Any time Jemaine Clement, as Dr. Ronald Chevalier, esteemed science fiction author, opened his mouth to speak in Gentlemen Broncos (2009), I started laughing; his deep, conceited tone, his nonsensical cosmic ramblings, and his penchant for all things sci-fi (“May the glistening chrome of the Borg Queen shine upon us all” he quotes from Star Trek). Hell, any time he appeared on screen, dressed in his faux 80s, shamanistic, turtle-necked, Stetson garb, with a thick salad atop his head, a blue tooth in his ear (which he never once uses), and the type of manicured beard you only see on dudes in old cigarette ads, I laughed. Mainly because it’s Jemaine Clement, but also because Chevalier is the cream of the Jared Hess character crop. Hess, who’s also responsible for Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, has created yet another quirky universe inhabited by odd, awkward, out-of-touch loners, including Chevalier and Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano), a young science fiction writer, whose latest creation, The Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years, has been pilfered by Chevalier and turned into a best-selling book.

(more…)