Such a frustrating disappointment

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Not many things in life are worth watching that will inspire you to laugh at other people's crazy situations more than this film. Filmed in and around Austin, TX, this 86 minute film wins you heart by captivating you with a surrealistic story-line that depicts the players lives as pure chaos.Our hilariously funny young man Scott Prendergast makes his feature film debut as the lead role, director, and writer. Prendergast strikes pay dirt on this one, making it fun to be quirky and strange. This sort of life imitating art is perfectly balance off as Salman (Prendergast) is suddenly thrust into the middle of his sister-in-law Leslie's (Lisa Kudrow) miserable situation as a wife with two small bratty kids trying to make ends meet while her husband serves another tour in Irag.It's quite hard to pick up on but Suze (Teri Garr) is supposedly the mother of Leslie (Lisa Kudrow). This actually happened once before on Friends (1994) with Phoebe's character.The most disturbing things about this film, is that Salman has no way of controlling his two nephews, Lincoln (Landon Henninger) and Cameron (Cameron Wofford). It's amazing that the uncle didn't hurt this one kid who poured something like comet in his mouth while he was sleeping. Ironically, when Salman finally wears his blue dot suit to the birthday party. The children completely change when they discover that Salman is inside the suit. They win a new respect for Salman since they think he's some kind of super hero.Leslie finds Salman a job at her defunct DotCom company BlueNexion. We find that Salman has no idea what he has gotten himself into. Kathleen (Conchata Ferrell) steals the show as Salman's stressed out employer who recruits him to go out into the middle of the country wearing the company mascot suite and pass out fliers. Ferrell small fits of rage with cursing, and the tantrums she has while hiring Salmans is completely unexpected. Every moment she's on screen is absolutely hysterical. Even though she's supposedly playing this seriously, the comedic nature of it all was way too funny. Too bad she doesn't have a show like Carol Burnett did.Kudrow plays this role with dignity and believability. It's not what I'm certainly used to with her roles, however, it is played so well she should have gotten an award for it. You could almost, for a few moments feel the pain in her life and the trouble she faces as an abandoned and troubled mother. The strong supporting cast also includes Angela Sarafyan as the weird grocery-store clerk named Ramona. Teri Garr plays a believable deranged woman who lost her savings with BlueNexion and takes it out on the company's big blue mascot. Christine Taylor has a very small part as Betty yet she gets a higher billing than Teri Garr. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is pretty good as Brad, one of the corporate bosses who seems to have a few tricks up his sleeve with his office secretary, Leslie.Roddy Bottum's makes all that you see much better with his charming and unconventional score that keeps the movie rolling right along. Their seems to have a lot of time put into the closing credit by introducing 4 or 5 really short, but interest sets of animation using the BlueDot guy. Perhaps one of the funniest scenes of the film was one where the blue kabluey guy ganged up with cheese-girl taking Polaroids of Brad at the Motel with his other girlfriend.Don't miss this film if you can help it. There are many things enjoyable in life & this is one.

