BuzzSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 7/8

BuzzSugar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:30:39 -0700

Bravo's Real Housewives of NYC has been renewed - but it may be recast with new housewives. - The Hollywood Reporter
Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks are set to star in the indie black comedy The Details. - ComingSoon
It's estimated that a billion people worldwide watched Michael Jackson's memorial service. - LA Times
Peter Krause has joined Mary-Kate Olsen and Vanessa Hudgens in Beastly, the CBS Films adaptation of the Alex Flinn fantasy novel. - Variety
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor announced today that the band will play a final "handful of shows" in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles beginning Aug. 22. - Billboard
G4 technology show host Olivia Munn will guest-star on Greek as a love interest for a main character. - Variety
Now apparently Ryan Phillippe and Val Kilmer are in negotiations to join the Will Forte and Kristen Wiig in the full-length MacGruber movie. - Reuters
Comedy Central has won the rights to syndicate 30 Rock. - The Futon Critic

Photo courtesy of Bravo

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:30:57 -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 rent The Ruins starring Jena Malone and the sixth season of Monk.

Stop-Loss
Stop-Loss joins an ever-growing list of Iraq war movies that bit the dust at the box office. This has little to do with the quality of the films and probably more to do with folks not looking for difficult subject matter when they head to the movie theater. But while director Kimberly Peirce's follow up to Boys Don't Cry isn't flawless, it is well worth your time.

Starring Ryan Philippe, Channing Tatum, Abbie Cornish and a scene-stealing Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the movie centers around a group of friends and family members in Texas struggling with their loved ones in the military who return from serving in Iraq only to be called back.

Special features include 11 deleted scenes, commentary by director Kimberly Peirce and co-writer Mark Richard, and a featurette titled, "A Day in Boot Camp."

One more fun choice so read more.

Psych: Season 2
The men of Psych are quirky and cute together, so it's no wonder that the USA show has built up a following over the years. Now, just in time for the third season premiere, you can find the second season on DVD.

If you're new to Psych, here's a summary of the show's premise: "Psych is a quick-witted comedy/drama starring James Roday as young police consultant Shawn Spencer who solves crimes with powers of observation so acute that Santa Barbara PD detectives think he’s psychic. Psych also stars Dulé Hill as Shawn's best friend and reluctant sidekick, Gus, and Corbin Bernsen as his disapproving father, Henry, who ironically was the one who honed his son's 'observation' skills as a child."

Season two included a ton of great guest stars including: Tim Curry, Gina Gershon (as a funny reality show judge), Lou Diamond Phillips, John Amos, Ernie Hudson, Phylicia Rashad, Thelma Hopkins, and Kevin Sorbo. Special features include deleted scenes, audio commentaries, Podcast commentary, and the all-important gag reel.

Weekend Box Office: 21 Wins the Pot

BuzzSugar — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:15:05 -0700

Well, it looks like 21, the film about MIT students who take Vegas by storm, was a safe bet as it easily won the top spot at the box office. However, the overall weekend box office total was down 17 percent compared to last year, Variety reports. 21 earned an estimated $23 million, beating Horton Hears a Who and firmly establishing Jim Sturgess as a viable leading man.

Compare these results to another new release this weekend: Stop-Loss, starring Ryan Phillippe, who is a household name. Another box office casualty in a long line of Iraq War-related film flops, Stop-Loss only earned $4.5 million, coming in at No. 8.

Which brings me to the other box office disappointment this weekend, Superhero Movie. Could it be that Round One of Harvey Weinstein vs. Fanboys' fanboys goes to the geeks (more on the feud here)? Protesters gathered on both coasts where Superhero was playing, though in LA it appears Weinstein was prepared with guards. One protester told the Hollywood Reporter:

Guards were everywhere. At one point, I counted nine, no joke. They hired a whole force and whenever someone showed up looking around for the protest, they were surrounded by guards and told to leave instantly or be arrested. I guess you can't really hold a protest on private property.

Ultimately the film came in the third spot with a measly $9.5 million. Is this a little bit hilarious to anyone else?

Finally, Run Fat Boy Run starring Simon Pegg came in 13th and only earned an estimated $2.3 million here in the US. The movie grossed $22.6 million in the UK last Fall.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Movie Preview: Stop-Loss

BuzzSugar — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 07:30:00 -0700

Stop-Loss, starring Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, examines the difficult government policy by which soldiers who have completed their terms of service can be called back to serve again. Phillippe plays a soldier who refuses to return to service, despite being recalled to duty. It's a prickly issue, and so far I'm impressed by how the trailer makes it look like the movie doesn't shy away from examining the various sides of the matter. Stop-Loss doesn't open until March 28, but it's worth checking out the trailer if you read more

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Ryan Phillippe to Play a Viking?

