The Webby Award nominations are out, and several Spout favorites have gotten the nod across the various Online Film & Video categories. David Wain’s Wainy Days was nominated for Best Comedy Series. VBS.TV, VICE Magazine’s video portal and the original home of a serialized version of Heavy Metal in Baghdad, is a finalist in the Travel video category (and wouldn’t it be fun to see the NY Times‘ service journalism trounced by Garbage Island, above). Finally, The West Side, the deconstructed Western web series which I wrote about in November, was nominated as Best Drama Series. Congrats to all, and don’t forget to cast your vote at the Webby Awards homepage.

Last October, we learned that David Wain (beloved director of Wet Hot American Summer) would be taking over the helm of Universal’s Little Big Men, a pre-packaged comedy starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad’s “McLovin”). For all of us who love WHAS, The Ten, The State, Stella, Wainy Days and anything else having to do with Wain, it was great news. The script was re-written by Wain and Rudd and Ken Marino, who also co-wrote The Ten, and was adapted (I’m guessing) from the earlier screenplay by Timothy Dowling (George Lucas in Love). And it features some of Wain’s regulars, including Kerri Kenney, Joe Lo Truglio, and A.D. Miles. According to a recent interview with Wain on IESB.net, the film is currently in post-production with hopes of an August release.

But according to MTV Movies Blog today, Wain claims his latest film, which is supposed to be getting a new title, won’t be as absurdist as his fanbase is used to. Wain hints that we should actually be prepared for some tears, in fact. The blog notes that he was being sarcastic, but considering the disappointingly un-Stella-ness of Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black’s solo writing and directorial works, it wouldn’t be that surprising if Little Big Men is actually more tame and straight-forward that we want from a Wain picture. Oh well, I’m sure he was just joking with MTV, and I have nothing to worry about. I mostly just wanted an excuse to write about Wain and the film. Also, I wanted to note that in that IESB interview, which is about a month old, Wain admitted that he and the gang are currently working on a State movie. Fortunately, there’s no possible way that one could be sappy. I’ll still bring the Kleenex, though, because I’m sure to tear up from laughing so hard. Check out the video above for some classic State-era Wain.

I’m sure that David Wain was just joking when he told MTV Movie’s Blog that there’s been talk of a musical adaptation of Wet Hot American Summer. But that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it in depth. At first I was really excited. From the very beginning I’ve loved both the movie and its soundtrack (which I had to hand craft, since an actual WHAS album doesn’t exist) and would definitely be interested in seeing the whole thing acted out on stage. But now I’m realizing its a bad idea, and I’ve included that van crash scene as a metaphor for the concept. Sure, I would love to see the movie acted out on stage, but in the same way I loved watching my buddy play “Data” in an off-Broadway musical version of The Goonies. And in the same way I’d love to see the Con Air and Mystic Pizza musicals starring the fictional Jenna Maroney (winner of a NYC film critics award for Best Actress in a Movie Based on a Musical Based on a Movie). But is it something I can see really being any good? Not at all.

As much as I can imagine a singing can, and as much as I’d love to hear Paul Rudd sing a song about “Lindsay” tasting like burgers or about what a pain it is to clean up after himself or about his journal (pronounced gurnal — and rhymes with infernal, in case the lyricist is reading), I just couldn’t see all the characters, subplots and jokes making their way sufficiently onto the stage. And as the van crash is my most favorite gag in the film, I’d hate to see it unused (or used, since it just wouldn’t work the right way). Then again, if Wain and company could find a way to make it all fresh and have new, more theatrically appropriate humor, I would be first in line. And speaking of new material, how exciting is it that Wain (hopefully telling the truth) says he might shoot some kind of “new addendum” to the film for an upcoming special edition DVD? I’m suddenly not feeling as sorry that I lent my original WHAS DVD to a friend who never returned it.

Anyway, I don’t know if this is a coincidence, or if it’s even worth sharing, but tonight I was already planning to fondle some sweaters fondue with cheddar. I swear it’s true!

• It’s t-minus 16 hours until the all-but inevitable WGA strike, but the studios aren’t sweating as much as you might think. According to this story in Variety, the majors and indie arms have been preparing for this all year, and everybody has at least 5 solid scripts that they could put into production without the consultation or aid of a WGA member. Quoth an unnamed “veteran industry player”: “For now, it’s a television strike, not a movie strike.”
• Meanwhile, while New York indie players are generally optimistic that the strike will have little immediate negative impact on their productions, there is a fear that if the strike continues through January, it could make for a manic buying season at Sundance. “Because,” says Tom Quinn of Magnolia,  “If you can’t fill your slate with enough production titles, you’ve got to go out and get finished films.”
• Speaking of buying, the weakened dollar is making it a lot easier for foreign buyers to attend the American Film Market, which gets underway tomorrow in Los Angeles.  But the exchange rate is unlikely to spark irrational spending; as one foreign sales guy tells the Hollywood Reporter, “a lot of what’s at the AFM is very bad U.S. product — a lot of bad horror films and such.” That comment was presumably in regards to the finished films in the market; as Gregg Goldstein reports, this year’s market for as-yet-un-produced properties is full of star studded projects.
• David Wain is directing Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in an untitled comedy about “party-hearty energy-drink salesmen forced into the roles of big brothers to fulfill a community-service obligation who end up bonding with their assigned kids.” Rudd and Wain wrote the script with Wain’s longtime collaborator, Ken Marino.

Welcome to The Media Diet, a new feature on SpoutBlog where we ask indie film movers and shakers a bunch of stupid questions about movies, videos, tabloid scandals, celebrity diet secrets, and other cultural detritus.

Up first is David Wain. Wain first skyrocketed to hipster notoriety in the early-90s as a member of The State. He went on to direct the genius Meatballs parody/tribute Wet Hot American Summer, which Wain co-wrote with fellow State alum Michael Showalter. Now Wain has cast a passel of former State-ees in his second directorial effort, The Ten, which opens this Friday. The film, a sketch-driven re-telling of The Ten Commandments, also stars Paul Rudd, Winona Ryder and Liev Schreiber. Click through the jump for Wain’s thoughts on desert island must-haves, comedy based on advertising, and Charlton Heston’s finest hour.

David Wain photo courtesy of Yougna Park.

…Read more