Also in early Thursday’s round-up of news briefs: Rachel Weisz is a possible go for a David Cronenberg project; Tarzan gets new life; And the Dubai International Film Festival rounds out its 2012 program. Tim Robbins, Michelle Pfeiffer and Chloe Moretz Board Man Under Robbins will also direct the dysfunctional family comedy. The film follows a Yonkers family whose lives go haywire when NYC’s Museum of Modern Art displays photos of them in an exhibit, turning them in celebrities, Deadline reports . Matt Damon Eyes Showtime Climate Change Doc The actor will take part in an eight-part documentary series for Showtime from James Cameron and Jerry Weintraub. The program will show the human element of climate change. Damon is an active environmentalist and philanthropist. Damon’s upcoming movies include HBO’s Behind the Candelabra , which stars Michael Douglas as Liberace; and Promised Land , directed by Gus Van Sant, THR reports . Rachel Weisz Eyes David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars Robert Pattinson, who starred in Cosmopolis , and Cronenberg regular Viggo Mortensen have already been linked to the Hollywood-set film that also has Rachel Weisz coming on as a possibility. The story reportedly is a dark comic look at Hollywood excess, Deadline reports . David Yates Eyes Warner Bros.’ Tarzan The director of the last four Harry Potter films is likely on board to direct a big-screen version of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan at Warner Bros. The project has been in development with producer Jerry Weintraub for years, Vulture reports . Dubai International Film Festival to Screen Cloud Atlas , The Master Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson starring Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut Quartet with Maggie Smith and Wayne Blair’s musical drama The Sapphires also joins the lineup at the Gulf State festival. The ninth edition of the Dubai International Film Festival runs Dec. 9 – 16, THR reports .
The critics blurbs in this clip say “romantic comedy” — as does the purple sex-toy scene — but the melancholy soundtrack and the sad, pensive looks on Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie’ s faces say bring some Puffs when you see Michael Mohan’s Save the Date . Caplan is fast becoming the go-to girl for indie comedies that scrutinize the meaning of love, particularly as it relates to the institution of marriage. This past summer, she was part of the ensemble in Leslye Headland’s wickedly honest Bachelorette , and in Save the Date she plays Sarah, who learns something about herself when she gets caught up in a rebound romance after turning down her boyfriend’s marriage proposal. Brie plays Caplan’s sister Beth who is caught up in the details of her own wedding. Hand me a tissue, please. I’m feeling weepy already. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The critics blurbs in this clip say “romantic comedy” — as does the purple sex-toy scene — but the melancholy soundtrack and the sad, pensive looks on Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie’ s faces say bring some Puffs when you see Michael Mohan’s Save the Date . Caplan is fast becoming the go-to girl for indie comedies that scrutinize the meaning of love, particularly as it relates to the institution of marriage. This past summer, she was part of the ensemble in Leslye Headland’s wickedly honest Bachelorette , and in Save the Date she plays Sarah, who learns something about herself when she gets caught up in a rebound romance after turning down her boyfriend’s marriage proposal. Brie plays Caplan’s sister Beth who is caught up in the details of her own wedding. Hand me a tissue, please. I’m feeling weepy already. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The Five-Year Engagement begins where a lot of movies would end, with a proposal. Tom (Jason Segel), a chef, is driving to a New Year’s Eve party with his girlfriend of a year, Violet (Emily Blunt), a psychology postdoc. He’s so visibly nervous that she’s worried he’s unwell, questioning him until he pulls over to the side of the road, slams down a box containing a ring and confesses that he was going to ask her to marry him that night. He still does, and she still insists on going through with his plan of a surprise rooftop romantic dinner at the restaurant in which he works. That’s because Tom and Violet are in love, and they’re also nice, down-to-earth, well-intentioned people, qualities that suffuse the film as well, generally for the better but sometimes to its detriment. The Five-Year Engagement is the most recent collaboration between director Nicholas Stoller and star and co-writer Segel, who have worked together on the likes of The Muppets , Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. This film is their most ambitious not because of its long arc but because its dramatic currents are so submerged and minimal — there’s never any doubt that Tom and Violet belong together, just that they may not find the right place in which to do so. This unhurried comedy is devoted to realistic relationship issues like having to quit your job to move somewhere with your significant other, which is commendable while also posing a challenge. Tom and Violet sometimes feel like cuddly side characters in search of a main plot rather than anchors to base a film around; they’re solicitous of each other’s feelings to the point where they don’t acknowledge their own. It’s a good thing these characters are played by Segel and Blunt, who share enough dorky charisma