BuzzSugar — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:36:20 -0700

Ah, the magic of Hollywoood.
Ryan Phillippe, he of the soft puckered lips, has been cast as a Viking.

What's the deal?
Phillippe, along with Abbie Cornish and Sean Bean, will star in Last Battle Dreamer, described by writer/director Menno Meyjes as "a love story written in fire and blood." Phillippe plays "a seventh-century Viking warrior named Thorfinn who, along with his older brother, the battle-scarred Hakon (Sean Bean), invades Britain."

Just not seeing it.
I may not be Phillippe's greatest fan in general, but this casting seems severely off. He's such a pretty boy, so well-cast in his prissy high society role in Cruel Intentions... I just don't see him playing a burly, vicious Viking warrior.

What do you think? Miscast or just right?

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Breach: Better Than Dateline

BuzzSugar — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:49:09 -0800

Perhaps I've watched too much "Alias" and "24," because it turns out I expect espionage/government agency stories to be fast-paced, entertaining, and suspenseful to the point of biting off my fingertips. If one goes into Breach expecting these qualities, one will not find them. The real-life story on which the film is based is intriguing, but the film itself is not. If the intention was to make a great dramatic thriller, then something went wrong. But as a way to tell the story of a real-life FBI take-down, it's more titillating than your average Dateline special.

Ryan Phillippe plays baby-faced Eric O'Neill, the FBI agent hopeful assigned to the case of veteran operative and alleged mole Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper). Hanssen is suspected of providing information to the Soviets, costing the government financial drain and leading to the deaths of at least a few American agents, yet the FBI has never been able to gain enough evidence to take him down. The actual things Hanssen did or how he got away with his crimes for years are not the focus of the film, and I was left thinking that maybe they should have been, so

The story is really about O'Neill gaining Hanssen's trust and learning how to play this man who has played the Bureau's best agents for years. Yet while O'Neill struggles to gain Hanssen's trust, Hanssen needles his way into O'Neill's personal life, endangering O'Neill's mission and causing tension in his marriage. Thus the two men dance a back-and-forth power struggle. I actually feel sorry for the real Eric O'Neill, because in Phillippe's portrayal, he's glum-faced and one-dimensional with a bulbous bottom lip that prevents him from speaking properly. When Phillippe as O'Neill whines to his superior, "What if he's smarter than me?," I had to snort. I mean, "what if?" - it isn't exactly a stretch.

Phillippe pales in comparison to Cooper, and perhaps that is the point. O'Neill is supposed to seem less capable in every way, and he succeeds. He is, essentially, the window through which we observe Hanssen, and Cooper's surly, bitter performance dominates every time he's on the screen. It was rumored that Hanssen viewed the FBI as an organization of imbeciles without enough sense to listen to his ideas, and his disdain for the bureau seems to have been a driving force behind his actions. The film, however, never spells out his motivations, wisely leaving the viewer to speculate.

The final glimpse of Hanssen, too, is well-played. Throughout the movie, Hanssen is a deeply religious man, judging himself as though through God's eyes while being both professionally and personally corrupt. In the end, O'Neill's triumph is silenced by the Hanssen's inward downfall.

And of course, we know the ending from the beginning; in fact, the film kicks off with actual footage of Ashcroft announcing Hanssen's resignation. Since knowing this takes away any sort of surprise ending, the getting-there should be the gripping part. Maybe I expected too much from this serious, slow-moving film, but aside from a few great moments, the grip is loose.

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Movie Preview: Breach

BuzzSugar — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:21:32 -0800

Breach opens this Friday, Feb. 16, and it looks like Ryan Phillippe is mumbling his way through yet another movie he doesn't deserve to be in. In this true-life tale that - like the Enron saga - just begs to be made into a movie, Phillippe plays young Eric O'Neill, an FBI agent hopeful assigned to work with renowned operative Robert Hanssen, played by the excellent Chris Cooper.

It turns out, however, that Hanssen is an FBI mole who has been eluding his own bureau for years and is suspected of having committed the worst breach in the history of U.S. intelligence. O'Neill is selected to acquire enough hard evidence to bring Hanssen down. I'll let you know when I post my review on Friday if Phillippe ruins what looks like an interesting story. To check out the trailer, read more

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