Let's start with HBO, since they're clearly intending to keep scheduling programming made specifically for me in an attempt to just wring as much money out of me as possible.
"True Blood" returns Sunday, and then the rather miraculous eighth season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" will return Larry David to New York, where he of course belongs. And after that, HBO has just set in motion a boxing project that should be nothing but great.
"Da Brick" will be a drama loosely based on Mike Tyson's early years in the boxing ring, with Tyson involved to offer his perspective on it. Much better, Spike Lee will direct at least the pilot episode, and John Ridley is on board as the showrunner.
Toiling largely in the shadows in the last five years or so, Spike has nonetheless managed to make two of his best movies (no small accomplishment) with his two New Orleans documentaries, "When the Levee Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" and "If God is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise," and his movie of the Broadway musical "Passing Strange" is easily one of my favorite movies of 2009 (please rent that one now if you've never seen it.) And there are few genres of entertainment I love more than boxing, so this should nicely fill the void left by the sorely-missed-by-at-least-me "Lights Out."
OK, working briskly so I can have time to go swimming before going to work, let's move on to the clips, starting gloriously with the first trailer I know of for David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," one of the movies I'm definitely most looking forward to for the rest of this year. As you'll see from the trailer below, it stars Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung and Keira Knightley as the patient on which they try the titular cure (which, as you'll see, somehow involves spanking ... juicy.) Enjoy the trailer, and keep an eye out for this one hopefully opening wide enough to even reach my little corner of the world in November.
Up next comes the first trailer I've seen for Craig Brewer's take on "Footloose," which, not terribly surprisingly, appears to be the exact same movie as the original, except with some rather flashy hip-hop dancing to excite the young folk. I'm clearly not one of those, so I probably shouldn't complain, but how in the world did Brewer go from making one of my all-time favorite movies in "Hustle & Flow" to this? Sheesh. Oh well. At least Miles Teller of "Rabbit Hole," an actor definitely worth keeping an eye on, is getting work in this, but he'll never be able to fill the shoes of the late, great Chris Penn. "Enjoy" the trailer, keep an eye out for the movie if this is your kind of thing on Oct 14, and then stick around for a glimpse of new "Futurama" (huzzah!).
How in the world "Futurama" has managed to survive and thrive for so long is something I'll never understand, but I certainly do appreciate it. Believe it or not, the show is back for its second season of new episodes on Comedy Central starting Thursday night. That's also the same night that FX's "Louie" returns and its new series "Wilfred" premieres, so my DVR will finally be getting a bit of a workout. Enjoy this brief clip from Thursday's "Futurama" premiere, and have a perfectly endurable Wednesday. Peace out.
Actually, I was tempted to use that word in association with Mike Judge's craptastic last flick, "Extract," but let's just be nice and simply say perhaps the man should just stick to TV.
In easily the best combination of crazy and great news today, it seems that Judge is indeed now "outlining" 30 new episodes of "Beavis and Butthead," and if anything, our world is even more deserving of their deconstruction than it was when the duo first debuted in 1997.
There's no deal yet in place with MTV, but seeing as how it hasn't shown anything resembling a music video almost since our heroes left the air the first time, I can't imagine they'd turn this down. Actually, wouldn't that be a problem? Do people even make music videos anymore? If so, why, since no one shows them?
Even if that means the format would have to be tweaked somewhat, the potential return of Beavis and Butthead is still nothing but good news in this little corner of the world.
And in their honor, the synopsis is out for the the third adventures of Harold and Kumar, "A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas," due out Christmas Day 2011. Here goes:
The new "Harold & Kumar" comedy picks up six years after the duo's last adventure. After years of growing apart, Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) have replaced each other with new best friends and are preparing for their respective Christmas celebrations. But when a mysterious package arrives at Kumar's door, his attempt to deliver it to Harold's house ends with him inadvertently burning down Harold's father-in-law's prize Christmas tree. With his in-laws out of the house for less than a day, Harold decides to cover his tracks rather than come clean, and reluctantly embarks on another ill-advised but hilarious journey with Kumar, taking them through New York City on Christmas Eve in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
Nothing but potential funny there, so here's hoping the third chapter is a whole lot better than "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," which, while still being a hoot, just too often crossed that fine line between clever and simply stupid.
