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Just noticed that the iTunes store has the Wild West Comedy Show Playlist available. (It's been up since January 29th, but I've been busy...) From the iTunes Store, click "Celebrity Playlists" and then "Vince Vaughn's Playlist." I just bought all of the songs and am listening now. Cool.
If you don't have iTunes, download it here.
Congratulations to our Big Winners in the Vince-Vaughn.com WWCS drawing!
Jennifer Roberson - Poster
John Schulke - Poster
Lori Wright - Poster
Jen Childs - Hat
Amanda Perron - Hat
Kim Mincks - Hat
Shelby (sunnynflorida...) - Hat
JayCeezy - Hat
I will be emailing the winners for shipping addresses.
Thanks to all who entered!
PETER TRAVERS
Rolling Stone
It's a mouthful of a title for a rowdy, ramshackle funfest that flies by on its spirited humor and surprising heart. Back in 2005, Vince Vaughn mounted a comedy tour through what left-and-right coasters condescendingly call the flyover states. His friend Ahmed Ahmed, a standup comic of Egyptian descent, had introduced him to the acts of three friends at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. They are John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Manisalco. Vaughn had the idea that he and his fab four would hop on a bus, do thirty backbreaking shows in thirty cities — no days off — and bring a little cheer to the folks (some victims of hurricanes in Louisiana and Texas) before Vaughn had to go back to work in the Hollywood laugh factory. OK, the laughs are hit and miss. But this movie, directed by Ari Sandel, gets funnier as it goes along. And there's a reason: we get to know each of the comics better and see how they draw their routines from their lives, sometimes under tragic circumstances. Megatalent Vaughn is also the ultimate good sport, daring a duet with Dwight Yoakum, taking major shit from his Swingers costar Jon Favreau, and enduring Justin Long, whose Vaughn impression is spot-on to the point of slander. The documentary was edited from 600 hours of footage and there's barely a slick minute in it. The laughs feel loose-limbed, off-the-cuff and defiantly un-Hollywood. What are you waiting for?
Vince-Vaughn.com is celebrating the release of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights—Hollywood to the Heartland by giving away some fabulous prizes. Sign up now in the comments of this post. You must provide a valid email address to be eligible.
Prizes include 3 posters signed by the entire WWCS cast and WWCS baseball caps (unsigned). The drawing will be held next Sunday, February 10, 5PM Pacific Time.
One entry per person, please.
Good luck!
Vince Vaughn gathers some stand-up pals and hits the great open road intent on roping in a lot of laughs.
By Michael Ordoña, Special to The Times
Photo by Wally Skalij
The Los Angeles Times
HAVE you heard the one about the movie star who suddenly decided to put together a cross-country comedy tour? The stand-up comics would be seasoned but not nationally known, playing 2,000-seat venues when they were used to 30-seat houses. They'd go to Southern and Midwestern cities off the beaten (laugh) track. From conception to launch would be only six weeks. And they'd play 30 cities in 30 nights.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," says a smiling Vince Vaughn in a poolside room at the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica. He admits the tour, captured for the big screen in the upcoming road documentary "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland," due to open Friday, was both impulsive and a labor of love. "I wasn't thinking past the fact that this is going to be different and exciting and fun," Vaughn offers. "The hard technical work fell on other people; they were the ones making the calls and doing stuff. But it was really a story of all of us pulling together and doing our parts."
For years, Vaughn had been putting together one-off stand-up nights as benefits in cities where he was shooting movies. But packing four comics, production staff and a film crew into three buses and winding from Hollywood through Texas and Tennessee to Illinois was no laughing matter. So he surrounded himself with close associates, including his sister, Victoria, and best friend, Peter Billingsley, as producers, and longtime friend Ahmed Ahmed, who was instrumental in assembling the cast.
Ahmed says, "We were all having dinner at this steakhouse in Chicago when [Vince] was finishing 'The Break-Up,' and we were getting ready to do this benefit, and he said, 'Why don't we take this show on the road? What are you guys doing next month?' "
John Caparulo adds, "When Ahmed asked me, 'Do you want to do a tour with Vince Vaughn across the country, 30 shows in 30 days?' it's like, 'Hey, do you want to go to the Super Bowl?' 'Uh, yeah, all right.' A month later, we're on a bus. It was an insanely good opportunity."
"The one thing I like about these guys who I saw through watching Ahmed is that they're kind of telling true stories," says Vaughn of Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco. "Somehow these guys being able to laugh at real stuff from their experience, maybe there was healing for the audience."
With the whole cast crammed together for 30 days, though, first-time feature director Ari Sandel said he'd occasionally hear raised voices.
"Sometimes you'd walk on the bus and they'd be in a huge debate," he said by phone from Los Angeles, "about who the best linebacker was . . . for like seven days. I've never seen people yell so much . . . it was insane."
"We had high-class problems," admits Egypt-born, America-raised comic Ahmed. "We were on a nice bus."
"Ours was like a prison bus," grumbles Billingsley.
"It was like a Bangkok prison," agrees Ahmed.
Billingsley laughs and says, "You guys would run out of food and you'd send [Ahmed] out there at, like, 3 o'clock in the morning to try to get food from our bus."
Ernst, whose comedy is the most physical of the group, says, "It was like some 'Lord of the Flies'-type [stuff] because they would guard their things: 'What are you doing here?' 'We don't have any Yoo-Hoo.' 'You can't have any Yoo-Hoo!' "
The film took shape around what Sandel called "the five minutes before and the five minutes after" the comics took the stage, revealing some of their techniques and insecurities. Sandel, Vaughn, Billingsley and the production team chiseled down 600 hours of footage.
"I've known Ahmed for eight years; I've seen his act a million times," said Sandel. "But it wasn't until I actually was on tour with him and interviewed him and saw him prepare -- for the first time, I really understood what it was he'd been doing the last eight years."
"I was surprised every night," adds Ahmed, whose material often concerns his experiences as an Arab American, including blatant racial profiling. "I try to make it self-deprecating so I'm not attacking the audience; it's more making fun of myself. [Afterward] the guys would say, 'You killed; you had a really good set!' "
Perhaps not surprisingly for a group of guys with such dynamic energy, chaos was always part of the plan.
"We'd change it up every night," says Billingsley of a slate that would occasionally include guests such as Jon Favreau, Justin Long and "Wedding Crashers" costar Keir O'Donnell. "We'd have the four comics, and like, two acts in between. Vince would sing karaoke sometimes; he'd do a scene from 'Swingers' with an audience member."
In one of the film's more poignant sequences, the comics complain about their accommodations -- then come face-to-face with dozens of people displaced after Hurricane Katrina. But Vaughn shrugs off talk of traveling difficulties. Meeting people who had lost everything put the travails of a seat-of-the-pants comedy adventure in perspective.
"Both of my parents worked for a living, so I know what it's like to have real pressure and real problems," he scoffs. "Real pressure is having to feed my kids, 'How am I going to make the mortgage?' I benefited from having grandparents who were farmers and immigrants. So I was never like, 'Oh, this is so hard.' You're on a bus going to make people laugh."
Go behind the scenes with "The Making of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show.
