It's been a year of ups and downs for Emily Blunt: Though Sunshine Cleaning was one of 2009's biggest indie successes, The Wolf Man was pushed back to next year, and her plan to star as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 was thwarted when Fox instead exerted its option to place her in the Jack Black comedy Gulliver's Travels (forcing the role to be recast with Scarlett Johansson). Still, Blunt has one potential bright spot coming up in The Young Victoria, a period romance where she plays Queen Victoria.
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Don't be fooled by this fancy trailer and Lionsgate logo: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus still hasn't been set for a U.S. release date. It's been ages since the film's Cannes premiere and yet no studio has picked it up, though we've heard rumors that there may be some domestic release news soon. Until that day comes, Lionsgate's produced an international trailer for the film that leaves us scratching our heads.
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Anything remotely noteworthy about the Teen Choice Awards instantly fell to the wayside the moment Kathy Griffin stampeded the red carpet with Levi Johnston, star Left Wing of the Wasilla Mighty Platypuses and irrefutably fertile thorn in Sarah Palin's side, on her arm.
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All Spinal Tap wanted was to pay tribute to the young man who paid tribute to them. And though it worked for a while on the band's recent "Unwigged and Unplugged" tour, that honor won't make the commemorative tour DVD set for release next month. Tough break, but that's apparently what happens when you've got Legos singing about penis size, sex with minors and "not a dry seat in the house."
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The latest New Moon teaser is out this morning, offering a 14-second spot that makes The Lovely Bones's infamous trailer-for-a-trailer look like Lawrence of Arabia in comparison. I'm not talking strictly about breadth, either. This could just as easily have been pulled from an afterschool special about sexual abuse as a supernatural teen love triangle between a human, a vampire and a werewolf -- not least of all because there's no Robert Pattinson.
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Here's something new for Stephen Sommers to whine about: Why is it that Julianne Moore, Zach Galifianakis, and Billy Crudup wouldn't return his calls to appear in G.I. Joe, and yet they were totally game to appear in Funny or Die's parody of the property? (Yes, that's Julianne Moore essentially playing Sienna Miller Rachel Nichols playing a character based on a cartoon based on a toy. Let that one sink in.)
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At Comic-Con, security was equipped with night-vision goggles that helped them crack down on anyone illegally taping the preview footage. Transgressors would then be plucked from their seats and sequestered in a special interrogation room, where, rumor had it, controversial nerdboarding techniques were employed. Still, that didn't stop all illicit pirating activity, as a certain hotly anticipated sequel's teaser footage -- let's just call it Shmiron Man 2, for keyword-search-evading purposes -- has leaked online. Apparently the film's director is aware of this, as he tweeted his appreciation for the feedback and promised to let his followers "know if/when official clean version goes up." All of this is likely to come down at any moment, but in the meantime, enjoy its varied, giant-donut pleasures.
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After a long period of time where it seemed that everything was going wrong for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, now, finally, everything seems to be going right. At each juncture, its footage has turned viewers into true believers; there was that first teaser, then a surprising, rapturously received chunk of scenes at Comic-Con, and now there's a gorgeous new trailer (below the jump). Should we toss Wild Things into the wild rumpus that is the Oscar derby?
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With all the talk of Judd Apatow evolving into the next James L. Brooks, it's easy to overlook the fact that the title might already belong to another writer/director making ambitious, bittersweet and talky ensemble comedies for grownups: Nancy Meyers. Like Apatow, she too finds her laughs in moments gone wrong -- botched seductions, broken marriages, portraits of aging ungracefully -- and like Apatow, she has two beautiful blonde daughters, Annie and Halley, whom she's cast in her films. But she can also write about and for women -- something Brooks could do, but Apatow can't. That's a big but.
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Now that his behind-the-scenes Red Hour video has become an unlikely, unintended viral smash, Ben Stiller wants to get in on this lucrative thing we call "online"! The first step: Open a Twitter. Done. Next step, maintain a Facebook fan page? OK, well, done. Third step: Record all of this. Why?
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There are going to be countless retrospectives in the days to come celebrating the John Hughes oeuvre, and discussing what he meant to American culture -- his contribution to the young adult canon being perhaps the most significant since that of J.D. Salinger's. But for the time being, I'd just like to be sad for a bit. You can be sad with me. Ironically enough, the first scene that occurred to me was one with no dialogue in it at all. I like to imagine it as a glimpse inside the movie in Hughes' own mind, with art direction by George Seurat and score by Johnny Marr.
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Universal hasn't had the best year, but at least it's got that big Weitz brother vampire movie coming out this fall! No, not New Moon -- that's Chris Weitz, and Summit has that. We're talking about his older brother Paul, who helmed The Vampire's Assistant for Uni. Who needs Taylor Lautner's abs when you've got Salma Hayek sporting facial fuzz, right?
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Now this is more like it: The heart-racing anticipation spurred by Tuesday's 30-second tease pays off this morning as the world has its first look at the actual trailer for Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. Everything you hoped for -- with the notable exception of Entertainment Tonight's insistent, self-promotional narration -- is here, and now we can get down to the real business of waiting for the full-length adaptation coming this December. Unless, that is, you still don't buy Mark Wahlberg's raging wig and some of the other, finer points Jackson and Co. are selling in their tightly packaged peek at one girl's afterlife.
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While Justin Timberlake has already established himself as something of an indispensable satellite member of the SNL cast, his forays into the realm of film acting have been limited to lower-profile affairs, serving mixed results. His notices for Alpha Dog were good, he emerged relatively unscathed playing a Quebecois hockey player in Mike Myers' critically trounced The Love Guru, and bit turns in Black Snake Moan and Southland Tales made no lasting imprint. But Timberlake clearly wants to break on through to the other side, and what the Prince of Pop wants (a shot at), the Prince of Pop gets. Unfortunately for him, the chance to pull on a pair of green tights and save the world slipped through his fingers.
But there's always The Open Road.
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The promotional cycle has gotten to the point now where, thanks to Entertainment Tonight, anticipation of a trailer is no longer the breathless, calendar-watching slog it used to be. Take its 30-second spot previewing the actual preview for The Lovely Bones, which the show will premiere tonight; it's the first footage available anywhere online, a maze of typically dreamy Peter Jackson visuals and A-list actors emoting in clipped, quick-cut bursts. Which is all fine, I suppose, except that it's probably not supposed to be this hilarious.
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