Todd Phillips likes his exotic animals. The Hangover had a tiger, the sequel featured a monkey, and, this teaser trailer for The Hangover Part III includes cameos by a giraffe (that appears to meet an untimely end) and some sort of bird of prey. There's also a beefy dude in a pig mask chasing Zach Galifianakis. Does that count? If you prefer your comedy to be delivered by humans, check out the sexual tension scene involving Galifianakis, Melissa McCarthy and a lollipop— and Ed Helms throwing up in his mouth. more »
This weekend sees the release of Dark Shadows, marking the eighth time director Tim Burton has teamed with Johnny Depp, his second-favorite performer on screen. (He no doubt frequently has to tell Helena Bonham Carter as much.) So natural is their pairing that we have come to expect a certain level of quality and/or box-office performance from their combined efforts, and an announcement of a new Burton title has generally come to carry the promise of a Depp appearance. Although Hollywood has long brought us such fruitful and lucrative actor/director relationships — from both Cary Grant and James Stewart's collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock to Robert De Niro's legendary work with Martin Scorsese — consider nine other long-term pairings packing a little (or a lot) less luster.
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This is... interesting: Warner Bros. and Todd Phillips have brought in writer/directors Mark and Jay Duplass to have a crack at adapting Mule, Tony D'Souza's novel about a couple who turn to drug trafficking to make it in the recession. Phillips would direct, making the project the first time the Duplasses, who recently drew mixed reviews with Jeff, Who Lives at Home, did not direct one of their scripts. Unless Phillips goes off and spends the next two years on The Hangover Part III, in which case I guess it might be the brothers' first time directing an adaptation. Wait and see, etc. [Deadline]
The reviews are in for the Todd Phillips-produced uber-party comedy Project X, and three out of four critics agree: It is the douchiest, most mean-spirited debauch of the year. (To date, anyway; we'll see what kind of revisionist zest Steven Spielberg and co. bring to Lincoln.) Hop aboard Movieline's scorched-earth golf cart and let's go for a spin...
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I’m pretty sure I ruined the night of a pair teenage boys huddled in the back row of a recent screening of Project X, a party disaster movie targeted at kids who find the Hangover franchise too sophisticated. All I did was sit down beside them, but I may as well have poked my head up into their treehouse. Girls ruin everything, especially the unmitigated enjoyment of a new Todd Phillips movie. A few seconds after the lights went down, as a shrill junior impresario named Costa (Oliver Cooper) was shouting 2 Live Crew lyrics about wanting pussy, the one beside me began twisting in an agony I came to enjoy much more than the movie we were watching.
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It would be too easy to seethe and writhe with dismay about Matthew Broderick -- who'll turn the big five-O(MG I'm
old) in March -- reprising his role as everyone's favorite truant teen from the '80s, Ferris Bueller, for Honda. But factor in a 10-second teaser and a few other implications reported this morning, and the spasms of outrage might just ensue involuntarily.
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Todd Phillips doesn't feel like directing the new Hangover right now, so he's taking time to helm a cray-zay party movie where a self-declared "uncool" kid throws the bash of the century. Cars jump into pools! Music blares! Girls lick on some popsicles under Fiona Apple "Criminal" lighting! Parents call to make sure everything is going OK. It's like a grittier version of Blank Check. I've been waiting for this since '94.
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The Hangover Part II may have been wildly popular everywhere else in the world -- in part thanks to the sexually-suggestive shenanigans its heroes get involved in, transvestite genitals and all -- but there's one place where those hijinks don't fly: Utah. Good old morally-stringent Utah, where one theater was fined $1,627 for screening the R-rated blockbuster comedy on account of its "attire and conduct violations." (That's $400 more than what a local restaurant was fined for serving alcohol to a minor, by comparison.)
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With a whopping $489.1 million global box office take under its belt, surely Warner Bros. could afford to settle its legal dispute with the tattoo artist who copyrighted Mike Tyson's tribal face design that Ed Helms sports in The Hangover Part II. And while details are hazy on WB's dealings with said artist, it appears that the beef has now been "amicably resolved." No digital erase-job for the DVD release! Creative copyright ostensibly protected! Happy endings for all! [The Wrap]
When he sat down with Movieline to talk The Hangover Part II (in theaters today), comedian-turned-actor Zach Galifianakis expressed a desire to balance his comedic work with dramatic roles. "I would love to do it if I could pull it off," he said. "I don't know if I can, but I would like to." Given that aspiration, Galifianakis couldn't have picked a more perfect film for his round of Movieline's My Favorite Scene -- one featuring funny man-turned-Oscar winner Robin Williams.
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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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"Unapologetic" was the word most frequently used by director Todd Phillips and his Wolf Pack cast and writers to describe the outrageous shenanigans that go down in The Hangover Part II, which finds the heroes of The Hangover once again dealing with a bad case of morning-after confusion. This time, they awake disoriented in Bangkok, a place that takes monkeyshines to a whole new level. "Sometimes to make a movie about mayhem," Phillips admitted at Wednesday's press conference, "you have to go to mayhem."
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Yesterday the internet was abuzz over a report that Todd Phillips got his Hangover 2 capuchin monkey addicted to cigarettes, but today animal lovers can breathe a sigh of relief. Phillips, via email, explains to Movieline that the whole story was intended as a joke. (What's more: He assures us that Crystal the monkey didn't actually do cocaine in the film, either. Phew!) Hit the jump for the director's explanation in full.
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