When Movieline caught up with original Mean Girls writer Tina Fey at Comic-Con this summer, she seemed decidedly against the idea of a sequel to Mean Girls. "Paramount was very generous and solicitous with me for several years, saying, 'Would you like to do it?' And at the time, I was like, 'They should just let it be what it is!'" Fey said. Maybe Paramount should have listened to Fey after all.
For those of you who just can't get enough train-related shenanigans but are sad that Unstoppable has come and gone, Jake Gyllenhaal is ready to pick you up at the station with his new thriller Source Code. Bad news, though: there's a bomb aboard the train and it's going to explode. Repeatedly. It's like Groundhog's Day, if every day ended with bits of Andi McDowell's charred remains flying all over Chicago.
Perhaps all that Glee needed to do was to get a couple pros in the show to get it back on its feet. After Gwyneth Paltrow classed up the joint last week, Carol Burnett shows up on Tuesday as Coach Sue's mother. And now you can hear them duet on Ohio from the musical Wonderful Town. And if you ever thought Rosalind Russell should have slipped in a few references to hunting Nazis in the the original, well then, you are in luck my friend. And speaking as a former Ohioan, it certainly gets my Buckeye seal of approval. Listen after the jump!
The easy joke over the last eighteen months was that audiences wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the Seth Rogen-led version of The Green Hornet and Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern. Well, this week, an easy distinction revealed itself: The Green Hornet doesn't look like death warmed over. Let's call this latest trailer the "Suck it, Green Lantern" edition.
After a week spent climbing back into Oscar contention for Black Swan, the last thing Darren Aronofsky can afford right now is to backslide into the swirling pit of hype and speculation around his big comic-book coming-out party The Wolverine. So, with trademark equanimity and cool, the filmmaker appears in a new video assuring skeptics that not only has he not sold out, but he's just making a movie like any of his others. It just happens to have a mutant hero.
As legend has it -- or Wikipedia -- Spike Jonze was originally approached to direct the video for the Smashing Pumpkins hit "1979," but he couldn't because of other obligations at the time. The honor ended up going to future Little Miss Sunshine helmers Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, and the pair created a Billy Corgan-approved portrait of teen ennui in the suburbs. 14 years later, it looks like Jonze finally got to direct his own version of "1979" -- the kind with roving military squads and the wailing vocals of Arcade Fire lead singer Win Butler.
We've already established that the weekend belongs to Harry Potter devotees. But thanks to midnight screenings nationwide, this group wasn't waiting until today to bust out their robes, wands, hats and scarves (not to mention lawn chairs, sleeping bags, board games and books) in anticipation of Deathly Hallows: Part 1. The faithful got an early go of things on Thursday -- and they brought their cameras.
It's always disappointing when a trailer gives away the plot for the entire movie, but the trailer for Dead Awake shows that sometimes the alternative is just as bad. From what I could figure out: Nick Stahl's girlfriend (Amy Smart) died ten years ago in a car accident. Only, Stahl is trying to convince a detective that it wasn't an accident. But it turns out the detective he's been talking to is also dead. Oh, and Stahl is dead too, but he doesn't know it. Only Rose McGowan knows. Then Stahl's girlfriend is alive again, or at least around. Or was that a flashback? Somebody help.
I've waited years for a movie to get prom right. Mean Girls came close with its ludicrous prom queen coronation sequence, but otherwise you rarely see prom depicted for what it is (at least to me): a disillusioning display of social status, pettiness and rented decorations. Teen cinema is so often invested in "popularity" as a legitimate high school force that proms are treated like magical and climactic events as opposed to well-chaperoned letdowns. But maybe Disney is on to something with its new movie Prom, a flick that looks a bit more Degrassi than de rigeur.
What a day for Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez. The man they call King was named the AL Cy Young award winner, despite only having 13 wins for a last place team (ah, the power of peripheral pitching stats). Even better though is that he appears in the latest issue of ESPN the Magazine as Jules from Pulp Fiction. Of course he does! Because there's such a big intersection between film and sports -- there's not, is there? -- the mag took a bunch of athletes and had them recreate famous film scenes. Ahead, watch as very little product is placed in Hernandez's hair to give him Jules' famous Jheri-curl.
Having now watched Tyra Banks's directing debut from the set of America's Next Top Model, I'm fairly convinced that she has a better grasp of photography, editing, sound and narrative than many well-known filmmakers did in their own first efforts. Not everyone can be Orson Welles, right? But can she be, say, Stanley Kubrick? Maybe!
After the soul-crushing awfulness of the trailer for Green Lantern, it's nice to know that at least one summer movie in 2011 won't be a total disappointment. The trailer for Cowboys & Aliens -- which will get some serious placement in front of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part I this weekend -- has premiered online and it's nowhere near as silly as the title might have you believe. In fact, it looks pretty harrowing. Well, for a movie about cowboys fighting aliens.
The first Green Lantern trailer has arrived, essentially adapting the swagger and above-average-Joe heroism of Iron Man for Ryan Reynolds and his verdant, ab-hugging CGI bodysuit. Casual flings, military might, learning when and how to use your powers... You'll know more than a few of these tropes when you see them. Let's give director Martin Campbell and crew some credit, however, for also crafting the most hideous comics villain I've ever seen.
What hath Twilight wrought? Oh, right: A bunch of unappealing rip-offs on both the big and small screen. The latest is Red Riding Hood, which combines Hollywood's current fetish with rebooting children's stories (in this case, "Little Red Riding Hood") with the Jacob portion of Twilight. For those who have been wondering what a Catherine Hardwicke-directed New Moon would have looked like, here's your answer.
While Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer struggled to overcome "The Friends Curse" since fleeing Central Perk in 2004, Matt LeBlanc has battled an even worse affliction: "The Matt LeBlanc Curse." Unlike his co-stars, LeBlanc tried to mine his Friends success into a spin-off that failed so dramatically, it has since prevented the actor's casting in any project -- even an "It Gets Better" PSA. (Because, let's face it, LeBlanc's career has only proved otherwise.) Now, the former Joey Tribbiani is going to extreme lengths to prove that he is anything but a dimwitted has-been...by playing a jaded has-been in Showtime's Episodes.
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