When I first heard about Welcome to Me, a movie from director Shira Piven (Fully Loaded) that defies characterization, I talked with a friend about star Kristen Wiig. We adore her (who doesn’t?) and immediately agreed on her immense dramatic potential (“Wiig seems destined for an Oscar nom someday,” were my friend’s exact words). She banks on it in Welcome to Me, a bizarre, uncomfortable and fearless film about mental illness and our society’s mental illness: a desire to be famous, to be televised, a symptom of reality TV.

Wiig is Alice Krieg, a mentally unstable, closeted woman diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She’s kept her TV on nonstop for 10 years and every morning, watches a VHS tape of Oprah, reciting Oprah’s touching monologue about everyone’s “True Calling” by heart. Alice is surrounded by a sea of labeled Oprah VHS tapes in a living room seemingly removed from time.

Afterwards, Alice makes a trip to a mini mart, where the owner has her Oprah magazine and lottery ticket waiting. The thing is, this time, she wins. Alice wins 86 million dollars.

Off her meds against Dr. Moffat’s (Tim Robbins) wishes, Alice moves into a casino hotel “indefinitely,” and tackles her destiny: writing a $15 million check to Rich (James Marsden) and Gabe (Wes Bentley) of Palm Desert studios to guarantee her 100 two hour episodes of her own talk show. It’s clearly an incredibly bad idea, their production company is on fumes and Rich is happy to take her money, and let her do whatever she wants.

The result is “Welcome to Me,” a talk show all about Alice (“like Oprah, with a swan boat”), a “narrative infomercial” with segments like “Smelling Things Before They Happen” and rampant reenactments reliving uncomfortable moments from Alice’s past.

This sounds insane, and it is, but Welcome to Me never devolves into farce or pure absurdity. It’s not treated as a comedy, and Alice always feels like a real character. This is a drama with real people, and it’s no less hilarious for it (I’d argue that it’s more hilarious for it).

One might worry that she is too Kristen Wiig, but she’s not: she’s wonderfully deadpan and peak Kristen Wiig, never coming close to turning a complicated character into caricature, which would’ve been the easy way out.

The entire cast commits to this bizarre world, and when that cast includes Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Linda Cardellini and Alan Tudyk, you know you’ve encountered a special movie.

The movie has come onto people’s radars for Wiig’s much-publicized nude casino scene. A movie as complex and interesting as this doesn’t deserve to be boiled down to just that, but it serves to highlight what a fearless performance this is by Wiig, and a fearless movie in general. For whatever the reason, I’m glad it’ll get more people to watch this movie, even though I suspect people expecting, say Bridesmaids, will walk away bewildered.

The film toes the line of scary and funny throughout, with a unique pacing that mirrors Alice’s instability, and because of that, it’s impossible to predict. That’s something to cherish.

WELCOME TO ME arrives in select theaters May 1st and nationwide May 8th.

Oftentimes, when I find myself with an hour or two to kill, I scroll through Netflix, Hulu and various other online outlets, and am frozen with indecision, fraught with stress over what show I should watch next. Do I set aside my life for a few years and start Star Trek, in all its iterations, from the beginning? Should I catch up on Scandal or House of Cards, or did I already miss the boat on those shows? Do I open a book, like say Wheel of Time? Normally, I settle on merely catching up on a couple shows ongoing that I do watch, or switch gears to a movie, another potentially life-altering decision and a whole new can of worms. But sometimes, it feels good to be able to start and finish something in a short period of time, and not have to devote weekends, entire weeks, or months, to Binging media content.

Because I watch way too many things, I don’t get to binge through shows as fast as I’d like. It took me a year to watch all of the new Doctor Who. I’m in the middle of Broadchurch and probably will be for a couple months, even though it’s a 9 episode long BBC series.

Enter: IFC’s The Spoils of Babylon, a six episode long mini series, with each 23 minute episode spread out over two mid-afternoon writing breaks. It was glorious to watch a complete story in such a short period of time, a minor commitment, and it helped that it was the funniest show I’ve seen in 2014.

Written by SNL veterans Matt Piedmont (Funny Or Die Presents…) and Andrew Steele (Casa de mi Padre, The Ladies Man), and directed by Piedmont, the show is an unabashed parody of long, drawn out miniseries’ adapted from pulpy, generation spanning novels from the 1970’s and 80’s. It’s like an even less serious Dallas, though it takes itself just as seriously as all these event programming.

A great parody is one that loves and reveres its source material, and transcends it. It’s why Galaxy Quest was voted as the 7th best Star Trek film ever by fans (it should be #1). If there’s a Thorn Birds convention, they’d likely worship The Spoils of Babylon. 

