actually adam lauver

My super-involved retro-analysis of Community Season Three

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:20:00 -0400

My super-involved retro-analysis of Community Season Three:

Check it.

New trailer for my first feature film! I’m the guy who...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:46:00 -0500

New trailer for my first feature film! I’m the guy who gets skull-fucked.

Community Review: "Regional Holiday Music"

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:11:00 -0500

Community Review: "Regional Holiday Music":

…so far, Community has a great track record in the holiday episode department, and I’ve come to associate the Christmas episodes in particular with the show’s deepest, innermost sense of earnestness and sincerity—because it’s in those episodes that its voice has sung out the clearest.

Last night’s episode—the show’s third annual Christmas installment, entitled “Regional Holiday Music”—sang out more clearly (and more literally) than ever, delivering a hilarious musical send-up of Glee (with a healthy dose of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers) while yet again managing to affirm its core values of friendship and togetherness. Like Britta, the show takes this opportunity to “sing its heart’s song”—albeit much less awkwardly.

Excerpt from a piece I wrote over at PopBlerd.com. Community fans, check it out here!

Yes I do, I know exactly what will happen at 3:15. At 3:15 we...

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:08:45 -0500

Yes I do, I know exactly what will happen at 3:15. At 3:15 we aren’t going to get back in bed together, and she isn’t gonna wrap her legs around my legs, and we aren’t gonna fall asleep. And then, in the morning, she isn’t gonna say, “Hi person.” And then we aren’t gonna have another day, just an ordinary, boring day. And then we aren’t gonna have kids, and then we aren’t gonna grow old together, and we aren’t gonna look back on our lives, because we aren’t even gonna know each other. That is what is gonna happen at 3:15.

Let's Talk About Community

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:36:00 -0500

I’ve wanted to write about Community for a long time, but I’ve been kind of afraid to—not just because I fear not doing it justice, but because I fear not adding anything new to the conversation. Because, really, what can I say about Community that hasn’t already been said? To heap well-deserved praise on it seems almost trite at this point (more on my hang-up re: triteness later) but apparently somehow there are still people who don’t watch it, so triteness be damned. Let’s talk about Community.

There are certain terms that invariably arise in a discussion of this show. Parody. High-concept. Pop culture. Meta. It’s touted as a show that’s immensely and intensely self-aware, a quality that is often hailed not only as what makes it great, but as what makes it seemingly unpalatable for larger audiences as well. And yes, that is a huge part of what Community is. The show and the people who make it take a lot of joy in pointing out, paying homage to, and putting spins on a whole array of tropes, styles, and formulas found not only in television, but in pop culture as a whole. If the question is, “Will your story acknowledge the very nature of stories?” (as posited by writer Megan Ganz in this week’s episode), Community’s answer is a resounding, “Yep!” That’s just a central part of what the show is.

But, of course, that’s not the only part. I would venture to say that it’s not even the most central part. Because at its core, Community is about people living in relationship with other people. Its namesake suggests as much, of course. But it goes so, so far beyond the name.

In the pilot episode, Jeff says to Abed at one point, “I see your value now.” He means this in a selfish context at the time, referring to Abed’s ability to mechanically relay spiels of information about girls he’s talked to—information that Jeff can take advantage of in order to get dates with said girls. By itself it’s a one-off joke, and a revealing moment for Jeff’s character. But, tellingly, Abed returns the compliment at the end of the episode in a scene where Jeff is welcomed back into the fold of the study group: “I’m sorry I called you Michael Douglas, and I see your value now.”

“I see your value now.” By repeating that, right off the bat the show is situating itself within a particular dialogic framework. It’s declaring to the viewer, “We’re going to talk about how people get along, and how people discover value in one another. That is the reason why we are here.”

Now, obviously this isn’t a terribly uncommon theme to explore in the grand scheme of things, but in that exact same scheme and in that exact same grandness… it’s one of the most important. The reality is, human beings are social creatures. We are connected. We affect and are affected by one another in huge, significant, often unseen and unacknowledged ways, and it’s when we forget about that that tragedy happens. The interactions, relationships, and dynamics that bind us determine so much about our lives that it behooves us not only to be aware of them, but to strive to make them more constructive and more meaningful on an interpersonal level.

