BuzzSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 2/25

BuzzSugar — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:30:05 -0800

Filmmakers hope to start production on the Ghostbusters 3 movie this Fall. - ComingSoon
Michel Gondry is in talks to direct Seth Rogen in The Green Hornet. - AP
Andy Richter will be Conan O'Brien's announcer on The Tonight Show and will occasionally appear in sketches as well. - Zap2it
It was a rumor before, but now it's confirmed: Cate Blanchett will play Maid Marian in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood movie. - Variety
Barenaked Ladies lead singer Steven Page is leaving the band. - Billboard
The CW has greenlit a model-themed drama pilot produced by Ashton Kutcher. - The Hollywood Reporter
Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) is set to direct Clue, a live-action murder mystery based on the Hasbro board game, while Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth) will direct Warner Bros.' 3-D Yogi Bear movie. - ComingSoon
Faith No More has announced its first live performances since splitting up in 1998. - Billboard
Fox Searchlight has acquired rights to the upcoming novel Breathers: A Zombie's Lament, and Diablo Cody will produce the zombie romantic comedy. - Variety

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:30:32 -0700

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below, you can also pick up Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson's romcom Fool's Gold and the complete Jericho series on DVD.

Be Kind Rewind
Director Michel Gondry is known for a bizarre brand of humor (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Be Kind Rewind delivers just that. It stars Jack Black and Mos Def as friends who have to recreate old movies because Black's character accidentally erases all the videos in Def's video rental store. They tackle classics like Ghostbusters and Driving Miss Daisy using hilarious dumpy props and less-than-special effects. Surprisingly, their remakes are a big hit with customers. I called it a must-see for fans of Gondry, and everyone else might enjoy how endearingly funny Jack Black and Mos Def are as they play off each other.

Extras on the disc include the trailer for the film and a featurette titled "Passaic Mosaic."

A movie and a TV show up next so read more.

Under the Same Moon
I haven't seen this indie flick yet but am adding it to my queue because I've read really good things about it. Centered around a boy's journey across the U.S./Mexico border in search of his mother, Under the Same Moon sounds like a real tearjerker. America Ferrera has a small part in the film, but all the performances are supposedly quite touching. The movie earned a standing ovation at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Special features include a featurette on the making of the film and information about the murals featured in the movie.

Californication: Season 1
This Showtime original series starring X-Files hottie David Duchovny is not suitable viewing for kids or even alongside Mom and Dad. It's daring and often crass, but it's also smart and funny and I'm addicted! I've said before I wish more of my friends watched the show so that we could discuss the next day, and now there is no excuse not to catch up with the release of the debut season on DVD.

Duchovny plays a novelist in L.A. who's had one bestseller but is having a hard time following it up with another success. The love of his life wants nothing to do with him as he tries to balance his own self-destructive behavior with raising his daughter. Evan Handler (Sex and the City) stars as Duchovny's buddy and agent. Time to get started watching now before season two starts up!

Be Kind Rewind: Just a Silly Good Time

BuzzSugar — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:30:00 -0800

When I first saw the trailer for Be Kind Rewind, it made me feel all happy and giggly. I had relatively high hopes for the movie itself, thinking it would have that bizarre brand of humor I've come to expect from writer/director Michel Gondry and, satisfyingly, I was right. It's not the funniest film ever, and it's not the best use we've seen of Gondry's hyperactive imagination - it's just a goofy, silly good time.

The premise itself is funny: Mike (Mos Def) works for Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) at Be Kind Rewind, the video store Mr. Fletcher opened in an old building where Fats Waller reportedly used to live. Mike's friend Jerry (Jack Black), who's a little touched in the head, manages to become magnetized and ends up erasing all the videos in Mr. Fletcher's store. Thus, the two guys - with the help of their charmingly sweet friend Alma - start to "swede" some of the most popular movies in the store, recreating key plot points using the crudest (and most hilarious) of props and special effects. Eventually the whole community starts to help out and business picks up. Yet trouble arises when Mr. Fletcher's building is condemned and everyone needs to figure out how to save him from moving to the projects. That's just the plot, though, so to see what I think of the movie overall, read more.

While the sweded movies are hilarious, what makes the movie's pulse really beat is the actual feeling between these characters. Mike will defend his weirdo friend Jerry to the death, and he's endearingly loyal to his surrogate father, Mr. Fletcher. The characters in the community seem to care about each other and truly want to be a part of this unique movie-making/video rental experience. Parts of the movie are gimmicky, but the people keep it chugging along nicely.

Of all these people in the movie, Jack Black is a particularly welcome addition. I never thought I'd be so relieved to see Black do his same old overwrought, anxiously energetic, physical comedy thing, but in truth, he sometimes saves the scene. At times, Gondry's humor is too strange or just downright not funny, and Black's easy willingness to play the bumbling fool to the hilt is genuinely refreshing. His slapstick combined with Mos Def's earnestness and Gondry's creativity makes for an hour and a half of goofy fun. The energy of the movie loses much of its steam as it crawls toward the end, but the majority of the film is so engaging, I didn't mind. Bottom line: If you're a fan of Gondry's, it's a must-see, and if not, it's good for some chuckles.

To see a preview for Be Kind Rewind, check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of New Line Cinema

Film Fanatics Make Be Kind Rewind-Like Videos for Contest

BuzzSugar — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:30:00 -0800

Opening this Friday, Michel Gondry's film Be Kind Rewind follows two video store employees, Mike and Jerry (played by Mos Def and Jack Black) who recreate shortened versions of the movies in their store when all of the videos are erased. Gondry himself spoofed his own trailer for Be Kind Rewind by recreating it by himself, scene for scene, with hilarious results. Now, thanks to a Filmmaking Frenzy contest, people around the country have been doing what Jerry and Mike - making spoofy 5-minute versions of their favorite films - in the hopes of winning a quad-core Dell workstation with a 30-inch monitor.