Check out the video on IFC.com
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Photo by Stephanie Diani for The New York Times
The New York Times
WHEN you buy a ticket for a Vince Vaughn movie, you know pretty much what you’re going to get. The story of a sarcastic if affable guy, with a self-satisfied grin and immaculate sideburns, who wins over the guys and gals with his smart-aleck comebacks and learns a few life lessons along the way, possibly after finding true love or being barraged with dodgeballs. The kind of guy he inhabits so completely, in movies like “Wedding Crashers,” “Swingers” and “The Break-Up,” that he couldn’t possibly be anything but a nonchalant cynic in real life.
So it came as a surprise on a recent Sunday morning to find Mr. Vaughn, 37, sitting in the lounge of a Hollywood theater, choking back tears. The catalyst for his Hillary Clinton moment? He was recounting a trip he took in 2005, when he packed a tour bus full of young comedians on an ad hoc cross-country journey that would lead, among other places, to a trailer park for Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Alabama and benefit concerts for Hurricane Rita victims in Texas.
“It was very hard for me,” Mr. Vaughn said, struggling to maintain his composure as he recalled the trip, “because it’s one of those situations where there’s no answer of how to solve it, but these lives are destroyed.”
“I’m not a politician,” he added. “I don’t have the answer to anything, but I do like to make people laugh. Can’t we all be on the same side with the stuff, versus having comedy that’s so acidic and meanspirited and dividing? That’s just not my nature.”
While it is only natural to be skeptical of any celebrity who supports a cause, Mr. Vaughn’s latest film, opening Friday, a documentary about his 2005 expedition titled “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights — Hollywood to the Heartland,” engenders a different kind of disbelief. It suggests that behind the acerbic satires and skirt-chasing farces, the show’s M.C. might have an earnest side too.
With little fanfare Mr. Vaughn has in recent years made occasional visits to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and organized comedy shows to benefit the Army Emergency Relief Fund. (Mr. Vaughn’s older sister Victoria was in the Army Reserve.)
In September 2005, following the release of “Wedding Crashers,” he decided on a more ambitious project: a tour that would travel from Los Angeles to Chicago, featuring stand-up comics he had discovered through the comedian Ahmed Ahmed, a friend he met on a 1990 after-school special.
“He was like, ‘What are you doing for the next month?’ ” Mr. Ahmed said, recalling his invitation to join the tour. “And I said: ‘Nothing. You’re the one with a career, remember?’ ”
Through visits to Los Angeles clubs like the Comedy Store, Mr. Vaughn rounded out the group with John Caparulo, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco. Their monologues mine personal material about decidedly middle-class experiences — fixing cars under the guidance of a stern father, shopping at Ross department stores — which plays to the widest variety of audiences.
Mr. Vaughn was capable of organizing the trip, but that doesn’t completely account for why he chose to take a colossal pay cut to spend a month introducing his “Wild West” ensemble, re-enacting the occasional scene from “Swingers” onstage and sleeping in the back of a tour bus.
Certainly, Mr. Vaughn acknowledged, the decision stemmed partly from the boredom he felt with his career at the time. “I could keep trying to do these same kind of comedies,” he said. “You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel.” (Sometimes, however, the audiences don’t flock to the theater, as this past holiday’s “Fred Claus” proved.)
Friends of Mr. Vaughn said the trip — with an itinerary that included stops in Oklahoma City; Nashville; Little Rock, Ark.; and Birmingham, Ala. — was also inspired by his desire to bring entertainment to places too often dismissed as flyover territory.
“He thought it was very important to take this on the old blue highways, before the interstate system passed all the towns by,” said Dwight Yoakam, the country musician and actor (who described his camaraderie with Mr. Vaughn as “probably one of the more disparate pairings” in the entertainment industry). “Vince really has an understanding of what goes on between Nevada and New Jersey, and he’s cognizant of the real world, versus the one we exist in, in our vacuum on either coast.”
It can be easy to forget that Mr. Vaughn was born in Minnesota and raised in the Chicago suburbs of Buffalo Grove and Oak Park. The son of a manufacturer’s representative for toys and video games and the grandson of a dairy farmer, he enjoyed an adolescence informed equally by the hip-hop of NWA and the country of Buck Owens.
Mr. Vaughn said his career and extracurricular choices were not reflections of a political stance. “I am truly more of an independent that anything,” he said. “I don’t agree 100 percent with either side on everything.”
If people feel strongly enough about an issue to act on it, he added, “I respect that, but that’s not my journey. My journey is to try to do stuff to make people laugh.”
It is that showman’s compulsion, friends say, that may explain the origins of Mr. Vaughn’s comedy tour. “He’s not an artist who sits alone with a typewriter; he’s a guy who works the room,” said the filmmaker and actor Jon Favreau, a “Swingers” co-star and longtime confidant, who appears in the documentary. “It’s all about being a carnival barker, and he loves the challenge of going into a new environment.”
The environment itself provided a substantial challenge over the course of the tour: Katrina touched down days before the inaugural performance, on Sept. 12, 2005, and several planned appearances along the Gulf Coast were canceled.
“I said, ‘I don’t care if there’s 50 people down there,’ ” Mr. Vaughn recalled with a sardonic laugh. “They’re like, ‘They’re evacuating the city.’ Oh, O.K.”
An additional show planned for Beaumont, Tex., had to be canceled when Hurricane Rita hit there. It was rescheduled in Dallas as a benefit matinee.
Meanwhile the comedians who joined Mr. Vaughn on the road discovered that the documentary form demanded a greater level of personal confession than their stand-up routines. Mr. Ernst talked about his gay brother, a frequent subject of his jokes, and his death from AIDS in 2001. During a stop in Las Vegas, Mr. Ahmed, a Muslim of Egyptian descent, revisited a jail where he was held on vague charges for 12 hours in 2004.
“We didn’t really know how much the documentary would focus on these guys’ personal lives until we went on tour,” said the film’s director, Ari Sandel, an Oscar winner for the short “West Bank Story” and a friend of Mr. Vaughn’s.
“It’s one thing to be friends with somebody and to ask them questions,” he added. “It’s a totally different thing to have a camera in front of them. After a while, you run out of a lot of typical questions after the first three or four days. Then the questions start to become a lot deeper.”
When the tour came to an end on Oct. 11, 2005, the comedians came home to the modest crowds and two-drink-minimum clubs they were accustomed to playing, returning with newfound confidence but also with uncertainty about how involved Mr. Vaughn would remain in their careers. “I don’t even know how to get hold of him,” Mr. Maniscalco said. “Talk to Vince? How? If I wanted to call him, he doesn’t even have a number.”
Mr. Vaughn had his own battles to fight: first with the Weinstein Company, which was to distribute the documentary until Mr. Vaughn became dissatisfied with a proposed advertising campaign and reclaimed the film.
“We all know when we see the posters that a studio can put up, like, ‘Get ready to laugh!’ ” Mr. Vaughn said, smirking while resting his chin on his fist. “Or ‘Here comes the funny!’ That makes me go, ‘Oh, God.’ ”
(In an e-mail message, the Weinstein Company’s Harvey Weinstein wrote, “The parting on ‘Wild West’ was very amicable and we wish the project the very best.” The movie is now being distributed by Picturehouse, the specialty division of New Line Cinema and HBO.)
