Paul Rudd. So let me first start with the older of the two, which I’ve seen numerous times and have just gotten around to formally reviewing.

Knocked Up.

The best way to describe Knocked Up is to give a quote by Paul Rudd’s character within the movie: “Marriage is like that show Everybody Loves Raymond, but its not funny. All the problems are the same, but, you know instead of all the funny, pithy dialogue, everybody is really pissed off and tense.” And the movie is quite similar… sometimes it’s funny, but most of the time, it’s just a bunch of really pissed off people and tense moments.

Ben Stone (Seth Rogan) is a stoner loser. Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a successful TV reporter who just got a promotion. Going out to celebrate with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann), Alison goes clubbing and has a drunken night of fun with Ben, resulting in sex, which leads to the inevitable pregnancy that the film revolves around. So the rest of the film showcases the relationship between the two, as well as juxtaposing the relationship between Debbie and her husband Pete (Paul Rudd).

Now, to go back to my opening, there’s a lot of situational comedy that presents itself, even in the concept (stoner loser gets successful woman pregnant, and both are forced to cooperate in order to be there for the baby). But what happens throughout the film is mostly uncomfortable, tense scenes full of fighting, pissed-off people.

But the best parts of the film are those with the supporting cast, or even the tiniest of cameos or roles: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Joanna Kerns, Harold Ramis, Alan Tudyk, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Ryan Seacrest, James Franco, and Ken Jeong… among others. Seriously, my favorite part of the entire movie isn’t even in the movie. In the extended/deleted scenes, you can see the full, uncut version of Ken Jeong’s Dr. Kuni scene. That had me laughing so hard, much more than any of the rest of the movie did. The best part of the actual movie was Paul Rudd’s ‘chair’ scene in Las Vegas. And not even the whole scene itself including Seth Rogan’s ranting, but simply Paul Rudd’s tiniest movements or words (“It tastes like a rainbow!”). Hell, even Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s kids in the movie (which I believe are actually Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow’s kids) were entertaining.

As for the others, specifically Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogan, I just had difficulty caring… moreso with the former. It’s hard to care about a budding romance when you can’t stand one of the two. I mostly couldn’t stand Katherine Heigl for the majority of the movie and thought she was pretty much a bitch. The times when she didn’t get on my nerves and was actually likable were few and far between, such as when she’d sit on the couch looking for nudity in a movie for Ben’s website. Though I’m not saying Seth Rogan’s character was a saint, either, but at least he had personality outside of ‘stick-up-the-butt’.

So yeah, there were good moments, there were funny moments, but the majority just didn’t work for me. The movie is a romantic comedy. But when you can’t stand one or both of the pair in the romance, and the movie is more about being tense and fighting over being funny, it basically fails at its job. It does live up to the Judd Apatow degree, but I’m just not with everybody who says it’s his best work and much better than 40-Year-Old-Virgin and Superbad. It’s good, yeah… but it’s not great.

I Am McLovin!

Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

So I finally got around to seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was about what I thought it would be. Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) was just broken up with by long-time girlfriend and famous TV actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), the show for which he writes music. After some random advice given to him by his step-brother Brian (Bill Hader), Peter decides to go to Hawaii to try and forget about his ex instead of moping around and having meaningless flings. Though when he gets there, he discovers that Sarah is also there, along with her new boyfriend, British rock superstar Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Fortunately, a nice employee by the name of Rachel (Mila Kunis) tries to cheer him up, though Peter starts to get closer to her than he first expected.

The movie had a lot of funny moments, most of which were thanks to some of the smaller, more underused roles. Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill’s underused characters were great, more specifically Rudd’s (Hill’s whole subplot was nearly pointless). And then there was the newlywed couple with sexual difficulties who were pretty funny (“Christ is between your legs!” had to be the funniest line in the film). But for me, the guy who stole almost every scene he was in was Russell Brand as Aldous Snow. Everything he said was just plain funny, mostly because of how he said it in his very nonchalant kind of way.

But the movie did have quite a few dragging moments. It could have been trimmed down quite a bit. The beginning of the movie, before he gets to Hawaii, seems like it takes forever to get through. I wanted to get to the story already, but there were more and more scenes of him just moping around and crying. Then he finally gets to the island and does more moping around and crying. I know the movie was called Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and the point was him trying to get over her, but I think we got the point after the 30^th fetal-position crying scene. And, though I think he’s a fun actor, Jonah Hill’s whole part in the movie could have been trimmed down a bit, too. The only reason I think he might not have been was due to him, for whatever reason, being in just about every plot-important scene in the movie. I mean, I don’t know if it’s some unspoken rule that every Judd Apatow-linked film has to be at least two hours long, but they should really work on that a bit.

I really don’t have much else to say about the film. When it wasn’t dragging or unnecessary, I thought it was funny and entertaining (which it was, more often than not). I’d totally watch it again.

A Keanu 'Whoa'