If you ever find yourself at a retail video store by the likes of Blockbuster or Movie Gallery (if you're lucky enough to find one that's still open), the choices of movies you'll find are overwhelming and daunting. It's not that these stores don't have good movies, but 70-80% of the movies they do have you probably haven't seen because you've never seen them in theaters. Reading the description on the back doesn't seem like a good enough choice to rent the film, because the two hours you spend watching them may be wasted if the film is really bad. There are no credible reviews to guide you, and even if the film has a familiar face or two, that's not even a guarantee that the film will be good or memorable. The problem is not that there are a couple of these films, but movie stores nowadays have packed their shelves with so many of them that it's harder than ever to choose."Kabluey" is one of those films that gets lost in the video store shuffle of all the crappy films. It's unfortunate too, because "Kabluey" is an incredibly original film. It's quirky throughout, laugh out loud funny at times, and has the deadpan sensibility of indie film gems like "Rushmore" and "Napoleon Dynamite".The movie starts out by introducing Leslie (Lisa Kudrow), an Army wife whose husband is stationed in Iraq. He's not dead, but his absence still hasn't been easy with their two hyperactive, uncontrollable sons and no one to watch them without bills being sacrificed. Leslie then learns about her husband's 32-year-old brother Salman (pronounced how it's spelled), who doesn't have a job or a home for that matter.Salman, played by writer and director Scott Prendergast, is the 21st century version of a vagrant. He is a well meaning but inept guy with no skills or education of any kind, thereby differing in Biblical ways to his brother. He has nowhere to go and no money to get there, but he isn't exactly the homeless guy you see sleeping on the sidewalk. Salman arranges with Leslie to watch the kids while she works to pay off the children's Medicare and other expenses. Salman in turn would stay at her house and work until he is back on his feet.The premise so far sounds like a family comedy, but it's far more original than that. The story gets weirder, and therefore more unique, when Salman gets a thankless job handing out fliers in the middle of a barren street with few pedestrians. To make matters worse, he's in a heavy costume with limited visibility and not even the convenience of fingers to easily hand out fliers with.His costume is of Kabluey, a web icon belonging to a failed Internet company called BluLeXicon. Kabluey looks like the yellow AOL man, and has a hanging head to match his blue complexion. There's no shortages of ways it becomes difficult to wear that costume, although Salman tries harder than I would to pass out and organize the fliers. It's also funny when he discovers that the only way to use the bathroom is through the zipper in the butt area of the costume, resulting in his having to temporarily wear the costume backwards.There are many interesting subplots in this film, and they all come together very well to reveal a lot about the characters. The story is strange, but nothing seems sugar-coated about Kudrow's army wife situation. Kudrow plays someone who is understandably distressed, and looks it throughout the movie. She can't control her kids, and she has virtually no friends around to help her. Her situation is entirely understandable, and she's one of the best things about this movie.When I saw Prendergast, I couldn't help but think of Ben Stiller. It's not only because Christine Taylor, Stiller's wife and occasional co-star, is featured in this movie. Stiller seems the be the go-to guy when it comes to playing an incompetent slacker who won't grow up. Prendergast here, however, doesn't come off as a rip-off of Stiller at all. He has an originality to him that eradicates the Stiller comparisons successfully, and his character is as odd and appealing as this entire movie.There's no doubt that this film is odd, but it is very much a rhapsody of intangible qualities that made last decade unique. In this case, the bust of the Internet bubble (signified by the Kabluey costume), and the War in Iraq. These things have made last decade (and this decade so far) notorious, but have not been incorporated into any film I've seen so far, or at least not as seamlessly as this film has done. For a deadpan comedy to have those subjects serve as a backdrop could not have been easy, but somehow the film succeeds.The film has many inconsistencies and unexplained occurrences, with Teri Garr's recurring appearances being one of them. However, this film is the good kind of odd that could make it a cult classic soon. I'm sure people will find this movie after digging through the unimaginative, run-of-the-mill, Hollywood casualties that may be to blame for Blockbuster's demise, and they won't be disappointed.

Salman (Scott Prendergast) is a 30-something year old loser. He has no real job, no home, and no life. He goes to live with his brother's wife, Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) while his brother serves in Iraq. He gets a job at an Internet company where he dons a huge blue suit and stands on the side of the street handing out flyers.It's a hilarious scenario as his life couldn't sink any lower, and its hilarious to watch. But there's also a hint of the dramatic, as we see the lives in the film suffering turmoil and depression. It's a perfect blend of comedy and drama.An excellent film that mixes comedy and drama effortlessly that will have you laughing one minute and completely sad the next. You feel for the characters and you want a happy outcome for everyone.

I had really thought great slapstick comedy was a lost art, one that I'd have to go to DVD's of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd to experience. Then I saw "Kabluey." For the first half of the film I was laughing my head off, not only at the sheer outrageousness of it all but also at Scott Prendergast's brilliance at building gag on top of gag, making you laugh harder at each one until by the end of his "stack" you're literally screaming with joy. The second half slowed down a little but also proved that Prendergast could do pathos, and the ending is as heartbreaking as anything by Chaplin. There've been a few comedians in the modern era who showed they COULD have ranked with the stars of the past (Robin Williams, Jim Carrey), but Williams got stuck into too many overstuffed vehicles and Carrey seems to have been penalized by his audience every time he tried to reach beyond fart humor. Let's hope Scott Prendergast keeps making simple, unpretentious and utterly hilarious movies like this.