MAD MEN Creator Hits The Road For YOU ARE HERE

Let's be honest: When I heard Owen Wilson and Zach Galifanakis were set to star in You Are Here, a road movie about two friends traveling back home to collect a family inheritance when one's father dies, it sounded so middling and unoriginal I was pretty sure I saw it already. But when Variety says it's Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner's "long gestating passion project," I'm forced to reconsider. I'm not saying I would watch a film Weiner made about paint drying, but I'd probably watch one of his characters watch paint dry. And the last script that he carried around for years and years before selling it was the Mad Men pilot.

I'm torn! I like the idea of this apparent hard career turn for him; one of Weiner's gifts on Mad Men is a fearlessness to take things someplace new and not rest on his laurels. Weiner directed an indie film back in 1996, but this otherwise feels like new territory for him. (And old material to the rest of us! Damn it, so conflicted.) Weiner's more than earned my goodwill (and he's also cast Amy Poehler, so good news there), so we'll see how it goes. For every JJ Abrams and James L Brooks, there's a dozen TV guys who don't seem able to make the leap. I just hope this film doesn't mean another 17 month hiatus for my favorite TV show.