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Worlds collided when Mr. Skin entered a large empty banquet room at Le Meridian Hotel in Beverly Hills to interview funnyman Michael Showalter. The comic got his start at MTV on its sketch comedy series The State and has since gone on to write and star in the hilarious teen sex comedy Wet Hot American Summer. He's also part of a new show on Comedy Central called Stella.
But on the occasion of this meeting Showalter was promoting his newest movie and directorial debut, The Baxter, a sweet romantic comedy without even a hint of skin. Yes, no nudity, a throwback to the screwball comedies of the '30s where people screwed and balled off screen. But even the more risqu?em>Wet Hot American Summer, though sexy, is skinless.
The Baxter, which opens in New York on August 26 and in Los Angeles on September 2, tells the story of Elliot, played by Showalter, an earnest nice guy from Brooklyn who never gets the girl, or a Baxter. Why, all Elliot had to do was join Mr. Skin to solve that pesky problem. That solution, sadly, never made it into the script.
Showalter was visibly nervous sitting across the table from a man with a clipboard full of dirty questions about nude scenes and naked actresses. Instead of a ribald t?-??, the curious reader will find Showalter in a passionate mood about the sex-ification of media. With his little film he hopes to provide a respite from the raunchy.
Mr. Skin is always up to a debate and gave Showalter his soapbox. Afterwards he climbed down to get back to work on the screenplay for another romantic comedy set again in Brooklyn. Showalter promises this will have a more modern feel to it. We just hope he finally gets up the nerve to break the skin barrier.
Are you a Baxter?
Part, aspects of me are a Baxter. I identify with that part of the movie. Life doesn't come so easily for Elliot. For the leading man everything is so organic. He's witty and charming and successful without even trying. For Elliot it's a little bit more of a challenge. My experience is that the road of life is not paved with gold. For Elliot there's that sort of, one foot in front of the other, learn by making mistakes.
It's not autobiographical?
It's autobiographical in that we've all had relationships gone awry.
You haven't been left at the alter, which is how Elliot begins The Baxter?
Never been left at the alter, but I have had unrequited love. I have been dumped.
Wet Hot American Summer is a great teen sex comedy ...
The sexiest thing in that movie is gay, between two male counselors. That was a conscious decision.
We're all big fans of the teen sex comedy at Mr. Skin, and Wet Hot American Summer is a direct descendent of classics of the genre like Meatballs.
Yes, that's the main reference. Are you a fan of that type of comedy?
You mean like Porky's and things like that? I was mostly into the John Hughes, more teen-angst genre. So not so much into the Porky's, but certainly Meatballs, Animal House--Animal House was my favorite movie of all time for many, many years. And another movie called Up the River, another National Lampoon ...
You mean Up the Academy?
There is Up the Academy. That may be what I'm thinking of. The movie about a rafting competition is another classic frat brother movie. [Editor's note: The movie is Up the Creek]. But Wet Hot American Summer is sort of every teen comedy, not just summer camp.
Do you have a favorite teen sex comedy or exploitation movie?
It's strange, because that's so the opposite of this movie. Exploitation to me is like a buzzword. No, it depends on what we'd call exploitation. Is Animal House exploitation? What I want to say about this movie is that it's an antidote to that.
Why do you stay clear of nudity in The Baxter?
Because I think--without on any level pounding the pulpit or anything like that, because I have no morality about it, I have no sense of piousness about it--I think we live in a culture that's inundated with images of not sex, but images of exploiting sex and promoting the exploitation of sex and consuming those images.
You can't go past a newsstand without your head rotating off you body with all of the pictures. This is just something else. It's not in any way to say, "This should all stop and let's become a Muslim society where all the women are covered." It's not that. It's simply let's take a break from all of that and turn the volume down and do something that's sweet and innocent.
Back in the old days when there was the Hayes Code, the censorship laws, it was like you could get so much more with a kiss or what you didn't see. The suggestion of sexuality, the suggestion of romance, but protecting the privacy and mystery of it--for me, that's what this is. I would never, ever talk so passionately about it if I weren't confronted by it.
If you weren't talking to Mr. Skin ...
If I wasn't talking to Mr. Skin, particularly about this movie. If we were talking about Wet Hot American Summer I'd have a totally different set of answers for you. But I want to promote Baxter, and I don't want to misrepresent it.
Does that mean you'll never show skin in one of your movies?
