JB Smoove! Bill Hader! Philip Baker Hall! Eva Mendes! Amy Ryan! Kate Hudson! Danny McBride! Also: Nathan Flomm! Joe Stumpo! Rolly DaVore! These are all varyingly-moronic names now associated with Larry David and director Greg Mottola's HBO movie.
Christina Ricci has agreed to follow-up roles in Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star that stewardess show with a part in The Smurfs 2, as that doesn't seem like such a bad career move at this point. According to the THR report, Ricci will be lending her voice to Vexi, a newly-invented character described as "an evil version of Smurfette," hinting that the next Smurfs adventure could be going for a darkly psychological tone, in which Smurfette's gender isolation finally causes her to manifest--either figuratively or literally--a second self that angrily lashes out against the lustful patriarchy that surrounds her. Or the Smurfs go to Europe this time, and there's a girl Smurf there with black hair instead of blonde.
The just-released official announcement on the film's production start adds that Curb Your Enthusiasm's JB Smoove will similarly play a "new Smurf-like naughty character" named Hackus, who should definitely be retroactively added to the first, New York-set film just so that this can happen with a Smurf:
Based on the true story of someone buying a zoo, Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo stars Matt Damon as a guy who buys a zoo. You follow? See, what happens is Matt Damon gets fed up with being a suburban single dad; he would rather be a single dad in the country, where no one will judge his Tom Hanks Da Vinci Code haircut. So, he does this little inspiring, Jerry Maguire-esque "I cutely quit my job" speech--this is a Cameron Crowe movie after all--and calls his real estate agent, a completely out-of-place J.B. Smoove, who shows him this great place that seems just perfect for a man having a midlife crisis to turn his children into recluses. One problem, though, notes J.B. Smoove: this house is actually a zoo. J.B. Smoove is sorry, but he thought you said you said you wanted to purchase a zoo, Matt Damon. Pretty insane mistake, I know, but he can show you something else that is not a zoo if you'd--"No, no, I've seen a zoo now, and I'm going to buy this zoo," infers Matt Damon, by purchasing a zoo.
Here's a trailer for that as a saccharine-coated movie.
As evidenced by the many wacky outfits being sighted around New York City, shooting on Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator is already well underway, but still casting on continues on the Larry Charles-directed, Saddam Hussein-inspired comedy. Curb Your Enthusiasm scene-stealer JB Smoove is the latest to join the Cohen's cast, continuing his noble work with our most popular improvisation-based Jewish comedians and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, playing "the role of 'Usher' in the film." As for if that means he'll be portraying the mentor of Justin Bieber and singer of the 1998 hit Nice & Slow, it's anyone's guess. Either way, as far as Curb stars-to-movies news goes, this already sounds way more promising than Larry David playing a nun for the Farrelly Brothers' Three Stooges movie. You need to get on Jeff about this, LD.
I hope you like shouting-based entertainment, because a lot more is probably on the way, courtesy of JB Smoove. The comedian already has a supporting part in the upcoming infidelity laugh-em-up Hall Pass and just finished shooting a role in David Gordon Green's The Sitter; now, according to Deadline, he'll also have parts in Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo and Ice Age 4, which is pretty good news except the whole age Ice Age sequel part.
Also for the Smoove future: a single-camera sitcom on Fox being set up by Smoove's Date Night director Shawn Levy and The Office co-executive producer Aaron Shure, which sounds like kind of a decent project if you ignore the prominent involvement of the director of Night at the Museum and Big Fat Liar. More promisingly on the TV front, he's also set to return for another ten episodes of the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here's a reminder of why that's great news:
Yikes, marriage! You know? Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis sure know. They're married to Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate, respectively, and while those two may seem like perfectly decent partners to you and me, these guys can't help but constantly think about effing every passing generic sorority girl. Thankfully, they're given just such a chance when one of the The View's viewpoints tells the wife characters to go ahead and give their men a week off to do all the effing they want--thereby curing them of their dog-like ways when they realize generic sorority girls don't want them, and that they love their wives, and other morals--which she and trailer the repeatedly insist is called a "hall pass," because they would love for that to enter bro parlance prior to the film's release.
Joining Wilson and Sudeikis: Curb Your Enthusiasm's J.B. Smoove, Extras's Stephen Merchant, and According to Jim's "Jim Belushi's Friend," providing the variety of a black guy, a lanky British guy, and a fat guy. No Ken Jeong?
The Farrelly Brothers name might not carry the same weight it did back when Earth was enjoying a collective guffaw at Cameron Diaz's semen-filled coiffure, but the cast of their latest is shaping up so well I'm thinking I might have to give the sibling duo another try despite those grating Sprint ads they made to remind us to turn off our cell phone in the theater. Just look who the Hollywood Reporter says has joined Hall Pass:
Stephen Merchant and J.B. Smoove are joining the New Line comedy that stars Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis and Jenna Fischer. The story revolves around a pair of married couples who decide to experiment with the concept of a free pass for the husbands to use for guilt-free romantic encounters outside their marriages.Merchant and Smoove will play friends of Rick (Wilson) and Fred (Sudeikis) who accompany them as they cut loose and attempt to cash their tickets.
Considering that Merchant and Smoove were inevitable scene-stealers on their respective HBO comedies (Extras, Curb Your Enthusiasm), this can only be good news for the Farrelly Brothers' film. If they can't wring a few more laughs out of someone getting their genitals hurt, no one can. And then what world would this be?
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I Watch Stuff is a movie and video blog dedicated to bringing you the best and worst that Hollywood and the Internet have to offer and then, more often than not, making fun of it because it sucks.
