“My lowest moment came [when] I shot a movie in New Orleans,” the Bad Teacher and How I Met Your Mother star told David Letterman on the Late Show Thursday. “New Orleans is like, the best food and booze anywhere … I really took advantage of it.” Video:http://video.aol.com/aolvideo/aol-television/jason-segel-on-late-show-062311-tv-replay/1018485517001 Some people count calories when they want to lose weight. Others turn to fad diets or start hitting the gym. But for Jason Segel, who recently l
Critics grade Cameron Diaz’s irreverent flick as it enters a mixed bag of summer comedies. By Eric Ditzian Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher” Photo: Gemma LaMana As “Bad Teacher” opens this weekend, it joins a mixed bag of summer comedies. While we’re still giggling over certain “Bridesmaids” moments and can’t wait to take in a second viewing on DVD, “The Hangover Part II” left us reaching for a copy of the original film to remind us why we were so taken with that boozy cinematic bunch. But hey, the second “Hangover” has grossed almost $500 million worldwide, so what the heck do we know? The Cameron Diaz-starring laugher , according to the critics, falls closer to the letdown that was the second “Hangover” than the revelatory “Bridesmaids.” Reviewers have criticized the film for plot holes galore and poor character development, even as most have admitted it delivers a hefty helping of laughs. Read on for a deeper dive into the critics’ take on “Bad Teacher.” The Story “Director Jake Kasdan coaxes some laughs out of the film, but only Jason Segel, as a cynical gym teacher, seems like a real person instead of a caricature. Everyone else seems like they’re trying just a touch too hard. Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz) gets dumped by the rich guy she was going to marry for money, forcing her to come back for another year of teaching junior-high English. But she is not without goals; her immediate one is to figure out how to get enough money to pay for breast implants, which she thinks will help her more easily land a replacement sugar daddy. The operation is tough to afford on a teacher’s salary, of course. But one day handsome Scott Delacorte (Timberlake), the heir to a watch-making fortune, shows up as a substitute teacher, giving Elizabeth a suitable target.” — Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic The Performances “The movie, of course, belongs to Diaz. She’s always projected a sort of girlfriend-gone-wild sass that suggested she’s a hell of a lot of fun after a couple of mango margaritas; ‘Bad Teacher’ is one of the few films that’s allowed her to show that. And not only does she show it, she flaunts it, from a wardrobe that’s tighter than next year’s school budget to a vocabulary that’s definitely not on any standardized test. But she’s not alone. The wonderful Lucy Punch — the gold digger from ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’ — is a nagging toothache as a too-perfect teacher. Comic actors such as Thomas Lennon drop by for brief but marvelous scenes, and Jason Segal is a menschy gym teacher. Justin Timberlake, however, remains too cool to really commit to his oddball character, a substitute teacher that the man-hungry Diaz fixates on.” — Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger The ‘Bad’ Comparisons ” ‘Bad Teacher’ wants to be ‘Bad Santa’ but it’s afraid to go as far as Billy Bob Thornton’s gleeful middle finger to holidays and proper treatment of children. So it ends up trapped in a nowhere middle-ground, somewhere between ‘Bad Santa’ and the equally hilarious but family friendly Jack Black movie ‘School of Rock.’ Both of those movies had somewhere to go and a way to get there, but ‘Bad Teacher’ just goes and doesn’t really seem to know where it’s going. The script has its moments and the cast has a few too.” — Josh Tyler, Cinema Blend The Missteps “The main problem with ‘Bad Teacher’ is that it’s really just one joke, which is stretched further than the uneven script by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (vets of TV’s ‘The Office’) will permit. Jake Kasdan’s flat direction doesn’t help. … ‘Bad Teacher’ has its amusing moments, but also many where you can’t help wondering about the comedic choices. If you’re going to have the hung-over instructor getting her young charges to watch movies all day, aren’t there funnier picks than just a succession of teacher-themed movies? And if you’ve already decided your film is going to get an American ‘R’ rating — the profanity alone guarantees that — then why not take a few more risks with your comedy?” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star The Final Word ” ‘Bad Teacher’ does not always connect with every joke, and there’s one character in particular that seems to have been abandoned by the screenwriters midstream, but when the film works, it contains some wicked belly laughs, and I’ll give Cameron Diaz credit for this: she seems delighted to play a total a–hole.” — Drew McWeeny, HitFix Check out everything we’ve got on “Bad Teacher.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Bad Teacher’ Related Photos ‘Bad Teacher’ Premieres In New York
Before signing up for Cameron Diaz’s class, study up with our fun facts. By Eric Ditzian Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake in “Bad Teacher” Photo: Sony It’s been more than a month since “Bridesmaids” slayed us at the cinema. We’re desperately in need of some hard-R laughs, a few gross-out moments that make us cringe, and the reminder that as crazy as we might be, we’re not nearly as loco as the folks we’re watching onscreen. Thus, we say thanks to “Bad Teacher” as it floats, on a comedic cloud of profanity and penis jokes, into theaters. Cameron Diaz stars as Elizabeth Halsey, an educator less concerned with math lessons than she is in smoking pot and calculating her way into marriage with any filthy-rich doofus. She meets the perfect mark in Justin Timberlake’s Scott Delacorte, a substitute teacher and a guy so freaking nice there’s got be something wrong with him. And then we have Jason Segel’s sly gym teacher; even though he’s got the hots for Halsey, his paycheck doesn’t have nearly enough digits to entice the leggy blonde. But all this is just the setup. The punch comes in a series of outlandish events that, if we were to reveal them here, would just spoil the fun. What we can do is tell you everything you need to know about “Bad Teacher” before hitting the multiplex this weekend. That’s where our cheat sheet comes into play. Getting Ready for Class News of the film, penned by “Office” scribes Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, broke in December of 2009. Diaz had signed on , but the rest of the cast had yet to be filled out. That changed a few months later, when Timberlake and Segel hopped aboard . Though Diaz had formerly dated JT, the actress had no qualms about stepping in front of the camera with him. “He’s the best person for the job. He’s going to be hilarious,” she said. “He’s clearly a very talented comedian; look at his ‘Saturday Night Live’ [skits]. He’s fantastic. He’s going to be so great.” School’s in Session Filming kicked off in March. Nearly a year later, a truly filthy red-band trailer popped up online, giving us a very clear idea of how truly terrible a teacher Diaz would be: “Are you f—ing kidding me?” she writes on a student’s test. While the comedy’s raunchiness was no surprise, Timberlake’s weirdo of a sub certainly was. As Diaz later explained to us , “He gives us a character that you have not seen yet before — not just him, but pretty much anyone. It’s just a very interesting character and a lot of fun to watch. By the end of it, you’re like, ‘What is up with that dude?’ It’s hilarious.” The Final Exam As part of our Summer Movie Preview Week, we debuted an exclusive photo of Diaz getting ready for a fundraising car wash unlike any that you might recall from your school days and also sat down for a chat with the woman herself. “She’s miserable. She’s not happy with her world, and she doesn’t pretend that she is,” Diaz said of her character. “Her pain is real. She’s living a very painful existence, so there’s no humor to her in this.” Sure, she’s a woman in pain. But there’s also something liberating about the way she just doesn’t give a hoot about anything. “I think that’s why people love Elizabeth,” Diaz told us at the film’s premiere in New York City. “It’s because everyone wants to be her, even for an hour, maybe a day. If you get away with a week — oh my gosh! I got to play her for six weeks. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.” “The first 30 pages, I’m like, ‘I am not playing this. There is no way I can play this character. There [are] no redeeming qualities to this character,’ ” she recalled of the script in an earlier chat. “And by the end of it, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is genius! There’s no redeeming qualities to this character!’ We got to the end of the script, and we’re not apologizing for anything she said. It’s a very modest arc.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Bad Teacher.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Bad Teacher’ Related Photos ‘Bad Teacher’ Premieres In New York
Cameron Diaz stars in the new comedy Bad Teacher, and we know where to find her bare apples. Emily Mortimer joins the cast of Cars 2, and her nudity in Lovely & Amazing will really rev your engine. And on DVD, Anne Heche stuns with nude boobs in Cedar Rapids.
Cameron Diaz stars in the new comedy Bad Teacher, and we know where to find her bare apples. Emily Mortimer joins the cast of Cars 2, and her nudity in Lovely & Amazing will really rev your engine. And on DVD, Anne Heche stuns with nude boobs in Cedar Rapids.
‘Bad Teacher’ co-star Jason Segel, meanwhile, tells MTV News he knows ‘more jujitsu.’ By Eric Ditzian Justin Timberlake Photo: MTV News Justin Timberlake has spent nearly his entire life bouncing from one pop-culture-focused gig to another: a “Mickey Mouse Club” kid in the early ’90s, a boy bander a few years later, a solo artist, an actor and easily one of the finest “Saturday Night Live” hosts in the history of the venerated show. Good stuff, all. But JT has harbored a secret dream all these years, one he’s only now revealing as his upcoming comedy, “Bad Teacher,” approaches theaters: He wants to be a martial-arts instructor. “Karate!” he declared when we asked him what subject he’d love to teach. Co-star Jason Segel, who, like Timberlake in “Bad Teacher,” plays a rather oddball educator, co-signed that real-life teaching aspiration. “We both love karate. We don’t know it,” Timberlake explained. “Actually I know karate, and other Asian-influenced words.” “I know more jujitsu,” Segel conceded. Secret dreams or not, our guess is these new careers aren’t gonna happen. We’re still waiting for JT to turn his attention back to the recording studio. Let’s not hold out hope he ends up in a karate dojo too. Though if he or Segel ever do, we pray they don’t take any teaching advice from their comedy. Cameron Diaz plays the titular crappy teach, a dope-smoking, F-bomb-throwing slacker of historic, though not singular, proportions. Because, as Segel sees it, there are plenty of teachers out there far worse than Diaz’s dud. “I’ve had some teachers who were pretty rough, didn’t really want to be there,” he said. “I think that’s the funniest thing about her character: She just doesn’t want to be there at all, so it sort of gives her carte blanche to not give an eff.” “She doesn’t give an eff,” Timberlake added. “Say or do whatever she effing wants.” As students themselves, however, both stars said they received high marks. “I was a pretty good student,” JT said. “I was just taught you obey your sensei,” Segel said, going on to reference “Karate Kid.” “I was part of Cobra Kai.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Bad Teacher.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Bad Teacher’ Related Photos ‘Bad Teacher’ Premieres In New York
Cameron Diaz is tall and amazing. Long legs and a see through top. Sure she’s older, more haggard….Botoxed face, maybe even scary looking, like some kind of muppet or treasure troll coming to steal my soul…. rocking a body built to fucking last in a wrestling match, all muscular and broad shouldered, pretending her hourglass figured isn’t boxing out, and her menopause isn’t turning her half man, unable to reproduce and all out of estrogen…. But amazing as she promotes her movie Bad Teacher….nevertheless…
Frontwoman Amy Lee says band’s first LP in five years will be ‘more of a group project.’ By James Montgomery Evanescence’s Amy Lee Photo: Chris Gordon/ Getty Images Evanescence are set to return in October with their first album in more than five years, according to frontwoman/mastermind Amy Lee. In a new interview with Billboard, Lee says that the follow-up to the band’s multiplatinum The Open Door is nearly complete — they’re putting the finishing touches on it in Nashville — and is scheduled to hit stores on October 4 through the band’s longtime label, Wind-up Records. And, as is the case with seemingly everything Evanescence , there was certainly no shortage of drama surrounding its creation … including an 18-month hiatus Lee took from the group at the conclusion of the Door touring cycle. “I just sort of took off and didn’t know what I was going to do next and wasn’t sure if the Evanescence thing would happen again or when it would,” Lee told Billboard. “I ended up falling back in love with Evanescence again and wanted to work with the guys, and it became more of a group project.” After scrapping solo sessions with producer Steve Lillywhite (“That was a hard time for me,” Lee says), she was teamed with Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Velvet Revolver) and began writing new songs with her Evanescence mates, drummer Will Hunt, guitarist Terry Balsamo and bassist Tim McCord. And it was during that collaborative period that the band not only gelled, but the long-delayed album finally began to take shape. “The process has been much more of a collaboration between the whole band,” Lee said. “Usually, it’s me and one main co-writer … this time everybody had something to do with it from the ground up. … The way everyone is playing strong, it’s like we’ve been playing the songs on tour for a year.” A spokesperson for Wind-up Records confirmed to MTV News that the as-yet-untitled new album is set for an October 4 release, though no other information was available at press time. Are you excited to hear Evanescence are recording new music? Tell us in the comments! Related Artists Evanescence
‘She’s totally cool and she really likes the parody,’ Al tells MTV News of ‘Perform This Way.’ By Jocelyn Vena Weird Al at the “Bad Teacher” premiere Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images All is well between Lady Gaga and “Weird Al” Yankovic. After some initial drama over his parody of “Born This Way,” Gaga eventually gave Al her stamp of approval. When MTV News caught up with Weird Al on Monday night at the “Bad Teacher” premiere in New York City, he told us the pop star is actually of a fan of his track, “Perform This Way.” “Where we stand is my music video ‘Perform This Way’ world-premiered [Monday] and is doing quite well,” he said. “My album comes out [today],” he said of Apocalypse, which was released on Tuesday (June 21). “It all got resolved.” On the Gaga parody track, he sings, “Got my straight jacket today/ It’s made of gold lam