I would if it were appropriate to the subject matter. But I don't know if I'd ever have gratuitous nudity because that's just not my cup of tea.
But on the occasion of this meeting Showalter was promoting his newest movie and directorial debut, The Baxter, a sweet romantic comedy without even a hint of skin. Yes, no nudity, a throwback to the screwball comedies of the '30s where people screwed and balled off screen. But even the more risqu?em>Wet Hot American Summer, though sexy, is skinless.
The Baxter, which opens in New York on August 26 and in Los Angeles on September 2, tells the story of Elliot, played by Showalter, an earnest nice guy from Brooklyn who never gets the girl, or a Baxter. Why, all Elliot had to do was join Mr. Skin to solve that pesky problem. That solution, sadly, never made it into the script.
Showalter was visibly nervous sitting across the table from a man with a clipboard full of dirty questions about nude scenes and naked actresses. Instead of a ribald t?-??, the curious reader will find Showalter in a passionate mood about the sex-ification of media. With his little film he hopes to provide a respite from the raunchy.
Mr. Skin is always up to a debate and gave Showalter his soapbox. Afterwards he climbed down to get back to work on the screenplay for another romantic comedy set again in Brooklyn. Showalter promises this will have a more modern feel to it. We just hope he finally gets up the nerve to break the skin barrier.
Are you a Baxter?
Part, aspects of me are a Baxter. I identify with that part of the movie. Life doesn't come so easily for Elliot. For the leading man everything is so organic. He's witty and charming and successful without even trying. For Elliot it's a little bit more of a challenge. My experience is that the road of life is not paved with gold. For Elliot there's that sort of, one foot in front of the other, learn by making mistakes.
It's not autobiographical?
It's autobiographical in that we've all had relationships gone awry.
You haven't been left at the alter, which is how Elliot begins The Baxter?
Never been left at the alter, but I have had unrequited love. I have been dumped.
Wet Hot American Summer is a great teen sex comedy ...
The sexiest thing in that movie is gay, between two male counselors. That was a conscious decision.
We're all big fans of the teen sex comedy at Mr. Skin, and Wet Hot American Summer is a direct descendent of classics of the genre like Meatballs.
Yes, that's the main reference. Are you a fan of that type of comedy?
You mean like Porky's and things like that? I was mostly into the John Hughes, more teen-angst genre. So not so much into the Porky's, but certainly Meatballs, Animal House--Animal House was my favorite movie of all time for many, many years. And another movie called Up the River, another National Lampoon ...
You mean Up the Academy?
There is Up the Academy. That may be what I'm thinking of. The movie about a rafting competition is another classic frat brother movie. [Editor's note: The movie is Up the Creek]. But Wet Hot American Summer is sort of every teen comedy, not just summer camp.
Do you have a favorite teen sex comedy or exploitation movie?
It's strange, because that's so the opposite of this movie. Exploitation to me is like a buzzword. No, it depends on what we'd call exploitation. Is Animal House exploitation? What I want to say about this movie is that it's an antidote to that.
Why do you stay clear of nudity in The Baxter?
Because I think--without on any level pounding the pulpit or anything like that, because I have no morality about it, I have no sense of piousness about it--I think we live in a culture that's inundated with images of not sex, but images of exploiting sex and promoting the exploitation of sex and consuming those images.
You can't go past a newsstand without your head rotating off you body with all of the pictures. This is just something else. It's not in any way to say, "This should all stop and let's become a Muslim society where all the women are covered." It's not that. It's simply let's take a break from all of that and turn the volume down and do something that's sweet and innocent.
Back in the old days when there was the Hayes Code, the censorship laws, it was like you could get so much more with a kiss or what you didn't see. The suggestion of sexuality, the suggestion of romance, but protecting the privacy and mystery of it--for me, that's what this is. I would never, ever talk so passionately about it if I weren't confronted by it.
If you weren't talking to Mr. Skin ...
If I wasn't talking to Mr. Skin, particularly about this movie. If we were talking about Wet Hot American Summer I'd have a totally different set of answers for you. But I want to promote Baxter, and I don't want to misrepresent it.
Does that mean you'll never show skin in one of your movies?
I would if it were appropriate to the subject matter. But I don't know if I'd ever have gratuitous nudity because that's just not my cup of tea.
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The Baxter website |
Wet Hot American Summer Meatballs Porky's Animal House Up the Creek |