Community is about that. Like Deadwood (a very different show from Community, but I like to think a substantial essay could be written about their thematic similarities), it’s about no less than the formation and consequent maintenance of a civilization. It’s a story about people congregating, brought together by circumstance and a common goal (in this case to pass a Spanish class) and forced to deal with each other’s differences, shortcomings, and quirks. It’s a story about individuals learning to love and care for one another in meaningful ways and to see value in each other despite (and sometimes because of) their flaws.

(For the record, aside from Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas—which for my money is the best episode of the series thus far, merging humor, homage, and pathos in a brilliantly moving story of friendship and fellowship—the best thesis statement for what the show is doing thematically comes, fittingly, from the creator himself, Dan Harmon:

“For all its apolitical, joyful, empty headed zaniness and experimentation, Community is a passionately humanitarian show. Its only religious and political point of view is that all people are good people, and while we often play the roles of villains and stereotypes to each other, it is always an illusion, shattered quickly by the briefest moment of honest connection.”

…Shit’s gold, right?)

So, switching gears here. All of that being said—why am I so afraid of triteness?

I don’t know, exactly. I’ve just always been self-conscious about whether or not what I’m saying or experiencing is original, fresh, and new. If it’s something that I know a lot of people have said or experienced before me, I’m immediately apologetic and self-dismissive, and I try to keep it to myself.

The flipside of that is that, when I hear things from other people over and over again, I tend to get annoyed and dismissive of them, too. And that started happening a lot recently—this week in particular. This week, Community’s passionate and rabid fanbase (of which I consider myself a slightly more reserved part) got nervous, scared, even outraged when it was announced that our beloved show was going to be shelved mid-season. Understandably, fans began to rally around the idea of saving the series and showing our support for what we consider to be one of the funniest and smartest sitcoms on TV. So, naturally, we needed a motto of some kind, the obvious one being “Six seasons and a movie!” (a reference to Troy and Abed’s obsession with making sure shows they like, such as The Cape and Cougar Town, survive long enough to be satisfying and successful).

Now, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. I’m seriously questioning whether or not I should even talk about it. But goddamn if I wasn’t immediately annoyed by how often I was hearing that goddamned quote. Community fans were popping into comment threads all over the Internet and saying with such dedication and fervor a line that we’ve all heard countless times, as if it was somehow new and exciting and original. Granted, that’s obviously not the point, the point is enthusiasm and solidarity, and I appreciate that now—but my gut reflex was to be annoyed. Much like, on Reddit, when someone posts a reference or a tidbit that has been posted scores of times before, I think to myself, “Jesus Christ, did you seriously think you were the first one to notice that? Come on.”

But what I’ve realized and remembered is that, in the end, the point isn’t to always be saying something new and different. The point is to be passionate. The point is to enjoy yourself and share that joy with others. Much like a character in an episode of Community, I realized something about myself: I realized I was being a douche. I was feeling such vitriol toward people who were only trying to share their love for something that I love just as much as they do—which is just stupid. And I immediately felt guilty. Much like Dean Pelton in this week’s episode (“I have failed this school. I have failed it because I thought I was better than Greendale”), I felt like I’d failed my fellow fans. I’d failed them because I thought I was better than them. And that’s just not the case.

I mean, really, why should I be annoyed by those oft-repeated quotes and references? Why should I care so much about not being trite? All of life is a history of triteness—patterns repeat, archetypes recur, stories are told again and again and again. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just the nature of an organized universe. What we experience as new is, in fact, very, very old—or, at the very least, inextricably connected to something that is very, very old. But that shouldn’t change our desire to experience it, or take away the joy we feel in experiencing it. In the end, life’s too short to worry about being novel. (It’s also too short to get mad about stupid shit, which is a lesson that I find myself relearning constantly.)

Community tells stories about telling stories—tells, in fact, the oldest story of them all: the story of connection. And it does so while proudly and unabashedly referencing other stories, paying homage to its predecessors, situating itself within a history of narratives not by rejecting or ignoring what’s come before, but by appreciating it and being beholden to it. Yeah, it manages to be something qualitatively innovative at the same time, but it doesn’t trip over itself in the process. And it doesn’t get pissed off at its viewers for being passionate about it, quoting it repeatedly, ripping into it like a gerbil shredding a Quaker Oats box. That’s just people loving awesome shit—why be annoyed by that?

And so, here, at the end, as a human being who lives in relation with other human beings and loves a television show that exists in relation with other television shows, I am hereby proud to say:

SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE!

Feels good, doesn’t it?

practice makes perfect, right?

