In Contention

Tag: Knocked Up

  • Dr. Ken Jeong gets his day in the media sun

    Ken JeongI think it’s safe to assume that if you saw “The Hangover” this weekend (tell us what you thought), you caught Ken Jeong’s performance as a Korean Vegas crime lord.  Jeong has been on the rise ever since his first big screen cameo in Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up” two years ago, but according to this Chris Lee profile in the Los Angeles Times, there’s an unlikely backstory to all of this.  “Before a casting coup landed Jeong an enviable spot on the batting order for some of movie comedy’s heaviest hitters…[his] day job didn’t involve making people laugh at all,” Lee writes.  “Unless prescribing pain medication for, say, an angry patient with a herniated disc is your idea of funny.”

    North Carolina native Jeong was practicing internal medicine at Kaiser in Woodland Hills before Hollywood came knocking.  Comedy, it turns out, was just a hobby to keep him loose and sane away from the job.  Now he’s landing the most laughs in what will surely be the summer’s biggest comedy:

    “I practiced internal medicine at Kaiser in Woodland Hills,” Jeong said over lunch near his home in Calabasas. “Comedy was a hobby. It was like my golf. I had another life.”

    According to “Hangover” director Phillips, Jeong’s defining characteristic is his “fearlessness” — something put on prominent display in the bawdy R-rated comedy…

    “He just comes in and crushes those little parts in films,” Phillips said. “That’s what you look for: a guy who can come in and just destroy it. He’s crazy!”

    It’s hardly the career path Jeong, 39, set out for himself. The North Carolina-born Korean American attended Duke University (major: pre-med, with a minor in drama) then attained his MD from the University of North Carolina. It was around that time he began going to open-mike nights at local bars and delivering his earliest stand-up routines.

    “It was just goofy Asian stuff,” Jeong recalled. “Definitely high energy, but I was too afraid to say I was in medicine. I’m just an educated idiot: I took that as my persona.”

    Moving to New Orleans for his medical residency, Jeong didn’t let a 90-hour workweek keep him from the comedy clubs. “It was grueling, but I had a work-hard, play-hard mentality,” he said. “Everyone has something to keep them sane outside medicine. Mine was comedy.”

    This is the first I’m hearing of Will Ferrell’s used car comedy “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,” by the way.  Make it stop.  Anyway, check out the rest at the LA Times.  And a taste of Jeong’s stand-up after the jump.

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  • In praise of Craig Robinson

    Craig RobinsonOne of our readers reminded me in the comments section of yesterday’s review of “Pineapple Express” that I failed to spotlight one of my favorite performances in the entire film, and a character actor who has quickly become one of the best go-to guys for comedic value.

    Craig Robinson is probably most often associated with his Darryl Philbin stockroom character in television’s “The Office.”  His matter-of-fact attitude and cadence go a long way whenever his character is utilized and never fails to make me smile.  But he’s also begun making quite a mark on the big screen as of late.

    It reall started with Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up,” in which Robinson stars as a steadfast but introspective nightclub security guard.  You’ll recall the laugh-out-loud dialogue that Robinson handled so perfectly:

    I know… you’re right. I’m so sorry, I fuckin’ hate this job. I don’t want to be the one to pass judgement, decide who gets in. Shit makes me sick to my stomach, I get the runs from the stress. It’s not cause you’re not hot, I would love to tap that ass. I would tear that ass up. I can’t let you in cause you’re old as fuck. For this club, you know, not for the earth.  You old, she pregnant. Can’t have a bunch of old pregnant bitches running around. That’s crazy, I’m only allowed to let in five percent black people. He said that, that means if there’s 25 people here I get to let in one and a quarter black people. So I gotta hope there’s a midget in the crowd.

    Absolutely brilliant.

    Robinson also starred in the Apatow-produced “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” but I can’t comment on the performance because I ejected that piece of shit ten minutes into it.  HOWEVER, I’m sure he was a diamond in the rough.

    Well in “Pineapple Express,” Robinson hits consistent high marks as Matheson, one of Gary Cole’s two henchman hunting down Seth Rogen and James Franco’s bumbling stoners.  As usual, he holds court on the screen with specific and hilarious line readings.  His exit from the film is one of the funniest scenes of the piece and he plays it up for all it’s worth.

    I’m frankly ashamed that I didn’t mention this cat in the review.  So I felt compelled to dedicate a post to what I hope is a prolific new comedic talent.

    Robinson has a number of films on the horizon, including Kevin Smith’s controversial “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” and as one might expect, the roles all seem to be supporting ones.  But I’d like to say it now and say it proud: give this guy his own stage!  Robinson needs his own show, his own starring role, SOMETHING!

    Heck, I’m tempted to write something for him right now, dust off the screenwriting software and be inspired because he’s going places.  He can’t just wither away just outside the spotklight, he has to shine, and someone, somewhere, better be of the same mind or it’ll be our loss.