Presented by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), contestants had from January 1 to February 8 to submit their videos. The movies "will be screened at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on February 18-20, with a 'best of' screening and awards ceremony on Feb 21."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the target audience for Be Kind Rewind, the majority of videos are for 80s flicks, like The Karate Kid, Back to the Future and Mannequin. Judging by the multiple entries, it looks like Top Gun and Jurassic Park are some of the most popular films to remake for a 5-minute movie. Some of them are seriously funny, and they're all goofy enough to elicit some chuckles. I especially enjoyed the use of an orange housecat to simulate an R.O.U.S. (Rat Of Unusual Size) in The Princess Bride. To see a full listing of the videos, click here.

Michel Gondry Makes a Trailer Within His Trailer

BuzzSugar — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:30:39 -0800

This video of Michel Gondry spoofing his own movie's trailer is funny, and so meta it hurts my brain. Gondry's latest film Be Kind Rewind finds Jack Black and Mos Def working at a video store where all the videos suddenly become erased. Their solution? Recreate the movies themselves.

Now Gondry has made his own version of the trailer as though his trailer were erased, so he recreates it by playing Mos Def and Jack Black playing all the iconic movie roles. Get it?

I've placed the videos side by side for your viewing pleasure. Gondry's version is made even more bizarre and funny by the fact that you would barely understand what he's saying if you hadn't seen the actual trailer first. To check it out read more.

Link Time! 1/17

BuzzSugar — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:31:15 -0800

Cinematical has an interview with director Michel Gondry regarding his movie Be Kind, Rewind, which will open soon at Sundance.
MTV Movies Blog digs into the past with a heartbreakingly adorable interview clip with Katie Holmes from back in April of 1998.
TiFaux plots the Project Runway contestants on a graph comparing their ratios of talent to drama.
Popwatch wonders if you ever acquired a nickname from a character on TV like, say, how Pa called Laura "Half-Pint" on Little House on the Prairie.
TV Squad geeks out with some analysis of the Sarah Connor Chronicles timeline.
Check out Stereogum for two new Counting Crows songs.
TV Filter gleefully reports that while the show may be on hiatus, Gossip Girl herself is still blogging!
TV Cocktail also admits to a slight obsession with the Real Housewives of Orange County.

Source

Link Time! 12/6

BuzzSugar — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:31:25 -0800

USA Today is featuring some of the new, vibrant, candy-colored photo stills from the Speed Racer movie.
TV Bloggin has a steamier version of the Bones-Booth kiss.
Jason Bateman continues to talk to MTV Movies Blog about the possibility of an Arrested Development movie, and this time he sounds quite hopeful.
Stereogum has the Michel Gondry-directed video for Bjork's "Declare Independence."
Need a laugh? Check out some bloopers from the British version of The Office, courtesy of Give Me My Remote.
FilmExperience brings up a good point: If Juno is nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, it will be "the most youth-skewing entry" in a long time.
TV Squad explains why things don't look good for Bionic Woman.
Idolator has a new candy-colored video from The Pipettes.

Seth Rogen Talks Monsters, Aliens, and Halloween

BuzzSugar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:30:00 -0700

Tonight, NBC is airing a Halloween-themed follow up to last Summer's animated hit Monsters Vs. Aliens, Monsters Vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space. Seth Rogen, who voices the gelatinous jokester B.O.B. in the half-hour special, chatted on the phone with a few reporters about reprising his role. He talked animated films, Halloween, and even a little bit of the upcoming adaptation of The Green Hornet that he's currently filming with Michel Gondry.

On why he enjoys voicing B.O.B.: I enjoy it because, I mean, this is the stupidest answer - I enjoy it because it's fun. The character is funny and the directors are cool and the story is funny; to me it's like a very fun format to kind of improvise, and try to discover a character in a different way than physically doing it, you know. You've got to do it all with your voice, and I really enjoy that.
On dressing up for Halloween: I have a girlfriend now and I've entered the unfortunate world of paired costuming. It's not fun. I don’t recommend it. I always end up being the lamer half - it's like she's a dog and I'm a fire hydrant or something like that. It's never fun. So maybe I'm dodging a bullet this year.

To hear what Rogen said about The Green Hornet and what he loves about Halloween TV, just read more.

On his Halloween TV faves: I always liked The Simpsons' Halloween specials, personally. They were always amazing. I always looked forward to that on Halloween. And I watched TGIF sitcoms growing up because I was a nerd and had nothing to do on Friday nights, and whenever the sitcoms would do their Halloween episode, I always enjoyed that for some reason. That always spawned some good comedy.
On the pressure of making The Green Hornet: I will blame Gondry if it sucks. No, I'm just joking. No, we are all in it, you know. I will say, I take a huge amount of the pressure. I understand that. I understand that. I understand that it's my face on it, you know, when it literally comes out even if it sucks for another reason, people will blame me and that's why I have to be so involved - to try to make sure that it doesn't suck. But there's a lot of pressure. I understand that. I've been talking about this movie for years, and if it sucks, then no one will be more disappointed than me, believe me.
On improvising as a voice actor: You can actually improvise a lot as a voice actor. I mean, real people I think don't - and I didn't - understand how animation works really. The time consuming part is really creating the characters and the sets and the worlds. And aside from that it's not that entirely different than shooting a live action movie; the characters mouths are quite easy to manipulate once all the information is built into the computer. So you can improvise a lot and it doesn't matter really how far along they are in the process; they can just make the character say something different. Almost more than in a live action movie because of how slow the process is.
On whether he'll do more voice acting in the future: I really enjoy it and I mean, I've always been a fan of animation - yes, I would like to.