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:03:00 -0400

practice makes perfect, right?

A clip from Heavy Times in which my character waxes...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:43:00 -0400

A clip from Heavy Times in which my character waxes philosophical.

Heavy Times is currently available on DVD at Amazon and the official website, and can be streamed on Indieflix. Support independent film and spread the word!

Saw the Heavy Times trailer on ITunes. Love indie films like this. Stoked to see it!

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:28:00 -0400

Glad you dug the trailer, enjoy!

And I must say, I’m stoked to hear the next River Empires release. Really gorgeous stuff. Be sure to let me know about auditions for the film ;)

New Heavy Times trailer is up. The DVD will be available for...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:54:00 -0400

New Heavy Times trailer is up.

The DVD will be available for purchase on Amazon and Indieflix on August 2.

Let your sack flow!

Louis C.K.: Beauty and Farts

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:56:00 -0400

The season two premiere of Louie premiered on FX tonight (spoilers ahead), and not only was it a great episode of TV, it was also a pretty brilliant example of what I consider to be one of the greatest aspects of Louis C.K.’s comedy: the juxtaposition of irreverent humor and genuinely humanistic themes.

“Pregnant” sees Louie trying to help his pregnant sister when she has a sudden onslaught of excruciating abdominal pain—this prefaced by the revelation that she lost her first pregnancy. It’s a somber tone for a sitcom, but one that C.K.’s show is no stranger to (the oft-cited example being season one’s “God”). Although it’s a serious situation, C.K.’s frantically clueless reaction is hilarious—and when two strange men show up at the door saying that they’re his neighbors and they want to help (by one of them staying behind with Louie’s daughters while the other helps him get his sister to the hospital, no less), the initial feeling is that there’s going to be some kind of punchline about, well, strange men trying to spend time with one’s children.

But that punchline doesn’t come. Instead, you gradually get the sense that these men are sincerely trying to help. And when the one hails a complete stranger’s car down on the street and we see Louie shepherding his wailing sister into the hospital with two complete strangers, there’s an overwhelming sense of communality and compassion that, to my knowledge, is only rivaled in the world of sitcoms by NBC’s Community.

Of course, that somber, humanistic build-up does end up getting undercut by a punchline, but a different one than one might have expected: a long bout of flatulence on the part of Louie’s sister, ending with her feeling much, much better.

I honestly haven’t laughed that hard at a fart joke in ages. And the reason it worked for me is because of the contrast between the serious, danger-tinged, “We can only get through this if we help one another” storyline, and its quintessentially raunchy resolution. The joke works because in one fell swoop C.K. has taken us from the heights of humanistic optimism to the depths of blue humor, the most fundamental of all human comedy: a fart.

The juxtaposition doesn’t stop there. The fart joke is followed by a scene in which Louie awkwardly and emotionally thanks his two neighbors for their help and for their sense of calm in his time of crisis, to which the one replies, essentially, that that’s what neighbors are for. It’s a truly touching end to the story, and it completes one hell of a brilliant bookending: a long, drawn-out fart between two beautiful and poignant sequences about the importance of community.

That last scene with the neighbor, as with all of Louie’s more serious scenes, even manages to rise above the inherent cliche. Because C.K.’s humanism is refreshingly blunt. He seems to arrive at it more from a sense of sheer practicality and common-sense than from sentimental idealism. We shouldn’t care about our fellow human beings because God tells us to or because it earns us good karma; we should care because we’re neighbors and it makes sense for us to be there for each other. It’s good to be good. Simple as that.

That lack of pretense in C.K.’s philosophy is evidenced by the very bookending of the fart in “Pregnant.” At the center of C.K.’s humanism isn’t some glorious principle about evolution or compassion or God or spirit; it’s just a long, drawn-out fart. Which is perhaps the most human thing of all.

Anyway, it was a great episode, so be sure to catch it. And if you haven’t seen season one of Louie yet, you can catch it on Netflix Instant or buy it on DVD now. I know I will be when I have the money.

In the meantime, if anyone were to ask me to summarize Louis C.K.’s comedy, I’d have two words for them. Beauty and farts.

Some production stills from Eurydice, courtesy of Rob Lorino.

Sun, 01 May 2011 22:54:00 -0400

Some production stills from Eurydice, courtesy of Rob Lorino.

Some photos of me being creepy as the Nasty Interesting Man in...

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:03:00 -0400

Creepy...