to carry The Five-Year Engagement through a sprawling runtime to a deservedly happy ending. As Tom, Segel riffs comfortably on the beta male persona he’s honed over the years, portraying an accommodating guy who thinks he should be fine with putting his career on hold to head to Michigan when Violet gets accepted to a psych program there, even though he actually feels miserable and emasculated. And Blunt, who’s capable of being cut-glass chilly when a role calls for it, is funny and warm as the ambitious Violet, who’s torn between being uncomfortable with the sacrifice Tom’s making for her and knowing that in her chosen field, her options are limited. So Tom and Violet set up a life in Michigan and agree to postpone the wedding until the moment’s right. Meanwhile, elderly grandparents start dying off; Tom’s best friend, Alex (the always welcome Chris Pratt), becomes a success in the job Tom left behind; and Violet’s sister Suzie (Alison Brie) faces unexpected but felicitous motherhood. One reason the film’s central couple at times seem inadequate is that there’s so much comedic talent in the smaller roles. Pratt and Brie, MVPs on Parks and Recreation and Community , respectively, make a great accidental couple-turned-model pairing. Brian Posehn is very funny as Tom’s gourmet sandwich shop boss, as is Chris Parnell as a stay-at-home dad whose knitting hobby leads to some of the film’s best visual gags. And I was especially charmed by Violet’s psych department, overseen by Rhys Ifans’ Professor Childs and incidentally diversely staffed by Mindy Kaling, Randall Park and Kevin Hart; they’re genial colleagues whose interactions are lightly spiced with competition for limited academic positions. The overt theme of The Five-Year Engagement is that there’s no such thing as “the perfect moment,” but the underlying one is “for the love of God, just say what’s on your mind.” As plausible as long campaigns of passive-aggressiveness may be (Tom, for instance, suddenly declares that he doesn’t want kids during one family visit, noting that “sometimes the biggest balls are the ones left unused”), they’re not terribly fun to watch on-screen. Any investment in Tom and Violet’s endangered coupledom starts to get eroded by frustration with their lack of communication as the months tick by and they drift apart. There’s a lot of downtime between gags, though when they do arrive they’re generally good, whether involving an accidental arrow shooting or an alcohol-fueled chase down a wintry street in which Ifans’s character demonstrates some impressive parkour skills. The Five-Year Engagement is, for a movie in which a guy fakes an orgasm and (in a separate incident) stuffs a dead deer in his car’s sunroof, very grown-up. It’s grown-up in its assessment of how making sacrifices for someone else can also be a selfish act, and it’s grown-up in its consideration of how, while love is all very well and good, you also have to make practical decisions about where and how you’ll live. Sometimes, watching it, you wish it’d be a little less grown-up and a little more flexible in terms of what works as a comedy. (It sometimes feels like a lighter, happier take on Like Crazy or Blue Valentine .) But it’s rare to see main characters as grounded and plausible as Tom and Violet are, and when they finally find their way back into each other’s arms, it feels earned. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
To ‘make it’ in Hollywood, young actors used to kick-start their careers in television, sharpening their skills and earning notoriety (and maybe an Emmy or two) before frolicking in the greener grass of feature films. Today, with the growing budgets, themes, and imaginations of series TV, episodes have almost become mini movies, inspiring a newer generation of stars to not only gravitate toward television, but maybe even stay there — even as their careers take off. Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs epitomize this trend, two actresses who earned their comedy stripes on NBC’s Community , a place where dreamatoriums come to life and paintball wars are aplenty. Meanwhile, the pair is also on the Tribeca Film Festival circuit this year — Jacobs with the dark indie comedy Revenge for Jolly! and Brie with tonight’s Tribeca opener, the buzzy hit-in-waiting The Five-Year Engagement . While both actresses studied theater in college — Jacobs at Juilliard and Brie at CalArts — they began their respective careers on opposite ends of the spectrum. Jacobs spent years working on small indie films and TV roles, while Brie supported herself doing regional theater in Ventura County, never thinking twice about TV. “In my sort of young, idealistic mind, I was just like, ‘Well, it’s either theater or film for me, and that will be that!'” Brie explained. That changed after booking a surprising first TV role on Disney’s Hannah Montana , sparking an epiphany for Brie. “I realized that I love acting, no matter what I’m doing,” she said. “And it was a great time for good news, because I got Mad Men right after that, and that led to Community . I couldn’t be happier.” Like her Community co-star Joel McHale, who also hosts E!’s weekly celeb-culture rundown The Soup , Brie still juggles two roles today: uppity, picture-perfect housewife Trudy Campbell on AMC’s Mad Men , and doe-eyed schoolgirl Annie Edison on Community . “I got lucky, and it’s amazing to be able to work on both shows and have them be so different in tone,” she said. “Working on one of the best dramas and one of the best comedies on TV has