Aug 19 2009 'When in Rome' Trailer: 'Sex and the City' with Fewer Ladies, More Supernatural

What happens when you mix the torturous I'm-a-Manhattan-lady-looking-for-love voice-over of Sex and the City; advertisements for the music of Jason Mraz, The Academy Is, and a group that chose to name themselves 3OH!3; the unfortunate, image-tarnishing presence of Will Arnett; chromakey that somehow looks far, far worse than your local weatherman standing in front of the StormTracker screen; and magic? Let me show you:

Continue Reading " 'When in Rome' Trailer: 'Sex and the City' with Fewer Ladies, More Supernatural "

Apr 1 2009 Will I Be Able to Take Will Arnett Seriously in 'Jonah Hex'?

Ah, some much-needed Will Arnett to tide us over until the Arrested Development movie (I'm still pretending the Arrested Development movie will happen). The Hollywood Reporter has announced the actor, most famous for portraying Gob on the beloved sitcom, and Michael Shannon have joined Jonah Hex:

Will Arnett and Oscar nominee Michael Shannon are boarding "Jonah Hex," Warner Bros. and Legendary's action Western based on the DC Comics character.

Jimmy Hayward is directing "Hex," whose cast also includes Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and Megan Fox. It's the story of Hex (Brolin), a scarred bounty hunter tracking a voodoo practitioner (Malkovich) who wants to raise an army of the undead to liberate the South.

Arnett will play a Union soldier who enlists Hex and is blindsided by the dirty fighting style of his enemies. The role is not inherently comic.

I don't want to typecast someone as talented as Will Arnett, but keep trying to imagine him being sincere and I'm getting absolutely nothing. I can only conjure images of Gob in a cowboy hat, his raspy voice muttering "Jonah" in the same suspicious, condescending tone he so often whispered "Michael." But in fairness, prior to Jim Carrey's dramatic breakthroughs, I probably would have only been able to imagine him doing The Truman Show as Fire Marshal Bill, so I'm sure Arnett will be fine.

Mar 23 2009 David Cross Back on TV... in the UK

Broadcast Now reports David Cross, who's already made himself a TV favorite with Mr. Show and Arrested Development, will star in a new comedy pilot he's written with Shaun Pye. Fellow Americans, time to warm up our downloading machines, because this one's going Channel 4:

The US actor will star in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, a culture-clash comedy he has written with Shaun Pye for RDF Television. It centres on a US executive who finds himself out of his depth when he is mistakenly sent to run his company's UK arm. Cross' Arrested Development co-star Will Arnett is also in talks to appear.

UK, is it not enough you've already made most of the recent great television comedy? Now you're stealing some of our best people to work for you too? This must be how every non-US-based sports fan feels.

Mar 19 2009 'Sit Down, Shut Up' Promo: Bateman v. Arnett

Sit Down, Shut Up! I forgot all about the upcoming animated series that will reunite Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz with Jason Bateman and Will Arnett until this promo reminded me we're getting that. We've won. In the video, Bateman and Arnett manage to take the rarely-funny fake feud concept and make it actually funny by including the word "breasty." We won again. And knowing Fox, this will be the closest the series comes to having a second season:

Continue Reading " 'Sit Down, Shut Up' Promo: Bateman v. Arnett "

Dec 31 2008 'G-Force' Trailer: Talking Guinea Pigs This Time

So many great people in this--Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Tracy Morgan, Sam Rockwell, Bill Nighy, Steve Buscemi--yet it still comes off as a poor attempt at Alvin and the Chipmunks-izing Disney's Rescue Rangers. Every day for like two years, some guy went home to his wife every night and gave her news like, "I got the Nicolas Cage mole's mouth to move more in sync today," and, "I've almost tweaked the Penelope Cruz guinea pig to look oddly sexual when she sashays, even though she still has the body of a guinea pig," just so we could have this:

Continue Reading " 'G-Force' Trailer: Talking Guinea Pigs This Time "

Dec 23 2008 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Trailer

Dreamworks has released another trailer to its next unremarkable, celebrity-voiced CGI effort, Monsters vs. Aliens. It's no Steven Seagal v. Vampires, but what is?

