The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, December 13, 2016 — 5
“For me, it’s glass. I always
get cut. TV show I just did –
cut. “Tomorrowland” – cut.
It’s always getting cut by glass!
You’re flying through the air,
doing flips and falling down
hard and none of that makes any
difference and then you lean on
the thing and you’re like, ‘what
the hell?’ And then you just get
cut by glass! That’s the worst
injury.”
It’s 9:22 a.m. in a conference
room at the Book Cadillac
Hotel in Detroit, and the room
is erupting with laughter as
Keegan-Michael Key explains
how he most often gets injured
on set. The Emmy award-
winning comedian and actor,
perhaps best known for his
sketch work on “Key and Peele,”
is in town for Thanksgiving and
to promote his upcoming film,
“Why Him?”
The holiday comedy about
a Midwestern family meeting
their
daughter’s
eccentric,
Silicon
Valley
millionaire
boyfriend features an all-star
cast – James Franco, Brian
Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Megan
Mullally and of course, Keegan-
Michael Key. It includes stunts,
accents, literal potty humor and
a lot of heart. Key describes the
feature as something “akin to a
film like, ‘Guess Who’s Coming
To Dinner?’”
He
sat
with
confidence
and ease, sipping coffee as
he explained what led him to
“Why Him?” After gushing
about the opportunity to work
with both the cast and director
John Hamburg, Key shared
his personal motivations for
choosing the film.
“I wanted to do stunts,” he
said. “If someone says you get to
play a modern day ‘Kato’ from
‘The Pink Panther’ — I’m not
saying no to that. I get to play
a character, which is what I
enjoy. Having the strange hair,
an accent … all of that outside-in
stuff.”
That he’s doing what he
enjoys is obvious in the film.
The sketch comedian is famous
for his hilarious impressions
and characters, and he does
not disappoint in “Why Him?”
Key plays Gustav, the personal
concierge of Franco’s character
Laird. Gustav is “high German
and educated. Very refined.” His
accent, quite distinguishable,
is reflective of Key’s talents.
Finding the specific dialect for
the character was a process of
trial and error, per Key.
“Yeah. I think the first table
read, I was just like, (Key uses
an extreme German accent) ‘Hi
guys!’ and after the table read
John (the director) says, ‘well
— that’s a little extreme. Maybe
he’ll just be German.’”
This kind of role — one
which allows for collaboration
between director and actor
— is where Key thrives. He
elaborated on the production
process,
explaining
that
Hamburg
“would
let
us
improvise quite a lot. It keeps
the momentum of the movie
going forward.” The extent to
which the cast could improvise
is shocking – one take lasted for
46 minutes. With the cameras
continuously
rolling,
the
actors would “keep throwing
spaghetti at the wall,” he said.
Clearly it worked – the comedic
chemistry between actors in
the film is palpable.
Occasionally, that chemistry
was
too
strong.
Further
detailing the 46-minute shoot,
Key reveals that it was “the
toilet scene, because we couldn’t
get through it.” In the film, Key’s
character Gustav and Bryan
Cranston’s character Ned share
an awkward encounter in the
bathroom.
“There are 46 minutes of
footage and I’m telling you
there’s 2 usable minutes. We’d
be three-quarters of the way
through the scene and we’d hear
a boom operator and then we
would be gone,” Key said.
Ultimately, he said, the only
possible way for Hamburg to
make the scene work was “to
use special effects, cut two
takes, put them together and use
CGI in the middle.” Key smiled
broadly while reminiscing about
the toilet scene. It seems there’s
no better exhilaration than 46
minutes in a bathroom with
Bryan Cranston.
“It was a lot of fun. How
often does an African-American
man get to make a movie where
he plays a German who know
martial arts? You have to say yes
to that kind of role.”
On the note of uncommon
roles for African Americans,
Key also discussed the potential
impact of another upcoming
film: “Hidden Figures,” about
African
American
women
mathematicians in NASA. The
fact that a movie could be made
about these women, he mused, is
the “power of cinema.”
“Cinema can evoke emotion
but cinema teaches,” he said.
“Especially in this day and age,
we might need more films which
show people of an ilk that I
didn’t know existed. Humans
that are helping the world, as
opposed to marginalizing.”
At a pivotal point of his
career, Key is uniquely qualified
to examine the potential impact
that cinema can have. He has
dedicated his life to the arts, and
it has paid off insurmountably.
