Brain Candy
Encyclopedia
Brain Candy is a feature film by The Kids in the Hall
The Kids in the Hall
The Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy group formed in 1984, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. Their eponymous television show ran from 1988 to 1994 on CBC in Canada, and 1989 to 1995 on CBS and HBO in the United States...

, a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 comedy troupe. Directed by Kelly Makin
Kelly Makin
Kelly Makin is a Canadian television and movie director. He directed some episodes of The Kids in the Hall comedy television series and also directed several episodes of Queer as Folk including that series' last episode...

, filmed in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, and released in 1996, it followed the five season run of their television series, which had been successful in both Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

The five man team plays all of the major characters, and many of the bit parts. Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser
Brendan James Fraser is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series , and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man , George of the Jungle , Dudley Do-Right , Monkeybone ,...

 and Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...

 have cameos, Garofalo's being almost entirely absent from the final cut.

Premise and characters

The film is about the introduction of a powerful antidepressant
Antidepressant
An antidepressant is a psychiatric medication used to alleviate mood disorders, such as major depression and dysthymia and anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder. According to Gelder, Mayou &*Geddes people with a depressive illness will experience a therapeutic effect to their mood;...

, GLeeMONEX. The drug is rushed into production to help the ailing Roritor Pharmaceuticals and becomes an overnight media sensation. Those involved in the early stages of GLeeMONEX- the scientists, marketing arm and several early users - are followed, right up through the troubling coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

-like side effect of being stuck in their happiest memory.
  • Marv (Dave Foley
    Dave Foley
    David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...

    ) is Roritor's assistant. Despite their seemingly close relationship, he actually dislikes Roritor to the point that his happiest memory is having someone urinate in his boss' latte (Roritor's happiest moment, ironically, is drinking the concoction).
  • Alice (Bruce McCulloch
    Bruce McCulloch
    Bruce Ian McCulloch is a Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and film director. McCulloch is best known for his work as a member of The Kids in the Hall, a popular Canadian comedy troupe, and as a writer for Saturday Night Live. McCulloch has also appeared on series such as Twitch City and Gilmore...

    ) is a fellow scientist, and apparent love interest of Chris. She eventually watches from a distance as he slips away into celebrity.
  • Grivo (Bruce McCulloch
    Bruce McCulloch
    Bruce Ian McCulloch is a Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and film director. McCulloch is best known for his work as a member of The Kids in the Hall, a popular Canadian comedy troupe, and as a writer for Saturday Night Live. McCulloch has also appeared on series such as Twitch City and Gilmore...

    ) is a rock star (evidently a parody of Glenn Danzig
    Glenn Danzig
    Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone; June 23, 1955 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, entrepreneur, and a progenitor of the horror punk subgenre of music. He is a founder of bands the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig...

    ) famous for his bleak lyrics, as well as a general indifference toward his audience, fame, and music. After taking the drug, Grivo switches to jangly, upbeat pop music
    Pop music
    Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

    ; his song "Happiness Pie" becomes an anthem for the post-GLeeMONEX world and wins an MTV Video Award
    MTV Video Music Awards
    An MTV Video Music Award , is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in music videos...

     for Best New Video.
  • Chris Cooper (Kevin McDonald
    Kevin McDonald
    Kevin Hamilton McDonald is a Canadian comedian and actor, known as a member of the Canadian sketch comedy group The Kids in the Hall.-Early life:...

    , Jason Barr, younger) is the inventor of the drug, and main protagonist of the film. He is motivated by the clumsy suicide
    Suicide
    Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

     of his father (also played by McDonald) to create a cure for clinical depression
    Clinical depression
    Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

    , but quickly gets swept up in the resulting fame.
  • Don Roritor (Mark McKinney
    Mark McKinney
    Mark Douglas Brown McKinney is a Canadian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. Following the run of their television series and feature film , he went on to star in Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 1997...

    ) heads Roritor Pharmaceuticals, founded on his invention of the drug Stummies (likely a play on Tums
    Tums
    TUMS is an antacid made of sucrose and calcium carbonate manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline in St.Louis, Missouri, USA. It is a non-prescription drug and available at many retail stores, including drug stores, grocery stores and mass merchandisers. It provides relief from acid indigestion, heartburn,...

     or Rolaids
    Rolaids
    Rolaids is a brand of antacid produced by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. The brand was acquired from Pfizer Consumer Healthcare as part of a merger in 2006. It was invented by American chemist Irvine W. Grote in the late 1920s...

    ). He has a close but contentious relationship with his spineless assistant, Marv. (Roritor's speaking style is openly derived from McKinney's notorious impersonations of producer Lorne Michaels
    Lorne Michaels
    Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...

    .)
  • Mrs. Hurdicure (Scott Thompson
    Scott Thompson
    Scott Thompson is a Canadian television actor and comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall.-Personal life:...

    ) is an old woman who initially is severely depressed and an early test subject for GLeeMONEX (referred to as "Patient 957"). Her happiest memory is shown to be a brief and obligatory Christmas
    Christmas
    Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

     visit from her son, played by Dave Foley
    Dave Foley
    David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...