And all I have after that today is a trio of videos that caught my eye this morning, starting, of course, with something in honor of the return of "Mad Men," coming July 25 with season four on AMC. The show's return is a definite entertainment highlight in any summer, but in this season of suck, it's even more vital. To whet your appetite, here's a clip some devoted and inspired fan with some time to kill made that compiles some of the best pickup lines and rejections. Enjoy.
Actually, in terms of movies that won't suck, the reviews I've read of "Despicable Me" indicate that should be a winner, and it should initiate at least a three-week streak of good flicks, being followed by Christopher Nolan's "Inception" (for which the early reviews could, without exaggeration, be called rapturous) and then Phillip Noyce's "Salt," starring Angelina Jolie. With flicks like "The Quiet American" and "Catch a Fire," Noyce has made himself into easily one of my favorite directors, and he's clearly at home with spy games, so I'm expecting this to be pretty great, and one of the surprise megahits of the summer. Enjoy this clip.
And, it being Thursday, where else to end than with a clip from tonight's new "Futurama"? Last week's episode featuring everything from the Eye Phone to that thoroughly disgusting Susan Boyle boil was comedy gold, and as you'll see from this clip, tonight's episode is all about "robosexual marriage." Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.
Before we get into any of that, a bit of bad business for people like me who have become at least partly addicted to those Redbox machines at your local grocery stores.
Since I have a Netflix account, I should surely just be satisfied with that, but far too often I get to the weekend with no new movies in hand and have to give into the Redbox siren. Well, and I guess we shouldn't surprised, knowing that they have us (or at least me) in their grasp, the folks behind this enterprise are at least testing a rate rise.
There's no word on when or if this might go national, but Redbox is now testing out raises (from $1.00) to $1.50 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, $1.25 in Modesto, Calif., and $1.15 in Spokane, Wash., and Miami/West Palm Beach, Fla. Nothing but sinister news there ... stay tuned.
OK, as promised today, it's all about good, bad and simply crazy news about what I at least consider comedy, so here goes.
Let's start, of course, with the crazy. It seems that although "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" did fairly well in its midnight run (only smashing all possible records with $30 million or so), certain young viewers did object to what came before it.
Though its merely a teaser trailer and by all accounts not terribly creepy at all, Cinemark theaters in Texas have pulled the "Paranormal Activity 2" trailer because viewers who were simply there to enjoy some Team Edward vs. Team Jacob action found it to be too scary.
Now, having been scarred for life by "The Blair Witch Project," I made a vow to never watch any more "found footage" horror movies, and therefore haven't seen the first "Paranormal Activity," but just the thought that 30 or so shadowy seconds from the sequel's trailer would be too much for "Twilight" viewers to take is nothing but funny to me.
OK, now on to the good, and if you're a fan of Pee Wee Herman (and if you're not, why not?), I should really say great. It seems that Paul Reubens has come up with a script for a new Pee Wee Herman movie, and has somehow managed to hook Judd Apatow to produce it, meaning this will probably really happen, and fairly fast.
All that's known so far about the plot for this, which is already booked at Universal, is that it will have Pee Wee going on some kind of road trip. No word yet on who would direct this (though I can't imagine it could possibly be Tim Burton), but I'd probably be happy watching Pee Wee simply eat a bowl of Cheerios, so bring it on!
And in a bit of tangential good comedy news, it seems that IFC (which I unfortunately don't get on my cable) has picked up the rights to what are still Apatow's two best creations, the single-season TV shows "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." The only surprise in that news for me was that it's taken so long for this to happen, since "Freaks" is without exaggeration simply one of the best TV shows ever made (and certainly the best one-season-only show), and "Undeclared" is in its own way almost as good.
"Freaks and Geeks" will premiere on IFC this Friday at 11 p.m., and then run there weekly, with encore airings Mondays at the same time. "Undeclared" will follow sometime this fall, and in the best news of all of this, there will be an episode that never managed to make it to the air before the show was canceled after only 17 episodes. If you've somehow never seen either of these and get IFC, just trust me and tune in.
