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Link Time! Eric Dane Dances His Way Into Burlesque

BuzzSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:30:13 -0800

Eric Dane joins Christina Aguilera, Cher, and Kristen Bell in Burlesque - Zap2It
Daniel Radcliffe is lending his voice to a Twilight spoof . . . on The Simpsons! - Hollywood Insider
Tim Burton's career retrospective looks rad - MTV Movies Blog
Director Werner Herzog shares his five favorite films - Rotten Tomatoes
Johnny Depp is named People's Sexiest Man Alive for 2009! - PopSugar
Precious director Lee Daniels is already lining up his next gig, titled Selma - Collider
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck make beautiful music together in the video "Heaven Can Wait" - Stereogum
Brooke Shields is moving to The Middle - Ausiello Files
Will Arnett and Justin Theroux sign up for a space love story - Moviefone
New Moon director Chris Weitz says he's quitting movies - Film School Rejects

Will Arnett and Justin Theroux Coming to Parks and Recreation

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:30:48 -0800

In its sophomore season, Parks and Recreation has really hit its stride and finally become the hilarious half hour it always had the potential to be. Now it's about to get even funnier: Amy Poehler's husband, Will Arnett, is going to guest star on the show in January. He'll only be on one episode and will play an MRI tech, ostensibly at the hospital where Ann works.

The hotness doesn't end there: Justin Theroux is also joining the cast, but unlike Arnett, his will role will be as a major recurring character. He'll play an old friend of Ann's and love interest for Leslie, first appearing sometime early next year. So basically Amy Poehler is the luckiest girl onscreen and off.

Tropic Thunder: Clever and Explosive

BuzzSugar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:30:10 -0700

I never really thought I'd say a Ben Stiller comedy was genuinely smart and funny, but here I am, saying just that. It's partly the talented cast and partly Stiller's collaborator on the film, Justin Theroux, but whatever the cause, Tropic Thunder is a hilarious movie that doesn't completely rely on gross-out humor or cheap shots for laughs. The entire thing exists to comment on the hypocrisy, egotism, delusional sense of self-importance and backward moral codes of the people who keep the Hollywood machine churning. And it's all set against the backdrop of one of the most serious film genres: the war movie.

Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, a has-been action star who hopes that the filming of the war movie Tropic Thunder will restart his fading career. Soon, however, the film's director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides to drop the film's stars into the middle of the jungle to get some "grittier" footage. The group of actors includes the Australian Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an Academy darling who has surgically changed his skin color to play a black character, an actual black actor named Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), newbie actor Kevin Sandusky (the beloved Apatownian Jay Baruchel) and goofball comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black). The men find themselves in a real combat situation, and it takes them a while to realize that they're not actually on a controlled movie set. The whole thing is a series of jokes, explosions and gunfire, resulting in a kind of giant comedic spectacle. Those are just the basics, though, so read more.

One of the most talked-about things with this movie, Robert Downey Jr.'s brownface and portrayal of a black man is remarkably well-done. The insane offensiveness is placed squarely on the actor Kirk Lazarus's ignorance and ambition to nab yet another Academy Award. Every time this is played for laughs, it's done so at Kirk's expense. What's even better, he butts heads with the actual black man of the group, Alpa Chino, who voices reasonable arguments against Kirk's outrageous actions and is met with hilariously misguided justifications from Kirk. And Alpa Chino is never actually OK with the whole thing, hinting that though the filmmakers use this brownface device for laughs, they never take it so lightly as to imply that it's a genuinely OK thing to do.

By contrast, the jokes revolving around Stiller's character playing a mentally challenged person are less carefully done. Sure, we're supposed to be laughing at the Tugg's self-centered idea that doing this kind of role will earn him an Oscar, but in the scenes with "Simple Jack" we're not laughing at the actor's misguidedness, we're laughing at his impression of a mentally challenged person. I guess it comes down to how comfortable you are with that sort of thing. I do believe the intention was to comment on Stiller's character, and I'm not saying the film is mean-spirited, because I don't think it is. It just doesn't make me feel good to laugh at Stiller's impression of a retarded person.

There are many happy surprises in the movie, not the least of which is Tom Cruise as abusive studio mogul Les Grossman. He's incredibly good at playing an over-the-top abhorrent human being. Similarly, Matthew McConaughey's performance as Tugg's well-meaning but shallow agent is completely hysterical (there's something satisfying about such a pretty man embracing such a goofy, ridiculous role). There are also funny movie-within-movie moments that are actually quite meta, like when Stiller's character thinks an actual severed head is a prop and plays with it: his character thinks it's a prop, and in real-life we know it's a prop, but in the world of the movie it's an actual head that his character thinks is a prop. . . which it is, but it's not supposed to be. . . See? It's actually weirdly smart.

Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Buzz News Roundup, 7/16

BuzzSugar — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:33:58 -0700

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio may star together in Quentin Tarantino's movie Inglorious Bastards, according to Variety.
ComingSoon reports that Diablo Cody will develop a comedic movie script based on an idea that Steven Spielberg came up with, though no further plot details are available to us at the moment.
Tween alert! The Desperate Housewives kids have officially been recast, writes the Hollywood Reporter.
Autumn Reeser is one of three additions to the cast of Valentine, Inc., a show about Greek gods living among us that will air on the CW this Fall, writes Zap2it.
According to Variety, Danny DeVito will direct The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, with Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Saoirse Ronan starring.
The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on The World's Greatest Dad, an indie comedy in which Robin Williams will star as that great dad.
The Letters from a Nut books, in which a guy writes angry letters to various corporations, are being developed into a TV series for Fox, Reuters reports.
Actor Justin Theroux may be writing the script for Iron Man 2, writes Zap2It.
William Petersen is leaving CSI, The Associated Press reports.

Source

Dedication: Too Weird for Its Own Good

BuzzSugar — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:00:00 -0700

Dedication, the directorial debut from Justin Theroux, is a weird little movie. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, Dedication gets a little too lost in its own weirdness, ultimately overwhelming what could be a sweet, unlikely love story.

At the heart of Dedication is Henry Roth (Billy Crudup), a basket case of a children's book writer who occasionally has to put heavy objects (encyclopedias or other large books, preferably) on top of himself to feel safe. The one person in the world who can tolerate his antics is his illustration partner, Rudy Holt (Tom Wilkinson), whose particular brand of tough love seems to calm Henry down. The two are working on a tough deadline for a children's book based on their character of Marty the Beaver (dreamed up, amusingly enough, in a porno theater) when Rudy dies suddenly of a brain tumor. That leaves Henry without an illustrator, not to mention without an anchor to the regular, non-neurotic world.

Enter Lucy (Mandy Moore), an illustrator plucked by editor Arthur Planck (Bob Balaban) to work with Henry. Henry spends most of his time trying to figure out just how insulting and nasty he can be to Lucy before she gives up and leaves him alone; considering she's been offered $200,000 if she gets Henry to finish the book (unbeknownst to him, of course), it will take a lot more than insults to get her to leave. It's a perfectly solid plot, but Theroux doesn't control the movie's tone enough to execute it well. To see what I mean, read more

The first half of the movie feels trippy and surreal, something straight out of a David Lynch film (an effect I doubt is coincidental - but more on that later). Henry, angry over Rudy's death, continues speaking to his dead partner in a series of dream sequences, shot with a choppy, deliberate camera effect. Crudup does a fine job of conveying Henry's various psychoses, and though much of his character is never really explained - why the books? why the OCD tendencies to rearrange the condiments at every restaurant? - he's interesting enough. One of Theroux's greatest strengths as a director is his use of music, and the soundtrack adds a lot to the story, with the disjointed sounds of Deerhoof giving an additional window into Henry's psyche and the more mellow Cat Power representing Lucy's calming presence. But in general, the effects are a little too strange to be useful; after the first couple of jolts into Henry's alternate reality where Rudy is still alive, the device felt tired.

But I still prefer the vaguely experimental tone of the movie's first half to the more standard love story it becomes in the end, because in all the trippiness, Theroux forgets to give us much reason to care about Henry or Lucy. Mandy Moore gives Lucy a good underlying toughness, but her character - who is also trying to decide whether to get back with her professor/thesis adviser (Martin Freeman) - isn't written deeply enough to understand why she'd put up with either of these guys. When the weirdness of the movie's first half starts to fall away, the story just feels empty.

Which brings me back to David Lynch. Theroux, who worked with Lynch on Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, wrote in the press notes for Dedication about how the legendary director had influenced his own style. So I suppose it's not surprising that Dedication feels like a clumsy attempt at taking elements of Lynch's films and applying them to a romantic comedy. But, well, even Lynch himself isn't famous for his great romantic comedies.

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Link Time! Soupy Sales Passes Away

BuzzSugar — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:30:25 -0700

Comedian Soupy Sales dies at 83 - Movieline
Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman's novel, is being turned into a movie - The A.V. Club
Sylvester Stallone is working on Rocky 7 - Worst Previews
Here's a schedule for upcoming Halloween episodes and specials - TV.com
Melrose Place's Colin Egglesfield reveals how he feels about losing his role on the show - Watch With Kristin
Justin Theroux is producing a comedy called Air Guitar - Coming Soon
Tracey Morgan has some really sweet words about Lorne Michaels (but don't worry, there's still swearing) - Vulture
Amelia director Mira Nair says Amelia Earhart was modern and would be considered an iconoclast now - TrèsSugar
HBO series In Treatment is getting a third season - HitFix
Joss Whedon talks about Dollhouse's absence from November sweeps - MTV Movies Blog