Zach Galifianakis looks more like Hagrid than Harry Potter in this new poster for The Hangover Part III, but you've got to love the references to The Deathly Hallows: Part 2. With Ken Jeong in the Valdemort slot, the image seems to bolster reports that this final film in Todd Phillips comedy trilogy will depart from the formula that the first two films followed. more »
Part of the wave of initiatives in Elvis Mitchell's rebooted Film Independent at LACMA programming is a series of live script reads directed by Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Juno), who kicked things off last month with a star-studded rendition of The Breakfast Club. Last night's second script read of the 1960 multiple Oscar-winner The Apartment, with Natalie Portman and Steve Carell in the Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon roles, respectively, demonstrated how the marriage of cherished movie memories, live theater, and fresh talent is such an inspired idea to begin with.
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Nearly five months after giving birth to her first child, Natalie Portman returns to Hollywood tomorrow night to take part in Jason Reitman's live reading of The Apartment at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Oscar winner will play Fran Kubelik, "the fetching elevator operator" that Shirley MacLaine played (and earned an Academy Award nomination for) in the 1960 Billy Wilder film. J.K. Simmons, Ken Jeong, Nick Kroll, Mindy Kaling and Jake Johnson will round out tomorrow night's cast. [@JasonReitman, Vulture]
Not even lackluster reviews can stop Todd Phillips' highly anticipated R-rated The Hangover Part II. Wednesday's midnight shows brought in a whopping $10.4M, Warner Bros. has the Bangkok-set sequel planned for the biggest opening ever for an R-rated film, and it's going into a five-day holiday weekend. Pundits estimate a $100M or higher opening take, and you know what that means: get ready for a Hangover Part III. [Deadline]
Physician-turned-comedian Ken Jeong (AKA Dr. Ken) got his start on the big screen with comic bits in films like Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, and Role Models, but he made his most memorable on-screen appearance in Todd Phillips' 2009 surprise hit The Hangover as a flamboyant gangster named Chow. This week in The Hangover Part II, Jeong returns to cause more mayhem on the streets of Bangkok with an entrance that manages to one-up the shocking sight of springing, fully nude, from the trunk of a Mercedes.
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Because of his unique brand of hilariously discomfiting stand-up comedy and, in particular, his mock-confrontational talk show satire Between Two Ferns, which lampoons the celebrity interview itself with clear-eyed vitriol, you might not peg Zach Galifianakis for a warm interviewee. But, like most comics, he's nothing like any of his own characters -- including Alan Garner, the delusional man-child who, along with his fellow "Wolf Pack"-ers (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and, this time around, a monkey) wakes up in a seedy Bangkok hotel room after yet another night of black-out debauchery in The Hangover Part II.
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