And I guess the comedy troika today wouldn't be complete without the bad (if inevitable), so here goes: Starz has canceled the seriously funny "Party Down" after only two seasons. The show about wannabe actors who work at a catering company was created by "Veronica Mars" mastermind Rob Thomas and Paul Rudd, and has starred (before many of them moved on to shows watched by many more people) Jane Lynch, Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan and even "Freaks and Geeks" vet and veryfunnyguy Martin Starr.
I've been enjoying the second season on Netflix, but once I finally get around to the finale, probably this weekend, I guess I'll join a fairly select group. It seems that only 74,000 people tuned in for the finale when it aired on Starz, giving the show a rather unsensational 0.0 rating (ouch). R.I.P., "Party Down."
But enough of that bad news. The only other thing I have today, before a welcome sneak peek at episode three of the new run of "Futurama," is two intriguing bits of casting news.
Going back to his movie roots in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Sean Penn is in negotiations to produce, and I'd have to assume star in, a biopic about surfing icon Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz and his family.
And in a sure bit of Oscar bait, Meryl Streep is eyeing the lead role in "Thatcher," which would of course be a biopic about the former British Prime Minister. In another bit of good casting news for this potential flick, Jim Broadbent is likely to play Thatcher's husband, Denis, who I would have to assume spent plenty of time simply saying "yes, dear."
The movie would center on the 17 days in 1982 leading up the Falklands War. As soon as this all comes together, I suppose we should just go ahead and give her the little statue in advance.
And where better to end today than with a clip from the third new episode of "Futurama," coming to Comedy Central Thursday at 10 p.m. Although the first episode last week was much funnier than the second, they both were imbued with that familiar and fun "Futurama" spirit, so I'm looking forward to the whole new season. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.
You know, I've never even been remotely tempted to watch a Syfy movie, but the channel may have finally just found the formula to break down my resistance for about five minutes or so.
In a move that surely can only be hailed as evil genius, it has made the cast of its next movie, "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (because, I suppose, on Syfy it always has to be something vs. something), a real battle of the '80s pop divas, Tiffany vs. Debbie (apparently back from Deborah) Gibson. And yes, really.
Just in case the plot actually matters to anyone, here goes: Debbie "not Deborah" Gibson will play a fanatical animal-rights activist who frees illegally imported exotic snakes from pet stores, sending them into the Everglades, where they grow to mega sizes (natch). Tiffany will play an overzealous park ranger who uses dangerous methods to save endangered alligators. Then, of course, the pair brawl at a party, then take matters outside into the swamp.
That's really probably enough about that nonsense, but just for the record, I'll take Tiffany, just on general principle, and because her dance music career has brought her here to Macon twice in the last few years.
In other, hopefully more important, news, the signs are increasing that Cameron Crowe really will direct another movie and at least somewhat wipe the sour taste of "Elizabethtown" from my movie memory. It appears that Matt Damon is in negotiations to play the lead in "We Bought a Zoo," which would begin shooting in January for a Dec. 23, 2011, release.
So, what's the movie about? Well, it's based on a memoir by Benjamin Mee, who along with his family bought and moved into a dilapidated zoo housing 200 exotic animals in the English countryside (but not, as far as I know yet, either Debbie Gibson or Tiffany.) In all seriousness, though, I really hope this all does come together, because with "Almost Famous" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" the man has directed and written two of my favorite flicks, and he surely deserves another winner.
And speaking of another director I really like who's been on a bit of a losing streak lately, I finally got around to watching Fernando Meirelles' "Blindness" a few weeks ago, and man was that a bleak bit of business. Not entirely awful, but not too close to entertaining either. Anyone who bothered to read my list of the best 100 movies of the '00s (and I suppose there just might be one of you) knows, however, that Meirelles rather easily topped that list with his debut flick, "City of God," so any news of him working again is welcome in this corner of the world, especially when he joins forces with a first-rate screenwriter.
