Louis C.K. Gets Weird in 'Tomorrow Night'

Many moons ago, in 1998, comedian Louis C.K. made a film called Tomorrow Night that he screened at Sundance Film Festival and then archived it away indefinitely. Last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Louis announced that he would put the full-length feature up on his website. Yay! The trailer is SO bizarre and so delightful. I can't find the right words to write a synopsis, so I will borrow some from Sundance, which called the film "subtly outlandish":

Tomorrow Night chronicles the loneliness of photo-shop owner Charles, an acerbic, repressed man with an unquenchable “taste” for ice cream. His energetic and overly cheerful postman Mel convinces him that what he really needs is womanly companionship. On the other side of town is Florence, a lonely old woman with a mean, vociferous husband. When Florence isn’t being tortured by her husband, she pines away for Billy, her son in the army who hasn’t written in twenty years and who makes Gomer Pyle look like Einstein. To top it off, the only friend Florence has is Tina, a sweet yet crude and scruffy young man who dresses in old-lady drag. Tina convinces Florence that maybe she needs a little extracurricular spice in her life. Enter Charles, who gets off on the thought of a clean and orderly household, and you have a match made in heaven. From there, things get even weirder.

If it SOUNDS peculiar, wait until you see the trailer:

So why did Louis wait so long to release it? Well, as he told Leno, "It was a black and white movie, and when I made it, I wasn't anybody." It is his second full-length directed film, after Pootie Tang, of course.

Not trying to be overly enthusiastic in my waxing poetic about Louis, but something about the polar vortex makes me really appreciate the absurdist humor of this trailer, reminiscent of the French new wave (which Louis loves!).

Louis also made several short films in the 1990s, which encapsulate a sense of dark, fatal humor marked with surrealism and tenderness; all of which he has carried over onto his show, Louie, written, directed by and acted in by Louis C.K. himself. The cast of Tomorrow Night is crazy great: it includes friends of C.K./ comedy giants Amy Poehler, Steve Carrell, Robert Smigal, Wanda Sykes, and Conan O'Brien (as himself). You should totally check it out.

Image: Getty Images