Also in Friday morning's round-up of news briefs, Jesse Eisenberg has tapped Vanessa Redgrave for an Off-Broadway play. A judge has ruled on a request to close Innocence of Muslims video. And a look at the Specialty offerings coming out this weekend.
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Also in Monday morning's round-up of news briefs, Red Hook Summer and 2 Days In New York lead an unspectacular weekend in the specialty box office. The Dark Knight Rises leads the way for another weekend overseas. And remembering Al Freeman Jr.
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Jesse Eisenberg landed an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and most recently, he is a love-sick architect opposite Alec Baldwin in Woody Allen's To Rome with Love. Next up, the young star plays a piano prodigy who tries to check his mother (played by Oscar-winner Melissa Leo) into rehab. Things, however, go awry when he is taken hostage by her drug dealer (hate when that happens) and he is suddenly off on a wild adventure.
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Before last year’s wistfully joyous Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s movies had gotten so self-conscious and sour-spirited — alleged “returns to form” Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream and Vicky Cristina Barcelona included — that it was hard to have any hope for his future. Do older filmmakers really need a future, especially if, as Allen has, they’ve already banked more than a career’s worth of fine work amid the failures? If they really enjoy working, as Allen seems to, I think they do — a future to shoot for, even if it’s just tomorrow as opposed to next year, might be the very thing that makes them feel alive.
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Also in Tuesday's round up of news, the Academy taps a new Communications Managing Director, Phase 4 Films nabs a Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria starrer. Former rocker turned filmmaker plans a film on a Philadelphia hockey team and some very early Disney sketches get animated.
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The easiest way to start an interview is to ask someone, "Was there a cock sock or not?" Take Jason Ritter, who plays Wally, the sub-par musician friend of Jillian (Jess Weixler), in Free Samples — which premiered last weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival in the Spotlight program. "It was cock sock," Ritter said, marking the second time Ritter appeared pantsless in a Tribeca film costarring Jesse Eisenberg. "[Before] was The Education of Charlie Banks, but this one was the first time I've been bare-assed for an entire scene."
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Woody Allen continues his cinematic Eurotrip with To Rome With Love, which aims to repeat the formula of pitting navel-gazing privileged Americans against Old World locales with charming results. While it doesn't go for the transformative magic of Midnight in Paris, will Woody's Rome outing capture something special in Italy? Watch the first trailer below.
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To be fair, nothing in Jesse Eisenberg's recently filed lawsuit claims that he wishes he could take back his five-minute cameo in the low budget horror pic Camp Hell, about evil unleashing a bloodbath at a Christian youth retreat. (That's just a guess.) The actor is simply a stickler for truth in advertising and wants his fans to know he's "not the star of and does not appear in a prominent role in Camp Hell." As for co-stars Bruce Davison, Dana Delaney, and Andrew McCarthy... well, you're kinda stuck. Watch the unintentional horrors unfold in the trailer after the jump!
Some of Woody Allen's best films have had simple, straightforward film titles (Annie Hall! Crimes and Misdemeanors! Hannah and Her Sisters! Even Midnight in Paris...). But you know, I thought there was really something catchy to Bop Decameron, the former title of his current Rome-set next flick. Apparently, I may have been the only one who liked it; as Anne Thompson reports, Allen's changed the title to Nero Fiddled. Riiiight.
After contributing scene-stealing but all-too-brief supporting turns in films like Observe & Report, I Love You, Man, and Funny People ("Raaaaandy!"), Aziz Ansari finally gets a full-on leading role in this week's 30 Minutes or Less as Jesse Eisenberg's straitlaced BFF/partner in crime, Chet. What took Hollywood so long to give Ansari, who's currently between seasons stealing yet more scenes on Parks & Recreation, the screen time he deserves? According to Ansari, he's just been paying his dues.
In Ruben Fleischer's upcoming comedy 30 Minutes or Less, Jesse Eisenberg plays a pizza delivery man coerced into robbing a bank by two thugs (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) who strap a bomb to his chest and threaten to detonate him. Comedy ensues, of course, but the real-life 2003 event that loosely inspired the film didn't end so hilariously, as the family of late Pennsylvania pizza man Brian Wells would like to point out.
I keep eyeing the news of Jesse Eisenberg's dual role in Richard Ayoade's next movie The Double, based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella, with excitement about people who aren't even involved with the project. If The Double, about "a Russian government clerk whose life unravels after what he believes is a literal facsimile of himself -- same appearance, same name, same hometown -- begins working in his office," is a hit, will it popularize the idea of other actors playing dual roles? And who would we want to see act against his/her own mirror image?
Looks like Woody Allen is taking advice from our very own Louis Virtel, who just last week suggested the prolific director cast Ellen Page in one of his next projects. Page will join Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, and Penelope Cruz in Allen's untitled Rome-set film, to begin production this summer. The film will be Allen's 42nd feature film. Will Page play a Mariel Hemingway-type, as Louis suggests, with Eisenberg as Allen's neurotic onscreen stand-in? Cast your own speculations below.[Variety]
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