More "Futurama" soon? Yes, please! Plus some more fun news

For all its faults (and farms and mafias and whatever the hell else people waste their good time with), Facebook can - extremely rarely - actually be the source of really good news, as is the case here.

And yes, call me a geek, goober, gleeb or whatever else you might want to, but I am a fan of "Futurama" on Facebook, and really, why not? It rarely produces anything worth reading, but yesterday came these two back-to-back posts:

Futurama Heads up, Futurama fans! All new episodes of Futurama begin this June on Comedy Central!
Futurama Oh, and one more thing: we're bringing back the ENTIRE original cast.

Now, anyone who's followed the saga of the show's return to Comedy Central knows that the second part has news that's at least good as the first. When Fox started on reviving the delightfully fun animated sci-fi series, it originally fired all the voice actors after they asked for a raise, and planned to proceed with a roster of scabs, meaning anyone with any kind of conscience would have to boycott this.

Well, as you can tell, common sense (or more likely pocketbook sense) eventually prevailed, and so "Futurama" will indeed be back in the only form it should in June, so huzzah to that!

OK, after that today, there's a lot of silly stuff, surely starting with this:

"Police Academy" to enroll new class

Before I write anything else about that, I should probably punctuate it right away with a yes, really.

And does anyone wanna guess how many "Police Academy" movies there have been already? I guessed seven before checking at the IMDB to find out that, sadly enough, I was indeed right.

So does the world really need another one? Certainly not, but admit it: You all watched at least the first three of these, and at the beginning, they were insanely funny. They also, however, became less and less so as they went on, which makes this not terribly welcome news at all.

It seems that original producer Paul Maslansky is now hoping to revive what has to the be longest-running film franchise yet with a new class of cadets, but no writer or director has been attached yet (so there's still hope!)

"It's going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV," Maslansky said. "It's going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It'll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we'll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme."

I suppose that means that, beyond a cheeky cameo, Steve Guttenberg and that guy who makes all the funny noises will have to look elsewhere for work. And please remember, I'm really just the messenger here.

Carell and Gosling to team up on big screen

Man was last night's "The Office" good. The first half hour or so was the funniest it's been in a couple of years, and poor Pam trying to breast feed her youngin was almost too sweet to take.

And though I certainly enjoy Steve Carell in full manic mode as Michael Scott, I like him in movies when he plays it a lot more low key, as in "Little Miss Sunshine," still his best movie work to date.

What he's signed on for now sounds like something in the latter category, so I'm intrigued. He'll play a father dealing with a marital crisis and his children in an as-yet-untitled comedy for Warner Bros., and, even better, Ryan Gosling will play a suave friend of his who tries to help him through at all (though I've never thought of Gosling as particularly "suave.")

So, what else makes me think this could be really good? Well, it's being directed by the "Bad Santa" team of John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (whose nest movie will be "I Love You Phillip Morris" with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor), from a script by Dan Fogelman, who I saw way back when on Broadway as the fat guy (I'm one too, so I can say it) in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." Keep your eyes on this.

Stone sets sights on "Savages"

I really had no desire at all to see the sequel "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" until I saw the trailer a few weeks back, and it looked really good (yes, trailers really do work sometimes.)

I could certainly be wrong there, and we'll all find out soon enough on April 23. And after that, it seems that director Oliver Stone will next set his camera on Don Winslow's upcoming novel "Savages."

The book is apparently about two friends from Laguna Beach who share a girlfriend and a business selling incredibly good pot. As is probably always the case, that attracts the attention of a Mexican cartel who, after they resist its offer of muscle, kidnaps the girlfriend and holds her for ransom. Certainly sounds like some juicy material for Stone, who can still have wicked fun when he wants to.

Del Toro to play FBI chameleon

I'll still watch Benicio Del Toro in just about anything, but if I ever have the chance to meet the man, I'm gonna demand the five or so hours of my life that I spent watching "Che" back. He was, of course, incredible in it, but what a waste of film.

Now, however, he's set to team up with Steven Soderbergh again for something that sounds much more enjoyable. Soderbergh will executive produce "Making Jack Falcone," which will star Del Toro as Cuban-American FBI agent Joaquin "Jack" Garcia, who successfully infiltrated the Gambino crime family. Man, does that sound like nothing but cool.

OK, to close things out today, I've just got a trio of trailers, starting with an upcoming Jay-Z concert documentary you can actually watch for free (with Facebook again, I guess I'm their pimp today.)

I've been known to tell anyone who will listen that Jay-Z's "The Black Album" is not only the best rap album ever made, but probably the single greatest record of any kind. That may be a bit of exaggeration, but I also really do hold it to be true.

So if all you have to do is become fan of Absolut vodka on Facebook by March 22 to watch a new Hova concert documentary, I suppose I can do that much (and if the vodka adverts become too annoying, simply defriend them later, of course.) The movie will be streaming for free on the Absolut page starting on that date, and here's the trailer (which, unfortunately, really doesn't show too much.) Enjoy.



I had never heard of "Legend of the Guardians" until this trailer popped up on Yahoo yesterday (I just assumed that Zach Snyder's next movie was going to be "Sucker Punch," but I guess I'm wrong again.) After watching this, two thoughts popped into my head: Owls are a heck of a lot cooler than penguins, and here's hoping this will avoid the 3-D bug (which "Sucker Punch" apparently won't) when it comes out in September. Enjoy the trailer.

And finally today comes a new theatrical trailer for "The Runaways," starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, and set to come out hopefully everywhere on April 9. In spite of the understandable and valid concerns voiced by semi-regular Reel Fanatic visitor Cullen and other people I've talked to about this, as a big Joan Jett fan, I'm still holding out hope that this is somehow really gonna rock. Enjoy the clip, and have a great weekend. Peace out.