Alabamian makes it big in Hollywood

By By Beth Chapman, Guest Columnist
Alabama’s Michael McCullers did an excellent job in writing and directing the movie, Baby Mama. I had read about McCullers and his movie but had not seen it until last week.
While representing Alabama at a national conference in Michigan, the conversation came up of movies available on our hotel’s movie channels. When I brought up wanting to see Baby Mama, people from at least six different states spoke up and told me how great it was. I took great pride in telling them that a young man from Alabama wrote and directed it. Then I went straight back to my hotel room to see it for myself. They were right, it was a great movie.
Michael McCullers made Alabama proud. The movie is rated PG-13 and stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, both of former Saturday Night Live (SNL) fame. To say that they were entertaining would be an understatement.
McCullers met the two actresses when he was a writer for SNL. Articles in local newspapers did not do justice to McCullers’ accomplishments and the impressive list of stars who obviously believed it was a good movie too. Oscar winners, Sigourney Weaver and Greg Kinnear were in the movie as were Emmy winners Maura Tierney and Holland Taylor. Perhaps the most well known actor in the film is Steve Martin.
The movie is about an ambitious, career crazed 37-year-old woman who wants desperately to have a baby. After many failed attempts she hires an agency to provide a surrogate mother. The surrogate is the extreme, polar opposite of her and ends up rooming with her which makes for some humorous situations. You’ll have to see the movie to find out the rest of the story because I don’t want to give it away.
There is a pleasant, light-hearted, subtle humor in the movie and it includes many little things that had to have come from influences on McCuller’s life growing up in Alabama. It references “white trash,” obesity, “strong and controlling women,” a domineering mother, a dumb blonde, a redneck couple, karaoke and religion. The movie included little bits and pieces of Alabama such as the mention of Jimmy Buffet and a song by Lionel Ritchie. There is also intellectual humor used in the movie which isn’t surprising considering that McCullers was a National Merit Scholar, graduated from Indian Springs then received his undergraduate degree from Yale.
In one portion of the movie, the main character tells her surrogate to eat organic food because it is good for the baby. The girl’s reply was straight out of the South when she replied, “That’s food for rich people who hate themselves.” There was no mention of deep frying anything, but there just as well to have been.
I have never had the privilege of meeting Michael McCullers, but he is one talented young man who obviously has the potential to do many other great things in Hollywood. With Baby Mama as his first movie, there are bound to be others coming from him that will be equally as good or better. In addition to writing for Saturday Night Live and Showtime, he assisted Mike Myers in writing his second Austin Powers movie. While those have their following, Baby Mama is a more serious, personal and unique caliber of humor.
Most people who are National Merit Scholars and Yale graduates are smart people, but few have the ability to also interact, connect and entertain people with such a common man’s sense of humor. McCullers does that beautifully.
While women would obviously be more prone to like the movie, anyone would be hard pressed not to like it.
Whatever Michael McCullers is doing, he is doing it right. With his talents and abilities to go along with his obvious Hollywood connections, we are sure to hear from him many more times in the future. McCullers, at 37 years old, as Robert Frost would say, has “many more miles to go before my (his) journey ends.”