    . The drug quickly whips her out of the depression, but she inevitably becomes the first victim of its side effect.
  • Wally Terzinsky (Scott Thompson
    Scott Thompson
    Scott Thompson is a Canadian television actor and comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall.-Personal life:...

    ) is a husband, father, and closeted
    The Closet
    The Closet may refer to:* The Closet , Chinese film* The Closet , French film* The closet, referring to undisclosed homosexuality- See also :* Closet* Closet * In the closet...

     homosexual. Wally masturbates
    Masturbation
    Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...

     to gay pornography
    Gay pornography
    Gay pornography is the representation of sexual intercourse between men with the primary goal of sexual arousal in its audience. There is also a tradition, and continuing considerable output, of lesbian pornography....

    , frequents public bath houses, and was sexually active with men during his military career - but remains unaware of his sexual orientation
    Sexual orientation
    Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

    . He is prescribed GLeeMONEX by a frustrated therapist, played by Dave Foley
    Dave Foley
    David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...

     ("You're gay. I know it, your family knows it... dogs know it!"). His happiest memory is a homoerotic
    Homoeroticism
    Homoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...

     army mission fantasized by Wally while being chewed out by his drill sergeant (played by Mark McKinney). Wally finds himself standing considerably closer to his drill sergeant when through fantasizing. Shortly after this, he finally admits (via song and dance) that he is in fact homosexual. The character is an obvious variation on the TV show's dimwitted Danny Husk (even featuring Kevin McDonald
    Kevin McDonald
    Kevin Hamilton McDonald is a Canadian comedian and actor, known as a member of the Canadian sketch comedy group The Kids in the Hall.-Early life:...

     as his wife in both the movie and series).

Some characters from the television series appear briefly in Brain Candy. Among those who do are the "white trash
White trash
White trash is an American English pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards...

 couple," the cops, Cancer Boy (see below), talk show host Nina Bedford (introduced in the show as "Nina Spudkneeyak"), Raj & Lacey, Melanie, Bellini, and the bigoted cab driver (who narrates the film).
  • Ginny Hurdicure (Kathryn Greenwood)
  • Raymond's kid (Amy Smith)
  • Raymond's kid (Lachlan Murdoch
    Lachlan Murdoch
    Lachlan Keith Murdoch is the eldest son of Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his second wife Anna Torv. He resigned from his executive positions at News Corporation on 29 July 2005...

    )
  • Cooper's groupie (Nicole de Boer
    Nicole de Boer
    Nicole de Boer is a Canadian actress, perhaps best known for her roles as Ezri Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from 1998 to 1999 and as Sarah Bannerman on The Dead Zone from 2002 to 2007.-Career:...

    )
  • Cooper's groupie (Krista Bridges)
  • Wally Jr. (Christopher Redman)

Controversy

Two of the film's characters created minor waves in the media before its release. The first was Don Roritor, which many took to be a jab at producer Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...

. Michaels is famous for creating Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

, and was responsible for bringing the Kids in the Hall to television. He is also known for a demeanor that some interpret as detached, and Mark McKinney
Mark McKinney
Mark Douglas Brown McKinney is a Canadian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. Following the run of their television series and feature film , he went on to star in Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 1997...

 mirrors his speech patterns almost exactly as the cold-hearted Roritor.

The second contentious character was Cancer Boy. Reprised from the final episode of the TV show, in a sketch that satirized the idea of being as offensive as possible, Cancer Boy is Bruce McCulloch
Bruce McCulloch
Bruce Ian McCulloch is a Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and film director. McCulloch is best known for his work as a member of The Kids in the Hall, a popular Canadian comedy troupe, and as a writer for Saturday Night Live. McCulloch has also appeared on series such as Twitch City and Gilmore...

 dressed in a bald cap, with pale white makeup, using a wheelchair. He relays depressing information with a cheerful smile and releases a hit pop single entitled "Whistle When You're Low." Many found the character to be in exceedingly poor taste. Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 fought extensively with the troupe to cut the offending scenes, to no avail. The group has expressed some regret over their hardline position years later, feeling the battle left Paramount bitter and reluctant to fully market the film.

Reaction

The film opened to a lukewarm critical reception. Siskel and Ebert were split, and had a heated disagreement over Brain Candy on their weekly review show: Gene Siskel
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal "Gene" Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted the popular review show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies from 1975 until his death....

 found the movie "audacious, clever, very funny" and predicted it would become a midnight cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...

; Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 claimed that he did not laugh once during the screening and found it "awful, terrible, dreadful, stupid, idiotic, unfunny, labored, forced, painful, bad." Janet Maslin of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 called it "[nothing] more than a sloppy showcase for the group's costume-changing tricks." Edward Guthmann at The San Francisco Chronicle, however, called Brain Candy "a splendid showcase for their diverse, frisky talents." It maintains a 41 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

.

