Even at the low end of the film biz in which I work, every once in a while you get to work with a celebrity. Folks I've done time with include Julie Andrews, Selma Hyak, Bradley Cooper and Julianne Moore. My M.O. for dealing with the famous is to pretend they're not. No gushing, no fan-boy bullshit (though that was tested when I shot an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and absolutely no posing for photos or getting autographs. They're professionals, I'm a professional. There.
Through the grapevine, I heard Steve Zahn was going to be there, playing the lead. I love Steve Zahn and decided I wasn't going to miss this. Fortunately, I had my camera with me and figured I could get a few shots from the audience. The script was a comedy/drama about a Civil War Re-enactor struggling to keep his life from falling apart. Great script and a great reading.
When it was all over, the actors all posed for publicity shots. What the hell, I had a press pass hanging around my neck, so I jumped up on stage to join the other journalists and snapped a few. When the pictures were done, everyone, including Zahn, was just milling around. So I went up and did what I never do. I asked Steve to take a picture with me. He obliged. We chatted for a bit, and that was that. Nice guy.
The question I should have asked him came to me later.
I would have asked: "So Steve, you've been in so many great, underrated movies, who picks your scripts? Because they're doing a hell of a job."
Out of Sight.
I covered Stephen Soderberg's masterpiece in another edition of "You Might Have Missed" so I won't say much more than this: Out of Sight is maybe the coolest movie ever with one of the finest casts ever assembled. Zahn fits right in as a twitchy, low-life driver.
Saving Silverman.
Thank God this movie has finally earned a cult following. The film was a box-office disappointment and a critical flop, earning a disastrous 18% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The criticisms all seemed to center on the films vulgarity and sophomoric humor. Guilty as charged. What's missing from that analysis is how goddamn funny that vulgarity and sophomoric humor is.
Director Dennis Dugan's films often have a dark, sadistic streak to them, and Saving Silverman does not disappoint. There's a lot of pain humor in the movie. Balls are kicked, hair is pulled, and a football referee is speared with a yardage marker. All of it funny as hell.
And what a great cast: Steve Zahn, Jason Biggs, Jack Black, R. Lee Ermy, Amanda Peet and Neil Diamond as himself. Yow! Zahn is the movie's center, a loveable loser trying to prevent his best friend from making the worst mistake of his life.Yeah, it's low-brow, but it's awesome low-brow.
Shattered Glass.
Zahn is second banana in this film to Hayden Christensen. Christensen stars as Stephen Glass, a real life star reporter at the New Republic magazine who fell from grace most mightily. Zahn is a writer at Forbes digital who starts to suspect that maybe Glass isn't everything he's cracked up to be.
This is a fascinating, tense, and really uncomfortable film (Based on a Vanity Fair article) that reveals in gruesome detail what goes on behind the scenes at a major national political magazine. It's fascinating both as a character study, as a detective story and as an expose of political journalism where the term "fact checking" has become laughable.
As a general principle, I'm not crazy about comedy actors doing serious roles, but Zahn comes off just fine here. Sure, it takes a minute to get used to this guy who's normally playing a madman suddenly playing it straight, but straight he plays it and plays it well.
I was going to boycott this film on general principles, as it was directed by Breck Eisner, son of superstar executive Michael Eisner. I just can't stand nepotism. How hard was it for Breck Eisner to get his first big break when one phone call from his uber-rich, uber connected dad can get him a meeting with just about anyone?
But I rented it in a moment of weakness, mainly because Steve Zahn was in it and I was once a fan of the Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novels. The film was also a mega bomb which, through the righteous shadenfreud, did make me feel a little, tiny scrap of pathos for Herr Eisner. (It did so badly it was considered in its day to be one of the biggest Hollywood money losers in history. Of course, its humble efforts to set fire to piles of cash have been eclipsed by the bombs of 2013.)
And what do you know, it's a solid little action-adventure movie. Zahn plays Al Giordino, Dirk Pitt's hapless right hand man. He brings the comedy and wise-cracks to this bustling little adventure.
So it's a good movie, not on the level of an Out of Sight, but will definitely fill an evening's watching.
Management.
When I met Zahn and mentioned to him I had seen Management. He was a little surprised. And why not? The picture did less than a million dollar in domestic box-office. Which means pretty much nobody has seen it.
But being the Zahn fans we are around my house, we caught it on DVD and found it to be a small, quiet, and utterly charming film. Of all of the "serious" roles I've seen Zahn play, this one is his finest. His inherent weirdness works perfectly with the character of a slightly odd, loner son managing his parent's small, independent hotel who falls for a cold-hearted traveling businesswoman played by Jennifer Aniston. He comes off as a nervous little puppy dog, winning the audience's heart as he struggles to win hers'.
Definitely worth a watch.
And in case you were curious, here's what Zahn look like in a Confederate cap!