It feels as though the question would be ‘who is Billy Morrissette?’, but that might be too casual a dismissal of someone that’s been in the business at one point and has done more than a lot of people that have tried and didn’t make it. The fact that he hasn’t done anything since 2016 is something that a lot of people might point out, and they’d be right, but it’s also easy to see and think that he might have had a pretty good reason for bowing out after a while, and one of them might have been his
Whatever Happened to Billy Morrissette?...
Whatever Happened to Billy Morrissette?...
- 1/25/2021
- by Tom
- TVovermind.com
After four years starring on Ugly Betty, Michael Urie knows his way around women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. So it only seems right that He’s Way More Famous Than You – his debut directing a narrative feature film, which premieres at the Slamdance Film Festival this weekend — centers on precisely that topic.
In Famous, Bored to Death alum Halley Feiffer, who co-wrote the film with Urie’s partner Ryan Spahn (above, left), plays a version of herself — an embarrassingly desperate version, mind you. She loses her boyfriend, agent, and career in one day and sets about on...
In Famous, Bored to Death alum Halley Feiffer, who co-wrote the film with Urie’s partner Ryan Spahn (above, left), plays a version of herself — an embarrassingly desperate version, mind you. She loses her boyfriend, agent, and career in one day and sets about on...
- 1/19/2013
- by Lanford Beard
- EW - Inside Movies
Fast Shakespeare is what you might call it -- this wacky transpsition of "Macbeth" to the junk-food wilds of 1970s Pennsylvania. Eliciting whoops, chuckles and, forsooth, even ripples of fulsome belly laughs, "Scotland, Pa". hath swiftly moved from Prospector Wood to Deer Valley Ridge in conquering Park City's cell-poned crowds of black-suited festivalgoers.
Strutting and hippety-hopping its way across the cinema stage, it doth resemble in certain peculiar ways a Troma film gone royal. With its tongue in its cheek and its disposition cast to the wilds of merriment ad disreputable froth, this competition entrant -- while not of the somber disposition that strokes kindly the elite chords of jury acclaim -- might conquer greater worldly honors: the Sundance Audience Award.
There are heaps of bubbles, boils, foils and rouble in this wickedly funny offering. While masquerading for at least part of its opening credits as highbrow, this decidedly lowbrow romp is centered not on the internecine wars of inaccessible foreigners -- such as British royalty -- but more happily n the royalty of the new land and times: the local and yokel burger dispensers of late 20th-century America.
To put it in familiar Cliff Notes style for the industry dealmakers who have perhaps heard of Shakespeare -- and may even have been informed by teir assistants that "Macbeth" is often referred to as the "Scottish play" -- "Scotland, Pa". is a dastardly tale of ambition gone murderous. Befitting its cultural times, the tale revolves around Pat (Maura Tierney), a woman of great ambition diminished t slogging away her hours behind a burger counter in a country burg. Pat is the type of go-getter the women's magazines might honor as "inspired." Her big idea is to get her slothful husband, Joe "Mac" (James LeGros), to move up in the burger kingdom by dong in the present proprietor (James Rebhorn) and, thus, transcend their dead-end existence. But getting "Mac" packed with the necessary resolve is a most dispiriting goal, for he is a slacker of deep 1970s dimension, content to guzzle brews, grease fries nd pooh-pooh his higher destiny.
Although a merry sendup of classic dramaturgy, "Scotland, Pa". is also a daffy satire of American culture. It's a brainy cauldron of witches' brew (if witches had a sense of humor), and it's stirred roundly with some of te silliest fixings of U.S. pop culture. Bedecked in the nutty finery of the age -- sideburns, bell-bottoms, polyester -- "Scotland, Pa". is generally fleet of foot, nimble enough to keep ahead of its more "groan-erous" humors even when it blunders into soe thorny patches of precious joke jousting.
There's not much to protest about this lark, considering its inspired lunacy and court-jester personality. What's consistently most merry is the film's look, including some crazed arches for the burger joint an the glazed stuffings of indoor kitsch culture. A bevy of trumpet blasts for writer-director Billy Morrissette for the deliriously funny inspirations. Credit also to his trustworthy technical minions for their uproarious contributions. Special plaudits tocinematographer Wally Pfister for the zany slantings and to producers Richard Shepard and Jonathan Stern for the fixings. Court composer Anton Sanko gooses the story with the most wonderfully odd swells and silly soundings.
The cast is a hoot, topped offby Christopher Walken's wiggy performance as the intrepid justice monger, Lt. Ernie McDuff. Walken's jaunty character flourishes are high hilarity throughout. The other players are similarly well assembled, most prominently Tierney as the ambitious lady o the joint and LeGros as her beleaguered hubby. Rebhorn is a wonderful knave as the fast-food owner, while in the loftiest lowbrow tradition of iambic idiocy, the "Three Hippies" -- Amy Smart, Timothy Speed Levitch and Andy Dick -- are a scrumptious pack.
SCOTLAND, PA.