Creepier...

...Creepiest...

LOOK AT ME I'M BEAUTIFUL

Some photos of me being creepy as the Nasty Interesting Man in Independent Drama Society’s production of Eurydice.

If you’re gonna’ be in Boston later this month, consider buying tickets here!

Photos courtesy of Rob Lorino

Wanna’ see me spill coffee on myself? Check out...

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:32:00 -0400

Wanna’ see me spill coffee on myself? Check out this making-of documentary of the first week of filming for Substitute Culture.

The Heavy Times website has some fancy new press blurbs up,...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:50:00 -0400

The Heavy Times website has some fancy new press blurbs up, which feels good, but this picture still pretty accurately captures how I feel about life. I’m so twenty-something.

(Photo courtesy of Timothy Saccenti.)

Being in this commercial is what got me to try Cholula hot sauce...

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:20:00 -0500

Being in this commercial is what got me to try Cholula hot sauce for the first time. I am now in love with Cholula hot sauce. No joke. If the best thing that ever happens to me as a result of my acting is my discovery of Cholula hot sauce, I’ll be happy.

Here’s a short film I did last month about the dangers of...

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:45:00 -0500

Here’s a short film I did last month about the dangers of Spaniards. Enjoy!

What difference does it make if the world is a mess?

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:30:00 -0400

I’ve listened to the surprise Sufjan release a handful of times over the last few days, and I feel pretty comfortable declaring it one hell of an alb— er, EP.

I feel like it’s only a matter of time before Sufjan Stevens buries himself irrevocably behind his own burgeoning inaccessibility. Not to say that he’s at all inaccessible now—on the contrary, All Delighted People is surprisingly approachable, offering up just the right balance of recognizability and flair.

But can you blame me for worrying? Consider this interview from November 2009 in which Sufjan said the following:

I definitely feel like ‘What is the point? What’s the point of making music anymore?’ I feel that the album no longer has a stronghold or has any real bearing anymore. … I think the album is suffering and that’s how I’ve always created—I work with these conceptual albums in the long-form. And I’m wondering, what’s the value of my work once these forms are obsolete and everyone’s just downloading music? And I’m starting to get sick of my conceptual ideas. I’m tired of these grand, epic endeavours…

Setting aside the obvious hilarity—that he went on to release yet another grand, epic (and hour-long) endeavor, this time almost pathetically disguising it as an EP (like a Big Yellow pretending to be a Schwinn just by putting a bicycle horn on the front)—the really surprising thing about Sufjan’s latest work is that it doesn’t try to push anyone away. Because lately his sentiments regarding life and music—both in interviews and in his lyrics—suggest a musician spiraling away from his listeners into an inner world of self-imposed obscurity and (dare I say) pretense.

Okay, that might be unfair. After all, Sufjan has always been a theatrical and enigmatic figure. He burst onto the scene in 2005 with the infamous 50 states gimmick, quickly establishing a reputation for himself as prolific super-musician setting out to accomplish a feat of impossible creative strength—and who amongst those of us who crowded at his proverbial feet didn’t whole-heartedly believe he could do it?

And yet just a few years later he renounced the project, admitting that it had been nothing more than a promotional gimmick—a distancing move that could very well have alienated him from his listeners. But we keep coming back to him—and why? Is it because he’s a great musician and lyricist? Well, I mean, yes. But could it also be because deep down most of us don’t think his theatricality is pretense? That we really do sense a palpable sincerity at the heart of his pomp?

“I’m tired of life,” Sufjan declares in the so-called EP’s penultimate track, “Arnika.” I for one appreciate his honesty—but what could be worse than if his cynicism got the best of him and he started churning out shitty music in some misguided attempt to distance himself even more from what’s tiring him (i.e. life, music, etc.)? That’s what worried me when I read that interview last year; thankfully All Delighted People is far from shitty. It’s downright great.

I think Sufjan’s oscillation towards and away from his listeners (and, in turn, his own success) is just a symptom of his own devastating honesty—and it’s even suggested in this latest release. In “Enchanting Ghost,” Sufjan sings, “And if it pleases you to leave me, just go”; while in “From the Mouth of Gabriel” two songs later his mind has obviously changed: “You probably would but I won’t let you run away / You probably should but I won’t let you run away this time.”

The funny thing is that it’s not Sufjan’s listeners who are tearing themselves apart over the idea of running away; it’s Sufjan himself.