Reflecting on where he is now,
he shared what he wishes he had
known starting out: that process
is perfection.
“Within yourself, you have
to figure out what makes you
happy. There’s not a destination
called perfection. That way lies
madness.”
He elaborated further, citing
recent achievements. “I didn’t
grow wings and become a
demigod when Jordan (Peele)
and I won an Emmy. The only
thing it means is, now you’ve
got to do better work! A part
of me goes, ‘an Emmy! That’s a
destination!’ No. It’s simply a
chapter in the book.
“It’s all process. You have to
be able to find fulfillment in this
moment. If you can start doing
that in your twenties, you’re
just going to have an easier
life. Otherwise, what are you
supposed to do? Were you happy
on the way to the top? That’s the
part you must cling to. It’s the
experience,” Key said.
He spoke with peacefulness,
aware of the journey an artist
must make yet unafraid of
the uncertain future. It was
inspiring to sit across from Key.
In a span of 15 minutes, he went
from demonstrating a ridiculous
German
accent
to
sharing
wisdom with an eager college
student.
His final piece of advice on
navigating life was a perfect
button
to
the
morning’s
interview.
“It’s: ‘Wow. Great. Next.’”
“Why Him?” opens nationwide
on December 23.
EMILY BICE
Daily Arts Writer
LITERATURE NOTEBOOK
I am the biggest bookworm
and literary advocate you will
ever meet. Most of my time is
spent thinking about books,
perhaps because I am endlessly
fascinated
with
how
life-
changing a book can be. I am a
sucker for the classics, and for
anything published before 1950
that was written as an attempt
to inspire social change.
But because so much of my
mind revolves around books,
I am incredibly intrigued by
censorship
and
the
people
behind it. Is it ignorance? Or is
it a sheltered lifestyle that leads
one to want so desperately to
censor things that human beings
need to be reading? What do we
do about it?
A once in a lifetime event. A
story Fox News and CNN will
just about kill each other over.
A dinner party to end all dinner
parties. Invite only, inside an
ornate library, catered by the
Cheesecake Factory. Ladies and
gentlemen, I present to you: “The
Great American Controversy:
Dinner and a Book Ban Debate.”
Thought you were in for date
night? Dinner and a show? Boy,
were you wrong. Welcome, pro-
censorship citizens, to the most
life-changing dinner of your life.
Just imagine: a long mahogany
table would be dressed in a
classy white lace and pearl table
cloth, surrounded by wooden
chairs with gold cushions, the
finest china in front of each
place. The guest list would be
exclusive since a dinner party
of this importance is not just for
anyone. The list would include
a specific selection of people
around the country who have
attempted to censor books.
And of course, the special
guests of the evening — all of
the authors who have been met
with major protests and bans
on their incredible works of
art. Ah yes, these might as well
be the two favorite pastimes
of
the
overbearing
parent,
the
conservative
principal
and the occasionally ignorant
schoolteacher: attending dinner
parties and banning books.
Ideally, I’d like the seating
chart to have Mark Twain sitting
at the head of the table, where he
can pass the mashed potatoes to
a woman from Minnesota who
claims that her high-school-
aged son and daughter “will
not be reading ‘The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn’ under my
roof, due to its irrational and
crude language. The thought
of having my children read this
novel is deeply uncomfortable to
me.”
Mark Twain would turn to
her with a polite smile and reply,
“With all due respect ma’am,
the point of my novel was not
to make you comfortable in
any way. In fact, it was meant
to make you uncomfortable. It
was meant to uncover the harsh
realities of the way America
truly and honestly functioned
in Mississippi at this time. If
you are uncomfortable, you
certainly do not have to read
my book. But by shielding your
children from real things that
happened in this country, you
are not helping them. You are
not educating them. You are
making them ignorant to the
realities of the world. You are
hurting them.”
This same woman, we’ll call
her Sharon, who refuses to let
her children read phenomenal
literature because of “crude
language” will let her son listen
to whatever terrible music he
wants when he gets home from
school. The woman, realizing
she is wrong, makes a petty
noise and sips her fine wine, as
Mark Twain turns to converse
with Richard Wright.