certainly opened a lot of doors for me in terms of being able to show some range and not get totally boxed into one thing [for films],” she added. “I went to college and got my degree in acting, but because it was all theater, I really consider my first couple years on Mad Men as amazing training for working in television and for acting on-camera.” For Jacobs, Community allowed her to showcase a side of her that no one had seen before. “I had never done comedy before,” she told Movieline, “and I was desperate to break into it because it gets really tiring when you’re always playing prostitutes and strippers and rape victims.” And like Brie, Jacobs doesn’t take the opportunity or the experience for granted. “I joined a new club in the world of comedy,” she said. “And the fact that [ Community ] has turned into this sort of thing totally unto itself and unlike any other show on TV has just been an added bonus of the whole experience.” Yet where contemporaries (and fellow TFF ’12 stars) like Adam Brody and Olivia Wilde only a few years ago aggressively sprung from a cult darling like The O.C. into movie careers of mixed results, neither Brie nor Jacobs feels comfortable choosing between television and film. “I feel like the kind of role that I’m getting to play on TV, I don’t know how often those come along in films,” Jacobs said. “I feel like I’ve been very fortunate in that I feel constantly creatively challenged and pushed on my show, and I don’t know if that would be the case if I were asked to play the same variation of one character in movies. No actor wants to choose — they just want all of the options available to them all the time; we tend to be pretty greedy.” Meanwhile, Brie sounded even more resolute about the small(er) screen. “While I love film and want to continue to pursue it 100 percent, my home is TV,” she said. “My mom and dad are Mad Men and Community , and it honestly feels like working on mini-movies every day. “The original transition was quite easy, because the caliber of writing, directing, and acting and the nuance of the performances on Mad Men are like shooting a dramatic film. I can say the same thing about Community , with our amazing writers and the caliber of acting that we’re working with in a comedic respect.” Moreover, the unique qualities and style of the single-camera comedy have given both a leg up in the film world. “I felt like I’ve been doing three years of comedy boot camp, and when the opportunity came to do The Five-Year Engagement , I felt very prepared and confident in my comedic skills because of the training that I got on Community ,” Brie told Movieline. “I also just worked on a film called Get a Job , and my character is odd — sort of inappropriately sexual and just weird — so Dylan Kidd, the director, gave me a lot of freedom to have fun and play around and try to say the weirdest things that I could come up with. I know that he is a fan of Community as well, so I think that it’s the work that I’ve done prior on the show that gave him the confidence to trust me with that kind of improvisation and input.” Although there is some improvisation on Community , Brie noted that “you don’t have all the time in the world to improv and come up with ideas [on TV]; you’re on a much tighter schedule in terms of shooting episodes in five days or seven days.” When it comes to film, especially in Five-Year , there was a bit more leeway. “Because we have a lot of scenes where it’s like engagement party speeches or shower speeches — a lot of speeches going on! — you have the luxury of extra time to collaborate,” she said. “At one point [director Nicholas] Stoller even e-mailed us prior to the scene and was like, ‘Hey, everyone just think of funny, inappropriate speeches; just think of weird stuff to do!’ because we had all day to play with it.” As Britta Perry on Community , the closest that Jacobs has been to putting on the red light was belting “Roxanne” in a recent episode. However, her role in Revenge for Jolly! ( premiering Saturday at Tribeca ) has her playing — drum roll, please — yet another prostitute. “Filming that movie was a total return to form for me — shooting in a crappy hotel in Nyack, N.Y., dressed as a prostitute; it was down and dirty filmmaking at its finest,” she said with a laugh. “And basically, the two leads are going on a killing spree, so I think there’s a high likelihood that I’m going to get shot in that film, or die in some way!” Also on the way this summer is Seeking a Friend for the End of the World , led by Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. Jacobs described her role as “small and silly, playing a waitress high on ecstasy alongside T.J. Miller,” while also noting that “the nice thing so far is that I’ve been sort of able to balance between a bunch of different worlds: bigger movies, TV, and still smaller indie films as well.” As for the future of TV and movies, and which is inevitably the dominant medium? “It’s kind of like what I think Joel [McHale] has said before: ‘It’s the best of times and it’s the worst of times of TV,'” Brie said. “There’s the lowest of the low in terms of reality TV, and then there’s also kind of some of the best of the best on television shows like Mad Men, Community, Breaking Bad and Girls — it feels like you’re watching movies!” Read all of Movieline’s Tribeca 2012 coverage here . Alyse Whitney a New York-based writer, currently with TVLine.com . Her work has been featured in Bon Appétit and a handful of other publications, and you can also find her on Twitter .