Since Mr. Vaughn has finished the tour and the movie, there remains the question of how he should satisfy the restlessness that both projects were supposed to stave off. “The biggest challenge, when you’re at the point Vince is at, is finding something that piques your curiosity enough to engage you, because you could try your hand at anything,” Mr. Favreau said. “If he wanted to record an album as a singer, I’m sure he could figure out a way to do it. It’s just a matter of what he wants to do.”
For the time being Mr. Vaughn is talking about bringing his comedy tour to the Northeast and Northwest. And he is currently shooting another holiday-theme comedy, “Four Christmases,” in which he and Reese Witherspoon play a couple attempting to visit all four of their divorced parents and their spouses in a single holiday, and for which Mr. Vaughn will receive a producing credit.
While he may not be ready to swear off the disingenuous characters he so easily embodies, Mr. Vaughn is hopeful that the “Wild West Comedy” film will help reconnect him to his earlier sincerity and drive. Reflecting on his formative days as a professional actor, he said: “I was so excited if I got anything. I was 18 years old. I thought, ‘Man, I’m on “China Beach” for five lines.’ I thought that was awesome.”
As he looks at the field of younger talent coming up behind him, Mr. Vaughn said, he often encounters performers more interested in image than authenticity. “It seems like if you say you take an acting class, that’s not cool,” he said. He slipped into the whispery, dispassionate voice of the stereotypical pretty boy he says he never was: “I’m just a natural. I never studied.”
The documentary, he said, “is a counter to all of that. Who’s hot and who’s not? Who cares? Otherwise, we’d all be models remaking ‘Gone With the Wind.’ ”
Posted By: Sheila Roberts
Movies Online
MoviesOnline sat down with Vince Vaughn and stand-up comedians Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Maniscalco at the Los Angeles press day to promote their new movie, “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland.”
In the spirit of the old west variety shows, Vince Vaughn (star of “The Break-Up,” “Wedding Crashers,” “Swingers,” “Fred Claus”) took the stage at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood on September 12, 2005 and began an unprecedented comedy tour featuring stand-up comedians Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Maniscalco. Vaughn played host to the ensemble of comedians and performed improvisational sketches with surprise celebrity guests that included Jon Favreau, Justin Long, and Keir O’Donnell.
“Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland” chronicles Vaughn and the comedians’ journey as they travel more than 6,000 miles and perform 30 shows in 30 consecutive nights in cities across the U.S. The documentary gives audiences a rare opportunity to experience Vaughn and his team as they bring their unique styles and perspectives to regional audiences throughout Western, Southern and Midwestern states.
With rousing onstage performances and behind-the-scenes interviews, the engaging grass roots documentary breaks down the true essence of each comedian’s life-altering experiences, and the personal and professional challenges that will unite four comics, one movie star and legions of fans from Hollywood to the Heartland.
Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland Tour” is the first documentary film release from Wild West Picture Show Productions. It’s directed by Ari Sandel and produced by Vince Vaughn. Executive producers on the project are Peter Billingsley, Victoria Vaughn and John Isbell. John Pisani and Sandra Smith serve as associate producers. Dan Lebenthal edited the project.
The genesis of the movie came in the summer of 2001 in New Orleans when Vaughn decided to host a live comedy show at the French Quarter bar One-Eyed Jacks. That night would eventually lead to similar shows in Dewey Beach, Maryland during the production of “Wedding Crashers” and in Chicago during the production of “The Break-Up.” It was during the preparation for the Chicago show – a benefit for the Army Emergency Relief Fund – that Vaughn first entertained the idea of taking the show on a full-blown tour across the country.
“I really wanted to take a high quality show to places that normally didn’t get live variety shows,” explains Vaughn. “Growing up in Illinois, you usually had to go to New York, Los Angeles or Las Vegas to see a show. I thought it would be fun to bring the show to smaller towns like Little Rock, Lubbock, El Paso and Tucson. Also, selfishly for me, I love driving through America and seeing different landscapes and cities that I have never been to before.”
“The type of show we are doing just isn’t done anymore,” says Vaughn. “It’s a different skill set and a different feeling to perform live on stage. I really enjoy interacting with and relating to a live audience. Performing improv and sketch comedy every night would provide me that opportunity.” With comedians Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco and Ahmed Ahmed having all performed in the Chicago and Maryland comedy shows, Vaugn tapped the trio along with John Caparulo to join him on his Wild West Comedy Tour.
Although the four comedians Vaughn selected for his tour were all close friends and regulars at the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip, the foursome’s comedic style and material is as diverse as their backgrounds: Egyptian-born Ahmed Ahmed’s material focuses on his lifelong struggle with racial stereotypes; Sebastian Maniscalco’s insightful observations on the absurdity of the modern man are influenced by Midwestern values; acerbic wit is the calling card of small-town Ohio boy John Caparulo; and Italian alpha male Bret Ernst specializes in high energy, physical comedy.
Vaughn, Ahmed, Caparulo, Ernst and Maniscalco are five very funny guys and we really appreciated their time. Here’s what they had to tell us about their recent adventure:
Q: Can you talk about the experience of doing this movie and then seeing the final product?
AHMED AHMED: Vince came up with the idea. It was kind of last minute. It was like this idea came up and he said, ‘You guys want to go on a tour?’ and like maybe a month later we were on this bus. The experience was great being able to perform in front of really large crowds. We weren’t expecting it to be a movie to be honest with you. We were just going show by show. We really weren’t looking at the outcome of the tour. We were just like ‘Let’s try to be funny every night.’ And then we finished the tour and we were like ‘Okay. That was great. I would do it again.’ And they had cameras on the bus and they shot the whole thing and then it was cut into this film and they showed it to us and the next thing I know it’s a movie. It was really just a blessing to be part of the whole experience.
JOHN CAPARULO: The surprising thing for me really was I remember when we were out on the tour. We were just out there living our daily lives on the bus, you know, which is pretty boring. I’d get up at 2pm and I had breakfast and did the show. I remember thinking when we were on the tour ‘Are they going to have enough footage to make anything with this?’ And I remember they told me when they were getting into the editing process, they were like ‘Oh, the first cut of the movie was 4 hours long’ and I’m like ‘Okay! I guess we had enough footage.’ So, yeah, that was the surprise to me. We made a movie. [Laughs]
Q: When did you guys bathe?
SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO: Bathe? I was constantly washing myself throughout the tour.
BRET ERNST: Everyday. We had a shower on the bus and we also had a hotel room when we would go to the city that we would shower in.
AHMED AHMED: The venues had showers too so we would go to them.
Q: Ahmed, you just finished The Axis of Evil comedy tour. Which was harder, your audience in the Middle East or the audience in America?
AHMED AHMED: One wasn’t harder than the other because the material translated. I did my act in English in the Middle East and I did it in English here. It translated pretty similarly to both audiences.
Q: Vince, how did these guys end up on your radar so that you recruited them in particular for this tour?
VINCE VAUGHN: Well I had known Ahmed. In fact, Ahmed and I became friends at the same time that I became friends with Peter Billingsley which was that Steroid After School Special. Looking back on it, it’s kind of like looking at “The Outsiders.” Who would have thought that all these guys would have come from one particular special. And then Ahmed, there weren’t a lot of parts for him so he sort of turned to stand-up comedy as an avenue for expression because there weren’t a lot of parts for Egyptian kids. I’d have to go watch him like a friend in need is a pest. Every month it’d be like ‘Oh I gotta go watch him tell that joke again.’ But as I went down, he started to get better because he started to talk about himself and his families and these kinds of things that Ahmed really became excellent at what he does. In going to watch him, I watched these guys as well and my favorite comedians and the one thing they all had was they were talking about real life experiences and sometimes stuff is not that flattering whether it was relationships or family situations but they had a sense of humor about themselves. There was kind of a connection in the film with all kind of old country western songs and their comedy in that.