I’d like Holden Caulfield
to climb out of the pages of
“Catcher in the Rye” and pull up
a chair in between J.D Salinger
and Harper Lee. In all his
innocent and naive defiance,
he would fill his plate with
only dinner rolls and sit at the
table adorned in his red hunting
cap and smile. He would call
all the people around him
“phony” as he does so well. He
would refuse to let his voice be
silenced. He would continue
to be a voice for the confused
and lonely teenager, as he first
did for the 1960s kids who
desperately needed something
to relate to. He would turn to F.
Scott Fitzgerald who is arguing
with the priest of a church in a
town in South Carolina that has
banned “The Great Gatsby” due
to references to sex and alcohol.
ELI RALLO
For the Daily
Dinner and debate on banning books
MUSIC REVIEW
“Brendan, put down the knife
/ I love you too much to let you
take your life / and I won’t let
you try again / won’t let daisies
grow through your head / won’t
let daisies grow through your
skin.”
Slow Burn, the first release
on Flower Girl Records started
by
Old
Gray’s
own
vocalist/
guitarist
Cam
Boucher, is an
unflinching,
unapologetic
scream
at
the
world,
mental
illness
and
death. Old Gray
have long been
revered within modern emo,
and with their latest album,
they have cemented themselves
as some of the most talented
modern musicians with their
heaviest material to date. It’s
reflexive of the struggles of
others and of Boucher himself,
expressing a chaos only fully
comprehensible in the emotion
of music.
The opening three tracks each
float around a minute in length,
delivering punishingly abrasive
instrumentals among screams
and
setting
an
atmosphere
of desperate urgency present
through much of the album.
The opener, “Pulpit,” effectively
intertwines screams of suicidal
thoughts with calm monotones
contemplating the helplessness
of attempting to heal. It’s an
incredibly raw look into the
cognition
wrought
upon
a
sufferer of mental illness — a
tango of anger and surrender to
your own thoughts.
By the third track, “Blunt
Trauma,”
the
focus
shifts
to
loved
ones
who
have
succumbed to suicide. “Long
live the Devil and all hail the
saints / Chewing up stars with
their names / Angel, I feel
your pain / I understand why
you’d want to take it all away.”
Instead of the usual emotions
surrounding social
views of suicide,
Boucher expresses
comprehension,
even
longing
in
their fate. It’s an
abrupt viewpoint,
atypical of most
music,
and
it
produces
a
necessary
shock
of eye-opening insight into the
theme of mental illness.
“Like Blood from a Stone” is
quite possibly one of the hardest
songs I have ever listened to
in my life (yes, I cried three
separate times), and the first
half of the song consists only
of simple monologue, a tale
of self-harm, hospitalization
and ultimately the beginnings
of recovery, before the band
even adds their overwhelming
immediacy with shrill notes
and periods of silence. The level
of detail produced in these four
minutes forces itself upon the
listener, a single story with so
much feeling it wouldn’t let
anyone leave unaffected.
Within the track, Boucher
details an incident with a
workplace bully before the self-
harm, “And you panic when
you realize what just happened
because the boy who picked up
your notebook, he’s a cruel boy
/ with eyes like shotguns and
razor wire.”
He follows this later by
depicting a befriended patient in
the hospital: “And there’s a man
/ maybe ten years older than you,
with eyes like rough-cut pine
and sunset.” At the beginning of
the song, the protagonist writes
poems of aching solitude, while
ending with poems of infinite
possibilities and clear skies,
alluding to an escape from
mental confines.
It’s
this
symmetry
of
opposites that defines Slow Burn
as an incredible work of art.
The ending isn’t necessarily the
standard definition of “closure,”
but it shows intent to move
in that direction. It looks to
improvement and healing in the
future, even if it isn’t entirely
attainable at the moment — and
it lets you know that it’s OK to
not be completely OK. “Because,
I don’t want to close my eyes
anymore / I want to be whole
again, how the fuck do I get
there?”
Front
to
back,
the
comparisons
throughout
the album make sense of its
outward chaos and warring
emotions, closing with “On
Earth, as It Is in Heaven,” an
epic instrumental track that is
the slowest burn of them all.
It builds upon itself over the
course of five minutes, adding
increasingly
shrill
guitars
and crashing cymbals before
slowly breathing the album’s
last breath. Slow Burn is hard to
listen to because it’s true to its
name, but it’s as rewarding as
the progress it paints.
DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Daily Arts Writer
Old Gray cements their status as one
of the most talented modern bands
Key talks keys to success
‘Why Him?’ actor gives career and life advice before film premiere
There seems to be a formula
for the adult party comedy:
Assemble
a
hodgepodge
of
stars, throw them into a hastily
crafted
context,
find
some
reason for a party and let the
cameras roll. Plot
and
characters
are rough drafts,
while the party
itself
is
filmed
with
a
fervent
meticulousness.
But, the ultimate
question remains:
why?
No
matter
the
output,
these films keep
coming,
and
it
doesn’t
appear
that “Office Christmas Party,”
the latest such addition to
the
collection
of
grown-up
debauchery, will do anything to
change that. Unfortunately, the
film’s rather splendid assembly
of a cast from various comedic
walks of life can’t overcome the
plot which, overloading on a
variety of stories, leaves the film
messy, confused and not all that
funny.
There’s the main story: the
Chicago branch of Zenotek,
a
technology
company
of
sorts,
isn’t
performing
up
to standards. Clay Vanstone
(T.J. Miller, “Silicon Valley”)
runs
the
branch,
sharply
departing from the no-nonsense
leadership style of his sister,
Carol (Jennifer Aniston, “We’re
the
Millers”),
the
interim
CEO after their father passed.
Their sibling rivalry plays out
over company politics, and the
Chicago branch is under threat
of closure.
Clay recruits fellow branch
executive Josh Parker (Jason
Bateman, “Zootopia”) and head
of technology Tracey (Olivia
Munn, “The Newsroom”) to
throw a raging Christmas party
to
convince
a
potential
client,
Walter
Davis
(Courtney
B.
Vance,
“The
People v. O. J.
Simpson”),
to
choose
Zenotek
as his company’s
provider. Davis’s
company’s
business
would
keep the Chicago
branch
afloat,
making good on
Clay’s bullish promise to give
everyone at the branch a bonus.
And so the event begins, with
extravagant fixtures stuffing
the office with the imagery of
Christmas, or something like
it: an eggnog ice luge, a real
life Nativity scene, plenty of
lights, and Clay donned in his
father’s Santa suit. But the
film spends much of its time
between coworkers, mingling
awkwardly, drinking lightly —
then very, very heavily — amid
their mundane offices. Allison
(Vanessa
Bayer,
“Saturday
Night Live”) and Fred (Randall
Park, “Fresh Off the Boat”)
have an awkward attempt at
a sexual encounter, Joel from
Accounting (Sam Richardson,
“Veep”) breaks out as a DJ with
a penchant for air horn sounds
and Mary, the all-too-common
pent-up
HR
director
(Kate
McKinnon,
“Ghostbusters”),
tries to maintain her office’s
sacrosanctity.
But given enough time, and
certainly enough alcohol and
drugs, everyone can break loose.
And so does the story; taking a
wild turn from a party to action
sequence, with Clay leaving his
office party for a hangout with
a hilariously psychopathic pimp
(Jillian Bell, “22 Jump Street”),
who’s only aiming for his money.
Excluding the risks from drugs,
seven people nearly die, two
couples are created (on-screen,
at least), multiple orgies seem
to take place, Kate McKinnon is
at her Kate McKinnon-est and
Zenotek ruins, and then saves,
Chicago’s Internet. All in under
two hours!
But while “Office Christmas
Party” has a surplus of stories
and characters, each lacks the
fine quality needed to make
the film memorable. There are
a number of jokes that nearly
land well, but as I write this
sentence, about one hour since
the credits rolled, I cannot
recall a single one. There
are few things sadder than a
completely forgettable film but
“Office Christmas Party” seems
to be it, not quite a waste of time
but certainly a waste of money.
For those short on time,
revisiting your thoughts on
“Sisters” or “Horrible Bosses”
or “Neighbors” can form a
personalized
and
concise
review of this newer version,
updated for 2016-relevant jokes.
“Office Christmas Party” will
please lovers of these films, but
detractors will feel distant and
equally disappointed.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Oh, so no office Hanukkah party? No office Kwanzaa party?
TV REVIEW
DANNY HENSEL
Daily Arts Writer
‘Office Christmas Party’ boasts a
great cast, but is woefully average
FILM REVIEW
C-
“Office Christmas
Party”
Paramount Pictures
Quality 16/Rave
Cinemas
FILM INTERVIEW
A+
Slow Burn
Old Gray
Flower Girl Records
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