Previous to making Strangers With Candy, Paul Dinello and Dan Dinello collaborated with Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Mitch Rouse on several short films: Wheels of Fury (with Amy, Paul, Mitch and Dan), Shock Asylum (with Paul and Stephen), and Beyond the Door (with Paul and Stephen). These are now available on a DVD that also includes, as DVD extra) How To Be Popular (with Paul, Amy, and Mitch with narration by Stephen). These are available on ShockFilm. Strangers With Candy people now:
The Strangers With Candy movie was released on DVD. Buy it here. The film, produced by David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, was originally picked up at last year's Sundance Film Festival by Warner Independent Pictures for some $3 million. But it reverted to Worldwide Pants last fall after WIP raised questions about clearance issues. ThinkFilm said "all problems were overcome before we acquired it (and) we do not have issues that will prevent us from gleefully promoting it. We were looking for a film that combined all the best qualities of Crash, Brokeback Mountain, and Capote. Strangers With Candy has ethnic slurs, clandestine gay sex and Philip Seymour Hoffman. What more could we want!: Directed by Paul Dinello, the feature film version of the TV series centers on self-proclaimed "boozer, user and loser" Blank and reunites cast members: Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank, Stephen Colbert and Dinello as teachers carrying on a secret affair, Greg Hollimon as the school principal and Deborah Rush as Blank's evil stepmother. A host of star cameo appearances are featured, including Matthew Broderick as a guest professor, Sarah Jessica Parker as a guidance counselor, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Allison Janney as school board authorities, Dan Hedaya as Blank's father in a coma, Ian Holm as his doctor, Kristen Johnston as a faculty member and Justin Theroux as a driver's ed teacher. Paul Dinello and Paul Schaffer are currently reworking the movie's soundtrack. Three volumes of the Comedy Central Television series have been released on DVD. Paul, Amy and Stephen published a book in 2004: Wigfield – The Can-Do Town That Just May Not is a hilarious, illustrated satire of a town in jeopardy and the earnest reporter who hopes to save them from extinction. |
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| Strangers with Candy, the first live-action narrative series from Comedy Central, is a profoundly unusual and often hilarious version of an after-school special in hell- a twisted mutation in which Heathers meets one scary woman's midlife crisis. The show reunties several members of the Comedy Central troupe Exit 57 and stars the incredibly gifted Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank, a forty-six-year-old dropout who returns to Flatpoint High School - home of the Concrete Donkeys- as a freshman. Jerri, possibly more damaged than any high school student ever after having done serious time as a runaway and a ward of the state, is chatty in a way that verges on insane and is impressively unlike any chick to matriculate on Beverly Hills 90210. "I'm having my uterus scraped. " she explains to her counselor when asked why she can't attend a meeting. At another point she wonders out loud, "It's not so bad making friends with drugs, is it?" |
She's out of jail, back in school and making new friends: |
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The cast includes Stephen Colbert (The Daily Show), Paul Dinello and Greg Hollimon - all very funny and effective complements to Sedaris. Strangers With Candy is gleefully absurdist stuff that is clearly not factory-made to suit all tastes, but it's certainly a brave if willfully fucked-up piece of work. And, who knows, Comedy Central has done well for itself selling that previously forbidden flavor before. |
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