After taking a 13-year sabbatical from feature directing, comedy legend John Landis is back with the black comedy Burke and Hare, which stars Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis (sans CG, looking like himself!) as notorious 19th century criminals William Burke (Pegg) and William Hare (Serkis), who committed a series of murders in order to sell their victims' bodies to science. Watch three new clips from the September release and decide: Is Landis back in fine comic form?
more »
Another Monday, another bevy of spoilers from the Pittsburgh set of The Dark Knight Rises. (Welcome to event moviemaking in 2011, everyone!) On Saturday afternoon, the Christopher Nolan-directed film took over Heinz Field for a shoot involving Tom Hardy, 10,000 extras, Pittsburgh Steelers players Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward and former Steelers coach Bill Cowher. Click through for some very spoiler-y video.
more »
Throughout the baseball season New Era has released some fairly hilarious commercials-cum-viral videos featuring Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski and the increasing stakes of their Yankees/Red Sox fan rivalry. The fourth spot has come online just in time for the latest on-field Yanks/Sox tangle -- the teams meet for three games in Boston this weekend -- and while it isn't as funny as the previous ones, it does feature Krasinski in a Yankees bikini. Photoshopped, but hey: still comedy!
more »
Troy Nixey's upcoming film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark shares elements in common with producer Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth -- the little girl heroine, the gothic old mansion, a world of fantastical creatures with sinister secrets -- but its supernatural antagonists are tinier, scarier, and way more desperate for you to come "play" with them. Find out more about the goblin-like "homunculi" that live in the basement in two new clips from the upcoming horror-fantasy.
more »
Happy Friday! What are you up to? Lunch? Drinks? Supply-room tryst with the intern? Wait, what? You're working? Pffft! I'll totally pretend I didn't hear that, instead referring you this artsy blast from the past featuring Terry Gilliam somewhere at or near the height of his Monty Python powers. Who is ready to make some cut-out animation?
more »
Controversial documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield has taken on many a challenging subject throughout his oeuvre of muckraking exposes. Now he's turned his confrontational, self-reflexive gaze on former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin and her rise through the political ranks, in Sarah Palin - You Betcha! Needless to say, this should be the anti-Undefeated. Hit the jump to see what happens when Broomfield dares to challenge Palin during a public Q&A session in California.
more »
Jason Bateman may be critically beloved at this point in his career -- The Change-Up notwithstanding -- but that doesn't mean he was always universally acclaimed. One only has to look back to his first big-screen credit to see how things used to be: Teen Wolf Too, a reviled and unnecessary '80s sequel that is only remembered because it was Bateman's first movie. On last night's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Bateman got to revisit Teen Wolf Too with eyes toward making things right. "And then the teeth. And then this!" Click ahead for the video.
more »
After Marvel's widespread Captain America campaign this summer, you've grown accustomed to seeing Chris Evans as a musclebound, shield-toting superhero. But what happens when the actor is given a Bud Light, a flannel shirt and an impromptu lesson on women by the adorable Anna Faris? Watch this new clip from What's Your Number? to find out.
more »
If Lauren Ambrose -- the Six Feet Under star who was officially anointed Broadway's new Funny Girl -- didn't seem as obvious a choice for the role of Fanny Brice as Lea Michele, now you can stop second-guessing: Footage of Ambrose on Star Search has surfaced, and Ed McMahon directly endorsed her stardom. Get ready for the growliest rendition of "Dancing in the Street" you've ever heard. Sweet music!
more »
If you haven't yet decided whether to accompany your girlfriend to One Day -- the decades-spanning romance adaptation from An Education director Lone Scherfig -- then maybe the following clip will help inform your choice. In it, a mousy Anne Hathaway lays on some thick, British-accented sarcasm when re-meeting a drunken Jim Sturgess.
more »
I hate meaningless memes that are supposed to be funny, aren't funny, and survive in pop culture for too long a time thanks to unfunny people. I'm talking about the #whitepeopleproblems, the #epicfails, and the lives of most hashtags. Just stupid. But even those don't burn me quite like planking, the fad where you lay across some sort of funny divide (a pair of park benches, between two roofs, whatever), and photograph yourself. Oh, it is dumb! Big and dumb. And now folks like Kyle Gallner are taking a stand at Funny or Die with a new -- if not funny, then just necessary -- protest video.
more »
Judging from Twitter buzz, The Change-Up is either a really funny (and really dirty) R-rated comedy with marketing that does it a great disservice, or the terrible body swap disaster that the marketing points toward. Perhaps that's why this new promotion for the Universal laugher gets right to the core of things: Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds are funny and handsome, and you probably really like them. Translation: let them sell the movie! And sell they do: "It's no dumber than a movie about a bunch of talking apes."
more »
Here's a treat for Marvel fans who live for the film-bridging post-credits scenes and cameos that have connected The Incredible Hulk, the Iron Man films, Thor, and Captain America: a short starring S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) that begins to fill in the space between the different Marvel films leading into The Avengers. After the jump, watch the deadpan Agent Coulson hatch a plan to dispatch a superhero code-named "The Consultant" -- described as "arrogant and abrasive, with an utter disdain for authority." Sound familiar?
more »
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.
more »
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.
more »