Continue Reading " 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Trailer "

Nov 13 2008 Popular Actor/Comedians Providing Voices to CGI Family Comedy

Sorry, trained voice actors, an all-celebrity roster led by Steve Carell is once again dominating the cast of a new animated film called Despicable Me:

Illumination Entertainment topper Chris Meledandri has kicked off his Universal Pictures-based family film unit with "Despicable Me," a 3-D CG-animated film that has Steve Carell voicing the title character.

Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, Danny McBride, Russell Brand, Jemaine Clement ("Flight of the Conchords"), Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") and Julie Andrews are providing the other lead voices. The film will be released in 2010.

Carell's title character is a deplorable man known as Groo who masterminds the mother of all heists when he plots to steal the moon. Egged on by an evil mother (Andrews), Groo finds one obstacle in his way: a trio of orphan girls who temporarily come under his care and won't leave.

I'm normally pretty skeptical about any computer-animated family comedy that isn't a Pixar, but I'll give this a pass for now because:

- This is a really good cast of mostly genuinely funny people, not Angelina Jolies.

- It isn't a sequel.

- I like the plan of stealing the moon. It's like Chairface Chippendale's plan to carve his name in the moon, but even more grandiose. How do you steal the moon? I'm willing to find out for now.

But so help me, first mention of anything equivalent to liking to "move it" and I'm done.

Steve Carell to voice 'Despicable' [Variety]

Nov 4 2008 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Trailer: Classic Match-Up

Monsters versus aliens: classic match-up. Brute size and strength versus advanced technology. Unless we're talking about Aliens aliens, then it's brute size and strength versus acid blood and a smaller mouth inside the normal mouth. And sometimes are greatest "monsters" are in fact man (HITLER!). Still though, classic match-up, and it's just the battle you'll find inside DreamWorks' aptly-titled CGI comedy, Monsters vs. Aliens. Here is the trailer:

Continue Reading " 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Trailer: Classic Match-Up "

May 7 2008 'The Rocker' Trailer: Better Than Watching an Old Man Being Carted Off by Paramedics

Being a blogger allows one a lot of luxuries you don't get when you have to go into an office. You can stay in your pajamas as long as you want; play loud and/or obnoxious music; work anywhere with an internet connection; and, when the occasion calls for it, you can watch half an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood while you eat a bowl of Kashi, like I did yesterday. Since most of you probably weren't afforded this extravagance, let me give you a brief synopsis: Mr. Rogers visited a couple of EMTs. A firm believer in "show, don't tell," Rogers was placed in a neck brace, strapped to a gurney (he was first instructed to "hug himself," to give more of the illusion of a corpse), and thrown in the back of an ambulance--just like he really broke his neck! The entire time, a huge grin was spread across his face, as he asked questions like, "Do you have something smaller to strap a kid into?" (They did.)

As is probably apparent, it was utterly terrifying--particularly when they actually brought out the child-size straps and showed how they'd velcro in a kid's limp head. But, as Fred would later explain, the point was never to give children (or me) nightmares of a dead Mr. Rogers, the sheet slowly being drawn over his permanent grin; he just wanted to prepare us in case we break our neck.

Similarly, I now present you with the trailer to The Rocker, starring The Office's Rainn Wilson, Jeff Garlin, Will Arnett and some other funny, talented people. I show you this not because it's so worth watching, but because it looks very mediocre-at-best, and it's better you know that now than to feel the shocking disappointment in theaters. I assure you, it's much less scarring than the Fred Rogers death simulation I watched yesterday.

'The Rocker' Trailer [Yahoo!]

Apr 15 2008 'Arrested Development' Reunion! ...in a Sense

Limbs, parental love, that thing you cherished that you let go to see if it was always yours or if it was never meant to be: when some things go, no matter how beautiful, they're gone for good, and you have to accept that. And while it's looking more and more like our beloved Arrested Development is going to belong to this tragic category, all hope for a television reunion is not lost. Sort of. According to The Hollywood Reporter, AD creator Mitch Hurtwitz has brought his former colleagues Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler on to the voice cast of his new animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up. Also, some other decent people:

"Sit Down," from Tantamount, Sony and Granada, centers on staff members at a high school who are preoccupied with their own needs and agendas, which means the students come second. Fox greenlighted a table read of "Sit Down," based on the live-action Australian series, last month.

Also joining the voice cast are Cheri Oteri, Will Forte, Regina King, Nick Kroll, Tom Kenny and Maria Bamford.

So even if we never get that Arrested Development movie, at least we can take some solace in this, a show we'll probably enjoy but also complain about being worse than its predecessor (see case of The Office v. Extras).

'Arrested Development' reunion in Fox pilot [Hollywood Reporter]

Mar 28 2008 News from the Bluth Household!

Sorry, no, it's not the Arrested Development movie you hoped for. But the two do have new, equally inauspicious projects coming up! Bateman will direct the pilot of Fox's The Inn, being described as "Upstairs/Downstairs set at a hip New York hotel"; Arnett has joined Dax Shepard, Jon Heder, Kristen Bell, et al in the cast of When in Rome, a high-concept comedy about magical coins(!) written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Simon Birch). It's times like these that we need a Bluth reunion more than ever.

Mar 11 2008 First 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Shot in ULTIMATE 3-D

DreamWorks has passed along some new information about upcoming kiddie-style B-movie, Monster Aliens, including the above shot of a giant gaunt woman and some monsters, a cast list, and the bitter threat of even higher ticket prices.

Reese Witherspoon as Susan Murphy, a modern-day California girl who has the bad luck to be hit by a meteor on her wedding day and grows to be 49 feet, 11½ inches tall (a wink at 1958's The Attack of the 50-Foot Woman). Captured by the military, she's renamed Ginormica.

Joining her giantess to fend off Rainn Wilson's evil alien Gallaxhar are Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (Hugh Laurie), the jellylike B.O.B. (Seth Rogen) and the half-ape, half-fish Missing Link (Will Arnett). Kiefer Sutherland speaks for Gen. W.R. Monger (get it?), and Stephen Colbert is the president.

Good to hear Rogen could find time from being in every other comedy to join this, and that they were able to nail several quirky television actors popular with hip, young demographics--hearing the voices of House and Dwight Schrute should distract me from the mediocre attempt at one-upping Pixar--but what's the deal with the higher ticket prices?

Continue Reading " First 'Monsters vs. Aliens' Shot in ULTIMATE 3-D "

Feb 7 2008 Why Val Kilmer is a Bad Car Voice for 'Knight Rider'

Val Kilmer has signed on to replace Will Arnett as the voice of KITT in NBC's veiled Ford Mustang commercial, Knight Rider. Problems with Arnett came about when GMC--whom the Arrested Development star has worked with as the less-literal voice of their trucks--realized he would be schilling Ford products through a weak action plot.

So why is Val Kilmer such a poor replacement? Do you not remember his work in Batman Forever? (It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to embed this, so please listen.)

Dreth? Thircuth? Thircuth?!

Val Kilmer voices 'Knight Rider' [Variety]

Dec 26 2007 'Knight Rider' Teaser Has Made a Huge Mistake

This teaser for NBC's attempt at bringing interest to Knight Rider is very short, pointless, and looks like the introduction of a Fear Factor challenge, but it does let you hear Will Arnett's update to the voice of their talking car. Does anyone else think they made him say "Hello, Mike" instead of "Michael" so that we wouldn't think we were watching Arrested Development remade with cars?

Continue Reading " 'Knight Rider' Teaser Has Made a Huge Mistake "

Dec 26 2007 'Semi-Pro' R-Rated Trailer Pushes D-Sucking Envelope

This is yet another goofy sports movie, with Will Ferrell playing the standard wacky, funny-haired Will Ferrell character you've come to expect, but this R-rated trailer seems to be differentiating itself in an odd way: with a deluge of dick jokes (particularly in reference to the sucking thereof) that push beyond even the running gag of Dewey Cox. Truth be told, if you can move beyond the aching feeling that you've seen this movie several times, the presence of Will Arnett, Tim Meadows, Andy Richter, and Matt Walsh adding to Ferrell's overwhelming comedic presence might make this a high point for the genre.

Continue Reading " 'Semi-Pro' R-Rated Trailer Pushes D-Sucking Envelope "

May 23 2007 Crappy Trailer Week Continues with "The Brothers Solomon"

Two of SNL's most useless cast members, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig (She's this generation's Melanie Hussel!), had a three-way with Will Arnett and are giving birth to a turd baby called The Brothers Solomon. As if that weren't enough, it's also a Screen Gems production.

Any of the three are pretty much the kiss of death. Together, they're like the gangbang of death. Or the Voltron of shitty movies. Whatever, you pick the metaphor, I'll be drinking.

Want to make this movie better? Keep the title, cut someone in half.