An "Arrested Development" reunion - of sorts? Bring it on!

Just a quick report today fueled by a large cup of Jittery Joe's java, because I'm soon off to see "Shutter Island" and then go to see Jack McBrayer host a screening of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" as part of the Macon Film Festival (crap film, but should still be fun night.)

Before all that fun, however, there are a couple of bits of intriguing news out there this morning.

Though the "Arrested Development" reunion diehard fans most want to see would have to be the tremendously long-gestating movie, any project that reunites creator Mitch Hurwitz with Will Arnett - a k a Gob Bluth, of course - on TV in the meantime has to be good news.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hurwitz and "Arrested Development" co-executive producer Jim Vallely are close to signing a deal to create a single-camera, half-hour series for Lionsgate TV to be aired on Fox, with Arnett to be the main star. The show, in what sounds rather suspiciously (but welcomely) like the further adventures of Gob Bluth, would be about a "rich Beverly Hill jackass" who falls in love with a charitable tree-hugging woman who can't stand his lifestyle. Come to think of it, it sounds an awful lot like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" too, but either way, it should be just insanely funny.

Hurwitz and Arnett have reunited on TV once before since the end of "Arrested Development," but calling their very-short-lived animated series "Sit Down, Shut Up" a disaster would be far too courteous. Here's hoping this new project comes together and works out a lot better, but doesn't keep Hurwitz and Vallely away from that "Arrested Development" flick for too long.

There's other news this morning about Thomas McCarthy, who, if I were ever to get around to listing my 10 favorite directors (actually, sounds like fun), would definitely make the roster somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Along with starring as that seriously unscrupulous reporter on the final season of "The Wire" (reminder, David Simon's New Orleans series "Treme" premieres on HBO on April 11!), McCarthy has directed two perfectly sublime indie flicks, "The Station Agent" and the even-better "The Visitor." And now comes great word about the cast for the new project he's developing for Fox Searchlight.

Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan (double huzzah!) have joined the cast of "Win Win," which McCarthy is writing and directing as a semiautobiographical tale about a teen runaway who is taken in by a suburban New Jersey couple and joins the local high school's wrestling team (McCarthy wasn't the runaway, but rather one of his teammates.)

If that sounds suspiciously like a white, suburban "Blind Side," so what? I'd have to assume Giamatti will play the wrestling coach and Ryan the mother who takes the kid in, and with McCarthy guiding this it all sounds great to me. Shooting is set to start in the Garden State in April.

And by the way, did you know McCarthy is an Oscar nominee, for his contribution to the screenplay of "Up"? Congrats!

All I have after that today is a slew of clips from "Cop Out," courtesy of Collider.com. I'm still not convinced that Kevin Smith's hired hand flick is gonna be any good, but it should provide the ultimate confirmation that Tracy Morgan really can be funny in anything. Enjoy, and if you're headed to the big Macon Film Festival event tonight with Jack McBrayer at the Cox Capitol Theatre, I'll see you there. Peace out.

See the best movie of 2010 (so far) and much more at the Macon Film Festival this weekend

The fifth annual Macon Film Festival kicked off yesterday and gets into a real groove starting today, so if you're gonna be in town this weekend, there's really no excuse not to turn out for a few events (you can find the full schedule here.)

The fun things on the menu today include a special screening of "The Candidate" (my single favorite political film, by the way), hosted by Illeana Douglas, granddaughter of one of the movie's stars, Melvyn Douglas. Illeana Douglas will then host a screening of her own latest project, the Web-based series "Easy to Assemble."

That's going on at the Cox Capitol Theatre, while also downtown today at the historic Douglass Theatre, Richmond Riedel's "Target Practice" will be among the movies screened (around 7 p.m. or so, if I got the message he sent me right.) Though you could never call it high art, this debut feature from Riedel about a group of outdoorsmen who encounter a band of terrorists on a camping trip (yes, really) plays out as an updated "Deliverance" of sorts and is just a heck of a lot of fun.

Saturday's Marquee event will certainly be the Q&A session with Macon native Jack McBrayer. It's unfortunate that he can't bring a better movie than "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" to screen, but in the "30 Rock" star's defense, I suppose he really hasn't appeared in that many movies yet (and at least he didn't bring "Talladega Nights"!) The movie isn't awful, though, and the Q&A should be a blast, so if you turn out for this at the Cox Capitol, you'll certainly run into me.

But the real highlight of this year's fest will be Sunday's closing night feature, Scott Teems' debut feature "That Evening Sun," easily the best movie I've seen so far this year. This movie has a number of connections to Macon, with the great Ray McKinnon having visited a previous Macon Film Festival to present his Oscar-winning short film "The Accountant" (a spectacular work) and Macon native and "True Blood" star Carrie Preston also appearing in a key role in "That Evening Sun" as the wife of McKinnon's character.

In fact, the greatest strength (among many) of "That Evening Sun" is its genuinely (and welcomely) Southern ensemble cast led by national treasure (and I mean that wholeheartedly) Hal Holbrook, who, believe it or not, gives a performance even better than his work in "Into the Wild."

He stars as Abner Meecham, who as the movie opens is slowly dying of boredom in a nursing home his son shunted him into. Seemingly on a whim, Meechan decides to seek out the farm that until recently had been his, and as is the fact with many Southerners, was his greatest point of pride.

After somehow making it back there, however, he finds his son has rented it out to a truly mean class of redneck played by McKinnon (the kind of character he revels in playing.) The movie evolves from there as a battle of wills between the two as Holbrook's Meecham takes up residence in a shack once intended for servants and refuses to leave until McKinnon and his family do (living as I do in a cottage - not, note, a shack - that surely once housed servants, that hit home with me.)

I'm probably not doing this great little movie justice with my description of it, but it's just a genuinely Southern tale, the likes of which we haven't seen since "Sling Blade," although "Junebug" came close too. The story, adapted by Teems from a short story by William Gay, just unfolds at a naturally entertaining pace, and I guarantee you'll be riveted as this slowly evolves from extremely quotable (Holbrook is a hoot) to something much more intense. Do yourself a favor and turn out for this Sunday night at the Cox Capitol Theatre.

OK, after all that today, all I have is a trio of clips. First up comes a short bit from the animated "Ricky Gervais Show," which just hit the air on HBO. As you'll see, it's essentially an animated version of the podcasts he shares with partner in crime Stephen Merchant and sidekick Karl Pilkington. Pilkington is a seriously funny dude, but as you'll see from this clip, it doesn't really translate all that well to animation, so I'll be HBO-free until David Simon's "Treme" hits the air, hopefully by April (a quick visit to the IMDB confirms April 11 - huzzah!) Enjoy.



Next up is a featurette of sorts for Noah Baumbach's "Greenberg," set to open with Ben Stiller as its main star April 1. I simply adored "The Squid and the Whale" and even stuck with Baumbach (unlike anyone else I know) through "Margot at the Wedding," but I have a feeling this one is just going to test my patience with the angst of white dudes (I get enough of that from myself, thank you very much.) Anyways, here's hoping I'm wrong and this turns out to be worth turning out for. Enjoy the clip.



OK, with this last one, you certainly can't say I didn't warn you, because it's a sure case of saving the worst for last. Of all the pre-release items that have been spit out to promote Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland" (finally coming March 5), this video for "Underground" by Avril Lavigne is easily the most distressing. I suppose I'm just far too old to enjoy this, but if you dare, click on the clip to see Avril go down the rabbit hole and encounter Johnny Depp. Enjoy, have a great weekend, and if you happen to live anywhere near Macon, please do come out for at least a few Macon Film Festival events. Peace out.

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Dear "Sarah Marshall": Have a heart

My heart really wanted to rave about Jason Segel's first starring role on the big screen, and it would have won out if only his flick had a little more heart itself. Without it, the movie too often just falls apart.

But lets start with the good stuff first, because there's almost enough of it to sustain a 90-minute movie (instead of one that, like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," clocks in at just over two hours.)

When the story sticks to its four core stars, it does indeed have plenty of charm. Segel, who you probably know by now exposes his wang-dang-doodle (more on that later) and a lot more in this one, is at his best in awkward situations, and for a guy who spends the first 30 minutes or so crying most of the time, he's very funny here (listen, in particular, for the best use of the "The Muppet Show" theme I've heard in many years.)

And I've made it clear in this space many, many times that I have a weakness for Kristen Bell, so yes I'm admittedly grading on a curve. But, as the titular bitch of the title, she does manage to make Sarah Marshall a well-rounded - if extremely selfish - bimbo (and her rhythmic use of the word "bullshit" near the end is just about perfect comedy.) More importantly, her performance is more than strong enough to make you see why she would be with Segel's slacker for five years before breaking his heart, and therefore get you a lot more invested in the meltdown that follows under the Hawaiian sun.

Mila Kunis, as the requisite other woman who gives the story its rather conventional feel, is certainly sexy enough, but special kudos go to Russell Brand, who makes his Alduous Snow just a first-rate git. I had never heard of the dude before this flick. A quick check of the IMDB shows he was in "Penelope" this year, but I managed to forget all of that flick shortly after it ended. I won't spoil it for you, but his music video (as the leader of the band "Infant Sorrow") is the funniest thing I've seen on screen this year, and just the finest kind of cheese.

So, if the movie has all that going for it, what's the problem? Well, the Judd Apatow equation only works for me when it's got almost as much heart as it does raunch (hence my undying love for "Superbad.") When you just pile on the latter, as "Sarah Marshall" does with its supporting players, you get a second-rate Will Ferrell movie or, worse, something like "My Best Friend's Girl," for which - thanks to projector problems - we had to watch the trailer twice before "Sarah Marshall." If I may digress for just a second, as someone who doesn't watch much standup comedy, I have to ask: Is Dane Cook really funny at all? If so, I've clearly missed it.

In "Sarah Marshall," only the very funny Bill Hader manages to rise above the mediocre material to fare well. Jonah Hill, who was just perfect in "Superbad," only manages to annoy here as a sycophantic waiter, and I just can't understand how they could manage to so thoroughly waste someone as good as Paul Rudd in such a stupid role.

But unfortunately, as much as it pains me, I have to heap the most scorn on Macon's own Jack McBrayer. I've liked him quite a bit on the few episodes I've seen of Tina Fey's "30 Rock," but his dumb redneck shtick on the big screen (the variety here is "dumb Christian redneck) is just quickly wearing out its welcome. I know he can do a lot better, but I've yet to see it in movies.

And finally, getting back to Jason Segel's quickly-becoming-infamous hanging of brain at the opening, the bottom line for me is always was it funny, and I can say that in the most squirmworthy way possible yes, it was. It probably works so well because, as Segel told the Associated Press, it actually happened to him almost exactly like that:

"This naked breakup commenced and, honest to God, maybe this is part of the problem, all I kept thinking was, 'This is ... hilarious.' "

It pretty much is, and if you're keeping score, be warned that he does a brief reprise in the third act (but by then, the shock is clearly gone.) And the score for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"? Well, despite my complaints it's the best big-screen comedy so far this year - which admittedly may not be saying much - and well worth at least a matinee. Peace out.