Meirelles and Peter Morgan (writer of "Frost/Nixon," "The Queen" and, best of all, "The Damned United" - do yourself a favor and watch that ode to futbol futility as soon as possible) are joining forces for the "mature" drama "360." It will be based on the 1900 Arthur Schnitzler play "La Ronde" (which I'm not going to claim I've actually read), which apparently examined "the sexual morality and class ideology of his day through a series of sexual encounters between pairs of characters.” Sounds like equally juicy and heady stuff, and I'd imagine they'll contemporize it for what should be anything but a boring flick. Stay tuned ...
OK, before I got distracted by all that, this was supposed to be about the rather miraculous return of "Futurama" with back-to-back new episodes on Comedy Central tonight at 10 p.m. After Fox's brief flirtation with firing the entire voice cast and replacing them with scabs, they were eventually shamed into backtracking and bringing everyone back, and everything I've read about the new episodes indicates they're just as fun and trippy as ever. Just in case you need a refresher on all things "Futurama," here's a 7-minute "Recap-O-Rama" clip hosted by legendary Captain Zapp (not Zaff, as an alert reader politely informed me) Brannigan to get you caught up. Tune in to "Futurama" tonight and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.
If you were to ask me who the funniest two people in the world are, I'd respond, in this order, Ricky Gervais and Larry David, so if you bring them together, even for just one episode, you're gonna get my attention.
I'm not sure when we'll be able to see the eighth season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," David's much more bitter and, yes, funnier, HBO follow-up to "Seinfeld," but when we do, it's been announced that Gervais will indeed be appearing as himself on the eighth episode.
Is it possible to have too much funny? I think not, and luckily, HBO definitely doesn't think you can have too much Ricky Gervais. Just last night I finally sat down and watched a few episodes of "The Ricky Gervais Show," which is essentially just animated visuals to go along with podcasts he makes with comedic partner Stephen Merchant and foil Karl Pilkington, and for which HBO has already ordered a second season.
The show itself is hampered by both that extremely limited format and by the fact that Gervais, in baiting Pilkington, often comes off as a bully. It still works, though, because these are three extremely funny guys, and because Pilkington in particular is at least as much a savant as he is an idiot. The best bits so far have been a "Monkey News" segment in which they debate whether or not a monkey can host a talk show, and another one in which Pilkington shares his birthing theory that when you die, you should immediately turn in to a baby again.
The bottom line: if you like cerebral funny, these guys deliver it, and I'm a fan. And in even better news, Gervais is now launching a new series for the BBC titled "Life's Too Short," which will "document" the life of showbiz little guy Warwick Davis, who has already made an appearance with Daniel Radcliffe on the Gervais/Merchant series "Extras." When and if this crosses the pond, it's extremely likely it will be to HBO too, and I can only say bring it on, because I'll admit I really like good jokes about little folk.
In other news, I really don't think there's any way Disney can get me too excited about another damned prequel, this one for "The Wizard of Oz," but they're certainly trying. Vulture reports today that the studio has offered Sam Raimi the reins for this project, in which Robert Downey Jr. would apparently play the wizard himself if this ever gets made.
I'd still lean toward just saying no to this, but if you've seen "Drag Me to Hell," you know Raimi still has some fun left in him (and if you haven't, and can handle a wickedly funny and equally gross horror flick, rent it immediately.) I suppose the man's gotta work, especially since they swiped the "Spider-Man" franchise from him, but if he jumps at this, he'll be far from alone in returning to the land of Oz.
Because absolutely nothing in Hollywood happens in a vacuum, there are at least three other "Oz"-related projects coming together, the furthest along being an upcoming 3D animated film "Dorothy of Oz." Nothing about that would make me say anything but meh except for the fact they've now cast "Glee" star Lea Michelle as the lead, and being an admitted and devoted Gleek, I figured I'd at least be the messenger on that too.
In the same press release, however, came this rather ominous note: "15-time Grammy winner Bryan Adams is currently moving forward on the first songs and lyrics for the film." Sheesh. OK, enough of that. On to the videos ...
