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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
KABLUEY
kablooey adj : destroyed, ruined, blown apart; also written kablooie; or when used as a noun in Scott Prendergast’s oddly charming film of the same name; the bulbous blue mascot for a failing Internet company. The film kicks off with Leslie (excellently portrayed by Lisa Kudrow). A wife of a reservist fighting in Iraq and mother of two wild boys, she’s at her wit’s end. In an act of desperation, she begrudgingly recruits the help of her less than reliable and somewhat oafish brother-in-law Salman (as in Rushdie) to baby-sit. But after one day with the nephews-of-terror, the house is a bona fide bombshell (kablooey!), and she decides that Salman helping out her family in other ways might be more…well, helpful. With appropriate bug eyes and slack jaw, the bewildered Salman (Prendergast) lands a job at BluNeXion, the dying dotcom corporation where Leslie works as a receptionist. Routinely dumped by the side of the road by his loud chain-smoking boss (Conchata Ferrell), he spends his work day handing out flyers to passing cars as the company’s blue mascot Kabluey. Needless to say, he rarely hails a customer, but the bizarre presence of a big, blue creature on such a deserted strip of highway (wait for the tumbleweeds) attracts its own kind of attention, and Salman finds himself immersed in a world of kids’ parties, suburban housewife politics, and unlikely friendships. It doesn’t take long before his passive core begins to chip, and he notices more than just an unhappy army wife and her two brats in his sister-in-law and nephews—despite the boys’ daily attempts to murder him. A blue blob of such
gimmicky proportions could seduce even the best directors to overdo it
in the gag department. Prendergast, a former sketch writer for the Los
Angeles-based comedy troupe the Groundlings, keeps it neat, trim, and
funny. The only thing that doesn’t quite gel in Kabluey is the
weird cameo by Teri Garr. Not that she doesn’t play her small role
well—she basically just screams and freaks out whenever she sees Kabluey,
which adds nothing to the film other than the distracting initial
response, “Wow, is that Teri Garr?” Yep. Other than that, Christine
Taylor, Conchata Ferrell, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan offer a tight and
solid backbone of supporting roles, helping to make Prendergast’s debut
film anything but kablooey. B. Bastron
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