City Heat

It isn't Candid Camera, it isn't Punk'd--it's The Perry Project. "Scary" Perry Caravello, an out-of-shape, fuzzy-haired, gravel-voiced extra thinks he's scored the lead in "sports detective" spoof Windy City Heat. Everywhere he goes, the fanny pack-sporting "Stone Fury" is followed by cameras, presumably for a DVD featurette. In actuality, he's the unsuspecting victim of an elaborate practical joke. Bobcat Goldthwait (Chappelle's Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live) directs both the real movie and the mockumentary, while Dane Cook puts in an appearance as casting agent "Roman Polanski" and Toby Huss as photographer "Ansel Adams" (all the fake names have real-world counterparts). Caravello's buddies, Tony Barbieri ("The Mole") and Don Barris ("Big Lou"), are members of the same cast...or so he thinks. In reality, they're in on the prank. In fact, they co-wrote the screenplay with producer Jimmy Kimmel. Reportedly, Eminem, Johnny Knoxville, and Fall Out Boy are crazy about this cult classic in the making, but the humiliating, off-color humor won't be to all tastes. Recommended more to fans of the cautionary documentary Overnight and Goldthwait's own Shakes the Clown than to Martin Scorsese's more sophisticated, yet strangely simpatico King of Comedy. Along with "The Big Three," Comedy Central's Windy City Heat features Carson Daly, co-producer Adam Carolla (Kimmel's former Man Show co-host), Ernie Banks, and William "The Refrigerator" Perry. --Kathleen C. Fennessy