Sticking with HBO first, this is the third, and best, trailer I know of the Martin Scorsese-produced series "Boardwalk Empire," which will chronicle the rise of Atlantic City's gambling empire and is set to debut in September. As you'll see from the trailer, the best one yet, it stars Steve Buscemi. Enjoy, and if you're a Sookie Stackhouse fan like me, of course tune in at 9 Sunday night for the season three premiere of "True Blood."
"Futurama" is rather inexplicably but thankfully set to rise again very soon with new episodes on Comedy Central, with the first two coming back-to-back June 24 (and yes, with all the original voice cast members.) Here, courtesy of the network, is first 90 seconds or so of the first new episode in which, predictably, we already find Fry in a tight spot. Enjoy.
And finally, the big day is finally here. The U.S.A. takes on England today in South Africa, and if you're somehow in Macon and interested, the rather unfortunately named Bottom's Up (not a titty bar, despite that name) will be open downtown and I and some fellow soccer geeks will be there to watch as the game begins at 2:30 EST. In the meantime, soccer fan Rivers Cuomo and his Weezer bandmates have recorded "Represent," an unofficial theme song for the squad, and it indeed kicks ass. Enjoy along with this video tribute to the team, and definitely tune in for what will hopefully make the U.S.A. undefeated (2-0) all time in World Cup matches against England. Peace and futbol to all!
At the same time that the Broadway musical "Fela!" has received 11 Tony nominations, Focus Features has announced even better news about who will play the Afrobeat legend in a long overdue biopic - and it's easily the perfect choice.
First, as for the musical, which I had the pleasure of seeing last winter, it would be a worthy winner in any category, but especially for the dynamic performance of Sahr Ngaujah as the man himself. I was ready for the show's first half, more than a bit too heavy on audience engagement for my liking, to end, but it just gets better and better in act two as the story of Fela Kuti just gets crazier and crazier.
And if you're unfamiliar with his saga, it's a truly unique one. Along with creating a mad musical style that fused jazz, funk, West African drums and often 27-minute-or-so-long songs, he also drove the Nigerian government mad to the point that they ... well, you'll have to find out what they did to the poor man's mother for yourself, but it's just plain insane. He also took 27 wives along the way.
Which all makes for what should be an amazing biopic in the hands of director Steve McQueen (no, not the dead one) and (yes, I know I'm rather ashamedly burying the lead here) easily the perfect star in Chiwetel Ejiofor, who has quickly risen to become one of my favorite actors. He certainly has the intensity to pull this remarkable story off, and if you haven't seen McQueen's directing debut "The Hunger," the second-best movie ever made about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands is well worth a rental (the best, Terry George's "Some Mother's Son" starring Dame Helen Mirren, is somehow still not out on DVD. What the hell's up with that? And if I may digress further for just a sec, the Macon Film Guild is showing "The Last Station," starring Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy, this Sunday at 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. at downtown Macon's Douglass Theatre. I'll be there, and if you're in Macon, you certainly should too.)
The film, though separate from the Broadway hit, has secured the rights to Fela's music, so along with being extremely political this should also just be an outright party. In my mind, I'm there already.
OK, after that today, just a couple of tidbits, and then the promised return of Robert Rodriguez's "Machete," and I can confirm that Danny Trejo is an even badder MF in the real trailer.
But first up comes the official synopsis for "Brick" and "Brothers Bloom" director Rian Johnson's next flick, "Looper," which will be a reunion with "Brick" star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. To clear up the confusion that has surrounded the "dark sci-fi" project thus far, here's what he had to say to Cinematical:
Looper is a time travel movie, set in a near future where time travel doesn’t exist but will be invented in a few decades. It’s pretty dark in tone, much different from Bloom, and involves a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is to simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. So the target vanishes from the future and the Loopers dispose of a corpse that doesn’t technically exist, a very clean system. Complications set in from there.
I'm sure they do. Like I said yesterday, that plot certainly sounds like it could be for the kind of tired "sci-fi" flicks that seem to appear for about a week each February, but here's hoping this one goes against the grain.