The film suffered poor box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....

 returns. The Kids themselves have expressed mixed feelings over the finished product, most notably on the behind-the-scenes DVD of their 2000 tour, Same Guys, New Dresses. The troupe took a four year hiatus after Brain Candys release, though the break-up was already in motion even before filming was underway.

Alternate title and ending

An original working title for the movie was The Drug, which is what GLeeMONEX is extensively referred to during the course of the film (in fact, "Brain Candy" is never actually heard in the film). Bruce McCulloch came up with Brain Candy at the studio's request for something more marketable.

Two endings were filmed, with the relatively more upbeat conclusion making the final cut. In the alternate version, Dave Foley
Dave Foley
David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...

 plays a crazed activist who leads a militant movement against GLeeMONEX. Chris Cooper, unable to cope with the mayhem his drug has created, decides to take it himself, and ends up lapsing into a coma. The unused ending has not been officially released, but a leaked work print was widely traded among fans on the internet during the late 1990s.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack album was released the Tuesday prior to the film's release. It consists of music from the film, interspersed with dialog.

Track List

  1. "Some Days It's Dark" - Death Lurks (McCulloch as Grivo with Odds
    Odds (band)
    Odds are a Canadian alternative rock band. The band's power pop style has been frequently compared to that of contemporaries such as Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Weezer, Tom Petty, Sloan, The Clash, XTC, Franz Ferdinand, and The Tubes.-Odds :...

    ) (with film dialog)
  2. "Painted Soldiers" - Pavement
    Pavement (band)
    Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...

  3. "Happiness" - Matthew Sweet
    Matthew Sweet
    Sidney Matthew Sweet is an American alternative rock/power pop musician. He was part of the burgeoning Athens, Georgia music scene in the early and mid-1980s before gaining commercial success during the early 1990s...

  4. "Happiness Pie" - Death Lurks
  5. "Six Dick Pimp" - Liz Phair
    Liz Phair
    Phair's entry into the music industry began when she met guitarist Chris Brokaw, a member of the band Come. Brokaw and Phair moved to San Francisco together, and Phair tried to become an artist there...

     (followed by dialog leading into next track)
  6. "I'm Gay" - Scott Thompson
    Scott Thompson
    Scott Thompson is a Canadian television actor and comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall.-Personal life:...

     & Joe Sealy
    Joe Sealy
    Joseph Arthur "Joe" Sealy is a Canadian jazz musician. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 2010.-Awards:* Juno Awards of 1982 - Nominee for Best Jazz Album - Clear Vision...

  7. "Spiralling Shape" - They Might Be Giants
    They Might Be Giants
    They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...

  8. "Swoon" - Pell Mell
    Pell Mell
    Pell Mell was an instrumental rock combo, formed in 1980 in Portland, Oregon.The original members were Arni May, guitar, and Jon-Lars Sorenson, bass, from the Portland avant-garde group UHF, and from local Reed College Bill Owen on guitar, and Bob Beerman on drums...

  9. "Birthday Cake" - Cibo Matto
    Cibo Matto
    Cibo Matto are a New York City-based band formed by two Japanese women, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, in 1994...

  10. "Butts Wigglin" - The Tragically Hip
    The Tragically Hip
    The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as The Hip, is a Canadian rock band from Kingston, Ontario, consisting of Gordon Downie , Paul Langlois , Rob Baker , Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay . Since their formation in 1983 they have released 12 studio albums, two live albums, and 46 singles...

  11. "Postal Blowfish" - Guided By Voices
    Guided by Voices
    Guided by Voices is an American indie rock band originating from Dayton, Ohio. Beginning with the band's formation in 1983, it made frequent personnel changes but always maintained the presence of principal songwriter Robert Pollard...

  12. "Pablo and Andrea" - Yo La Tengo
    Yo La Tengo
    Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...

  13. "How To Play Your Internal Organs Overnight" - Stereolab
    Stereolab
    Stereolab are an alternative music band formed in 1990 in London, England. The band originally comprised songwriting team Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier , both of whom remained at the helm across many lineup changes...

  14. "Nata di Marzo" - Pizzicato Five
    Pizzicato Five
    Pizzicato Five was a Japanese pop group best known to audiences in the West in their later incarnation as a duo of Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi...

  15. "Eat My Brain" - Odds
    Odds (band)
    Odds are a Canadian alternative rock band. The band's power pop style has been frequently compared to that of contemporaries such as Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Weezer, Tom Petty, Sloan, The Clash, XTC, Franz Ferdinand, and The Tubes.-Odds :...

  16. "Long Dark Twenties" - Paul Bellini
    Paul Bellini
    Paul Bellini is a Canadian comedy writer and television actor. Bellini is well-known figure in the Canadian television comedy industry due to his work on The Kids in the Hall and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. He has worked on several projects with Josh Levy and PJ DeBoy...

  17. "Having an Average Weekend" - Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
    Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
    Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet were a Juno Award-winning Canadian instrumental rock band, formed in 1984. They remain best-known for the track "Having an Average Weekend," which was used as the theme to the Canadian sketch comedy TV show The Kids in the Hall...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK