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Buzz News Roundup, 5/29

BuzzSugar — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:30:08 -0700

The British Academy of Film and Television/Los Angeles will honor Emily Blunt as British artist of the year on Nov. 5. - Variety
Big Brother will be watching again starting July 9. - TV.com
Chevy Chase is joining the cast of the time-travel comedy Hot Tub Time Machine. - ComingSoon
How to watch the Britain's Got Talent finale if you're not in the UK. - AP
Naval captain Richard Phillips' life rights have been acquired by Columbia Pictures. - Variety
TLC has ordered a new reality show about lavish weddings. - The Hollywood Reporter
Seann William Scott and Adam Brody are joining Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Kevin Smith's buddy action comedy A Couple of Dicks. - ComingSoon
Kristin Chenoweth will star in a Christmas movie for Lifetime. - Broadcasting and Cable

Role Models: Setting a Good Example For Comedic Movies

BuzzSugar — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:30:35 -0800

For the second time in recent history, I left an R-rated comedy feeling really happy. First Kevin Smith's crass, dirty film about low-budget porn turns out to be rather sweet, and now Role Models. Though full of crude language and nasty jokes, the movie is really a twisted sort of coming-of-age story - for the adult characters more than the kids - that's ultimately heartwarming.

Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Seann William Scott) are two energy drink reps who have been with the company for several years now. Danny has grown frustrated with what he sees as a dead-end career, while Wheeler is something of a frat-boyish slacker who rather enjoys his low-commitment lifestyle. One day, however, Danny's aggravation overwhelms him and he and Wheeler end up getting in trouble with the law. They choose to put in 150 hours of service at a mentoring program rather than go to jail, and they meet their charges: Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson). For more of the story and my thoughts on it all, read more.

Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott make a great, well-cast team, but my favorite actor in the whole thing is Jane Lynch, who plays the ex-convict director of the mentoring program. She keeps a watchful (if not slightly twitchy) eye on the two men as they attempt to bond with Augie and Ronnie. These relationships are rocky at first (since the big joke here is that these two schlubs are allowed to be role models at all), but in the end, everyone learns a little something about himself.

I have paid attention to director David Wain's career ever since he was a member of MTV's awesome/bizarre sketch show The State, and though I love Wain's Wet Hot American Summer, I understand that it's something of an acquired taste. When his movie The Ten came out last year, though, I was disappointed. Now it seems Wain has struck a good balance: Taking a simple story (two guys who join a mentoring program and struggle to connect with their charges) and infusing it with his weird, sometimes awkward, sometimes crass sense of humor. This way, we're not overloading on the cheesy, mundane stuff of the ordinary mainstream comedy, but it's also not just one long string of bizarre jokes.

The message (if one is wont to look for such things), too, is particularly accessible to the 20- and 30-somethings of America. Danny experiences a specific kind of ennui, a sense of despair at not knowing what makes life meaningful. This idea that the key to happiness is community and helping others can been found in countless movies, but here it's coming all wrapped up in sarcasm and sex jokes and the cute, droll Paul Rudd. But then, of course, as soon as we realize that there might be a goopy central theme to all this, someone punches someone else in the crotch and we're back to just having a good time. It's both funny and satisfying.

Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures

Movie Preview: Role Models

BuzzSugar — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:30:31 -0700

Does the world need another one of these man-child comedies? Old School, Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Drillbit Taylor, Step Brothers . . . it just keeps happening. There's the guy (or usually more than one guy) who's schlubby and immature and thinks behaving like an adult is akin to destroying one's soul. He "hilariously" messes up over and over again until the sensible killjoy female character frowningly sets him on his way down the Right Path. It's kinda been done. A lot.

Role Models finds Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott playing energy drink reps who mess up so much that they're told by sensible killjoy (played by Elizabeth Banks) that they need to become basically Big Brothers to some kids (one of whom is played by Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who is pretty funny in the preview). The movie opens Nov. 14. To see the trailer, read more.

