Wearing your favorite baseball player’s jersey brings you closer to that player–literally, in this spot for Majestic directed by Randy Hackett of No Smoke Films for Minneapolis-based agency Periscope. We open on a loyal fan opening his closet from which he pulls out Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz as if he were a jersey. He puts Ortiz on his back and carts him around, going about his day.
One unfortunate part of that day is a condiments mishap with mustard from a hot dog spilled on Ortiz. So we next see Ortiz in a laundromat washing machine, enduring the spin cycle to get out the stain.
Our Ortiz-wearing gent then finds himself alongside a fan who’s a Toronto Blue Jays fan–he’s wearing reigning homerun champ Jose Bautista on his back.
A voiceover related, “Wear your hero. Anytime. Any place with Majestic jerseys.”
Hackett’s production team devised a rig that made it easier for the actor to hoist about Ortiz. Nevertheless there were moments when the fan had to get it out and carry Ortiz on his back.
“Part of the challenge,” said Hackett, “was to make the wearing of the players Ortiz and Bautista seem effortless, even enjoyable for those giving the rides. Since we didn’t have a ton of time with these guys, the rig had to be simple. But we also needed some longer shots where the actor had to carry Ortiz. Our lead actor was incredibly good natured and as someone actually from Boston and a Red Sox fan, it was dream come true for him to piggyback Ortiz.”
Hackett went on to observe, “I think what makes the spot really interesting is the onscreen relationship between Ortiz and the lead actor. It’s very natural and understated. My feeling is it’s a funny enough sight gag and paying it more matter of factly accentuated the humor.”
Review: Director Tyler Spindel’s “Kinda Pregnant”
We have by now become accustomed to the lengths some movie characters will go to keep a good comedy lie going. But it's still a special kind of feat when Amy Schumer, playing a baby-mad single woman who fakes a baby bump in "Kinda Pregnant," is so desperate to maintain the fiction that she shoves a roast turkey up her dress.
You might be thinking: This is too ridiculous. The stuffing, alone. But if we bought "Some Like it Hot" and "Mrs. Doubtfire," I see no reason to quibble with the set-up of "Kinda Pregnant," a funny and often perceptive satire on motherhood, both real and pretend.
"Kinda Pregnant," which debuted Wednesday on Netflix, is a kinda throwback comedy. Like "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers," you can basically get the movie just from its title.
But like any good high-concept comedy, "Kinda Pregnant" is predominantly a far-fetched way for its star and co-writer, Schumer, to riff frankly on her chosen topic. Here, that's the wide gamut of pregnancy experience — the body changes, the gender reveal parties, the personal jealousies — all while mixing in a healthy amount of pseudo-pregnant pratfalls.
It's been a decade since Schumer was essentially launched as a movie star in the 2015 Judd Apatow-directed "Trainwreck." But "Kinda Pregnant," which Schumer wrote with Julie Paiva, almost as adeptly channels Schumer's comic voice — the one that made the sketch series "Inside Amy Schumer" so great.
The movie's opening flashes back to Lainey (Schumer) as a child playing with dolls and imagining herself a mother-to-be. So committed is she to the role that Lainey, in mock-labor, screams at her friend and then politely apologies: "Sorry, but the expectant mother often lashes out at her support system."
But as... Read More