I don’t really know who Alison Brie is, but apparently she was on Mad Men and is currently on Community….I posted a picture of her getting spanked in her panties in GQ …..as well as a video of her Half Naked for Complex ….and the funny thing about her is that she’s got some obscure fanbase that is so into her at least one of them sent me this twitpic of her saying how hot she was and shit was too weird not to post. Dear Jesus. I love the site. I love the pictures and videos but I really love how you rip these celebrity bitches a new asshole. I wish I could rip celebrity bitches and new asshole. Not with words, with scissors. Here is a picture Alison Brie posted on twitter. I’ve been jerking off to her for at least a year. I really like her and her tits but this is the hottest I’ve ever seen her. It is like you can see fear in her eyes. It is like she is locked in my trunk looking up at me begging me not to hurt her or her family. It is like she knows she is gonna get it. All wide-eyed and erotic. There is not enough girls in fear pictures out there. Everyone focuses on half naked when what matters is what is beneath the surface. You should do more of that. I know I’d be happy and I am sure other people would too. Hope to see it on the site, Timmy This is the kind of internet shit that should make women online dating worried. The freaks of the internet still exist and I’m the lucky one getting emailed by them…. I’d call the police, but I’d rather just post the non-erotic pic that Timmy finds erotic cuz there’s humor in this somewhere…look into her big deer in the headlight eyes while figuring it out…. What happened to girls posting hot half naked pics…weird.
The first trailer for The Five-Year Engagement has arrived, and only time will tell where it falls on Universal chief Ron Meyer’s well-known quality-control spectrum . Does the story of one couple’s protracted wedding plan look funny enough? Sure. Will Emily Blunt and Jason Segel bring in the dates and the dudes alike? Why not? But do you know what really sells this movie? I can barely even write it.
The films in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival were announced this week, and speculation has begun on which pix will make the grade. Over the years Sundance has evolved from a tiny independent festival to a huge movie event, so the Sundance lineup is a great peek into what’s coming to theaters next year. This year’s lineup features some skintriguing comedies about first times and nude beginnings: True Blood and Party Down ‘s Lizzy Caplan and Community ‘s Alison Brie as sisters grappling with commitment in Save the Date , The Secret Circle ‘s Brittany Robertson as a high schooler looking to lose her virginity in The First Time , Helen Hunt as a sex therapist in The Surrogate , and Heavenly Creatures ‘ Melanie Lynskey as a 30-something divorcee with bleak prospects “until the unexpected attention of a teenage boy changes everything,” according to the official program(!), in Hello I Must be Going . Refresh your mammaries with the breakout nudes of Sundance 2011, including Elizabeth Olsen and Roxanne Mesquida , after the jump!
Last night soap-opera star turned reality mom extraordinaire Tori Spelling had a nude photo leak onto the internet. The culprit? Her own husband! Dean McDermott posted a picture of his 4-year-old son horsing around at home late last night on his Twitter page, seemingly unaware that his wife’s bare boobs were visible in the background of the pic. (Tori just gave birth to her third child in October, so she was probably whipping out her milk jugs for, well, milking.) After Twitter exploded with comments on this very personal peek into their private lives, Dean took down the photo- but not before it was spread around the ‘net. This is actually our first look at the skingy actress’s suckle stalks, and they are MAM-nificent! What we don’t get is how he didn’t notice the boobs in the first place. If Skin Central had taken that photo, they would have been front and center. Put a face to the funbags with sexy pics of Tori Spelling right here at MrSkin.com!
Community’s small but devoted group of fans was devastated when the show was suddenly pulled off the air in the middle of its third season, and we can think of two big, bouncy reasons why. Gentlemen, meet Ms. Alison Brie : We’d like to spread that on a cracker! NBC says that Community will return (though they’re not saying when), so until then tide yourself over with Alison Brie and her costar Gillian Jacobs right here at MrSkin.com!
