It is our great honor to have spoken with director, actor, writer, artist and comedian, Dennis Dugan. If you’re a fan of comedy, then you know of his body of work which includes directing nine movies with Adam Sandler starting with Happy Gilmore and most recently, Grown Ups 2 (and we heard there may be a Grown Ups 3… crossing fingers).
Dugan is also a well-known actor with roles in both TV and Movies. One of the movies that we briefly talked about and one that Dugan directed and is fond of, Karroll’s Christmas, which is a twist on Charles Dickens‘ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. One of the actors in this film is Larry Miller who also worked on the story for Love, Weddings & Other Disasters with Eileen Conn, Miller’s wife. We are currently searching where you can watch it as it was a TV Christmas movie about 14 years ago. Watch for a separate post here on RCR News Media following.
Back to our interview which will be coming out on our new podcast following…
Dennis Dugan and I laughed as much as we chatted about his new film, Love, Weddings & Other Disasters which will be available on VOD and in theaters starting December 4th.
Icebreaker prepared… we asked if knew that he and one of his stars, Jeremy Irons were related, as Irons middle name is Dugan and well, he did not know that fun fact. Now you know too!
Dugan was gracious enough to share the origins of this story…
In addition to this film being a little toned down from some of his other comedies, what’s really cool is fifteen years ago as he began writing this film an ode to his wife, Sharon. Dugan tells us that he and his family had gone on a trip to London with his wife and son later going to Scotland to stay at Billy Connelly’s castle when his wife called to tell him that she’d just met Jeremy Irons.
Kismet! What is unbelievable is that at that time, Dugan was also writing the story vignette with the yet to be cast Jeremy Irons and Diane Keaton in the park. Kismet? We say, yes! Especially after Dugan realized the connection back to his scriptwriting with the scene where Irons would be playing the character when Irons said yes to be in the film.
Promises kept…
While working on his story which he had mapped out to include a number of different types of relationship stories, Dugan made good on a promise made as one does when seeing a fellow creator outside of Hollywood, saying ‘hey, we should work together on a project when we get back to LA,’ and that’s how funny man, Larry Miller (actor and writer, known for 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Pretty Woman (1990) and The Nutty Professor (1996)) and his talented wife, Eileen Conn (producer and writer, known for Mad About You (1992), K.C. Undercover (2015) and Dream On) got involved in developing this story.
Loving Story for His Wife…
Truth be told, Dugan is a big-time romantic and wrote this movie for his wife who also loves weddings, romantic comedies, and guess what, he also wrote the lyrics to the songs in his film which are lovely and a treat to have original music created for this love story compilation. Be sure to check out the soundtrack!
Love, Weddings & Other Disasters will be in theaters and On-Demand on Dec. 4th
Now to the story, I want to preface this review with the obvious observation, there’s a lot of side stories going on from the opening scene to the closing scene. Put your cell phone down and buckle up, you’ll not want to miss any of the interactions, innuendo, and even some absurd silliness.
Several stories of love and relationships are woven into the main story about an upcoming wedding where they all find themselves at as we watch their journey to the days leading up to the wedding unfold. There were moments where I was laughing out loud to wow, that just happened.
There are some crazy couplings from the reality show competition to the Russian mafia to the hopeful politician’s brother and the Boston duck boat tour guide who is looking for his Cinderella and all of those involved in making this wedding happen.
In one of these relationship stories, Jeremy Irons plays a very uptight and meticulous wedding planner who has been alone for a while and finds himself in a blind-date situation, literally. As the person who is matched with him is Diane Keaton, who’s character is blind. Together they are magic on screen filling your heart with hope.
Then there’s the second, inexperienced, balls-to-the-wall, wedding planner played by Maggie Grace and in her opening scene, she’s skydiving… with a date. Let’s just say, Liam Neeson doesn’t make a cameo.
Finally, there’s that duck boat tour guide, played by the charming and funny, Andrew Bachelor AKA King Bach who is searching for his Cinderella and has to wade through over a hundred hopeful paramours. Talk about pressure as he bids them adieu.
We don’t want to share anymore as we don’t want to spoil this movie for you.
We loved the story, the characters, the chaos, which when you think about it, is real, love is messy and so are relationships.
Dugan has woven a classic RomCom for the ages and it will be one that we will be watching over and over like we do many of his other films… Happy Gilmore, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Big Daddy, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Saving Silverman, The Benchwarmers, National Security, Beverly Hills Ninja… and soon, Karroll’s Christmas.
Love, Weddings & Other Disasters will be in theaters and Video On-Demand on Dec. 4th
Podcast Bonus Be sure to watch for and listen to our podcast from this interview as director Dennis Dugan talks loyalty and reveals how he and Adam Sandler started working together and other fun moments about his filmography!
