Aubrey Plaza makes sex look funnier than usual in the Red Band trailer for The To Do List. Directed by Maggie Carey (The Jeannie Tate Show), the film follows high-school grad Brandy (Plaza) as she attempts to work her way through a list of sex acts — many of which end with the term "job" — in preparation for college. Andy Samberg, Donald Glover, Rachel Bilson, Chrisopher Mintz-Plasse, Carey's husband, Bill Hader and Clark Gregg are also among the cast. more »
Rashida Jones filtered her own relationship history — and a few heart-wrenching break-ups — into this weekend's Celeste and Jesse Forever, an L.A.-set look at one couple's struggle to remain besties through separation, divorce, and the complicated disentanglement that follows the world's best-worst break-up.
Co-written with fellow actor Will McCormack, whom Jones dated for three weeks years ago, the sweet, affecting dramedy is peppered with moments inspired by real life events that carry Celeste through her journey of painful but necessary self-discovery — including one legendarily awful date with a guy who turned out to be, in Jones' words, "a serial masturbator."
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Films like Celeste and Jesse Forever and The Five-Year Engagement feel like the start of some new subgenre — these unromantic semi-comedies about the microdramas of nice, emotionally inarticulate people struggling their way through relationships. Both feature comedic actors working with material that's not intended to be all that funny, and both take angles on relationships that don't usually make it to screen — a prolonged breakup leading up to a divorce and a prolonged, unhappy stretch leading up to a wedding. And both cruise on the charms of their lead actors, in this case Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, holding together just enough to be satisfying while also leaving you wishing they had a little more to them.
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Indie pic
Celeste and Jesse Forever played Sundance back in January and achieved that much sought-after hallmark of success: an acquisition deal with a big-name distributor - in this case the venerable Sony Pictures Classics. But the movie that had some false starts before shooting began did make it to the screen and if a gala screening of the film last night in New York is any measure, it should see more success. In addition to cast members Rashida Jones (who also co-wrote the film) and Rebecca Dayan as well as writer Will McCormack and director Lee Toland Krieger,
Anne Hathaway,
Paul Rudd,
David Schwimmer,
Amy Poehler,
Aziz Ansari, Andy Cohen and Max Greenfield turned out for the event, hosted by The Peggy Siegal Company and the International Rescue Committee.
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To say that That's My Boy is a step up from the recent output of Adam Sandler and his company Happy Madison Productions really is to suggest only that the film isn't likely to be screened as some sort of new Guantanamo interrogation technique. Jack and Jill, Zookeeper, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star — these movies aren't merely bad, they're sandpaper-on-skin excruciating, unfunny to the point of inspiring hostility toward whoever's chosen to make them. Sandler, once upon a time, was king of a winning kind of anarchic, gleeful stupidity — Billy Madison holds up so well (seriously, it does) because it feels like it's just every idiotic gag that he and his buddies could come up with while crowded around a table littered with bongs and beer cans, crammed into an hour and a half. These late features have an undercurrent of misanthropy — their silliness isn't inclusive, its confrontational and unpleasant, as if it was a chore to have to be bothered to actually make the movie in order to get everyone paid.
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Despite (nay, thanks largely to) its $12.76 budget, Steven Spielberg's contribution to the 'Laser Cats' canon last night on SNL — featuring callouts to most of his major films and/or franchises — was arguably his most entertaining work since Catch Me If You Can. I liked it a lot more than War Horse, anyway. This is a man turning a creative corner!
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It's a natural career progression for Saturday Night Live stars to depart for greener pastures for the sunnier climes and star salaries of the big screen, but has that time come for current standouts Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg? So says a report by US Weekly, whose insiders claim the trio are ready to leave after this season. And that wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility, considering that Wiig, Sudeikis and Samberg have all been taking concerted steps towards film in recent years. So let's prognosticate: Which of these possibly-departing SNLers will make the smoothest transition out of SNL?
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