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

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

