As if on cue, Universal has released a new trailer for Your Highness, the medieval stoner comedy from David Gordon Green starring likely Oscar nominees Natalie Portman and James Franco. Let's just get this out of the way pre-jump: Norbit, Norbit, Norbit, Norbit. Outstanding! Now onto the trailer.
Jersey Shore's second go-around proved why The Real World never brought back casts for multiple seasons: People become aware of how they're perceived, they play to those perceptions, and their madcap innocence becomes a controlled calculation. But just wait: The addition of new cast member Deena, who at first seemed like a redundant hellcat, might add a fresh soupcon of stank that the show could use. Preview after the jump.
This holiday season has gone on long enough! Bring on the bubonic plague, necromancers, ritual sacrifices, eviscerations and all the other rollicking, desaturated 14th-century good times promised by the forthcoming B-flick Black Death. I know! How did this not get fast-tracked for Christmas weekend?
When a trailer starts with Eric Bana telling a young girl who was raised in the woods, "You're dead. I've killed you," you know you're in for something a little different. Especially when the next shot is of said girl running and screaming like a banshee over a pulsing score from the Chemical Brothers. Thankfully, the trailer for Hanna never looses steam, veering wildly from Kick-Ass-style cool to fairy-tale wonder to the tender, coming of age moments of the titular young assassin, played by Saoirse Ronan. Oh, and it's from the director of Pride and Prejudice and Atonement.
If you haven't noticed from idly clicking around the Internet today while you were supposed to be working, this week before Christmas is poised to be a slow one. Which is good because you can get your last minute holiday shopping done (cough, Gift Guide), but bad because boring! Thankfully, the teaser for Wilfred has arrived to brighten your day. That it begins with Elijah Wood penning the third (and then fourth) version of his suicide note is of no consequence.
Jimmy McMillan: The gift that keeps on giving. The former New York State gubernatorial candidate, party leader of The Rent is Too Damn High, and future documentary star took the stage in Brooklyn this weekend to...perform? That seems like the right word. He was certainly singing, there was certainly dancing and it certainly happened on stage. So, voila: Performing! In a perfect world, DAMN! will get a theatrical release in 2011, receive nothing but plaudits and get Jimmy to the Oscars in 2012. That needs to happen, friends! In the meantime, click ahead to watch McMillan embrace his soulful side.
If you always thought that Return of the Jedi would benefit from toilet humor, good news: Seth MacFarlane has reimagined the Richard Marquand classic to do just so in Family Guy's third and final Star Wars parody: It's a Trap! The feature, which will be released on DVD tomorrow, includes Han Solo flatulence jokes, Paraplegic Joe as Jabba the Hut and a cameo from Pee-wee Herman. If that isn't enticing enough, allow MacFarlane to sell you on the latest George Lucas homage: "It's more of exactly the same kind of jokes you've seen in the other two. So if you like those, this is the same and you'll enjoy it just as much." Take your first look ahead.
If you have a high tolerance for stick-figure violence, Wisdom Teeth is today's must-watch video. The latest short from Oscar-Nominated animator Don Hertzfeldt (of Rejected fame) premiered at Sundance and is now part of a Showtime program called Short Stories. Despite Hertzfeldt's excellent track record, I'll admit I had a tough time getting psyched to watch even a slapstick cartoon about dental surgery because well, sometimes the dentist really is that scary. But rest assured, the animator's unmatched knack for comic absurdity makes it completely worthwhile and the ridiculous ending will have you in...stitches. I'm sorry.
Directors like Tim Burton have cited the classic British horror movies produced by Hammer Films as huge influences on their work. Burton even used Hammer Films regular Christopher Lee in multiple movies, including his most direct tribute to British horror, Sleepy Hollow. Now after a long period of hibernation, Hammer Films is back! They produced this year's superb Let Me In, they are working on The Woman in Black, starring the grown-up Daniel Radcliffe, and now they've released the trailer for Wake Wood, their first original horror film since 1976. Get ready for Pagan rituals and people getting sucked into the ground.
I've found Saturday Night Live a tremendous bore this season, but it's hard to beat the pure Dadaist thrill of the most random promo I've ever seen. Jeff Bridges shaves his beard. That's it. That's brilliant. Video after the jump.
How much of a stretch is it for Broadway-turned-television star Lea Michele to play uptight diva Rachel Berry on Glee? According to her former high school teachers in Tenafly, New Jersey, it is not that much of a stretch at all, because the Emmy-nominated actress demonstrated the same kind of behavior and star quality way back in high school.
The teaser for Paul revealed the setup of this geek-wet-dream-alien-road-trip-comedy (sure to soon be a profitable Hollywood sub-genre), and now the full trailer gives a glimpse at the follow-through. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are still hilarious, but the trailer as a whole is kind of a mixed bag. Well, unless you just can't get enough alien dick jokes. Then it's a home run.
Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol filmed a series of silent, black and white 16mm short films called "Screen Tests" that featured his hip friends like Lou Reed and Yoko Ono sitting around and doing very little for seven-minute uninterrupted takes. In celebration of their new exhibition of the Screen Tests, the Museum of Modern Art has a launched nifty interactive feature that allows you to create your own 90-second version of these screen tests. Check out some clips from the original tests for Dennis Hopper, Salvador Dali (in all of his upside-down glory) and Nico for inspiration after the jump, then go wild! And by "go wild" I mean just sit there.
Here's a Hollywood truism for Dec. 16: No matter how stringy the wig you put on Bradley Cooper looks, he's still Bradley Cooper. Translation: He's really good looking! Yet the trailer for Limitless would have us believe that Cooper was a dingy old writer (with John Cusack's wig from Being John Malkovich) and that only some crazypants clear pill -- which has some deadly side effects, as we've learned -- could make him look like "Bradley Cooper." Riiiiight.
Every production assistant, intern, receptionist, runner and/or other member of Hollywood's aspirational poor can rejoice today as Bourne franchise and United 93 director Paul Greengrass held forth on the biggest unresolved scourge afflicting the film industry today. No, not piracy. No, not the Golden Globes. Greengrass has it out for the exploiters who are "raping and pillaging young people" for the sake of a few budget savings here or there. Bold!
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