Steal This Movie

This should really piss you off: What follows is a story about a very funny movie you will have absolutely no chance of seeing any time soon. The powers that be who distribute movies--who copy prints, print up posters, deliver them to theaters, collect receipts, split profits (well...)--do not want to distribute this one, which is called Martin & Orloff. There are all kinds of reasons why you can't see this movie, and they're enumerated below, but none of them are good reasons, which makes sense only in that the movie business does not operate with any reason.

Perhaps I should tell you what it's about and who's in it, because, like, you'll never see it. (OK, you might. On DVD. God knows when.) To begin, a man lies on his couch in a sparse, blindingly white apartment. His name is Martin Flam, and he designs promotional costumes for actors to wear when advertising a restaurant's latest menu addition--say, an egg roll or barbecued spare ribs. Martin gets up and walks to the bathroom, which is also as white as an albino in a blizzard. He sighs, grabs a towel, wets it--then proceeds to clean up the dried blood covering the floor and tub, the result of Martin's failed suicide attempt. The sight at first shocks and sickens; it's also kind of depressing, since it means Martin, hospitalized for several months, has no friends or family to clean up after him. And it's also really funny. Seriously.

Because not only will Martin cope with the reasons for his suicide, but he will do so with a therapist, Dr. Orloff, who conducts his sessions by badgering, humiliating and essentially kidnapping his patient. Martin's hour in Orloff's office turns into, among other things, an afternoon at a softball game that lands the two in jail; a side trip to a strip bar that serves New York City's best sweet potato pie; an evening at a play in which the actresses chastise attempted suicides as pathetic; and the promise of a savage beating by a football player with a penis the size of a Louisville Slugger. "I'm here for suicide," Martin explains to his doc by way of introduction. "Attempted suicide," Orloff corrects, lighting a cigar and igniting a small fire. "There's a big difference."

Martin is played by a man named Ian Roberts; Dr. Orloff, by Matt Walsh. They may be vaguely recognizable to the casual viewer of comedy: You might have seen Roberts as the fey dance instructor in Bring it On, Walsh as a correspondent on The Daily Show or a would-be frat man in the new Old School. More discerning consumers will know them both as founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade, the devious pranksters and improv comedy troupe who had their own Comedy Central series from 1998 to 2000 and still run a theater in Manhattan, where they perform, teach improv class and accommodate audiences full of talent scouts for the likes of David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. (The UCB is currently looking for a new permanent home, having run into landlord issues a few months ago.) UCB'ers Matt Besser and Amy Poehler, now a cast member on Saturday Night Live, are also in the film. In fact, everywhere you turn in the movie is a recognizable face: David Cross, Andy Richter, Janeane Garofalo and SNL's Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey have roles ranging from extended cameos to peekaboo performances.

That alone should be reason enough for someone to take a flier on this movie; the Upright Citizens Brigade may only be a household name in the apartments of the stoned and recently-graduated-from-college, but it's a sizable audience. Surely, a UCB movie could draw. Right? No, right?

"Of course, it's possible that nobody finds funny what we find funny," Walsh says. "But there is a fan base, and we have a sense of humor people connect to, so it is surprising someone doesn't understand just the simple mathematics of it. If a group like The State [Wet Hot American Summer] or Broken Lizard [Super Troopers] can make a movie and get a release, and I think our movie's solidly funny throughout, then it's sort of a reasonable assumption that somebody would take that risk and see the profit. But I'm not the guy buying it." No one is.