Each episode is introduced by Eric Jonrosh, a caricature crafted after the lush, enormous version of Orson Welles, with a dash of Philip Roth, John Updike and writers of that ilk and ego. He is the writer of The Spoils of Babylon, a bestselling book that only HE could adapt, in painstaking fashion. Will Ferrell is the only choice for Eric Jonrosh, and you never want his hilarious, boozy over-the-top introductions to end. I’d watch an entire episode of The Spoils of Babylon even if it was him just trying to introduce said episode. Anchorman 2 caused me physical pain, but Ferrell’s act isn’t tired; that spark hasn’t gone away. It’s a reminder of his unparalleled comedic talent.

The Spoils of Babylon chronicles the love, murder, betrayal and incest that centers around the Morehouse family, one made rich and powerful thanks to striking oil in Texas under the guise of patriarch Jonas Morehouse (Tim Robbins). Jonas adopts orphan drifter Devon, who becomes his only son and heir to the Morehouse name and corporation.

Tobey Maguire plays Devon, and you might think that an interesting/odd/unfortunate choice depending on your opinion of Maguire, but trust me, it’s perfect. He’s never been better as the author/soldier/oceanographer Devon Morehouse. Tobey’s been pushed aside since the abhorrent Spider-Man 3, but I always think any criticism directed to his Peter Parker and Spider-Man is unwarranted and harsh. Even so, he admittedly seems pretty boring, the equivalent of ordering a plain burger with no cheese or pickles or onions when you can get the Sriracha Burger. But he erases any notions of that in The Spoils of Babylon, where Maguire is the best part, and that’s saying something, because the cast is ridiculous. He has a new wig, beard, mustache and career in every scene, and he clearly relishes a role that’s fun, weird, and deliciously over-the-top. Devon and the show itself is like a pinwheel of emotions.

He’s, naturally, in love with his sister Cynthia Morehouse, played by an always brilliant Kristen Wiig. She was born to play a nutty, corrupt CEO/oil tycoon and star-crossed lover of her brother, a love that threatens to doom and sully the vaunted Morehouse name.

When I said Will Ferrell was an unparalleled comedic talent, that was in a universe without Wiig, which thankfully we don’t have to live in. She’s wonderfully insane, with tremendous tantrums and loutish things to say throughout.

You have to watch Spoils of Babylon to witness the seeds of Haley Joel Osment’s comeback. He’s in Kevin Smith’s Tusk, has a role in the forthcoming Entourage movie and in Amazon’s Alpha House, and he’s gut-busting as the over-the-top, cackling Winston Morehouse, Cynthia’s only son, plotting to kill Devon and everyone he loves. It’s still startling to see a grown up Osment, and Spoils of Babylon takes advantage of your momentary pause by amping up Osment’s pure villainy. It’s glorious.

This is a show where Devon returns from war with a wife, and it’s a talking manikin (womanikin?) voiced by Carey Mulligan named Lady Anne York (see below). In the same scene, there’s a banner welcoming Darren home, which (duh) isn’t even Devon’s name. It’s never referenced, just the kind of subtle humor also on display in this comedy playground, and perhaps a nod to Arrested Development.

The miniseries also stars Val Kilmer, Steve Tom (best name ever?), Jessica Alba (as Marine Biologist/oceanographic enthusiast Dixie Melonworth), Molly Shannon, Michael Sheen and obviously, David Spade. You can’t really top that.

So hop onboard, and revel in the show that IFC perfectly describes thusly:

Patriarch Jonas Morehouse shepherds his daughter Cynthia and adopted son Devon from meager beginnings in the oil fields of Texas to powerful boardrooms in New York City. Cynthia and Devon, entwined in undeniable love, stumble through war-torn battlefields, blazing mansions, filthy drug dens and velvet-sheeted bedrooms on their quest for power and influence. Despite Jonas’s best efforts to intervene, Cynthia and Devon’s merciless love sets into motion a wave of destruction that crashes down on Devon’s graceful wife Lady Anne, his daughter Marianne, his colleague and lover Dixie, Cynthia’s hen-pecked husband Chet, her evil son Winston, the scheming Generals and far beyond.

So what are you waiting for? It’ll literally take you less time to watch the entire series (138 minutes all told) than survive ANY one of the Transformers movies.

In 2010, Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon came out and charmed everyone in theaters, young and old alike. The film was adapted from Cressida Cowell’s book, and featured a sterling voice cast headlined by Jay Baruchel (This Is The End), Gerard Butler (300), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (SuperBad) and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids). Now four years later, a sequel is coming, arriving June 13th.

At WonderCon this year, star Jay Baruchel and writer-director Dean DeBlois sat down for a press conference to inform us about the next adventure in the series. What follows are the highlights from the genial conversation.

The first question concerned Valka, the mother of Hiccup, voiced by Cate Blanchett. Apparently, DeBlois wanted Valka and her genes to be a big reveal in the movie… but DreamWorks changed that with the first trailer. Dean describes Valka as a Dian Fossey like character, who lives with dragons and learns their ways.

Since the first movie, the HTTYD world has expanded, thanks to its Cartoon Network TV series (and video games), Dragons: Riders of Berk, which serves to bridge the gap in movies. It helps present a full, complete story. According to Baruchel, the cool thing about the  TV show is that they’re able to delve into the everyday life at Berk. The show enables them to put the audience in that neighborhood, on that island, and reveal the minutiae of everyday being a Viking.

In the first film, Hiccup got everything he wanted. So the filmmakers had to go on to the next problem. They didn’t want to make a sequel for the sake of making a sequel (and making a viking boat load of cash). Dean planned a trilogy, and this sequel is the middle act, immersing everyone in the disappearance of dragons and what happened, while completing Hiccup’s coming of age story. DeBlois states there is a lot of stuff to explore, to venture off into the rich world that Cowell created. For DeBlois, it’s a “fun world to live in, [and] very easy to write.” Lucky dude.

It’s pointed out how rare it is for a big star like Jay Baruchel to work on an animated television show like Dragons. But according to Baruchel, it had to be him, as he feels a certain loyalty to the character, and ownership of Hiccup. He believes that’s a part of acting, and clearly feels very strongly when he says: “I just didn’t want anyone else to play him.” Dean DeBlois responds, “Neither do we,” to which Baruchel sighed: “Thank you, that’s good news.”

Baruchel gets asked what it’s like returning to the character of Hiccup, but “selfishly,” the show has “kept me in that mind space.” He “never left” Hiccup.

How does Jay get ready for voice acting? He wakes up…showers, hell, sometimes he doesn’t even have to. That’s the great thing about voice acting: no costume or makeup. Sometimes, he even gives himself a mission tonot shower for two weeks. Maybe because of that, he “adore[s] it.” When Baruchel started acting, when he was twelve years old, now twenty years ago, one of the first gigs he had was dubbing shows from French to English in Montreal. “If you can do dubbing, you can do anything. Its as intensive as voice acting gets.” Baruchel is a “chronic daydreamer…and that’s what’s required…as there are no dragons in front of me, or anywhere else in the world, I suspect.”

Dean and Jay have now worked together for 7 years, and they clearly have a comfortable shorthand, another reason Jay has stuck with the character so closely.

According to DeBlois, Baruchel embodies the character so well, that he’s become the authority on it. After Baruchel’s input, he’ll change the dialogue, and add more life to it.

Apparently there were ten different dragon genera (which is the plural of genus, btw) in How to Train Your Dragon, a fact presented that impressed Jay immensely. Judging by the trailer there a whole lot more this time around. How many can we expect in the sequel? The animation team utilizes a modular system “to create an endless variety of dragons…thousands of new dragons.” While there are a ton of dragons in the sequel, there are about the same amount of dragons who have hero moments in the sequel.

While making HTTYD2, Jay was only in the same room with another actor ONCE. It’s a very international cast, and “one of the cool things about voice acting, [is] that doesn’t step in the way, [we] still find a way to create.” Usually they do so in isolation, and DeBlois admits, “it’s nice when we get characters together…sometimes [they] go off script, and it feels right.” When making an animated film, “the voice acting is the only spontaneous element,” while “everything else is meticulously planned.”

How does the process work? They record voice actors first, then get breakdowns of those lines, and make the requisite animation, match the dialogue with the mouths of the characters. Sometimes they receive late notes that will “necessitate going back and adjusting.”

As per usual, the sequel is bigger than the original. The “scope gets really big,” as Hiccup discovers there’s a brewing conflict, a conflict incited by “a vicious conqueror” who’s creating a dragon army. That’d be Drago Bludvist, voiced by Blood Diamond‘s Djimon Honsou. Jon Snow himself, Kit Harington, plays Eret, son of Eret, an evil dragon hunter, while Cate Blanchett’s character tries to rescue the dragons.

Again, it’s pointed out how much Baruchel adores the character, and that he will argue his case for changes made to the film. He likes to think he’s one of the people who knows Hiccup the best, and “they allow me to chime in.” They more than allow it, as Dean puts it: “Hiccup is so similar to Jay in so many ways…” and that they normally side with Jay, because they know Jay is the “greatest authority on the character.”

What’s the plan for the franchise moving forward? They’re preparing for the 3rd season of the TV show, and “hoping to create a seamless narrative.” Essentially, they want to keep exploring Cowell’s novels, further developing the world, and “go as far as we can.” Dean isn’t aware of any of the specifics of other things beyond the sequel, in terms of other mediums and expansion.

The funny joke at the end for the press conference is that Dean does a lot of temporary voicing, as a placeholder before Jay comes in and replaces him. From the sound of it, it’s not very good, in a wonderful way. Baruchel, through legitimate snorts, admits that it “makes my life wonderful…his temp work…” He loves it, and it’s the reason he gets up in the morning.

On Friday June 13th, the only reason we’ll need to get up in the morning is that How to Train Your Dragon 2 has flown into the local cineplex. I suspect I won’t be the only one.