Todd Phillips doesn’t feel like directing the new Hangover right now, so he’s taking time to helm a cray-zay party movie where a self-declared “uncool” kid throws the bash of the century. Cars jump into pools! Music blares! Girls lick on some popsicles under Fiona Apple “Criminal” lighting! Parents call to make sure everything is going OK. It’s like a grittier version of Blank Check . I’ve been waiting for this since ’94.
Yikes: TMZ is reporting that veteran Oscar producer Gilbert Cates has died. The awardscast guru, 77, was said be discovered in a parking lot at UCLA, where Cates was a professor. No other details are available at the moment, but like I said: Yikes .
Following in Hugh Jackman’s Real Steel -shilling footsteps , the Muppets headed over to the WWE’ s Monday Night Raw last night to promote their upcoming movie. Only instead of providing six minutes worth of awkward, forced film promotion , the fuzzy characters brought their own brand of innocence and (what appears to be) some of their own writing to the ring. Surprisingly, Muppets meet Monday Night Raw almost worked…when the inanimate Jim Henson gang wasn’t out-acting WWE’ s regulars.
An unusual thing happened to Kal Penn on the way to stardom: in April 2009, after making two successful franchise-starting Harold & Kumar comedies, appearing in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns , and co-starring on TV’ s House , the rising actor opted to take a two-year sabbatical from Hollywood to work in the Obama administration. This week, he returns to screens as Kumar to John Cho’s Harold in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas , which finds the former hamburger-seeking BFF s facing new, daunting life changes and, in the spirit of the holidays, renewing their friendship the old fashioned way: With giant spliffs, babies on drugs, and Claymation.
James Mangold was just as apprehensive as the rest of you when the idea of a Wolverine movie fell into his lap — so much so that he spoke with predecessor Darren Aronofsky, who was originally set to direct, before taking on the project. So what enticed him to take the helm on the Hugh Jackman -starring X-Men spin-off, anyways? And how exactly will it evoke such American classics as Chinatown and Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales ?
Tilda Swinton’s extreme exasperation is always a cinematic treat, but We Need to Talk About Kevin looks like it will achieve record levels of mania. As the mother of a sociopathic son (Ezra Miller), Swinton is giving it her all, which makes her underdog status in the Best Actress race a bit disappointing. Here, watch as Kevin tortures his mother to the tune of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” and adds some believable terror to your Halloween. Cannot wait for this movie.
She probably didn’t envision this scary of a Halloween… A “scream park” in Missouri became a real-life nightmare after a teenage girl was found hanging from a noose, authorities said. The 17-year-old, whose name has not been released, was discovered on Thursday by co-workers at Creepyworld in Fenton, according to KSDK 5 News. She was unconscious at the time and rushed to a nearby hospital, authorities said. She was listed in critical condition. “It’s a situation that’s under investigation,” Larry Kirchner, president of Halloween Productions Inc., which operates the park, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The teenager was one of the actors at Creepyworld, an attraction designed like a small town infested with ghouls and ghosts, police said. It is unclear how she became trapped in the noose. “This is odd and a little strange because it is a haunted house,” Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department Captain Ron Arnhart told KSDK 5 News. “It’s really an unfortunate accident. It’s sad.” If the girl comes out of this okay, you can bet this ends up being the best promotion Creepyworld has ever had. SMH .
If you thought you had seen the last Muppets parody trailer , think again. With less than a month until Kermit and Miss Piggy storm the theaters for their movie comeback, The Muppets Studio has a released another promo in which the fuzzy gang pokes fun at Paranormal Activity 3 , Puss In Boots , Breaking Dawn and themselves.
Sometimes directors with certain strengths try to stretch different muscles and you desperately wish they wouldn’t: Woody Allen getting all serious with Interiors comes to mind. But Roland Emmerich, taking a break from cavorting with woolly mammoths and blowing up the world, is onto something with Anonymous , an intricate — if not terribly convincing — historical thriller positing that a minor Elizabethan poet named Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and not William Shakespeare, wrote all those plays and sonnets that the world loves so well.
While at the Austin Film Festival to pimp this week’s Hunter S. Thompson adaptation The Rum Diary , star Johnny Depp grabbed his guitar and took to the stage with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top for a surprise rock show. Because that’s how you get the kids to come to your new period movie, folks! Viral marketing meets rock ‘n’ roll! Johnny Depp can do no wrong! Watch the video and stick around for more Buzz Break.
