So there's good news and bad news about what David Lynch has been up to since directing that Duran Duran concert video last spring. Bad news first: It's not a new feature! (At least not beyond the development phase, anyway.) The good news: It is a new short! Kind of.
How does a filmmaker follow up directing one of the most criminally underseen, underappreciated movies of the last five years? If she's Drew Barrymore, she gets behind the camera for "Our Deal," a new music video from the band Best Coast. And she brings Chloe Moretz, Tyler Posey, Miranda Cosgrove, Donald Glover, Alia Shawkat, a lot of leather and spray paint and the legacy of West Side Story with her. Check out the nifty results below.
Insult meet injury: Not only did Cowboys & Aliens defeat The Smurfs at the box office over the weekend by slightly more than three apples, but C&A star Harrison Ford used his guest appearance on Conan last night to brutally murder a Papa Smurf doll. Not cool, Han Solo. Not. Cool. Click through to watch the smurfed up video evidence.
If you think the comedic body-switch is a tired movie conceit, you're not alone -- or rather, you're not original: We were thinking that way back in 1989! In a new video that mashes up the trailer for The Change-Up with Big, Vice Versa, Freaky Friday, 13 Going on 30 and many others, we see just how formulaic this cinematic trope can be. Fred Savage, your agitated comic timing remains admirable.
With a name like Shark Night 3D -- and a trailer that highlights bikini-clad co-eds and shark attacks -- you would be right to assume that the upcoming David R. Ellis-directed film would be packed to the gills with boobs and blood. As the director told Movieline at Comic-Con, however, it's not. "This movie is just a really smart, well-written movie with great character arcs, great twists, without having to have gratuitous nudity or language. Jaws was PG-13. The Birds. All those really great horror films." Fair points, David! Though you might want to tell the marketing department, since the first clip from Shark Night teases gratuitous nudity and some shark-related ultra-violence.
Back in April of 2010 -- the same day Paramount started looking for a writer to reboot Mighty Mouse (true) -- it was announced that Samuel L. Jackson and Kellan Lutz would co-star in Deathgames, about a "young man (Lutz) who is kidnapped and forced into the savage world of a modern gladiator arena, where men fight to the death for entertainment of the online masses. Jackson orchestrates the games, overseeing them from his computer lair with the help of twin ladies who see to his every desire." Sounds like Gamer. How did it turn out?
If the hideous sweater, disgusting mane, and title didn't tip you off, Paul Rudd's character in Our Idiot Brother is supposed to be an idiot. Though the first trailer gave us a good idea of the dunderheadedness we can expect, this glimpse at a scene between Paul Rudd and Movieline pal Bob Stephenson indicates that the titular dude's stupidity knows no bounds.
TeenNICK -- the network that scored a major coup this week with its new block of retro Nickelodeon programming called "The '90s are All That" -- just reacquainted us with the glory that was Clarissa Explains It All. Remember Clarissa's sweet hubcap collection? Or her pet caiman Elvis? Or her superhuman computer/DOS prowess? Well, here's one perk of Clarissa you probably don't remember: Her family predicted Cowboys & Aliens.
Just hours after George Lucas and Lucasfilm announced a release date for the long, long, long in development Tuskegee Airmen action-drama Red Tails, the first trailer has debuted online. "We count our victories by the bombers we get to their targets, by the husbands we return to their wives, by the fathers we give back to their children," says a very determined Terrence Howard at a crucial moment in the very determined two-minute clip. Sounds heroic, Terry! But how does Red Tails compare to the 1995 HBO film, The Tuskegee Airmen?
Munk yourself! Better yet: munk your whole family, because the new trailer for Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked not only employs the phrase "Munk Yourself," but wants to treat your darling sons and daughters to the chipmunk-equivalent of Boat Trip. If Dave Seville's furor isn't in your family's budget, however, maybe you'll want to check out Happy Feet Two, which samples Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" in a sultry penguin dance-off. Whatever you decide to do this holiday season, know one thing: both you and your kids are at the mercy of vulgar, singing cartoon animals.
Ever since Netflix upped its mail-delivery DVD prices to the two-digit level, how are you surviving? Or are you? Sorry, that was presumptuous of me. You've chosen to die young, and I understand. And so does Funny Or Die, which has put together a video about Netflixpricepocalypse. Jason Alexander stars, and he is concerned about whether your viewings of The Wire are in jeopardy.
Memo from director Brett Ratner: Don't mess with Ben Stiller, fool. In Tower Heist, a Ponzi-scheming Bernie Madoff-type played by the quite-nefarious-these-days Alan Alda defrauds the lowly workers in his luxury high-rise out of their retirement funds. In return, the jilted building employees (Stiller, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick) hire a criminal (Eddie Murphy) to help steal $20 million back from Alda. I want to call this movie Trumping Mr. Trump or Makin' Off with Madoff $, but I guess the uber-generic Tower Heist will do. The trailer is damn shiny.
Cowboys & Aliens may very well be a total bore (read Movieline's review here), but the marketing campaign has been anything but. Not the trailers, mind you, but the press rounds! Between Jon Favreau's awesome cast interviews and this sketch that Harrison Ford did with Chewbacca ("Chewbacca") for Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night, perhaps a movie about this group of people hanging out would have been preferable to the finished Cowboys & Aliens product. We'll never know, but at least we'll always have Ford calling Daniel Craig his "Wookie bitch." Click through to watch the funny.
"You got something the other guys don't have. You exude something, you draw people in. [...] All the reporters love you." Yep, that's a quote about Ryan Gosling. Sorry: Ryan Gosling's character in The Ides of March, the hugely anticipated George Clooney-directed political thriller that will open the Venice Film Festival in August before heading to Toronto. Really, though: Gosling does exude something -- will the stuffy topic of political intrigue damp that down?
Red State isn't an ominous enough title for Kevin Smith's new joint, the one that he ceremoniously purchased for his own distribution at Sundance, before Lionsgate chipped in to help with the VOD release. This is a grisly caper that combines the freaky backwoods barbarism of a Rob Zombie picture, the noir grandeur of There Will Be Blood, and the shape-shifting terror of Melissa Leo. Save our souls, indeed! (NSFW language, violence.)
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