Abandon Pictures in association with Veto Chip Prods. and Paddy Wagon Prods.
Producers: Richard Shepard, Jonathan Stern
Director-screenwriter: Billy Morrissette
Executive producers: Karen Lauder, Marcus Ticotin
Director of photography: Wall Pfister
Production designer: Jennifer Stewart
Editor: Adam Lichtenstein
Music: Anton Sanko
Music supervisor: Tracy McKnight
Costume designer: David Robinson
Casting: Avy Kaufman
Color/stereo
Cast:
Joe "Mac": James LeGros
Pat: Maura Tierney
Three Hippies Amy Smart, Timothy Speed Levitch, Andy Dick
Norm Duncan: James Rebhorn
Malcolm: Tom Guiry
Donald: Geoff Dunsworth
Lt. Ernic McDuff: Christopher Walken
Anthony "Banko" Banconi: Kevin Corrigan
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Strutting and hippety-hopping its way across the cinema stage, it doth resemble in certain peculiar ways a Troma film gone royal. With its tongue in its cheek and its disposition cast to the wilds of merriment ad disreputable froth, this competition entrant -- while not of the somber disposition that strokes kindly the elite chords of jury acclaim -- might conquer greater worldly honors: the Sundance Audience Award.
There are heaps of bubbles, boils, foils and rouble in this wickedly funny offering. While masquerading for at least part of its opening credits as highbrow, this decidedly lowbrow romp is centered not on the internecine wars of inaccessible foreigners -- such as British royalty -- but more happily n the royalty of the new land and times: the local and yokel burger dispensers of late 20th-century America.
To put it in familiar Cliff Notes style for the industry dealmakers who have perhaps heard of Shakespeare -- and may even have been informed by teir assistants that "Macbeth" is often referred to as the "Scottish play" -- "Scotland, Pa". is a dastardly tale of ambition gone murderous. Befitting its cultural times, the tale revolves around Pat (Maura Tierney), a woman of great ambition diminished t slogging away her hours behind a burger counter in a country burg. Pat is the type of go-getter the women's magazines might honor as "inspired." Her big idea is to get her slothful husband, Joe "Mac" (James LeGros), to move up in the burger kingdom by dong in the present proprietor (James Rebhorn) and, thus, transcend their dead-end existence. But getting "Mac" packed with the necessary resolve is a most dispiriting goal, for he is a slacker of deep 1970s dimension, content to guzzle brews, grease fries nd pooh-pooh his higher destiny.
Although a merry sendup of classic dramaturgy, "Scotland, Pa". is also a daffy satire of American culture. It's a brainy cauldron of witches' brew (if witches had a sense of humor), and it's stirred roundly with some of te silliest fixings of U.S. pop culture. Bedecked in the nutty finery of the age -- sideburns, bell-bottoms, polyester -- "Scotland, Pa". is generally fleet of foot, nimble enough to keep ahead of its more "groan-erous" humors even when it blunders into soe thorny patches of precious joke jousting.
There's not much to protest about this lark, considering its inspired lunacy and court-jester personality. What's consistently most merry is the film's look, including some crazed arches for the burger joint an the glazed stuffings of indoor kitsch culture. A bevy of trumpet blasts for writer-director Billy Morrissette for the deliriously funny inspirations. Credit also to his trustworthy technical minions for their uproarious contributions. Special plaudits tocinematographer Wally Pfister for the zany slantings and to producers Richard Shepard and Jonathan Stern for the fixings. Court composer Anton Sanko gooses the story with the most wonderfully odd swells and silly soundings.
The cast is a hoot, topped offby Christopher Walken's wiggy performance as the intrepid justice monger, Lt. Ernie McDuff. Walken's jaunty character flourishes are high hilarity throughout. The other players are similarly well assembled, most prominently Tierney as the ambitious lady o the joint and LeGros as her beleaguered hubby. Rebhorn is a wonderful knave as the fast-food owner, while in the loftiest lowbrow tradition of iambic idiocy, the "Three Hippies" -- Amy Smart, Timothy Speed Levitch and Andy Dick -- are a scrumptious pack.
SCOTLAND, PA.
Abandon Pictures in association with Veto Chip Prods. and Paddy Wagon Prods.
Producers: Richard Shepard, Jonathan Stern
Director-screenwriter: Billy Morrissette
Executive producers: Karen Lauder, Marcus Ticotin
Director of photography: Wall Pfister
Production designer: Jennifer Stewart
Editor: Adam Lichtenstein
Music: Anton Sanko
Music supervisor: Tracy McKnight
Costume designer: David Robinson
Casting: Avy Kaufman
Color/stereo
Cast:
Joe "Mac": James LeGros
Pat: Maura Tierney
Three Hippies Amy Smart, Timothy Speed Levitch, Andy Dick
Norm Duncan: James Rebhorn
Malcolm: Tom Guiry
Donald: Geoff Dunsworth
Lt. Ernic McDuff: Christopher Walken
Anthony "Banko" Banconi: Kevin Corrigan
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/25/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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