One has to wonder how a movie starring Ben Stiller, most recently the star of the hugely successful Night at the Museum sequel, can be receiving no publicity less than a week prior to its release.  Then, when you learn that the film is only being released in ten markets and none of them is New York or Los Angeles, you start to think that maybe the publicity department is not too keen on investing in their project.  Still, I always go into a new movie with an open mind.  Some of the best gems are discovered in the most unlikely of places.  Sadly, The Marc Pease Experience is not one of them.                                The Marc Pease of the title is a 26-year-old who, for all intents and purposes, is still living in high school.  The leader of his high school a capella group “Meridian 8,” he has spent the past eight years watching the band members slowly break off and start their own lives, while he continues to seek out low-paying gigs and hope for an opportunity to get into the recording studio.  He still spends much of his free time at his old high school and is even dating a current student… a detail that no one else seems to bat an eye over.  His mentor in high school was the school’s music and theater director, Jon Gribble, who still holds the position and is about to put on a new stage presentation of “The Wiz.”  While putting on that same show eight years ago, he made an unsupported promise to Marc in order to get him onstage.  It proved to be a disastrous move, but since that time Marc has counted on Gribble to uphold the empty promise.  What saves The Marc Pease Experience from being a truly disastrous film is the performance of the play within the film.  It’s actually quite unfortunate that Gribble’s stage play is constantly interrupted by the movie’s plot because it is the highlight.  The production values of the play are infinitely better than those of the movie itself and for my money, I would have rather have just watched the play and not worried about Marc Pease and his experience.  The movie is anchored by two fairly reliable actors.  Marc is played by Jason Schwartzman, an actor who usually specializes in these kinds of offbeat characters, but here he just does not have an interesting enough character to carry the movie.  That is, at least, until he finally does appear in the play, but by then it is much too late.  Stiller plays Jon Gribble, a character which had me constantly confused as to if he were a good guy, or a bad guy.  He is often a really big jerk, but then there are flashes of him being an effectively motivating and supportive teacher.  He also puts on one heck of a high school musical.   Unfortunately, the two popular actors cannot bring this film to life.  The characters they play are not interesting enough to grasp the audience’s attention or affections, and the poor script doesn’t give them any help.  There were many times throughout the film when I actually felt sorry for the actors involved.  There is an occasional chuckle to be had, but little more than that.  It’s too bad, because the play really is quite good. The Marc Pease Experience is rated PG-13 for “brief sexual material.”  The sexual material is very brief and I don’t really see why this movie couldn’t have gotten by with a simple PG rating.  Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of The Marc Pease Experience.