Role Models - Theatrical Trailer | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

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The Promotion: Kind of a Slacker

BuzzSugar — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:00:57 -0700

Steven Conrad, the writer/director of The Promotion, could have gone in a couple of different directions with his film, which centers on two guys battling for a job at a Chicago chain grocery store. He could have traipsed through the well-worn but awfully funny territory of office humor, replete with annoying coworkers and pesky in-jokes. Or he could have gone a bit deeper, meditating on success and what it means to be good.

The main trouble with The Promotion is that Conrad's script doesn't commit to either direction. One minute the film is full of silly workplace antics (including a highly amusing tater tot battle). The next, it's fumbling toward a ham-fisted statement about addiction or manhood. In the end, the movie provokes neither riotous laughter nor profound revelations. Like middle managers everywhere, The Promotion just gets stuck.

Seann William Scott plays Doug Stauber, a grocery store worker who fears he may never climb above the dreaded assistant-manager rung of short-sleeved shirts and embroidered name patches. Outside the office, things are going well enough - cute wife (Jenna Fischer), hopes of buying a house - and so when a shining beacon arrives in the form of an all-new grocery store, Doug sees a chance at salvation. It could be his store to manage, all his; his boss, Scott (Fred Armisen), even goes so far as to proclaim him a shoo-in. That, though, is before Richard Wehlner comes to town. Richard (John C. Reilly) is a nice guy with a laid-back Canadian attitude and a sweetheart of a wife (Lili Taylor, who for some reason speaks with a Scottish accent). But Richard isn't about to roll over and let Doug have the job: Bolstered by self-help tapes, he goes about making the promotion his own. The Promotion creates a vivid picture of the workplace, but it doesn't do as well with its main characters. To see what I mean, just read more.

The Promotion scores points for getting the minutae of workplace life right, from the minor slights that preoccupy Doug and Richard to the tinny, piped-in grocery store muzak. The bane of Doug's existence is the store parking lot, the gang of kids hanging out there, and the nasty notes that subsequently end up in the comment box; those cards (which bear messages like "I didn't put sexual harassment on my shopping list, but thanks") give the movie some of its sharpest moments. We all have the equivalent of that comment box in our work lives, and those scenes perfectly mix pleasure and pain.

The film suffers, though, from a few attempts at pushing the boundaries of political correctness. Well, it doesn't really push the envelope - it just gently nudges it, without enough conviction to justify going there at all. Some of the cringeworthy moments are amusing: Richard's "blapples" quip, in which he calls some bad kids "black apples" in a racially charged meeting, was funny in the trailer and is even better in context. But too many others are just squirmy - including Doug's glory moment, when he has the final chance to impress the grocery store's board. What he says is so uncomfortable that the audience at my screening let out a collective "ohhhh no."

There's also something off-putting about the movie's underlying message, which crops up late in the film: Both Doug and Richard believe that the only way to make it, to be worthwhile in society, is to provide for their wives. "I want to be the primary breadwinner," Doug flat-out says at one point. But why Doug feels this way is never really explored; instead, it's presented as fact: Men, to be successful, must earn. That's just how it goes. We learn slightly more about Richard, but it's still not enough - and given the movie's somewhat sarcastic tone, I kept waiting for something in his story to be a lie or a joke.

As a workplace movie, The Promotion is quite funny. But when it tries to go deeper, things don't quite add up. In the end, too many of the film's choices - like Lili Taylor's baffling Scots brogue - just left me saying "why?"

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Movie Preview: The Promotion

BuzzSugar — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:00:52 -0700

The Promotion stars some awesome names like John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer and Seann William Scott and it looks hilarious. Yet I never heard of it at all until Cinematical posted a glowing review of the film after the South by Southwest screening. Now there's a trailer and a release date for the comedy: June 6. And I seriously can't wait.

The movie follows Richard (Reilly) and Doug (Scott), two mid-level Chicago supermarket employees who engage in a battle of wits over a promotion. Fred Armisen is in it, Jenna Fischer wears roller skates at one point, and it looks like Gil Bellows (Ally McBeal's love!) gets some funny bits. The trailer - which made me laugh out loud - makes it look like the movie has that funny-awkward thing going, similar to the tone of The Office. To check it out, read more.

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