Kabluey

Inept Salman (Scott Prendergast) comes to help his sister-in-law (Lisa Kudrow) tend to her homicidal toddlers while Salman's brother is off fighting in Iraq. Salman must take a humiliating job as a giant blue corporate mascot to help make ends meet and hold the family together. Packed with a parade of delightful comedy character actors, KABLUEY is a hilarious, unique and heartfelt comedy.

“This charming, pointed comedy is a genuine discovery.” (Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter)

“...KABLUEY, a comedy written/directed by and starring Scott Prendergast, a Groundlings alumnus and former writer for MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch. I usually want to stay far away from any new indie movie where the writer-director casts himself in the main role (thanks, Edward Burns), but this is a glorious exception -- Prendergast, unlike some, doesn’t feel the need to make himself a romantic lead.

“Kabluey is in many ways the prototypical “art-house” comedy -- it costars Lisa Kudrow (and will appeal most to those who liked her in The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings) and a few other names you know from TV or supporting roles in bigger things, it eschews typical platitudes about families by having them be truly nasty to each other at times, it’s set in some unspecified and weird small town, and features odd poignancy while celebrating genuine eccentrics . . . So what’s the story? Kudrow plays Leslie, a character based on Prendergast’s actual sister-in-law, whose husband is off to fight in Iraq, leaving her alone with two monstrous little children who like to run around the house screaming and smashing things with plastic baseball bats. In desperation, she calls on her brother-in-law Salman (Prendergast), who’s good-hearted but a bit of a helpless case, begs him to babysit while she works, but fails to give him any kind of instruction as to how to handle the brats, who take an instant dislike to Salman and start plotting his murder, at one point pouring kitchen cleaner into his mouth while he sleeps.

Leslie quickly tires of Salman’s inability to be much help, but she hooks him up with a job so he can make himself useful. A failing dot-com company called BlueNeXion is looking to rent out its old office space, and Salman’s job is to dress up as company mascot “Kabluey” (basically a more amorphous, blue version of Marvin the android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and hand out fliers to random motorists who drive by on a road in the middle of nowhere. Not the greatest business plan in the world.

“But in a small town, anything odd quickly becomes an item of fascination, and Kabluey becomes popular in a way that Salman isn’t. The full-body-suit also allows him to hear and see things he isn’t supposed to know about.

“The movie’s hilarious, in a similar vein to something like Napoleon Dynamite without being in any way a clone or a rip-off of same. Prendergast is clearly a force to be reckoned with -- his fearless performance as Salman/Kabluey is a thing of beauty, and his sense of story and humor are note-perfect. Let’s see how he follows this one up. Huge buzz on this thing so far, as the second screening, during the middle of the day, was a sell-out show.

“Kudrow, needless to say, continues to prove she’s by far the coolest of the ex-Friends.” (Luke Thompson, O.C. Weekly) go to http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/los-angeles-film-fest-2007/laff-2007-bluey-da-ba-dee-da-b/ for Thompson’s full piece.)


“It's a sweet, ingenious, twisted and surreal comedy, kind of Samuel Beckett by way of Adam Sandler.” (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel)