Several films are heading into next week's Sundance Film Festival with a giant helping of buzz, and one of those is Paper Heart (pictured above) -- starring Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up) and Michael Cera -- which comes served with this description: "Combining elements of storytelling, reality and fantasy, Paper Heart brings a fresh perspective to the modern romance and redefines the classic love story." Since I kinda dig the randomness that defines the humor of both Cera and Yi, I've been waiting for a teaser of some kind to hit prior to the festival -- and while one has not found its way online, Karina over at Spout discovered Yi's YouTube page which is just packed with little nuggets of hilarity.
Karina highlighted a few videos in her post, but the ones that stood out for me were a series of conversations between Yi and SNL's Fred Armisen. It all started with an audition tape Yi made for Saturday Night Live, which she posted to YouTube in the hopes that it would become popular enough that Lorne Michaels would see it and put her on the show. Well, Michaels didn't see it, but Fred Armisen did and so was born a pretty funny series of videos featuring both Yi and Armisen communicating with one another -- with the last being my personal favorite. Are these real? Are these fake? What's the deal? Nevertheless, it gives us a better look at Yi, and the type of humor we should expect from Paper Heart (see images below).
Cinematical has gotten their hands on the first official image from Judd Apatow'sFunny People, which yours truly recently named the comedy of the year. Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana and Jason Schwartzman star in this flick about a comedian who suffers a near-death experience. This is only Apatow's third time in the director's chair (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up), despite the fact that his name has been attached to a slew of comedies over the past couple years. On his latest, Apatow notes: "I'm trying to make a very serious movie that is twice as funny as my other movies. Wish me luck!" For more on the comedies of 2009, check out our discussion post over here. Best comedy of 2009? Maybe. Most anticipated? Definitely. Funny People hits theaters on July 31.
Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin. The film follows a down-on-her-funds mom (Adams) who, in order to raise money to send her son to private school, listens to the advice of her father (Arkin) and starts up a crime scene cleaning business with her sister (Blunt). Adams and Blunt together seems like a recipe for success, and advanced buzz on the film -- which comes to us from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine -- is pretty positive so far. Directed by Christine Jeffs and written by Megan Holley (nice female duo at the top there), Sunshine Cleaning hits theaters on March 13th.
So Erik-with-a-k covered the coming comedies of 2009, Scott was all over the horror picks (though his inclusion of Race to Witch Mountain still boggles my mind), Eric-with-a-c nabbed the family-friendly fare, and Elisabeth went over the geek fodder that awaits. But while I respect their calendar years and made-up math alike, I've opted to divide my list of 2009's action and adventure flicks into four categories: Action Flicks I Couldn't Care More About, Action Flicks I Couldn't Care Less About, Action Flicks That I Hope Surprise Me, and Those Which Fell In Between. Enjoy!
Action Flicks I Couldn't Care More About: First and foremost -- Watchmen (March 6th). It's one hell of a graphic novel and looks to be one hell of an adaptation (with or without the Giant Blank), and come Fox or high water, it'll see the light of day soon enough. Then there's Public Enemies (July 1st), which has me sold on not the subject matter, but sheer pedigree: Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp and Christian Bale as '30s gangsters. (It doesn't hurt that the earliest word ranges from damn good to great.) On the skimpier side, I can only hope that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 17th) streamlines its source material as the previous one had, and I can only hope that Crank 2: High Voltage (April 17th) lives up/down to the depravity of its predecessor. There's one last action movie that I couldn't care more about because, well, I've already seen a version of it. The international cut of Taken (January 30th, though reportedly opening with some R-dodging trims) is about as brisk and butt-kicking as one might hope out of a man-on-a-mission kidnapping thriller, and if you disagree, I'll send Liam Neeson to change your mind.
Jim Carrey's Yes Man struck me as an awful waste of a terrific premise.
Far from the retread of the Liar Liar gimmick that some people claim, Yes Man's central conceit really resonates, and gets at a simple but profound truth: saying "no" to opportunities is safer and easier, but saying "yes" is more rewarding and fun. Literally having the main character start saying "yes" to everything is not my preferred way of tackling this issue, but it could easily work as a goofy, absurdist approach. Jim Carrey's track record may be bruised, but the actor is still a national treasure. And Peyton Reed's filmography contains some films that managed to be thoughtful despite their staunchly populist aims.
What an unpleasant surprise, then, to see a film so terminally mired in the worst Hollywood comedy conventions. It's hard to be meaningful or even sincere when everything is hideously distorted to fit the confines of hoary old formulas, complete with scenes that don't fit, but which a movie like this simply must contain. Yes Man winds up shrill, manic and unpleasant (albeit sporadically funny) when it should have been breezy, earnest and simple.
Of course, "family film" usually translates into "kiddie film," with the parents and older siblings left to grit their teeth and endure while the tykes laugh at the singing chipmunks. Rare is the film that is truly entertaining for the entire family -- which is why I'm always excited about a new Pixar project, since they're the only ones who pull it off regularly.
Pixar's Up (due May 29) is this year's entry, and there's no reason to suspect it will be any less admirable than the company's previous work. Coraline (Feb. 6), from the director of Nightmare Before Christmas, looks like it could be an imaginatively macabre treat for grown-ups and kids. There's also a Harry Potter movie due in July, though that series becomes darker and less kid-oriented as it progresses, so you might want to leave certain younger family members at home.
Here's as complete a list as I can muster for what family-oriented flicks are coming in 2009, including live-action, animation, and whatever the Jonas Brothers are.
With the R-rated comedy becoming one of the hottest trends of the past couple years (thanks, in part, to a dude named Judd Apatow), we're starting to see a bunch more creative, down-to-earth (albeit foul-mouthed) comedies hit theaters -- with some, like Tropic Thunder, Burn After Reading and Knocked Up, fighting for awards consideration. But what will 2009 bring? Are we on a similar path as both 2007 and 2008, or will the new year bring back the boring, familiar plot threads and idiotic characters? Here's what we're looking at:
*Film(s) to watch that month ++Apatow involvement # Best comedy of the year
January: Bride Wars, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, New in Town (Grade: C-) February: *++Fanboys, He's Just Not That Into You, Pink Panther 2, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Miss February, Fired Up, *Youth in Revolt (Grade: B) March: All About Steve, *I Love You, Man, This Side of the Truth, The Accidental Husband, Adventureland, The Janky Promoters, *Monsters vs. Aliens (Grade: A-) April: The Ugly Truth, *Observe and Report, 17 Again (Grade: B+) May: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, My Life in Ruins, Next Day Air, *Bruno, Night at the Museum 2, *Up (Grade: B) June: Land of the Lost, The Hangover, *++Year One (Grade: B+) July: Ice Age 3, *I Love You Beth Cooper, 500 Days of Summer, G-Force, *++#Funny People, *They Came from Upstairs (Grade: A) August: Julie & Julia, *Shorts, Dance Flick, Post Grad, Max's Mardi Gras (Grade: C) September: *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Grade: B) October: *Toy Story (3-D), Zombieland (Grade: B) November: Tooth Fairy, *The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Three Stooges, Old Dogs (Grade: B) December: Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, *The Princess and the Frog (Grade: B)
So based on early buzz, trailers and so forth, I'd say the best months for comedy in 2009 will be March and July. What do you think about the upcoming slate, and which comedies are you looking forward to the most?
It's been cooking for over a year, and while you might have wished for the projectto slip intodevelopment hell and never escape, Scream 4 is still on the way. According to HorrorMovies.ca, a community member has shared the latest about the sequel, which is said to reboot the horror movie-loving franchise.
If the source is right, 4 will jump into production early this year, "re-starting" the franchise, but adding in some old characters. It seems that Jamie Kennedy told iFMagazine that he might reprise his role, and that "the rest of the cast would be a mixture of new characters with 'old faces that you wouldn't believe,' and that the film will only go ahead with the involvement of director Wes Craven." As of December 13, writer Michael T. Kennedy was still waiting to hear from the Weinsteins about whether his script was a Go.
I'm not quite sure how you reboot the franchise, include the original characters, yet focus on new ones. Was there another killer out there while Billy and Stu sliced and diced their friends? Is Sidney not the only girl in Woodsboro to attract vengeful murderers? What faces will return? I've always wished for a Scream franchise where Randy and Tatum were the ones who got to live, but I think that ship has sailed.
To celebrate the new year, Entertainment Weekly has gone live with a gallery full of brand new photos from some of the hottest films in 2009. Among them we have the much-anticipated Michael Mann-directed Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, more cool images from Terminator: Salvation, another first look at Where the Wild Things Are, the debut image from the Judd Apatow-produced Year One (directed by Harold Ramis), a duo of images from The Taking of Pelham 123 remake, another shot from Pixar's Up, Beyonce in Obsessed, Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia, a little somethin' from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, an image from The Ugly Truth, Angels & Demons, Watchmen, Jonas Brothers Concert Movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Land of the Lost ... and I believe that's it. Check out the first image from Year One below, then head after the jump for a few more -- while the rest can be found over at EW.
Year One - in theaters June 19 When a couple of lazy hunter-gatherers (Jack Black and Michael Cera) are banished from their primitive village, they set off on an epic journey through the ancient world.
When we were kicking around ideas for year-end superlative Cinematical Sevens, I was proudly tasked with chronicling the year's finest in big-screen mayhem, violence, destruction and other such shenanigans. When I was kicking around ideas for said feature between me, myself, and I, there were too many titles to leave off the list, so instead of highlighting only a mere couple of movies, I've opted to sort these puppies out by specific manner of cinematic excess.
So there.
1.Most pervasive destruction - The Joker may have terrorized Gotham to the tune of a destroyed hospital, a wrecked helicopter, a sunken SWAT truck, a toasty fire engine, and a golden district attorney, but even he can't top the Cloverfield monster's swath of destruction across the real-life Gotham. Statue of Liberty? Gone. Brooklyn Bridge? History. Central Park? Adios. And that's not including all the Hollister stores that our protagonists might've fled to. (On a smaller scale, though, Inside's lady in black terrorizes a pregnant woman on Christmas Eve to the point of all but painting every last wall in her house with the blood of her victims. Gotta love the French!)
Last May, we posted that the big screen was soon to be overrun by Lesbian Vampire Killers -- killers of lesbian vampires, not vampire killers who are lesbians (tricky English!). Now you can check out the trailer for the Welsh-centric horror flick (starring the kids from Gavin and Stacey) above.
You can't see too much in this brief trailer, but there is the obligatory sexy woman shots and salivating boys -- all set to the classic campy voiceover and recognizable screen font explanation. (You know the fonts I'm talking about -- the ones that look like they're painted on? Anyhow...) Lesbian Vampire Killers focuses on a village where women have been plagued by a vampire curse, and the surviving menfolk who send two dudes (Gavin and Stacey's James Corden and Mathew Horne) out into the moors as a sacrifice.
It's blatantly trying to tap into our cult/camp inclinations, but has it succeeded? Are these blood-drinking lesbian vampires enough to get you to the theater?
It never sounded like it could really happen... Rabid television fans always try to push for spin-offs and big-screen movies, but it's usually futile, especially when the show has been canceled. But then news started to pour in that Arrested Development was actually going to charm audiences once again. We were going to get more of the Bluth family!
But it seems development has hit a snag. Fancastreports that ONE person is holding out. That's right -- eight have signed on to reprise their roles, but one hasn't jumped on-board yet. During a recent interview, creator Mitchell Hurwitz was asked about the rumors that Will Arnett and Michael Cera hadn't signed on yet. He said: "I don't want to talk about who is holding out right now because we might still work that out and I don't want to pressure anyone through the press. Although I will say that Will Arnett is gung-ho, so there's a big clue!"
The only way this statement makes sense is if Cera isn't the one who hasn't signed on yet, or if he really does want to pressure the young star into rejoining the cast. If Cera is the guy and won't sign on, and it's not for scheduling reasons, methinks it would be a big mistake. Now, when Arrested fans are finally getting more, is not the time to start worrying about typecasting. But what say you? Can the Bluths survive without George Michael?
Last Monday, yours truly was invited to help a friend of a friend out by offering to review Frost/Nixon on their podcast. As it turns out, it was the /Filmcast we were talking about, and it happened to be the same night that head honcho here Erik Davis was due to join in. Small world, eh?
So we tag-teamed our film chatter with the cool guys over at /Film -- David Chen, Adam Quigley, and Devindra Hardawar, to be specific -- and you can listen to that episode right about here. When Erik isn't twirling his hair around his finger and gushing about MTV's episodes of True Life, he and the gang manage to get around to discussing all the latest film news from Terminator: Salvation to the potential Suck Rogers with Frank Miller at the wheel.
I also took part in the /Film After Dark podcast and a recent year-end horror wrap-up extravaganza with just about everyone over at Bloody Disgusting, so with any luck and nearly no shame, we hope to share those as well. For those of you wishing to listen to David, Devindra and Adam record their next /Filmcast live, they'll be looking back on 2008 in film this coming Monday at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST.
I can't vouch for John Grogan's 2005 best-selling memoir, Marley & Me, in which owning a yellow lab helped the journalist (Owen Wilson) and his wife (Jennifer Aniston) tolerate any number of trials and tribulations that came their way -- many of which could be chalked up to the carnage-prone canine himself. I suspect that, unlike their on-screen counterparts, the Grogans actually showed some indications of aging after thirteen years and three kids. I doubt that John had a perpetual bachelor of a best bud (Eric Dane) who lingered around to both knock and envy his marriage with convenient doses of sarcasm and handsomeness. I question that the couple could own a picturesque Pennsylvania estate on just one reporter's salary. But I'm fairly sure that both the book and the film shared a common goal -- to make its audience sit, stay, laugh, cry, and then get on with their lives -- and at those modest aspirations, the movie version pretty much succeeds.
The Motion Picture Association of America does a few other things too, but its most visible impact on movie-going is its ratings system. G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17, you gotta have a rating for your movie if you want most theater chains to show it, and the MPAA's secretive clan of breast-counters and violence-ignorers decides which label its gets.
An overwhelming majority of films get the rating they deserve -- or, at the very least, a rating that's consistent with how the MPAA has rated other films with similar content. But some MPAA decisions are baffling, illogical, or just plain outrageous. Here are the ones that perplexed us the most this year. The Worst MPAA Ratings of 2008
1. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (rated PG for "epic battle action and violence"). The MPAA says, "The ratings are intended to provide parents with advance information so they can decide for themselves which films are appropriate for viewing by their own children." It's all about parents looking out for their kids. So how in the name of C.S. Lewis did this film -- rife with stabbing, throat-slitting, decapitating, and large-scale slaughter, much of it perpetrated by teenage characters -- get a PG? Does the fact that most of the violence is bloodless (and therefore not realistic) somehow make it family-friendly? Had there been even one sexual reference, it would have gotten a PG-13. Thank goodness Disney only packed the film with killing instead!
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So Erik-with-a-k covered 
Of course, "family film" usually translates into "kiddie film," with the parents and older siblings left to grit their teeth and endure while the tykes laugh at the singing chipmunks. Rare is the film that is truly entertaining for the entire family -- which is why I'm always excited about a new Pixar project, since they're the only ones who pull it off regularly.-(2).jpg)
It's been cooking for over a year, and while you might have wished for 
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It never sounded like it could really happen... Rabid television fans always try to push for spin-offs and big-screen movies, but it's usually futile, especially when the show has been canceled. But then news started to pour in that 
Last Monday, yours truly was invited to help a friend of a friend out by offering to review 