And in a bit of very good TV news, the makers of "Futurama" have just announced that the first two new episodes of the animated sci-fi comedy will air back to back on Comedy Central at 10 p.m. June 24. I have no idea how in the world the Matt Groening and David X. Cohen show has survived this long, but I'll certainly be tuning in when it somehow returns again. Enjoy this first still from the rather cleverly titled first return episode, "Rebirth."
And finally today, when Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" finally hits theaters Sept. 3, it will probably be as big a box-office flop as "Grindhouse," the movie in which it first appeared as a fake trailer, but I know I'll at least certainly be watching. As you can see from this trailer rather cleverly tailored to Arizona's current immigrant purge, it does indeed flesh out the original faux trailer as a pretty straight-forward tale of revenge, but with a truly eclectic cast that includes Trejo, of course, as Machete, but also Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez and even Robert De Niro. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.
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.
It may seem awfully odd and - well - kinda pathetic to be commenting on what goes on at Comic-Con when I'm not even there, but I love reading this stuff and also passing on what I find.
And before I get into the mostly good news about "Chuck," there were two tidbits from yesterday that caught my eye, both in their own way rather sad.
Kevin Smith showed up to "promote" his buddy-cop movie "A Couple of Dicks," but without any footage and mainly with the news that the title will have to be changed. Not a huge deal, I guess, but the reason is just pathetic: You apparently can't say a certain word (and it's not couple) before 9 p.m. on TV and get your ads on the air. What in the world?
I can't say the signs are terribly good for this one, but I really enjoyed "Zach and Miri Make a Porno," and Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan should make a great comedic duo, so I guess I should keep hope alive.
Things were apparently - and by force - more grim at the "Futurama" panel, where I guess you have to give Matt Groening credit for facing the audience at all, especially since he couldn't bring any actors with him (in case you missed it, Twentieth Century Fox essentially fired them all after they wouldn't take pay cuts and is now recasting ALL the parts - as it stands, I won't be watching that.)
Groening used his sarcastic best to try and stay above the fray, but the bitterness clearly came through in this: "The core of my being is at peace... There are no mistakes," he said. "I embrace the universe. I send loving thoughts to all living beings, including the 'Futurama' cast and Fox executives."
Here's hoping against hope that they somehow get this resolved with Billy West, Katey Segal and everyone else coming back, but I don't really see it happening at this point.
But the big TV news in my book was all about "Chuck," and like I said, if you're a big fan of the show like me, it was all as good as we could expect.
First and foremost, according to the Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd and a few other reports I cobbled together, Chuck (Zachary Levi) will not be the next coming of Bruce Lee in every episode, which would, of course, eliminate the need for his handlers (and if you make the show with out Adam Baldwin or Yvonne Strahovski, I'm not gonna watch that either.)
According to Levi himself: "The Chuck-fu ... he can't just know kung fu all the time, otherwise his handlers are obsolete. So our very talented and wise creators, they've structured it so the powers have a window, a shelf life, there's a glitch in the system ... I have my powers, but they don't necessarily last -- that's the secret."
That can only be good news, because if at his core Chuck isn't still a pretty goofy guy, the show will lose a lot of its charm. I've included a picture of the art for season three, which would clearly make a really cool comic book cover.
As far as the panel itself went, the cast apparently entered the stage to Jeffster performing "Take Me Home Tonight," which must have just been a riot.
A few other interesting tidbits:
Per co-creator Josh Schwartz: "Something very emotional and traumatic will happen between Chuck and Sarah, but it will be really-really good."
Also: "Now that Awesome knows Chuck's secret, you'll see him pulled into a spy role as well, probably not as reluctantly as he should be." Awesome the spy? Bring it on!
And in a final tease to the fans, Schwartz made this vague claim about the premiere of the third season: "It could be sooner than was announced. We don't know."
I seriously doubt we'll see "Chuck" again until next February, after the next Winter Olympics, but it definitely seems that when it does make it back it will look a lot like the show I've grown to love. Peace out.
I really don't believe this news about Guillermo del Toro's "The Hobbit" is true yet, but I figured I'd pass it on anyways.