You’re talking about what you know. It comes from a genuine life experience and audiences I think, the question you asked Ahmed, if you’re being authentic and truthful, especially stuff that happens everywhere – relationships or parents stuff or brother/sister stuff, those kind of things – it’s relatable, that’s universal, that’s translatable anywhere. And so I thought, ‘Oh let’s do a show. It’ll be kind of fun. I’ll improvise. I haven’t done that in awhile.’ I did originally for a friend of mine in New Orleans just to help him out with his venue and it went tremendous so I started doing more shows as sort of benefit shows. I did some for the Army Emergency Relief Fund and the response was always good so I thought this would be fun to kind of go on the road. I’d like to play a bunch of different places, take a variety comedy show which you haven’t seen in awhile and go to some folks’ backyards that don’t get shows like this usually. Give them something fun to see where you don’t have to go to Los Angeles or New York or even Chicago to some degree or Vegas and I kind of thought of the idea and I thought let’s film it.
I knew it would be a movie obviously and we thought let’s shoot some venue special and then we’ll have cameras. But I didn’t know what the story would be. I knew it would be funny as it is but you didn’t know quite what it would be. You didn’t know what would happen as far as when we ran into the hurricane stuff that happened down there and meeting their families. What is that going to be like exactly? You don’t know and so the editing process for something like this becomes like screenwriting when I’ve done that because you have all this footage but you really have to kind of say ‘What is the story within this that’s the most compelling?’ And for me, kind of the underdog story of these guys and sort of their journey in realizing that their comedy came from real life experiences sort of became the most interesting thing as well as the special guest stars and all the stuff that’s fun. It really turned into kind of an event movie where it’s like a road trip. It’s a capsule of sort of what was going on at that time. It’s an insight into stand-ups that I don’t think you’ve quite seen before, sort of what they go through. It’s sort of became a lot of components of different things. But the idea originally when I thought of it was just to say, ‘This is a fun thing. Let’s go as many places as we can.’ And what came out of it was sort of the result of what happened. But I had the easy job of thinking of it. I only thought of it six weeks out so my sister Victoria and John Isbell and Sandra (Smith), they had to really in six week’s time find these buses, book 30 venues, convince people I was really coming, you know, what the Wild West Show was. Is Vince going to come and rope horses? What’s happening here? So they really had, as far as the logistics were concerned, a much more challenging job to put it all together.
Q: Was the autographing of boobs a nightly thing?
VINCE VAUGHN: I think that was John.
JOHN CAPARULO: I envisioned the breasts.
VINCE VAUGHN: Sometimes you get asked stranger things than that to autograph. It’s kind of a dealer’s choice I think.
JOHN CAPARULO: You know the weirdest one for me was some dude. First of all, it was a dude, but second of all, it was a guy… You know we would autograph people’s T-shirts because we would sell Wild West T-shirts outside. It was like ‘Hey, here you go!’ And some guy just had me autograph his shirt like you’re wearing. It was a nice shirt. He could probably wear it to a job interview or something. [Laughter] It’s not going to look good with my autograph on it but alright. It just felt weird.
Q: What was the most memorable venue you performed at?
BRET ERNST: The Ryman.
JOHN CAPARULO: Yeah, the Ryman.
BRET ERNST: The Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville because, you know, just all the old history there. And I’m a big Elvis fan and I know he was on that stage. So it was just awesome.
JOHN CAPARULO: I’m telling toilet jokes with people sitting in church pews so you know that’s pretty cool. [Laughs]
Q: Vince, you’ve done a lot to bring attention to the whole of America from this tour to shooting films in Chicago, what has that done to improve this sort of bi-coastal mentality?
VINCE VAUGHN: Oh I don’t know. You know I think that there are more similarities between people than there are differences. I’ve always seen myself as an American. I’m proud of where I’ve come but I believe I was given an opportunity in California that I wouldn’t have had back home so I’m very thankful. California has always been kind of a Gold Rush state where you could come out and individuals are kind of respected and allowed to be that here so there’s great things about this as well. I’m not saying you don’t have that back home but it’s definitely a place where you come to for opportunities. In a way California becomes symbolic of America at its best. It’s a place where you can come and pursue whatever your particular dreams are. I was definitely shaped from being from middle America. My grandfather was a farmer. Dad was the first one off the farm.
My other side of the family were immigrants and worked hard. But I think that’s the same in Boston as it is in Tennessee. I think that’s kind of why we have one constitution. We’re all from the same place. You might have different specific things in different places but we’re all on the same side and I think for me that was really the point of the movie on some level. I’ve always tried to be sort of including with comedy and it felt to me that some of these things that came up – be it Katrina or the war or other things – was dividing people and it felt like some of the comedy would be almost acidic or sort of against a certain side one way or the other. And I’ve come to find in my life that people shut down when you approach them that way. They feel defensive and they don’t listen. They’re less open and obviously they feel like they’re being attacked. For me personally, I don’t think I have any friends that we agree on everything but we respect each other, we listen to each other, and I’ve always learned from listening to people with different approaches so the one thing I wanted to do with the movie and what I thought that these guys had in their comedy was unify and bring people together – whether it’s the stuff Bret talks about with his family or Ahmed talks about. People from different backgrounds were laughing and enjoying and sharing because they could relate I think to the human connection of what they were talking about. So hopefully I think the film at its best is a unifying thing that makes people kind of laugh and feel closer to each other. The feeling that we would have after the show I think is very similar to what we felt like after …the feeling you have in the movie is you do kind of feel closer to the people in the group. It’s kind of a feel good feeling where you feel warm I think and open. It’s not something that makes a division.
Q: What’s been the impact on the comics from doing this movie now that they have greater visibility? Has it changed anything?
SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO: For myself, I did a Comedy Central special. I filmed an hour-long DVD. It’s opened up a lot of doors for me and the last 2-1/2 years I just keep pinching myself because for myself it’s been kind of like a dream come true to just perform in front of these large audiences and have a major motion picture coming out with VINCE VAUGHN: and my parents in the movie also. Not too many people can say ‘My parents are in my first movie.’ They’re loving every minute of it. For myself, it’s opened a lot of doors and I just pray every day that this [continues]. It’s been a great ride.
BRET ERNST: A lot of things have happened to me because you had the heat of the tour and then you have the heat of the movie. It’s almost like that Advent calendar and now it’s Christmas Eve. And now you’re like, ‘Alright, now Christmas morning is happening. I can’t wait to see it and see what happens.’ As comedians, it’s not based on how talented you are. It’s pretty much based on how many tickets you’re going to sell as a comic. Visibility is the best thing you can get as a stand-up comedian. And I always said the only reason why I would want any type of notoriety was so I can get a lot of stage time. You know what I mean? It seems like once this happened, then people are like ‘Okay, well now we can put you in the club.’ And what’s great is all the hard work that you put in for the 11 years I’ve been doing stand-up now that you have the visibility because of the movie, you’re in the club. That’s when your talent meets the hard work and the opportunity and then boom! That’s all you can ask for as an artist and this movie has provided that.
