The Daily Show correspondent and I were talking on the phone the other day and--as it so often does--the subject of santorum came up. As regular Weekly readers know, santorum was the name given to "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" by readers of the nationally syndicated Savage Love column to honor U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
Despite his high-ranking position as a member of the media elite, Corddry wasn't aware of this important linguistic development. But once I told him about it, he had this to say:
"I'm totally hard right now. And this is on the record, buddy. On the record."
After a few more minutes of hot talk, heavy breathing and excited yelps, we got down to business. And after that, we discussed his film
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story, which is getting what Hollywood types call a "limited release." In fact, Tucson's Loft Cinema appears to be the only theater in the American Southwest that's screening the movie, although it is making the film-fest circuit.
It's a great disservice to a film that, according to Corddry, who stars in the titular role of paintball legend Bobby Dukes, is an important contribution to motion-picture history.
"It's sort of the--how would you say it?--Schindler's List of paintball movies," Corddry says. "Someone was going to do that, and we thought it was time."
In the great tradition of improvised mockumentaries such as Waiting for Guffman, Blackballed purports to tell the story of Bobby Dukes, a legendary paintball player who returns to his upstate New York home a decade after leaving in disgrace following a tournament during which he cheated by "wiping" paint off his leg after he'd been hit. Dukes sets out to redeem himself by assembling a ragtag team of oddballs to compete in the Hudson Valley Paintball Classic.
Corddry says the movie was the brainchild of director Brant Sersen, who "played paintball with a bunch of Korean guys and came up with the whole idea."
Besides exploring themes of redemption and forgiveness, as well as what it means to be human, Blackballed answers the question of what would happen if a group of talented New York improv comedians traveled to upstate New York on weekends one summer and shot a movie without much of script. The answer? You end up with a low-budget but amusing film with limited distribution that's destined to one day be a cult classic. (For James DiGiovanna's take, look in Film Clips, to your right.)
What does Corddry remember from the shoot? The camaraderie? The endless laughs of working with such funny people? The sense that they were making a breakthrough in comedic history?
Mostly, that it rained a lot.
"It was pretty grueling, working all week and then shooting on the weekend in the rain, so it was a crazy summer," he says.
Since those halcyon days, Corddry has kept busy. As we speak--more or less--he's finishing his contribution to Blades of Glory, a comedy starring Will Arnett and Will Ferrell as disgraced Olympic ice skaters seeking redemption.
"We should probably mention my star-making turn in Failure to Launch--the No. 1 grossing movie for two weeks in a row. Beat The Shaggy Dog!" says Corddry, who played Jim, the redemption-seeking gun salesman. "It was my pleasure to not ruin that movie."
And he's celebrating his fourth anniversary with The Daily Show.
"It's been amazing," Corddry says. "It doesn't feel like four years, that's for sure. It's been a whirlwind of politics and poop jokes."
Back to Blackballed: What's the lesson learned from Bobby Dukes' tale of redemption?
"If you're shooting in upstate New York in the summertime, wear tick repellent," Corddry says. "Lyme disease is no joke, America."