It's already out there that James McAvoy (who would be my choice), Doctor Who David Tennant and Daniel Radcliffe are the three finalists to play Bilbo Baggins. Now, this report in London's Telegraph claims that Tennant has landed the lead role, but their sourcing (nonexistent) and logic are extremely shady. They're essentially concluding that since Peter Jackson (for "District 9") and Tennant (For "Doctor Who") are going to be in San Diego for ComicCon next week, they must be planning to make the big announcement there.
Well, that's obviously much more than a leap. I think there's more than a 50-50 chance they'll turn out to be right in the end, but it will just be a matter of luck.
But that's not the news that really set me off this morning, which is much more ominous. It seems that Twentieth Century Fox, which is still producing the planned new episodes of the great "Futurama" even though it's going to be on Comedy Central, is trying to recast almost the entire show because they are, as Bender would surely agree, cheap bastards.
You could have counted me as thoroughly psyched and planning to tune in to (well, DVR) every episode, but certainly not on these terms. In a dispute over money, the studio is now recasting the parts played by Billy West (Fry, the professor and Doctor Zoidberg), Katey Segal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender) and everyone else in the cast.
Now, I realize that TV shows change cast members all the time, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like this. You might as well just call a scab a scab, and I really can't see anyway I'll be watching any of these now. Stay tuned.
OK, on to much sweeter stuff. Here are a trio of videos that just made me smile. My co-worker Woody Marshall likes to get me to call this theater in North Carolina where the old guy who owns it likes to do mini-reviews as he reads the week's showtimes, but he's not nearly as funny as this Irish dude who really has his knickers in a bunch over "Bruno." Enjoy.
Next up comes an oddity that will surely be of interest to fans of "Where the Wild Things Are," of which you can certainly count me a devoted one. Long before Spike Jonze set his sights on making what is sure to be the sensational live-action version coming in October, it seems that Disney owned the rights to Sendak's short classic, and John Lasseter toyed with making an animated version of it. That never came to fruition, and Lasseter was fired before obviously getting his sweet revenge at Pixar, but at the end of this clip you can see a bit of what he had in mind, which looks pretty friggin' terrible. Enjoy.
And finally, just so you can't say I didn't warn you, this next clip is really, really gay (not that that there's anything wrong with that.) Courtesy of the great froggy film site Allocine, here's the first trailer I know of for "I Love You, Phillip Morris," the directorial debut of "Bad Santa" scribes Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, which, as you'll see, stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in what should be a truly odd tale. It's not set to come out until next February, I think, but enjoy the trailer and have a great rest of the weekend. Peace out.
I love it when a rumor turns into truth, but even more when that truth turns out to be even better than believed, as is the rather amazing case with "Futurama."
Collider reported earlier this week that Comedy Central was in negotiation for 13 new episodes of the fantasticly entertaining animated show, but it turns out that was half the deal. The network has apparently ordered 26 new episodes, so far, to run over two seasons.
"Futurama" creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen are already working on stories for the next season, set to premiere in mid-2010 with all the original voice cast returning.
Now I like "Family Guy" enough and I love "Scrubs," but seeing as there haven't been any new episodes of "Futurama" since 2003, I'd have to say this is the most remarkable story yet of a tv show getting resuscitated, and in honor of Bender, I'll just say "bite my shiny metal ass" and bring it on!
And this summer, two of my current favorites are returning, and I have to say, the more I hear about "Mad Men" show runner Matthew Weiner, the more I admire just how much he's an ornery sort. AMC apparently wanted to add two minutes of commercial time to the brilliant show about ad men, but Weiner balked and the network understandably gave in rather quickly, so the show will run until 11:02 or so when it returns at 10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16. And to answer the first question that popped into my mind, AMC assures viewers that DVRs will indeed record all 62 minutes.
But here today it's supposed to be all about Charlayne Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels and how they've morphed into "True Blood," which returns this Sunday and is the only show in several years good enough to get me to re-up on HBO for three months (but I'll surely be back again when "The Wire" creator David Simon's New Orleans show "Treme" hits next year.)
I like stories about vampires ("Let the Right One In" has lingered as my favorite movie of all of 2008) and especially funny ones, so I'm ashamed of how long it took me to come on board with Harris' trashy-in-all-the-best-ways novels. They're certainly far from high art, but for airplane reads there are few series I can recommend higher. I've read two-and-a-half of them so far, and I have to say Harris' mix of horror, humor, romance and Southern flavor, while perhaps not unique, is extremely addictive.