AHMED AHMED: Johnny Carson used to put comics on his stage and they would get recognized the next morning. They’d get a TV deal or whatever so, not to compare Vince to Johnny Carson, but his endorsement speaks for itself if people like you because Vincent says, ‘Hey, I think this guy’s funny or this girl’s funny.’
VINCE VAUGHN: I don’t know if that’s true. I think that people respond to you guys because they like your stuff and for me, I got as much out of this as I gave. It was a great opportunity to travel and go play live and all those kind of things but I think the work was done by these guys. I just saw them perform but they had… Bret’s been doing it for 11 years. They were always doing well wherever they performed.
BRET ERNST: But nothing like this has ever been done in stand-up comedy.
JOHN CAPARULO: Especially in this era.
BRET ERNST: In this day and age.
JOHN CAPARULO: Yeah, I mean how many comics really get to do stand-up on the big screen? It doesn’t happen anymore so I mean the four of us were really lucky.
BRET ERNST: It’s like if you look at the 80s, to do the Tonight Show was so rare and then as comedy progressed, you have the Comedy Network now. You have five, six talk shows. You have the internet where everybody’s things are on there. Now the big screen has become the Tonight Show. I mean nobody has done this.
VINCE VAUGHN: There’s been others like “The Kings of Comedy” and stuff like that, films and stuff. I think there’s similarities. I think it has its own thing. It’s a different look at it and it’s different stuff too. But there’s been stuff I think that touches on it in different ways.
Q: Do you guys have any plans to get back on the big screen after this film?
VINCE VAUGHN: To be honest, I don’t care if these guys live or die. [Laughter] It wore me out. [Laughs] No, I’m kidding. I’d like to do stuff again. I’d like to do a tour that starts in Boston and kind of goes down through the East Coast down to Florida. I’d like to do one in the Pacific Northwest and go to Toronto and maybe go other places with it. It’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. There’s a different energy that comes off of it. But I have to wait and see what our schedule is and sort of how things translate but in and of itself, it’s a very magical special thing. The big thing is that you don’t go and try to recreate something that you couldn’t predict. You have to, I think, try to start from another place that felt authentic, if that meant getting different comics. After doing it and looking at it I’d like to maybe bring different kind of comics out as these guys did and I think there’s a tour to be done perhaps with these guys again and that could be interesting and it’s also nice to give some other opportunities to some other people. It’d be interesting. I think it would be interesting to see a female comic go on the journey.
Q: How about acting together?
VINCE VAUGHN: Acting? Yeah, absolutely. These guys are talented guys so it could happen. I’m sure they’ll have their own things going on from this and stuff that they’re doing. I like to act with people like (Jon) Favreau and that again so it’s possible.
Q: For Ahmed and Vince, you guys have known each other for a long time and then Peter and later John, can you talk about how you stay bonded through the ebb and flow of your careers?
VINCE VAUGHN: Well I heard your breath so I pulled back. That was like a tennis match where the ball went down the middle and we both looked at the other person like ‘What an idiot!’ Some doubles partners. [Laughter]
AHMED AHMED: We just always had this great friendship and just always supported each other. I think we all were cut from the same cloth. We all have not similar upbringings but our parents instilled in us respect and they worked hard and Vince is really close to his family as am I and so is Peter (Billingsley). So I think the family values has a lot to do with it and us being supportive of each other. I think we also have certain visions we were going for that we also supported. You know Peter has become a really successful producer aside from his acting and stuff. Obviously Vince has done extremely well for himself. For me, as a comedian, that was always a dream of mine to achieve a certain level of success as a comedian. So there’s that support, going back to what Vince said, and coming down to the comedy clubs and stuff, watching me night after night try to work out a joke or whatever, and a year later turn a corner and find a new angle or story and just having him there in the trenches with me was always really a great feeling to have a friend like that, that comes down and supports you. We always just had this mutual respect and support for each other in our art and our friendship.
Q: Have any of your families gotten any deals from any of this?
BF: My father thinks he should get an agent. My stepfather. He’s delusional. [Laughter]
Q: Do people recognize and approach you on the street because of this film?
VINCE VAUGHN: It hasn’t come out yet.
JOHN CAPARULO: My sister called me last night because one of her friends called her and saw her on HBO because the HBO First Look came on so my sister called to say ‘Hey, I’m a star.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay! Good for you!’
Q: Can you talk about the interaction with Ari (Sandel) and how he came to shoot everything?
VINCE VAUGHN: Yeah. What happened was…I guess talking about that and also about our friendship with Ahmed…for me is I was not a good student. I had learning disabilities. I was bright but I learned in different ways and some things came easier. I wasn’t a great athlete but acting was always something that I really loved. But it took a lot of hard work. In fact, because I did have some learning disabilities, it seemed like a lot of things were hard work. So the one thing I really responded to with Ahmed was here’s this guy who’s Egyptian and wants to be an actor. There’s no parts for him but it’s just his tenaciousness that I really responded to. I knew what it felt like to feel like ‘Boy, there’s not an easy way in but you really want to try to work at something.’ The same for Peter. A lot of child stars when they get to a certain age it’s very difficult because no one wants to see you anymore because you’re so recognizable for what you did [when you were] younger and you don’t have a normal kind of maturation process where you have a normal social [life] like playground stuff. Everybody kind of treats you really well and then all of a sudden people don’t want to be around you. And Peter’s work ethic to become a producer and get involved behind the camera was like nothing I ever saw. I’d say ‘Let’s go to the race track’ or ‘Let’s go do something’ and he’d say ‘I have to work from 10 to 6.’
I’d say, ‘Peter, you got nothing to work on’ and he’d say, ‘Well I’m gonna write a screenplay. I’m gonna try and put something together’ for years with no results. So, for me, I found it easy to root for. And then as I was able with Favreau, what we accomplished with Swingers was to try to provide opportunities if someone was kind of trying hard and working in that way. There’s something about that that is motivating and inspiring to me. Ari Sandel was a guy that Peter gave an early opportunity to and worked with Peter on a TV show that they did when Ari was starting off. When we first initiated the tour, Ari was just a hired cameraman the first day on the bus. He was not the director of the film. He was a guy with a camera. And as we went out and got…as I said we put together in 6 weeks…originally I said to Peter because Peter had run so much different stuff, he produced “Made” with me, “Dinner for Five,” “The Break-Up,” he produced “Zathura,” and now he’s done “Iron Man.” He’s producing “Four Christmases” with me. But he also produced this TV show and sort of was a mentor to Ari about how to get field segments and stuff. As we were there, so much of Peter’s day became about putting together the technical show and making sure stuff was running that I came to Ari who I really liked his short film obviously that everyone knows of now which won the Academy Award. And I said to him, ‘Will you direct this movie?’ He was thrilled of course and I said, ‘We’ll talk to you at the end of the day and sort of talk about what’s going on and go get footage.’ And he worked really hard and did a good job. My style, where I come from in the creative process, is the best idea wins. I don’t need to be right. I don’t need anybody else to be right. I need whatever is right for the movie and I really like a collaboration where if you have an idea, we’ll through it up there. I don’t want to debate it for 45 minutes. Let’s see, let’s go, let’s watch it, let’s watch. I feel like when people feel included, they feel like they have a voice, they feel incentified, they’re excited. You’re getting the best ideas. So Ari was a huge component and very much a part of the idea, but so was Peter Billingsley and so was my sister and so was the editor, Dan Lebental, who cut “American Pimp” which was a great documentary. He cut “The Break-Up,” he cut “Elf.” So really what you see as a final result I think is better than what any one of us could have done. It really became a true collaboration with all of us.
