"School of Life"

David Paymer is an absolutely wonderful performer. An accomplished character actor, he has proven adept at a variety of roles, and particularly excels in comic portrayals. He has that special gift of being able to play either grounded or off-kilter characters that somehow provide the perfect counterpoint to the lead character. That’s his expertise – he is one of the absolute best supporting actors and is equally brilliant when called upon to be an integral member of an ensemble cast.

That’s no small feat, nothing that should be looked down upon or dismissed, as the supporting player is often the character who colors the whole movie and gives a movie its core tone, its undercurrent. Two Oscar® winning supporting roles that accomplish this brilliantly are Martin Landau’s role as Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood” (providing that film’s true, warm heart) and on the other side of the spectrum, Anthony Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs” (providing that film’s darkness that must be overcome). Yes, I know Hopkins won “Best Actor,” but he’s on-screen for about 15 minutes total, and while his role permeates the whole movie, he is by no means the lead character.

All this leads to a point about Channel 7’s late night movie this Saturday: In “School of Life,” David Paymer is the “biggest name” in the cast, first-billed. Now I’m sure if you bother to watch this film, you’ll probably see some of the usual top-notch acting from Paymer in most scenes. I’m not questioning that. What I am questioning is the use of Paymer in the main role. It’s kind of like this: using TV sitcoms as an example, most people I know enjoy characters like Ed Norton from “The Honeymooners,” George Costanza and Kramer from “Seinfeld,” Robert Barone from “Everybody Loves Raymond,” and Dwight Schrute from “The Office” as “accent,” but it would be difficult to build a weekly show where they were the main characters. The performers who portray these characters imbue them with such nuances and idiosyncrasies that they function best as counterpoint. And sometimes the performers are so closely identified with their signature supporting roles that audiences have a hard time accepting them in the lead even when they’re playing another character (the quick cancellations of various Jason Alexander and Michael Richards shows bears this out).

For what it’s worth, in this movie Paymer is playing against someone named Ryan Reynolds. I’m not familiar with him, but he seems to be working steady, mostly in television, and has a following with the younger set, not only as an actor/comedian, but also as a musician and tabloid fodder as former fiancé of Alanis Morrisette and current fiancé of Scarlett Johansson. It appears he’s on the verge of a big breakout role in a Marvel superhero movie, “Wolverine: Origins” playing the character Deadpool.

Kate Vernon plays Paymer’s wife. The daughter of the great character actor John Vernon who played Dean Wormer in “Animal House” (which we’ll discuss more in the post about tomorrow’s film), Vernon has been working steady in movies since the 1980s. Now in her mid-40s, she seems poised to follow in the footsteps of Barbara Niven, who continues to essay vivacious vixens and femme fatales into her ‘50s. Vernon’s most recent success was playing the conflicted character Ellen Tigh on the Sci-Fi Channel’s revamped “Battlestar Galactica” series.

As per usual, the Phantom is more interested in digging deeper into the supporting cast to see if he can unearth any gems. This time, that gem is the sublimely funny John Astin. Astin is one of those guys who has been around forever, and been so consistently good for so long that to many he’s just a “given,” his true worth often taken for granted. And what is that true worth? In my estimation, Astin is nothing less than a comic genius. But for performers like Astin, the general populace often doesn’t realize that until after the performer is gone. John Ritter is one who comes to mind. Everyone always liked him but his talent was so natural, so seemingly effortless that I don’t think many folks stopped to ponder how exceptionally gifted he was... at least, not until after he died. Then it became apparent that here was a man who really stood apart from the pack of interchangeable performers in television comedy. It’s the same with John Astin. He really does stand apart in my opinion. As does Henry Winkler (and if Channel 7 ever sees fit to reschedule the movie “P.U.N.K.S,” which they promised but never ran, be prepared for a major ode to him).

The Phantom noticed something interesting with this film. What we have here is a tale of two trailers. One tries to sell the film as a warm-hearted tale of academic triumph in the mold of “Stand & Deliver;” the other tries to sell it as a raucous, rowdy, scatological slapstick romp a la “Back to School.”

Let’s start with the “Back to School”-styled trailer. You can watch it by clicking here.

What’s really interesting to note that this TV movie originated on the “ABC Family Channel.” Which, based on the above trailer shows you that they’re committed to some new definition of “family appropriate entertainment,” what with that implication that the veteran teacher’s wife has had an affair with the hot new teacher on campus. Even if it turns out it’s just a dream sequence, I don’t remember the “family films” I grew up with containing content like this – especially in the context it’s presented in within the above trailer. Then again, ABC Family’s slogan is “A new kind of family.” That’s one “family” I’d prefer to be emancipated from, thanks!

If you’d prefer, you can watch the more benign, family-friendly “Stand & Deliver”-styled trailer for this movie here:



Or view the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, May 10th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

LATE NITE LANDFILL BONUS: For you tri-state area readers, be sure to click on the hyper-link for David Paymer above – it links to clips from the Dudley Moore-starrer “Crazy People,” concluding with a scene featuring New Jersey’s famed faux-kiddie show host and vaudeville preservationist “Uncle Floyd” Vivino playing piano & singing. ENJOY!