Between Oscar Wins, Adrien Brody Starred in a Rob Schneider Comedy Directed by the ShamWow Guy
Adrien Brody won his second Academy Award on Sunday night for his starring role in the critically-acclaimed film The Brutalist.
The first time he scored a Best Actor trophy, Brody controversially kissed Halle Berry without her consent, so you’d think he’d work extra hard to not do something gross and weird immediately after winning an Oscar this time. But nope, right before taking the stage Brody took some chewing gum out of his mouth and chucked it at his partner. He then proceeded to give a speech that made The Brutalist feel like a Quibi show by comparison.
Although Brody had already won for The Pianist in 2003, his recent victory is something of a comeback. Apart from the occasional Wes Anderson film, Brody’s cinematic output in the past decade or so hasn’t been terribly memorable. And perhaps the best evidence of just how low Brody’s career sank is the 2013 sketch comedy movie inAPPropriate Comedy.
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As one viral social media post pointed out, the movie, which also starred Rob Schneider and Lindsay Lohan, came out just 12 years ago. And Brody, who had won an Oscar only a decade before that, was billed below Schneider.
If the cast wasn’t eyebrow-raising enough, the director of the film was Vince Offer, AKA the ShamWow! guy.
Prior to his infomercial days, Offer directed another, equally-reviled sketch flick called The Underground Comedy Movie, featuring an eclectic cast of random celebrities that included Slash from Guns N’ Roses, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Joey Buttafucco.
Offer actually got into the infomercial business in an effort to market DVDs of the movie on TV, because it had cost him all of his money, in part, because he sued Anna Nicole Smith for (perhaps wisely) backing out at the last minute. It also probably didn’t help that Offer unsuccessfully tried to sue the Farrelly Brothers, who he claimed had ripped off The Underground Comedy Movie for There’s Something About Mary.
inAPPropriate Comedy, which began as a sequel to The Underground Comedy Movie, was annihilated by the few critics who saw it; The Hollywood Reporter claimed that it made “Movie 43 look good in retrospect.” The New York Post called it “brutally unfunny,” arguing that Lindsay Lohan’s 90 second scene would have been preferable if “she had used a loaded gun on the alleged director.”
And Brody’s segment is somehow even worse than you could possibly imagine. Variety noted that the career decision was “iffy” but that seems like a pretty big understatement. Brody stars as “Flirty Harry” a Dirty Harry-eque cop who, get a load of this, is also gay. Cue the onslaught of homophobic double entendres.
And keep in mind, inAppropriate Comedy came out after Offer was arrested, but not charged, for physically abusing a sex worker who he alleged had bit him -- and also after he had been sued by a former employee for allegedly stalking her and and offering to pay “$20,000 and a paid one month vacation for her parents to travel the world in exchange for her eggs.”
Why was Brody even in this movie made by an alleged creep that looks like it paid the cast with free food and Axe Body Spray? According to Uproxx, Brody was friends with Offer, and, rumor has it, he was given a “green light to be as ‘funny’ and filthy as he wanted.” This claim is seemingly backed up by the fact that, in addition to acting in this trainwreck, Brody received a writing credit for coming up with “additional dialogue.”
Which, given what we know about Brody’s comedy-writing skills, totally checks out.