Q: How did you feel about doing the Swingers routine 10 years later?
VINCE VAUGHN: What I kind of liked about it was it was that kind of simple comedy set up where I’m kind of tough on Justin and kind of not giving him an out and then the fun is at the end he gets to humiliate me. I always knew Justin did a really good imitation of me that was not flattering, that was kind of funny at my expense. I knew that like okay, we could be tough on him at the beginning because he’ll do a good job of making fun of me and that’ll make everyone happy.
Q: Thank you.
VINCE VAUGHN: Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it.
Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights—Hollywood to the Heartland opens in theaters on February 8th.
Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights—Hollywood to the Heartland opens in about a week! Here's a schedule of TV appearances Vince and the guys will be making as they promote this new film. (I've seen it and it's fantastic!)
~TV PROMOTION~
ULTIMATE FIGHT NIGHT - SPIKE TV - Bret Ernst, John Caparulo
23-January Re-airs on 25-January
HBO FIRST LOOK - HBO - Entire Cast
25-January @ 10:45 pm
30-January @ 7:30 pm
2-February @ 3:45 pm
5-February @ 12:15 pm
5-February @ 8:30 pm
8-February @ 1:45 pm
14-February @ 8:15 am
14-February @ 12:30 am
TOP 20 COUNTDOWN - CMT - Vince, Dwight Yoakam
31-January, repeats 3 times over weekend"
LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON - CBS - Sebastian Maniscalco
31-January @ 12:35 am
THE MAKING OF… - IFC - Vince, Jon Favreau, Dwight Yoakam, Peter Billingsley, Keir O'Donnell, Ari Sandel and comics
TBD: 30-January or 31-January
VINCE VAUGHN'S WILD WEST COMEDY SHOW WEEKEND - promos and bumpers around shows - CMT - Vince, Dwight Yoakam, Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco
Run throughout day on 1-February and 2-February
DINNER FOR FIVE - IFC - Vince, Jon Favreau, Peter Billingsley, Justin Long, Keir O'Donnell
1-February @ 10:00 pm
PROMOS / BUMPERS for FRIDAY NIGHT STAND-UP - COMEDY CENTRAL - Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco
1-February beginning at 10:00 pm
LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN - CBS - Vince
6-February @ 11:35 pm
GOOD MORNING AMERICA - ABC - Vince
6-February @ 7:00 am
REGIS & KELLY - ABC - Vince
7-February @ 9:00 am
LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON - CBS - Jon Favreau
7-February @ 12:35 am
TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO - NBC - Ahmed Ahmed
REEL TALK - WNBC - Vince
9-February
~ARTICLES~
NEW YORK TIMES - Arts & Entertainment - Vince, Jon Favreau, Ahmed Ahmed, Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco
3-February
BOSTON HERALD - Vince
7-February
PEOPLE MAGAZINE - Vince - 1-page Q&A
8-February
LOS ANGELES TIMES - Calendar Section - Vince, Jon Favreau, Keir O'Donnell, Peter Billingsley, Ahmed Ahmed, Bret Ernst, John Caparulo, Sebastian Maniscalco, Ari Sandel
Here's a group shot of the guys at Monday night's premiere of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights—Hollywood to the Heartland, held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, CA.
By Shirley Halperin
February 1st issue of Entertainment Weekly
At 6 feet 5 inches, Vince Vaughn barely clears the ceiling of his tour bus— glitzy, leathery behemoth befitting a band like the Rolling Stones. But back in the fall of 2005, the 45-footer served as temporary home to Vaughn and the posse of comedians he handpicked for a monthlong cross-country stand-up tour. Vaughn's resulting documentary about the trek, Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show proves he may have had the rocker trappings down, but the actor had to learn a thing or two about the lifestyle: "When we decided to book the tour, I had no experience with any of this," Vaughn laughs. "I originally thought 30 days and 30 nights because it had a nice ring to it. I didn't realize you need a day off once in a awhile. It's like you're being Federal Expressed from stage to stage."
Today, Vaughn is back on the bus to promote West (in theaters Feb. 8) and parked outside of one of his favorite stops—the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, Calif., a shrine to the late Buck Owens. A Chicago-area native, Vaughn is quick to defend his country cred by dropping the fact that his grandfather was a dairy farmer and his family hails from Ohio. As a result, he says, he feels perfectly at home here. "A lot of these guys, like Buck and Johnny Cash, had these extreme existences, picking up, moving, and looking for work," the 37-year-old explains with a hint of Hee Haw awe. "The songs were just expressing that." It was his deep admiration for those musicians and their struggle that inspired West. "The emotion, the experience came first, which is a correlation I made when I saw these comics… It's a hard lifestyle to get up every night and [perform] to just 20 people. The movie is about learning who they are, and how their comedy comes from a real place."
Though Vaughn was never officially a stand-up, he's been a regular in L.A. comedy clubs since the early '90s, when he met Ahmed Ahmed, one of the comics who'd tour with West. In fact, almost everyone involved in the film is family (sister Victoria serves as an exec producer) or a longtime friend, including Jon Favreau, who drops in at the Hollywood show to compare Vaughn's acting style to that of "a windup monkey."
So when it came to releasing Wild West, Vaughn didn't want to see his passion project degenerate into Guys Gone Wild. "When we took it to Toronto, it played phenomenally," says Vaughn of the film's first major screening in 2006. It earned the attention of Harvey Weinstein, who agreed to buy distribution rights—until the two clashed over their visions. "how they were going to market the movie was very different from how I saw it," Vaughn explains. "It was presented as more of a screwball comedy. I just felt that it wasn't in sync, and Harvey was nice enough to let me have the movie back." Back on Vaughn's terms, the film will debut on more than 700 screens. "It's a small release, but at least we have a chance to make some noise. What mattered to me most was that it got the right shot."
Of course, not every job can be a labor of love; luckily, Vaughn's brand of motormouth comedy remains in demand. These days, he's the poster boy for Christmas; he'll follow up recent hit, Fred Claus with Four Christmases, costarring Reese Witherspoon (slated for November). While Claus was for the kids, Vaughn likens Christmases, in tone, to Favreau's agonizing phone call in Swingers. "It's really funny and relatable, but also, like, hide your eyes," he says. As for reports that he and Witherspoon have been clashing on the set, Vaughn has nothing but raves for Reese: "She's one of my favorite actresses."
Vaughn may be working on mainstream fare, but he keeps a memento of West nearby: He bought the tour bus, which he's now using as his trailer on Christmases. It reminds him what you can accomplish in Hollywood. "It's not encouraged to put yourself in a documentary," he says. "But I didn't do it to be different. I'm just looking for what keeps me inspired."
Don't miss comedian Sebastian's comedy special tonight on Comedy Central!
Friday Jan 18, 2008, 10:30pm EST/ 9:30pm CST on Comedy Central.
