In my ongoing effort to become that douchebag who tells you how much worse every movie is than some random indie movie he once saw, I went to see the extremely-limited-released Patton Oswalt movie Big Fan last night, and can honestly say it was one of the most unique and weirdly uncompromising films I’ve ever seen, and I can’t recommend it enough.
I went with four other people — two of them far bigger film nerds than myself — and all five of us enjoyed it immensely, talking about it nonstop on the cab ride home and earning us a development deal for a new show called “Movie Cab.” It’s a spin-off of the Queen Latifah movie “Taxi”, though, it has nothing to do with us discussing movies.
The movie — written and directed by Onion alumnus and The Wrestler screenwriter Robert Siegel — stars Oswalt as an obsessed New York Giants fan whose entire daily existence comprises of rehearsing rants to unleash on a talk radio show in between weekly meetups to watch the Giants on tv with his lone similarly obsessed friend. Michael “New Yorkiest guy who ever New Yorked” Rapaport ironically co-stars as a rival obsessed Eagles fan, turning the film into an oddly accurate approximation of Sundays at my apartment when I lived with one Philly dude and one Jersey dude.
I’m a huge fan of Patton Oswalt’s standup and an obsessive football fan myself, and yet, neither aspect factored into my enjoyment of the movie; it can barely be classified as a comedy to begin with, despite several laugh-out-loud moments, and the sports aspect of the film couldn’t be further from anything on Hollywood’s long list of cliche-ridden stories of triumph and/or Dennis Quaid. Oswalt’s performance is also far more convincing than even my “fanboy ready to give him the benefit of the doubt” self was expecting, and the movie’s overall arc was so deliberately low-stakes, I just couldn’t imagine another movie attempting it without adding something obligatorily “bigger”.
And for added “If you don’t live in New York, then I say ha ha to you” points, Robert Siegel actually attended the showing for an informal Q&A afterward, and spoke with genuine unpretentious enthusiasm about making the film for $300,000, sticking with Patton Oswalt in the lead role despite temptations to cast a bigger name, cutting a superfluous love story plot, and even graciously deflected one woman’s question, “Who was that main actor? He reminded me of the Mall Cop guy.”
Hopefully that question will become the movie’s new tagline.
To see a list of cities showing Big Fan, go here. Also, if you don’t live in New York, you should move here, it’s cool.
And if you want to hear more about the movie from its creator instead of some rambly, attractive blogger, check out Robert Siegel’s interview on The Sound of Young America.
