Forget Scientology or Heaven’s Gate. Today, the biggest cult in our country may very well be the teeming masses anxiously awaiting the return of Arrested Development. After years of rumors and dashed hopes, it seems the beloved TV show will finally be reincarnated, this time on the big screen.
But don’t break out your Cornballers yet: the film isn’t set to hit theaters until 2011. How will you last that long? While you can treasure your DVD collection of all three seasons, you’ll probably want to vary things up in the year-plus before we get sweet relief. Off the top of your head, you might know to watch Michael Cera in Juno, but where can you find Judy Greer in a role as crazy as Kitty Sanchez? Will Arnett as a man as bumbling and self-involved as Gob? Or Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman having more comical (and sexual) misunderstandings than they did as Rita Leeds and Michael Bluth? Hooksexup and IFC have joined forces to give you all the help you need — here are the Top 20 films to Give You Your Arrested Development Fix*.
* Until they actually make the movie.
Amy Poehler (Bride of Gob): Angie in BABY MAMA (2008)
Poehler’s Arrested Development character — who never had an actual name that we (or her on-screen husband) were privileged to learn — met Gob while out partying and essentially married him on a dare. Like the white-trash menace whom Tina Fey hired to carry a child for her in Poehler’s leading-lady movie debut, she was a feisty, impulsive gal who preferred to make her most life-altering decisions while drunk.
Michael Cera (George Michael Bluth): America Hoffman in STEAL THIS MOVIE (2000)
In his post-A.D. movie roles (Superbad, Juno, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Year One), Cera has maintained his ownership of a certain character type: the paralytically shy, lovestruck guy with romantic angst raging beneath his soft-spoken exterior. If this is understood as the defense strategy of someone who grew up in insane circumstances, in a bizarre family beset by legal difficulties, it all might have its roots in his pre-teen appearance in this Abbie Hoffman biopic. He plays Abbie’s son, who has to contend with the pains and sorrows of having a celebrity fugitive for a father, not to mention having that name.
Tony Hale (Byron “Buster” Bluth): James Epstein in THE INFORMANT! (2009)
Surprisingly enough, no Arrested Development regular has shown greater range in other roles than Hale, and in his small role as Matt Damon’s lawyer in Steven Soderbergh’s gonzo true-crime story, he finds himself in the non-Blusterish position of being perhaps the sanest person in the room. On the other hand, he’s in the very familiar situation of having to deal with a mess made by someone who might possibly be just the teeniest bit unhinged. By the end, he’s wearing the expression that, with Buster, always signaled a strong recurring desire to retreat to the safety of his mother’s womb.
Dave Thomas (Uncle Trevor): Boris Badunov in BORIS AND NATASHA (1992)
Before playing the strange, menacing figure keeping a watchful eye on Rita Leeds in Arrested Development, Thomas had the chance to duck around corners and consort with a beautiful, mysterious woman in this live-action feature based on the villains from the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Although this was in some ways a masterstroke of casting, the movie itself has been seen by so few people that the CIA would have done well to rewrite the script as a hiding place for state secrets.
Charlize Theron (Rita Leeds): Mary Embrey in HANCOCK (2008)
In this twisty superhero story, Theron had to stretch to play a woman with a loving family, a deep, dark secret — and the ability to throw Will Smith through a wall. She got to warm up for the part with her story arc on Arrested Development, playing a mystery woman with an English accent, which also gave her a chance to practice being inscrutable, foreign, and badly misunderstood by Jason Bateman.
Liza Minnelli (Lucille Austero): Linda in ARTHUR (1981)
As the fun-loving, hard-partying “Lucille 2,” Minnelli merrily swanned her way through the love lives of two-thirds of the Bluth brothers, using the same kooky charms that, twenty years earlier, had enabled her to win the heart of another rich boy with issues. On A.D., Lucille eventually wearied of trying to make men out of wealthy idiot man-children and ran off with hairless real-estate magnate Stan Sitwell. If Linda had shown as much sense, a terrible and pointless sequel might have been averted.
Ed Begley, Jr. (Stan Sitwell): Himself in WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? (2006)
On A.D., Begley played a hairless CEO and philanthropist whose toupee looked like shag carpeting that the dog had gone on, and false eyebrows that would have made him a hit at any Halloween party because, as he meekly explained, “Cruelty-free really limits your choices.” He could have been making fun of the concerned, caring celebrity mouthpiece Ed Begley, Jr., one of the many distinguished talking heads who stick up for the titular vehicle in the go-to documentary for anyone who won’t be satisfied until they know what Zsa Zsa Gabor has to say on the issue at hand.
Alia Shawkat (Mae “Maeby” Fünke): Camille in BART GOT A ROOM (2009)
In the commentary track on the Arrested Development Season One DVD, it’s reported that the kiss the entrancing young Ms. Shawkat plants on Michael Cera in the pilot episode was the first time she’d kissed a boy, not just on-camera, but, like, ever. That kiss set off a series-long chain of confusion and misunderstandings as Cera’s George Michael struggled with his attraction to a girl he felt he couldn’t be with because, depending on which episode you were watching and how closely network censors had vetted the script, they might have been blood relations. It also set the mold for roles such as the high-school girl Shawkat plays here, who, as graduation nears, longs to give herself to her best guy pal, who in turn is reluctant to take her up on it because… actually, we’re not sure what his problem is. Maybe he fell on his head or something.
Jeffrey Tambor (George Bluth, Sr.): Tom Manning in HELLBOY (2004) and HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY (2008)
Like his Arrested Development alter ego, Tambor’s character in the Hellboy movies is a harried manager and erratic father figure, who is forced to balance his responsibilities as head of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense with awkward attempts to reach out to his star agent, a red granite behemoth whose own emotional development has been somewhat arrested. In the first film’s tenderest scene, he takes a moment during a chaotic raid on a Russian hellmouth to give Hellboy some paternal advice on the best way to light a cigar. Sadly, the sequel ends with a strong suggestion that the two of them won’t be trading cards on Father’s Day anytime soon.
Jason Bateman (Michael Bluth): Adam Leavitt in THE KINGDOM (2007)
As Michael Bluth, Bateman’s efforts to hold his family together were complicated by his father’s possible collaboration with Saddam Hussein, and culminated in his undertaking a rescue mission to Iraq. In the geopolitical action thriller The Kingdom, Bateman was able to draw upon his experience as a team player and his knowledge of Mideast trouble spots to play a wisecracking FBI agent who’s part of a team investigating a terrorist murder in Saudi Arabia. In the climax, he’s abducted and threatened with beheading, a situation that turns out much better for him than if he’d depended on Bluth Company for his rescue.