There will be special screenings of Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show at the following Apple Stores:
January 30, 9:00 p.m. in San Francisco with Peter Billingsley and Bret Ernst
February 6, 9:00 p.m. in Chicago with Peter Billingsley and Sebastian Maniscalco (Nez, this one's for you! :)
After the screenings, they will discuss the making of the film and take questions from the audience.
The Wild West Comedy Show website has been recently updated. Looking forward to seeing what the "Special Events" are going to be.
"Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland" will be released in theatres on February 8th.
Here's a chance to see a screening of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland. The film will be shown at the Starz Denver Film Festival 2007 on November 9 at midnight.
Check the gallery for some great pictures of Justin Long and Vince at the CMJ Film Festival. It would be great to find a transcript of the Q&A session.
We've heard of many Vince sightings/encounters during the Wild West Comedy Show screenings this month and I don't usually post them here. This one was pretty cute, though. You can read more in the Forum
under Vince Sightings.
Found this one here: Knoxville Weekly Voice Metro Pulse - Ear to the Ground
Thursday afternoon, downtown was abuzz about some tall dark-haired guy from Chicago. He was at the marina, he was at Neyland Stadium, lots of people saw him. He had supper at the Downtown Grill and Brewery. He was staying at posh Cook Loft on Gay Street.
But it’s been so long since downtowners have been to the movies, many who might have missed Dodgeball, Wedding Crashers, and The Break-Up didn’t have any idea who he was. Some were, in fact, bold enough to ask: “Who’s Vince Vaughn?” Bistro proprietor Martha Boggs reports an extraordinarily tall fellow came in, asking for a cup of coffee, an unusual request at the venerable restaurant/bar. “I just have regular coffee, not the fancy kind,” she said. “That’s what I want,” the tall stranger replied. She was told the guy was a movie star. Boggs, whose establishment has recently entertained elusive Pulitzer honoree Cormac McCarthy, did not faint. Boggs was more impressed to learn that one of the men with Vaughn was Peter Billingsley, the producer who first rose to prominence as Ralphie in The Christmas Story.
Vaughn and Billingsley were in town for a low-key screening of Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, a bawdy, but good-hearted documentary about a cross-country tour by some traveling comics Vaughn is fond of. It played to a packed house of lucky pass-holders at the Riviera’s biggest screening room, among them UT footballers including quarterback Erik Ainge, maybe the only guy in the room who was close to Vaughn in height.
Found here
Posted by Alexandyr Kent at 11:23 AM - Louisiana Movies
Thanks, Meg, for finding this great review!
NEW ORLEANS -- It's hard to identify anyone in Hollywood with a cooler image than Vince Vaughn. Last night at the New Orleans Film Festival, he showed he has genuine heart, too.
Vaughn and his producing partner in crime, Peter "You'll shoot your eye out" Billingsley, hurried into Canal Place Cinemas to promote their new concert documentary, "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Tour: 30 Cities in 30 Days - Hollywood to the Heartland." The documentary is long on both title and laughs. It also provides a refreshingly honest and humble examination of the insecurities comedians face in taking their acts to new audiences and new heights.
Vaughn plays the tour's emcee, introducing his stable of talent to auditoriums from California to Texas to Ohio to Illinois. Joining him and Billingsley are comedians John Caparulo, Ahmed Ahmed, Bret Ernst and Sebastian Maniscalco and actors Keir O'Connell (the "gay guy"from "Wedding Crashers"), Jon Favreau and the ever-funny Justin Long.
All except Favreau make the unwise but amusing decision to travel the country on a tour bus, bunks stacked on top of each other, beer bottles and junk strewn everywhere, and all travelers sharing a single toilet.
"You started to feel like you were being Federal Expressed from the next show to the next show," Vince told the audience Friday night during a post-screening Q&A.
In the documentary, highlights from their stage acts are almost all funny, and often gut-bustingly so. The bits are often foul-mouthed and crude, but also endearingly self-effacing.
After the screening, an audience member asked Vaughn why the featured comedy wasn't political, implying the film might have edited out any controversy.
Vince responded by saying a lot of the featured comedy "straddled the line" between political and personal, and that his intent in making the film was, by and large, personal. "Laughing should always bring us together," he said. "So much comedy now is so dividing and acidic."
He drew an analogy to everyone's memory of that kid who was teased in grade school and made to cry. "That never felt good, seeing those tears."
What's most rewarding about this film is that the abundant laughs are secondary to the compelling portraits of the comedians. Cameras stick close to them them backstage before and after sets. You see them getting angry at hecklers, their own fumbled words, botched tellings of jokes and what they perceive as near "suicidal" breakdowns in craft.
You see Ahmed Ahmed, an Egyptian, talk about how the stage and post-911 xenophobia has basically forced him to tell jokes about being Arab and too frequently suspected as a terrorist. You don't really know if he's telling the truth, but you can sense he's not lying when he confesses that comedians are all messes and joke about their insecurities to take ownership over them.
You also see Sebastian Maniscalco, who's been asked to come out on tour by Vaughn as a break from waiting tables in Hollywood. The film resists turning this cliche into schmaltz by keeping the camera on him just before they take the stage for night 30 in Chicago. The comedians gather around in a circle, and Maniscalco gradually breaks down into a blubbering baby. He wants to stay on the road for ever. He's grateful to Vaughn for the big break, and Vaughn, showing a gentle, brotherly, nurturing side, just holds Miniscalco's shoulder while he gets choked up and they all get teary-eyed.
Undoubtedly meaningful to many in the New Orleans audience was the tour's time frame. As the tour was pushing into Texas, Hurricane Rita was surging up the Gulf. They were forced to move the tour away from evacuation zones, and Vaughn and the gang decided to donate proceeds from many of their concerts to hurricane relief.
It was a small gesture, providing evacuees with money, and in many cases, a free night of entertainment. But the gesture was shown to be heartfelt as the comedians at first begrudging headed to a campsite filled with evacuees and ultimately came away learning how fortunate they were to be able to tour the country in the luxuries of a dirty tour bus.
On Friday, Vaughn was also asked if he would change anything about the comedy tour if he were to do it again. Besides scheduling a night off every once in a while, "Nothing. That's the thing about making documentaries. It is what it is."
That willingness to let it be might be Vaughn's key to maintaining a grip on a genuine cool celebrity image. He might, in truth, not be an image. Vince Vaughn just might be who he is. Funny. Charismatic. And warm if we allow him to be.
This was posted in the Knoxville News Blogs - By Betsy Pickle, The Pickle Dish
I don't know how Vince Vaughn is feeling, but I'm still worn out from his visit to Big Orange Country Thursday.
Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm just saying that, what with working and playing with the "Wedding Crashers" star, it was a very long, busy yet fun day.
Vaughn came to town to promote his upcoming film "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland." (Yes, the title is almost as long as Vaughn is tall.) The documentary doesn't reach theaters until February, but Vaughn -- who appears in the film and is one of its producers -- is trying to put some heat behind it by holding special screenings in college towns and cities around the country.
Vaughn's modern version of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show consisted of Vaughn taking four rising comedians (Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, Sebastian Maniscalco) out on the road to do 30 shows in 30 days. Vaughn and some special guests warmed up the crowd at each venue before the comics took the stage. The documentary captures more than just their performances. It addresses the state of live comedy, the struggles each of these guys has faced and the growth they make during this marathon tour.
