There are an abundance of reasons to put “see Moneyball” on your weekend to-do list: First film since Capote from director Bennett Miller; Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillan adapting a Michael Lewis book; Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, and Chris Pratt (aka Andy Dwyer) in supporting roles; the baby blues of one William Bradley Pitt. And then there is our old friend Jonah Hill, who has taken the opportunity here to make the leap we’ve come to expect from any comedic performer of note: the transition to “serious acting.”
Now from the looks of the trailer, it doesn’t appear that Hill is exactly doing Hamlet — Moneyball is a fast, witty, seriocomic drama, allowing Hill some comedic opportunities within a larger and more serious context. That is one way to go; there are others. After the jump, join us for a look at the strategies that Hill’s predecessors adopted in making their move towards drama, and how they fared.
Ah, fall. The fall movie season is when we film lovers do our very best to shake off a summer’s supply of Transformers, ‘80s remakes, and wilted comic book heroes, and open our arms to the “prestige pictures”: the smart movies for grown-ups that studios trot out as close to Oscar time as possible, so that they can pretend like these are the kind of movies they make all year long.
Of course, those studios still have bills to pay, so it would be a mistake to presume that quality and intellect will be the sole flavor of the season. Too often, your fall movie previews tend to focus on the most promising releases, as though Oscar bait is all we’re going to see this autumn. Make no mistake: there will still be plenty of dumb comedies, mindless action, and copious amounts of 3-D. So in order to present the most complete picture of fall 2011 at the cinemas, we’ve assembled a comprehensive list of the major fall releases, good and bad alike. Of course, that’s quite a big list of movies, so we’ve boiled our comments down to the basics: who’s in it, what it is, who it’s for, and if we’re in or out. Break out your calendars and join us after the jump.
There’s not much to celebrate about the end of summer, but at least we can look forward to the end of re-runs and a new crop of fall TV shows. While they don’t all look like winners, and several will surely be canceled within the first few weeks of the season, quite a few series have caught our eye. Now that The TV Addict has put together a helpful calendar of premiere dates, this seems like a good time to count down our top 10 most anticipated shows debuting in September and October. Check them out and tell us what you’ll be watching after the jump.
Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. This week, we’ve got ten new ones — taken as a group, a rather eclectic mix of styles and subjects indicating that the summer movie season is drawing to a close. Check ‘em all out after the jump.
Yesterday, we took a look at NBC’s new sitcom slate. We found plenty to like and plenty to groan over. And while we’re not quite as enamored of Fox’s current sitcoms line-up, we can’t deny that they’re still the gold standard as far as cartoons for grown-ups are concerned. The network has signed up four new comedy series, half live-action and half animated. The class of 2011 includes new vehicles for Zooey Deschanel, Jaime Pressly, and Jonah Hill, as well as the small-screen return of Napoleon Dynamite. We rate the (vaguely hipster-oriented) shows from least to most promising, based on their promo videos, after the jump.
1. Yesterday Google gave all of its employees $1,000 cash “holiday bonuses” and 2011 salary increases of at least 10%. Are you jealous? [via Business Insider]
2. Cosby Show alum Malcolm-Jamal Warner will appear in an upcoming episode of Community as Andre, the ex-husband of Shirley. Do you think this character will be dyslexic, like Theo Huxtable? [via EW]
3. The creative team behind The Hills and Jersey Shore have reportedly approached Jennifer Aniston about having her own reality series. [via Contact Music]
4. A black-and-white Coke bottle on canvas by Andy Warhol sold for $35.36 million yesterday at Sotheby’s contemporary and post-war art auction — that’s $10 million more than they were expecting it to fetch. [via Yahoo!]
5. Channing Tatum is in negotiations to join Jonah Hill in the cast of 21 Jump Street remake. We’re guessing he’ll play Johnny Depp’s old part from the TV series. [via Deadline]
Russell Brand is your new favorite fake rock star. Although based on his performance at LA’s Roxy nightclub last week promoting his new Judd Apatow film, Get Him to the Greek, it’s not all that much of an act. More like a dream come true, one he’s finally letting himself believe. Watching the 35-year-old comic make the transition from self-deprecating admiration for “the real rock stars who made it easy for me to act like one,” to possibly pretending not to recall the words to his own songs, to finally casting aside his lyric sheets and embracing the persona with gusto — in the space of just a few songs — was like watching a butterfly hatch from a cocoon right on the Roxy stage. Granted, a wild-haired, potty-mouthed, scalawag of a gorgeous-looking indie shock comic butterfly, but still.
1. Conan O’Brien has joined Twitter, but he has only tweeted once so far: “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.”
2. Ben Stiller and Justin Theroux are working on a script for Zoolander 2. Theroux will direct and Jonah Hill is in negotiations to play the villain. [via Deadline]
3. Have you seen the video for Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Kimmel‘s new rap track, “Impregn8ed“? [via Pop Candy]
4. Salman Rushdie is planning to write a book about the decade he spent hiding because of the fatwa. [via Guardian]
5. Opera star Renée Fleming‘s upcoming album Dark Hope will cover pieces by indie rock bands including Muse, Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, and Death Cab For Cutie. [via LAT]
1. Bruce Springsteen, the Killers, Jon Bon Jovi, and Lucinda Williams are set to contribute to a forthcoming album of Kinks covers by former frontman Ray Davies. [via TwentyFourBit]
2. In case you were wondering, Lil Wayne is allowed to bring his diamond-implanted teeth to Riker’s Island. [via Slate]
3. Is this new trailer for The Karate Kid remake more exciting than the first one? [via Yahoo!]
4. Jonah Hill will star in The Sitter, a new David Gordon Green comedy that’s inspired by Adventures in Babysitting. [via THR]
5. It was announced yesterday that books by Sherman Alexie, Barbara Kingsolver, Lorraine M. López, Lorrie Moore and Colson Whitehead are finalists for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. We interviewed Moore about A Gate at the Stairshere. [via WaPo]
Bonus Giveaway: We use Yahoo! Search to help find the top culture stories of the day. Now we’re giving you the chance to play editor, and you just might win a trip to Coachella.
Use Yahoo! Search to find an interesting link about The Kinks, and drop it below in the comments below. Our favorite entry will receive a copy of The Kinks Greatest Hits 1970-86 (2CD/DVD), and more importantly, be entered to win a VIP trip for two to Coachella. Topics will be changing throughout the week, so get your search on and keep playing to increase your chances of winning!
In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, rock star Aldous Snow was a hilarious car-wreck of stereotypes: the schmaltzy, world-savior lyrics of Bono, the rock-star public persona of Tommy Lee, and the sexual prowess of Wilt Chamberlain (judging from the ridiculous quotes in his Playboy interview, the John Mayer no-filter quotability comparison also wouldn’t be far off). Russell Brand was so memorable as the British maniac that Judd Apatow signed him on for Get Him To The Greek, a spin-off reintroducing Brand as the Infant Sorrow lead-singer and Jonah Hill as the awkward devotee introduced to the rock-star world of debauchery, responsible for getting Snow to a triumphant anniversary show on time.
, and more importantly, be entered to win a VIP trip for two to Coachella. Topics will be changing throughout the week, so get your search on and keep playing to increase your chances of winning!
