The Bourne Legacy, The Campaign and Hope Springs are among the latest in studio fare churned out for your summer popcorn pleasure. And some - at least - are worth a view. But if you're itching for something else beyond the grain, check out the latest from Spike Lee, whose Red Hook Summer begins its roll out this weekend with an expansion set throughout the rest of summer. Actress/director Julie Delpy's sequel to her hilarious 2 Days In Paris opens, but this time she trades Paris for New York in, fittingly, 2 Days In New York, in which she stars opposite Chris Rock. And David Duchovny stars in Goats, which is finally making its way to the screen after a decade in the making. More teasers, insight and films here beyond the blockbuster...
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Barack Obama occupies the same pantheon as late "Superfreak" singer Rick James, according to Chris Rock.
In the Julie Delpy-directed 2 Days in New York, Rock plays a Village Voice writer and radio-show host who occasionally carries on one-sided conversations with a life-size cut-out of the president, and at the Cinema Society and MCM-hosted screening of the film in New York on Wednesday, the comic told Movieline pal Grace Randolph why the cardboard Commander in Chief got the nod. more »
Filmmaker and actress Julie Delpy won accolades at the Berlin International Film Festival back in 2007 with her hilarious 2 Days In Paris, in which she starred opposite Adam Goldberg as a couple who stop off in Paris for a short visit, staying with her parents en route back to the U.S. Delpy, who wrote and directed the feature that did solid numbers in release jiggered the formula for a sequel, 2 Days In New York, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. This time, she stars opposite Chris Rock, and similarly to Paris her family factors into the dialog-heavy plot that's riddled with eccentricity, social commentary and crazy mishaps.
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Both of the trailers that preceded the screening I attended of Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted featured burps as punchlines. Like, each one built to and then peaked with a bug-eyed animated creature’s belch. After the first burp the little kids a few rows ahead of me erupted in jubilant, little kid laughter; the second was met with bored silence. If even your short-limbed target audience doesn’t like being played for a chump, how to keep them entertained across two previews, much less two sequels?
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Undoubtedly there will be tons of photographers and screaming fans outside as Ben Stiller, Jessica Chastain, Chris Rock, Martin Short, Jada Pinkett-Smith and David Schwimmer ascend the steps at the Palais des Festivals for the world premiere of their latest film. And it will be the best look at them that the crowd will have all night, particularly since they won't be onscreen — the movie is Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted.
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After months of humiliating posters and destabilizing trailers, the big-screen "adaptation" of Heidi Murkoff's megahit advice tome What to Expect When You're Expecting has finally arrived at multiplexes nationwide. Critical reactions are about as chilly as you might expect for a film that turns one of the most influential books of the last quarter-century into a kitchen-sink ensemble romcom; while director Kirk Jones's film does seem to have its following (21 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes! Even A.O. Scott is into it! Sort of!), the overriding sense seems to be one of vague — or maybe not so vague — loathing. Let's cool off with a refreshing dip in the bile.
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Hollywood, a humble request? I realize that abortion is has become too divisive a topic these days to drop into a mainstream movie product like What To Expect When You're Expecting, especially in what's an overall innocuous ensemble comedy based, somehow, on a bestselling pregnancy guidebook (between this and Battleship, it's one strange week for source material). It's also a tough topic from which to wring laughs. And in something carefully calculated to be as broad in appeal as possible, any mention of the option of terminating a pregnancy is just going to be one more thing that could isolate potential movie audiences, like an ugly poster, being in a foreign language or attempting analysis of the Iraq War.
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Neither the ladies nor the guys have emerged from the What to Expect When You're Expecting marketing miasma unscathed, but at least now we can get all of our ensemble humiliation out of the way in one convenient new one-sheet.
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I know we were kinda just talking about this, but at a point in time when women's rights and representation are threatened at seemingly every turn by bureaucrats, ideologues, campaign financiers and bald-faced misogynists, how predictable should it have been that the new trailer for What to Expect When You're Expecting — the best-selling, most influential maternity guide in the known universe — would marginalize the actual mothers and focus almost entirely on the guys? Don't change, Hollywood! Actually, yes. Maybe change just a bit.
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Some folks out there may have enjoyed Billy Crystal's ninth outing as host of the Academy Awards last night, but his turn was as tepid as James Franco's 2011 "performance" was bizarre. Crystal's Oscars-themed song and dance routine? Dated. The weak banter and soft barbs at Hollywood's gathered illuminati? Snoozeville. Given that the previously and frequently great Crystal was upstaged by the night's random moments (Angelina Jolie's leg, J. Lo's boob, those Cirque du Soleil acrobats) and young, actually funny presenters (the Bridesmaids crew and Emma Stone) it's time to start anew and refresh what's already known as the fussiest night in the film calendar. In other words: Who would make the ultimate, charismatic, hilarious, non-sucky Oscar host?
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Over at his blog, Ricky Gervais has an idea. Possibly the best idea to ever hit the awards season circuit. "A live 3 hour podcast during the Golden Globes. Me and a few chums (like Louis C.K., Chris Rock, Karl Pilkington, John [sic] Stewart, Larry David popping in and out) doing our own alternative commentary... People at home can have the telly on with the sound down listening to us online say things that no broadcaster can get away with." Like, say, eviscerating Hollywood's brightest and shiniest on the big day like it was a Comedy Central roast? Make it so, Ricky!
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