Which, by the way, took place in September 2005 -- right after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.
Yes, that played a large role in both the tour itinerary and the perspective of the men on the tour.
During his Knoxville stop Thursday, Vaughn did press interviews and visited the UT campus during the day, After a sneak-preview evening screening at the Regal Riviera downtown, he met with fans at an invitation-only reception at nearby Sapphire.
Guests included several UT football players, including quarterback Erik Ainge, who was quick to show me that he was drinking water and not something alcoholic. I already had a crick in my neck from talking with 6-foot-5 Vaughn earlier in the day. Ainge, at 6-6, had me wondering if I was going to have to visit a chiropractor. These guys are seriously tall, especially next to a hobbit like me. As you might expect, Ainge had his own fans hitting him up for photos and such. But nothing like Vaughn's.
The crowd thinned out eventually, and I was able to hang with Vaughn, his best friend, Peter Billingsley (yes, Ralphie from "A Christmas Story"; he's now a producer), and several other members of his team, including some of the sharpest and coolest publicists in the world (I'd name names, but they don't like that; they want to keep the focus on their peeps). Anyway, I was able to ask Vaughn about something that I didn't get to bring up during our interview earlier.
I'd read on Wikipedia that Vaughn is a registered Republican. Now, some of my best friends (and even family members) are Republicans, but it's just not something I like to know about people I like. I told him about seeing that bit of trivia, and he was not pleased to hear it (and even made plans to correct that entry -- note to self and everyone: don't believe HALF of what you read on Wikipedia). So here's what he told me:
"I'm probably one of the most conservative people in Hollywood, but I'm not a registered anything."
I can live with that. I believe in voting for the candidate, not the party. And however Vaughn might view himself politically, he's nothing if not liberal in his generosity. That's obvious from the "Wild West" movie. First, you see him giving his time and support to four comedians he believes in, as well as to young actors he's worked with whose talent he wants to spotlight. Then you see him turning several of the "30 Nights" shows into benefits. The tour itself was inspired by a benefit that Vaughn arranged.
I'm not saying Vaughn's a saint. He's human like the rest of us. But this is a guy with his feet on the ground and his heart in the right place. If his head's in the clouds, well, so would mine be if I were 6-5.
Story by: Rachael Darmanin
"Anderson Cooper and Vince Vaughn will be in town for exclusive Q&A sessions during the Film Festival. Cooper will be presenting Planet In Peril, CNN's Planet In Peril investigates the environmental crisis as it unfolds in real time while Vaughn will keep the mood light with Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show. CMJ's Film Festival is open to badge holders only, so save 10 percent by registering before September 25."
Check out "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show" Theatrical Trailer in HD!
In the fall of 2005, "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights, Hollywood to the Heartland Tour" traveled across the country, performing 30 shows in 30 days. The entire tour, including all performances, behind-the-scenes action, and interviews with Vince, the comedians and special guests, was captured on film.
On Wednesday, Ahmed Ahmed celebrated his birthday at Tentations Laugh Lounge with all of the Wild West Comedy Show comedians (plus 2 other great comics). I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the show and had a fantastic time. I just love those guys and it was super fun seeing them again. Our seats were two inches from the stage and we got some great pictures. Vince showed up at the end to help sing 'Happy Birthday,' and to plug the WW documentary (release date: Feb 2, 2008!) Peter Billingsley was with him and was sitting right behind us when they came in.
After the show, they opened the dance floor and Ahmed and the guys danced the night away. It was a great party. FYI, Ahmed hosts a comedy show there every Wednesday, so if you live in the OC/LA area, go check it out!
Click here if it doesn't play.
Thanks, S!
The film is supposedly being released on February 8, 2008.
VAUGHN FISHIN'
By Dan Vinton
Contributing sources: Variety
It's an understatement to say the Weinsteins haven't had the best luck of late. A string of recent, widely-released films including Hannibal Rising and Grindhouse have failed to make financial impacts and their award push with films like Miss Potter and Factory Girl simply landed lukewarm. There's always the upcoming Sicko and My Blueberry Nights to resuscitate a disappointing 2007/early 2008, but in the mean time, drama abhors a vacuum. There's an interesting story about their loss of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights. While it's yet to be seen if the loss of this project will truly be a loss, it can't be a confidence builder when Vaughn actually campaigns get the movie TWC picked up in Toronto out from under their banner.
While the film was picked up by the Weinsteins back in September, the marketing and rollout scheduled for Wild West Comedy Show wasn't cutting it for Vaughn, who then asked the Weinsteins if he could buy it back to get it redistributed through a partnership that would align more closely with Vaughn's vision. WWCS is to be R-rated, but part of the disagreement stemmed from Weinsteins proposed marketing emphasis around the rating, instead of an emphasis on getting to know your pal Vince Vaughn. To the Weinsteins' credit, they capitulated and WWCS and its world rights have since been picked up by Picturehouse and New Line at a lower price (about $1.5 million to Weinsteins $3 million), with a robust commitment to market the film more heavily. Picturehouse had been actively bidding for the project in Toronto.
WWCS is currently being slated for release in early 2008 (gotta ride that Fred Claus train) and features Vaughn hitching his wagon to not one, not two, not three, but four standups and hitting a 30-city tour in 30 days (which you may have taken part of, even). The film covers the gigs in addition to all the shenanigans behind the scenes. While the Toronoto Film Festival version clocked in at a shade under two hours, it's since been cut to a lean and mean 90 minutes.
Score one for Vaughn and score one for The Weinsteins. Vaughn gets to distribute and market his film the way he wants it to be and the Weinsteins prove they aren't total douchebags when it comes to "artistic vision". That, or it goes to show a certain ineptitude at marketing films that's been an unfortunate Wesinstein hallmark of the last few months (with their Asian film distribution, you could probably spread that out to years).
April 25, 2007
Gregg Goldstein
NEW YORK -- Picturehouse and New Line International have nabbed all international rights to the comedy performance documentary "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights -- Hollywood to the Heartland."
The pickup comes seven months after the Weinstein Co. purchased the feature for $2.5 million-$3.5 million after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, part of the new indie studio's pricey acquisitions spree. After tentatively slating the film for release in the spring, the company put the project back up for sale with UTA a few weeks ago.
Ari Sandel's film, produced by Vaughn, follows the actor as he leads a team of unknown comics on a monthlong tour across the U.S.
Picturehouse will release the film domestically in early 2008, and New Line International will handle overseas distribution.
Picturehouse senior vp acquisitions Sara Rose and New Line executive vp business affairs and co-productions Carolyn Blackwood negotiated the deal for their companies. Vince Vaughn is represented by UTA, Eric Gold and Deborah Klein.
The official release date of Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland is Labor Day weekend.
Y'all better mark those calendars!
Now you can see an exclusive trailer for the upcoming theatrical release of "Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland" on the newly launched bud.tv website.
The movie looks like it's going to be so much fun! Can't wait. :)
Note, this trailer contains explicit language. You must be 21-years-old to enter their site.
UPDATE: The trailer will be back up on Thursday, February 8th, if not sooner. :)
Now's your last chance to buy Wild West t-shirts! They will be available from the WWPSP website until the end of the month or until their gone!
Also, I've been in
