Simon Pegg and Nick Frost return to the flick screen with what seems to be another comedic ride, but this time it’s in an RV with an alien who’s riding shotgun. The movie is “Paul” and it’s playing at the SXSW 2011 Film Conference and Festival.
Pegg co-wrote “Paul” with his partner in crime, Frost, having started the project back in 2007. If you don’t know already, the two have worked previously in two classic comedies “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead” (who own space on many a DVD shelf at home, including mine), but this time around they play two sci-fi fanatics traveling the dusty back roads of America’s UFO, Area 51 country.
Pegg plays a shy, slightly introverted lad named Graeme Willy, while Frost plays Clive Gollings, an aspiring, perspiring sci-fi comic artist with a penchant for creative weapons in the forms of women’s breastesess. During their escapades they come across an actual alien name Paul who has been hangin’ around for the past 60 years as an unwilling informant, playing his own part in how the federal government understands and the film business portrays alien antics, like anal probes.
Apparently Paul wants to venture back to his homeland and hitches a ride in the RV with Gollings and Willy, much to the dismay of the feds. They want him back in his place. And so the chase is on.
Director Greg Mottola from “Superbad” and “Adventureland” is on board. And that’s just one in the cavalcade of stars in this line up. Seth Rogen plays Paul (no, he didn’t lose even more weight post-Green Hornet…it’s just the voice), Jason Bateman is the steel-eyed federal agent with the cool sunglasses, Kristen Wiig is a quirky women and the crush subject for Clive, and with a kiss-my-grits wig, Jane Lynch is a waitress in greasy spoon truck stop.
And as we all know, no film can place itself in the sci-fi category without an appearance by the Alien goddess herself, Sigourney Weaver.
During the film’s featurette, Pegg admits that “this is one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever done in my life.” That is of course, after his rock star days when he was the drummer for God’s Third Leg.
I expect “Paul” to make the comedic wave at SXSW the likes of “I Love You Man,” so here’s a wish-upon-a-star that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and the cast appear in Austin not only for this showing but for a “Paul” panel as well. Pretty please.
The film opens in the U.S. on March 18 and in the U.K. on February 18.
The new “Paul” trailer:
