A few months ago, the teaser trailer for Toy Story 3 laid the pathos on thick. "The toys have been abandoned as their owner grew up," it told us. "You are old. MTV has taken the phrase 'Music Television' out of its logo. Everything dies." It was heavy, is what I'm saying. Perhaps sensing that they overreached, the minds at Pixar released a full-length Toy Story 3 trailer today that's big on jokes, light on existential angst.
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A commenter asked here the other day if I could ever discuss Katherine Heigl on Movieline without being needlessly bitter or snarky. The answer all along was and is "yes," as evidenced by my first reaction to the new trailer for her forthcoming film Killers. Heigl looks as though she may have perfected a role she's played several times: the fussy, neurotic single woman who lands the unlikely man of her dreams when she least expects it. She seems to handle her half of their screwball romance -- especially the part after she discovers he's a CIA operative -- with conviction and charismatic aplomb. Alas, there's a problem: "He" is Ashton Kutcher.
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With all the Superman and Spider-Man rebooting going on, Warners and Sony might take a cue from Latrell and Marquise, who mounted a dance-off for the ages dressed as the iconic heroes while testing their dad's new video camera. The footage was discovered by Videogum's Gabe Delahaye, which brought it to the attention of Jimmy Fallon, who invited the two boys on his show last night for a rematch. (And that made their dad real proud.) Congrats to everyone, including Videogum for the nationwide shout-out. Jimmy Fallon is no longer a talentless hack getting high paying dream jobs for some unexplainable reason! He is awesome! Yay, Jimmy Fallon!
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The trick to Oscar campaigning this season is to go on talk shows to underline the disparity between you and the character that you play. Best Actress nominee Gabourey Sidibe has taken great points to point out that the title character in Precious is nothing like the bubbly, Justin Timberlake-loving Sidibe in real life, while Best Supporting Actor contender Stanley Tucci has subtly reminded interviewers that he is not actually a molester, because do you see a molester mustache on him anymore? In that vein, I can only assume that Jeremy Renner went on The View today to prove that he is not really a sexy bomb tech but instead a piano-playing Ed Helms from The Hangover, or something.
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Movieline's Dept. of Interspecies Intimacy was busier than ever Tuesday, first with its close read of a torrid horse/cow love affair and then... this, from Jennifer Garner's visit last night to The Late Show with David Letterman. It's often just a lazy-ish figure of speech to accompany the kind of raconteurial excess that follows with an observation like, "There are no words." But you know what? When it comes down to a perk overdose that began with Garner preaching swimsuit modesty and ended with the actress sharing details of that time an aroused dolphin came on her foot, well, yeah. There are no words. Click through for the video.
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Remember that old-school HBO intro from the '80s, the one where you swooped over a model city then flew into the night sky, and a shiny HBO starship came flying at you, and Rocky victory music started playing and MULTICOLOR DISCO LIGHTS SPUN AROUND AND YOU DIDN'T KNOW IF YOU WANTED TO GET FUNKY TO THE FLASHDANCE SOUNDTRACK OR WATCH MAKING LOVE FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME WHEN YOUR PARENTS THOUGHT YOU WERE DOING HOMEWORK IN THE BASEMENT??? So do I. Anyway -- here's a fascinating documentary on how they did it. These HBO intro-making guys were totally insane -- like, Wes Anderson- knitting-a-tiny-sweater-for-a-bunny-rabbit-accountant-using-two-sewing-needles insane! These guys were busily crafting little model hookers and miniscule shrubberies for three months! Why can't everything be pre-CGI? Sure, it would take longer, but we'd have eensy-weensy hookers on our meticulously crafted street corners before enjoying some uncensored premium cable entertainment, and that is a good thing! [via @RoddySwearngin]
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After stirring festival crowds at Sundance and elsewhere over the last year, the recently Oscar-nominated animated short film Logorama has finally made its debut online. No one was sure if and/or when this day would ever come, if only because the nature of the short -- set in a world composed entirely of unlicensed corporate logos -- opened itself up to more than 2,500 potential lawsuits from the represented brands. (What, McDonald's might not approve of Ronald McDonald as a psychopathic, potty-mouthed fugitive?) And for all anyone knows, the two NSFW clips after the jump still might disappear shortly -- which is all the more reason to get a look now and find the David Fincher cameo hiding in plain sight.
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Budweiser's long history of Super Bowl commercials featuring its Clydesdale horses is confusing enough (how does this sell beer, anyway?) without the weirdly homoerotic overtones of this year's ad. You know the one: A young steer and a Clydesdale pony meet cute one day on a pasture. Divided by a long white fence, they trot, play and nuzzle to the extent they can before they're separated by the horse's beer-hauling boot camp, or whatever sad social imperative Budweiser has imposed on the animal this time around. They're reunited three years later -- fully grown and both prone to slo-mo, soft-focus flashbacks of frolicsome youth. "Nothing comes between friends," one observer says to another as the steer, all massive horns and defiance, busts through the barrier to be with its Clydesdale pal now leading the Budweiser stagecoach. "Especially fences," replies another.
Friends? Fences? Seriously? Sorry, fellas, this looks like a little more than friends. Judge (and vote) for yourself after the jump.
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While David Letterman's fast-and-loose broadcast Monday night ("Where's Drew Brees? Oh? The Lincoln Tunnel? What are we doing now? Top-10 list, ladies and gentlemen!") paid only glancing tribute to his already legendary Super Bowl commercial, his friend-turned-rival-turned-collaborator Jay Leno wasn't quite as coy in recalling the top-secret behind-the-scenes details. In a short aside during his penultimate 10 p.m. broadcast, Leno walked viewers through the strategy, subterfuge and image-salvaging dynamics of his stunning reunion with his "old friend."
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Our ongoing efforts to free up your Sunday afternoon by posting the most essential Super Bowl movie commercials continue with this ad for Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, a decidedly BraveHeartier take on the legend of the famed medieval outlaw. Had you seen the first trailer, you were already well aware that this wasn't your tights-wearing-father's Robin Hood, as Scott offers a (wait for it) darker, grittier take on the story we think we know. If you've missed Russell Crowe as the archetypal scowling warrior, then join him and his band of Surly Men on their royal-looting adventures. We'll even throw in Cate Blanchett on horseback!
Verdict: THIS! IS! SHERWOOOOOOOD! Or something.
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Back in the day, you'd have to actually watch the Super Bowl to see its buzzed-about ads, but eventually, YouTube made that need moot. Now, movie studios are doing us the service of releasing their vaunted Super Bowl spots ahead of time -- hence this brief ad for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. You can glimpse some good effects work and what looks like some well-executed large-scale action, but I can't help but be disappointed that it doesn't include what a recent AICN test screening review described as a scene where "a certain baddy punches a fish to death." Gotta save something for the full trailer, I suppose.
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The minds at Movieline are reeling today after a tipster sent us a collaboration between Oscar-nominated exes James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow that we never knew existed: a 1988 music video called "Reach" that Cameron directed for Bill Paxton's short-lived rock band Martini Ranch (!), in which he cast imminent wife and future Hurt Locker director Bigelow as a sexy, Wild West gunslinger. Look, we know that description alone is enough to whet your appetite, so do you need me to say that this INCREDIBLY, DELICIOUSLY 80's music video also features "credited whistler" Judge Reinhold, lady-bodybuilder beefcake, a capuchin monkey, anachronistic computers for some reason, and cameos from Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, Jenette Goldstein, and Adrian Pasdar? Just watch and be blown away:
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How did Travel Channel host Anthony Bourdain woo the reclusive Bill Murray into appearing on his No Reservations series? No one will ever know. But that is not where the WTF moments end judging by this recently released promo, in which Murray ponders the "meaning of it all," that drunk-golf carting incident in Stockholm and the possibility of warding off pirates from an ammo-loaded PT boat -- all over a cowboy ribeye.
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Before his USA drama White Collar became a big hit this past season, Matthew Bomer was a former soap actor with a couple of TV credits and one very big brush with fame: He'd been cast as Superman when Brett Ratner was attached to direct the project in 2003, but when Ratner fell out and Bryan Singer stepped in, Bomer was nixed. At least this Japanese Prius commercial (dug up by the folks at ONTD) lets Bomer finally don the tights and take to the air to a soaring, insanely expensive John Williams score. Enjoy, and ponder what would have been:
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Everything was going so well for Mel Gibson in his return to acting after eight years away -- or at least it was until Tuesday, when for some unknown reason Gibson appeared on Chicago TV to talk up Edge of Darkness and ultimately be ambushed by a host who put the "entertainment" back in "entertainment reporter." Gibson, bless his heart, wasn't standing for it, wincing at mentions of his troubled past before finally signing off with a grudging A-word salute. Click through for the video.
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