Tag: Jonah Hill (Page 4 of 5)

Friday movie news dump: Critic’s Choice Awards; Hollywood helping Haiti (updated)

January 16, 2010 /

I’m getting off to a late start tonight, so let’s get on with it.

* Via Roger Ebert’s tweet, we have the news on the Critic’s Choice awards, which are voted on by broadcast and some internet critics. “The Hurt Locker” won best picture, and best director for Kathryn Bigelow. “Inglourious Basterds” also had an extremely good night, as did Jeff Bridges. There was a tie for best actress between Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep. Good ol’ Nathaniel R. liveblogged the proceedings.

Christoph Waltz in And, if I was a betting man (and I sorta kinda am), I’d be tempted to head up to Vegas and bet the farm on basterd Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique of “Precious” for the supporting role categories at the Oscars.

UPDATE: I failed to note  earlier that “Avatar” managed a near clean-sweep of the more production/technical oriented awards, though the Best Make-Up award went to “District 9.”

* In light of what’s been going in Haiti, I’ve been feeling a bit guilty on not mentioning it and focusing on what is, after all, a business that is all about diversion and distraction. So, I’m glad to be able to make tonight’s longest item a mention of the massive fundraising telethon George Clooney is organizing and cohosting, along with Wyclef Jean and Anderson Cooper, on January 22nd. Nikki Finke is also reporting that Not On Our Watch, an “international advocacy and grantmaking organization” founded by Clooney and friends Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt, and others has donated $1 million to emergency medical care. The super-cool Anne Thompson has some more details and links to places where you can give, and also has some additional news on good works done by show biz folks.

It’s also nice to report that the interwebs have been doing a fabulous job of fundraising but, of course, this is a really massive disaster and more will be needed for a nation that has already been long on the ropes. On the political net, DailyKos diarists are posting new rundowns of places to help each day. The Huffington Post and Rachel Maddow‘s sites have an excellent rundown of organizations that need your help. If those links are a bit too latte-sipping Blue State for your tastes, conservative blogger the Anchoress has also posted a list of many of the same organizations. I’d also like to put in a plug for the excellent Oxfam America which is already on the the ground in Haiti and has been especially active in terms of providing water and sanitation, which is going to be absolutely vital. Please click on any of these links and, especially if you can afford to an haven’t already given something, do what you can.

* The bidding, or whatever it is, on MGM is underway.

* I should probably have mentioned yesterday how Nikkie Finke’s “Toldja!” yesterday was that Disney has a new production chief with a quite interesting creative background that includes the upcoming “Tron: Legacy” and Project Greenlight. Following up on yesterday’s news, Finke points out an apparent irony.

* The extremely smart Jonah Hill to turn producer for…”21 Jump Street” with the directors of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs“? Sure, why not?

jonah-hill-transformers-2

Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, New Media, News, TV

A chat with Mark Duplass of “Humpday”

December 14, 2009 /

Mark DuplassMark Duplass, along with Joshua Leonard (“The Blair Witch Project”), is one of the two stars of one of the funniest and just plain nicest movies I’ve seen in awhile. If you haven’t yet read my review, writer-director Lynn Shelton’s Indie Spirit award-nominated “Humpday” is a really funny comedy about two completely heterosexual best friends who become possessed by the idea of making an art-porno in which the two of them take their bromance to its highly illogical extreme.

Duplass may be best known as one half of the film-making Duplass Brothers, who had a big indie/festival hit with “The Puffy Chair,” one of the most acclaimed films in the so-called “mumblecore” movement — improvised, usually comic, films in which no one actually mumbles much but in which the dialogue is largely improvised. While the “mumblecore” tag has become more than a little dated, the Brothers D are currently completing their first movie with big-name stars (specifically, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, and John C. Reilly), which was without a title when this interview was conducted but we’ve just learned via Anne Thompson is going to be named “Cyrus.”

“Humpday” technically could be considered mumblecore because, while it was for the most part tightly plotted, the dialogue was improvised. It’s a technique Duplass was clearly comfortable with as he has acted in the films he has been making with his brother, Jay Duplass, for over a decade, as well as in such other ‘core hits as “Hannah Takes the Stairs.” We caught up with Mark via phone a bit early in the day (my time), one recent Friday morning…

PH: Just before I saw “Humpday,” I reviewed the DVD of “The Odd Couple.” I was just thinking, now that you’ve had time to think about the movie and everything, and we have this recently coined word “bromance,” which this movie obviously deals with – how do you think “Humpday” fits in with all these other movies that have been out there?

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie DVDs, Movies

More megabucks, more superheroes, and the opposite.

August 17, 2009 /

The news earlier in the day was just the start. It’s been a busy Monday in Hollywood.

* Different publications are offering a slightly different ways of putting it, but a new version of Dreamworks is being launched by Steven Spielberg, who is ending his relationship with Paramount, and executive Stacey Snider. They’re doing so with the help of $825 million in financing (that’s enough for 4.85 “G.I. Joe” movies) including a big chunk from India’s Reliance Entertainment. U.S. distribution of the new Dreamworks’ films will be handled by Disney, so we guess they’re no longer competitors. (Remember those pokes at Disney in “Shrek”?)

Everyone’s reporting on this but the most lucid version is being offered by Anne Thompson, even if I’d need a glossary to fully understand phrases like “J.P. Morgan’s syndication of approximately $325 million of senior debt”…something about a fancy way of retiring old debt? I’m going to have to work on that. Carl DiOrio also offers a fairly readable version.

* Speaking of Dreamworks, Brad Pitt is stepping in for a mysteriously departing Robert Downey, Jr. in the animated superhero/supervillian comedy “Oobermind.” I say mysterious because, as the Hitfix staff points out, the reason cited for Downey’s departure is a scheduling conflict, which is odd as it’s usually not very hard to reschedule someone for a solo taping session. It’s not like he would have had to spend six weeks on location in the Sahara dessert.

Brad Pitt’s comedic side has been seriously underutilized, but maybe not after what I take it is a fairly off-kilter and funny performance in “Inglourious Basterds.” (Lee Marvin was also kind of hilarious in “The Dirty Dozen,” come to think of it.) The cast of “Oobermind” will also include the suddenly-in-everything Jonah Hill and Tina Fey.

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External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies, News

Will “Funny People” be a sad clown at the box office?

July 30, 2009 /

Whatever my reaction to it winds up being when I finally see “Funny People,” Judd Apatow has my respect. As a producer, writer, and sometime director of mostly R-rated comedies, he’s enjoyed a level of unusually consistent box office and artistic/critical success over a large number of movies that only Pixar, which takes much longer to make its very different brand of crowd-pleaser, can top right now.

Making good movies requires taking risks, and Apatow is taking one right now with a film that is being described as a tragicomedy and with his only hedge being a cast dominated by popular comic actors led by Adam Sandler. That the film seems to be largely dividing critics and generating confused reactions would, if I were Apatow or Universal, make me a little nervous. Actually, Universal may be more nervous than Apatow. As Nikki Finke and everyone else is reporting tonight, the hyphenate comedy guy just inked a 3-picture deal with them, so he’s set for the time being.

Variety‘s Dave McNary reports that box office predictions vary pretty widely for the film, from the low twenty millions to the mid-thirties. No wonder. A casual look around the wilds of Rotten Tomatoes indicates that the Apatow’s third feature as a director after “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” is far different piece of work and what you might call “difficult.” As far as I can remember, this has almost never indicated an immediate box office success — better to have critics universally detest the movie, it seems, than be conflicted. Movies that elicit this kind of reaction have more than once emerged years later as cult hits or even, as in the case of “Blade Runner,” legitimate classics. On the other hand, Adam Sandler’s name will count for something, and the presence of Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, among others, certainly won’t hurt. But, on the other other hand, we’ve seen the power of stars amount to less than expected results more than once over the last year or so.

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Reviews, Sci-Fi Movies

The best unsubstantiated rumor I’ve read all week

July 17, 2009 /

Bloody Disgusting is reporting, if that’s really the word for more or less passing on rumors, some potentially huge, or at least hugely interesting, casting news. According to one of BD’s “regular scoopers who enjoys remaining anonymous” (because he “enjoys” being employed?) mega-thesp Robert DeNiro and Apatow-hilarity-bringer Jonah Hill will both be accompanying mega-macho character actor Danny Trejo on a trip to possible cult nirvana in the long-rumored feature-length film version of “Machete.” (H/t AICN)

“Machete,” for those less fortunate amoung you who did not see Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s mostly hysterical “Grindhouse” in its original theatrical form, was the first of a number of rather brilliant gag trailers featured in the film. It’s your basic tale of an assassin getting double-crossed and taking his revenge, in this case with the help of his priest brother (Cheech Marin, a deity who walks amongst us who I pray will be in the feature as well). Except it wasn’t really such a gag in that Rodriguez said he had hopes of doing the tale as a feature all along.

Rodriguez has a gift for achieving a kind of greatness out of complete silliness, though he also has a problem with writing/presenting coherent stories (Jason Zingale loved “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” but I couldn’t make head or tail out of it). Still, as in the original “Spy Kids” and his “Planet Terror” segment of “Grindhouse,” things can come together — assuming he doesn’t let Hill or that scamp De Niro camp it up too much.

If you’ve never seen the “Machete” trailer, below is your chance. However, due to violence, language, and the appearance of six nipples, only two of which belong to Danny Trejo, this would qualify as NSFW…and it’s Rated X!

Action Movies, Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

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