So, what's gonna happen in season two? I have no way of knowing everything, of course, but from what I know happens in the second Sookie Stackhouse novel, "Living Dead in Dallas," and with the help of these three clips courtesy of HitFix, I can give you at least a taste.
Though you certainly won't hear who it is from me, season two opens with the murder of one of the show's most colorful minor characters. Along with looking into that, in an unrelated case, Sookie (Anna Paquin, whose certainly all growed up) is called to Dallas to investigate an anti-vampire church/cult that has kidnapped the brother of Dallas' vampire sheriff (yes, really.)
One big and mostly good way the show differs from the novels is that it builds up minor characters that Harris largely ignored and gives them new life, the best example being Tara Thornton, played for great comic effect by Rutina Wesley. In this first clip, we find Tara still staying at the home of her rescuer Maryann ("Battlestar Galactica" 's Michelle Forbes), who I can tell you plays a big part in the early parts of "Living Dead in Dallas," and here meets Tara's mother (Adina Porter.)
Another character who gets a lot more play in "True Blood" than in print is Sookie's brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten.) He pretty much disappears after the first novel, "Dead Until Dark," but on TV, "True Blood" mastermind Alan Ball has him become involved with the anti-vampire sect, as you can see from the clip below.
And, of course, Sookie is called in to investigate the Dallas case, or more accurately ordered to by the local vampire sheriff, Eric, played by Alexander Skarsgard. In this final clip, Eric explains his order to Sookie's vampire paramour Bill (Stephen Moyer), who understandably isn't terribly pleased about it.
Anyways, that's probably way too much to write about one TV show, but it's summer and, well, there's not much else on at all. And for anyone who cares about this kind of thing, apparently Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer are now a couple in real life, too. Peace out.
These are both rumors at this point, but since it's Monday morning, isn't it just much more fun to take them as fact, especially when that would just make the day so much cooler?
The first is actually pretty solid. It's long been known that David Fincher, for obvious and hopefully very twisted reasons, has wanted to make a third movie inspired from the universe of "Heavy Metal" magazine. I've never seen the second, something called "Heavy Metal 2000, but I certainly can't wait for a third installment, especially with the directing talent that's now on board.
If FilmSchoolRejects has this right, and I rather believe they do, the anthology film will now also include segments to be directed by Zack Snyder, that pirate guy Gore Verbinski and even James Cameron. Perhaps best of all, "Kung Fu Panda" director Mark Osborne will reunite with Jack Black to do a comedy segment. I know this will be blasphemy to all Pixar fans, but as much as I loved "Wall-E" (and I did quite a bit, and much more than "Up"), I thought "Kung Fu Panda" was the better movie of the two.
Even better than that crazy news in my book, though much less close to confirmed, is this wild word about the future of "Futurama" that comes from Collider.
I've enjoyed the "Futurama" TV-to-DVD movies quite a bit, but was amazed they managed to make four of them and was fairly certain that that would be the end for Fox's most abused animated series, a title it won by just a nose over "King of the Hill." And I have to say, if Collider has this right, and I'm betting they do, "Futurama" is even more of a survivor than Mike Judge's show, which had a thoroughly improbably 13-season run.
Finally getting to the buried lead that just makes me giddy, Collider says Comedy Central has ordered 13 new episodes of "Futurama." Let that sink in a minute if you're a fan of very funny, almost-as-smart sci-fi (and if you're not, why not?) I guess it's not all that surprising, since it seems like Comedy Central shows "Futurama" every night of the week, but pretty friggin' amazing all the same. And if you'll excuse me now, I have to return to the job that still manages to pay most of my bills. Peace out.
When I was very young, my father brought home a little movie called "Spinal Tap," and I have never been the same since. Along with being a movie junkie and a devoted fan of the hapless Baltimore Orioles, I have recently returned to the town I grew up in, Salisbury, MD., to work for The Daily Times newspaper.
