Lionsgate released the first trailer for the ensemble pregnancy comedy What to Expect When You’re Expecting, inspired by the best-selling self-help book. Featuring a big cast of popular actresses and actors, while not on the level of Valentine’s Day, it still gives off that vibe with the main difference coming from having pregnant women, lots and lots of pregnant women.

You can guess from the trailer that this film is about a few couples and the way they prepare for parenthood. But really, the story is not the main focus here, the cast is and chances are there’s at least one actor in here that you might like (more or less). So without further ado, What to Expect When You’re Expecting stars the following: Anna Kendrick, Elizabeth Banks, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Brooklyn Decker, Chace Crawford,  Dennis Quaid, Rodrigo Santoro, Chris Rock and a bunch of others, the complete list is here.

Directed by Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee, Everybody’s Fine), What to Expect When You’re Expecting opens on May 11th 2012 in the US, clearly aiming to become one of the heavy-hitters of that extremely competitive month.

Read similar posts to First trailer for What to Expect When You’re Expecting at Filmonic

Sony has announced that Bad Teacher, starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timerlake and Jason Segel, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 18, 2011.

Bad Teacher continued the successful trend of R-rated comedies this summer by making $192 million worldwide on a budget of just $20 million. Cameron Diaz also joined the Bridesmaids gang in proving female-driven comedies can be funny, and people will turn out to watch.

The unrated version will have over 6 additional minutes of footage, but the theatrical version will also be available.

Special features include:

- Deleted scenes
- Outtakes
- Way Behind The Scenes with Jason and Justin featurette
- Raising More Than Funds featurette
- Gag reel (Blu-Ray only)
- JAMS Interactive Yearbook (Blu-Ray only)
- A Very Odd Blacksmith Story featurette (Blu-Ray only)
- Swimming With The Dolphins featurette (Blu-Ray only)
- Good Teacher featurette (Blu-Ray only)

The film follows a foul-mouthed, junior high teacher (Cameron) who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague.

Read similar posts to Bad Teacher hitting DVD and Blu-ray in October at Filmonic

The plot may not be as clever as a Bad Santa per se; but the blunt, crude & heartless dialogue keeps this predictable romp from going limp.  And the timely placed fun bags, erections, drug use and dry-humping sequences served a purpose in providing the audience with a series of hearty chuckles.

Bad Teacher is exactly what you’d expect to be.  It’s 92 minutes of characters saying what they’ve always wanted to, set in a middle-school atmosphere, where every teacher has their own unique persona.  Cohesive storytelling & character development are tossed aside to make room for sudden bursts of F-bombs while degrading an innocent student.  Although the balance of all these elements is about as smooth as a fat kid trying to run on an inclining treadmill, the script – which is a more-or-less series of comedic bits – is the kind of light, immature thinking we all need every now and then.

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) somehow became a middle-school teacher in a suburban Chicago school.  She cares nothing about the students or staff; and the only reason she went for this gig is to land a rich guy to put a ring on her finger and spoil her self-imposed trophy-wife booty (sounds like my town).  Her plan seemed to be working just fine until she is kicked to the curb by her recent loaded fiancée.  Left with absolutely nothing, she has to move into a shanty apartment with some guy from Craigslist (Eric Stonestreet) – who still wears zumba pants – and crawls back to her teaching job that she recently ditched.

Completely miserable, she avoids dealing with the faculty and simply plays movies such as Dangerous Minds, for her students, all while taking shots of bourbon from her desk drawer and smoking some “medicinal” marijuana in her POS car.  She’s not completely unmotivated though, for her goal to land another sugar daddy revolves around earning roughly 10K to buy a new pair of tits (very resourceful).  And for whatever reason, she is cool sharing this with the other teachers: the naïve Lynn (Phyllis Smith from The Office); the secure down-to-earth, gym-teacher (Jason Segel); and the over-bubbly, star faculty member in Ms. Squirrel (Lucy Punch).

She begins to perk up a bit more at her duties when a new substitute – with family money – begins teaching in Mr. Delacorte (Justin Timberlake).  Trying to lure the sophisticated, sensitive, well-dressed guy becomes her main priority.  At this point, the plot shifts to seeing if Elizabeth will be able to keep up the charade – with Ms. Squirrel watching her every move – while trying to seduce the new teach.  And enhance her chest, of course.

Cameron Diaz doesn’t necessarily rock this stage as Billy Bob Thornton did as a drunken Santa.  (She does rock some sexy attire though).   She’s more of a solid riffing rhythm guitarist who compliments all the other players quite well, and even gets to do a few lead solos that will resonate with audience.  The supporting players are the ones that steal a lot of the show here.  Jason Segel is the drummer in this band.  He doesn’t have much stage presence, but whenever his “instrument” is featured, he brings the house down with his pitch perfect delivery.  Taking the helm as the closest thing to a front man, well, in this case, woman, is Lucy Punch.  Now a few “lyrics” do not get the reaction from the crowd the writers were hoping for.  That said, her spontaneous performance ignited every scene she was a part of.  (Think I just described Motley Crue by the way).

Since there’s a true musician in this cast, Justin Timberlake had the hardest challenge of all…looking so un-cool.  It’s tough to completely buy his character, because he naturally has a stigma that surrounds from his other endeavors.  The guy makes it work despite being overshadowed by all the other relatable performances.

A lot of the sequences – and some of the characters to a certain extent – were missed opportunities.  A butch teacher (Jillian Armenante) and the scantly used Principal (John Michael Higgins) could have been placed in more creative moments.  The fail-safe of this script was to just have these, and all the above mentioned performers, to enact a tourette’s-like episode and start cursing or struggle with Diaz‘s character‘s obnoxious antics.  It is funny, because it happens in the environment of a school.  But the viewer can kind of see it coming, so these actions aren’t all that shocking as they were intended to be.

This script isn’t clichéd as it could have been and the raucous dialogue made sure it wouldn’t falter in that respect.  Having said that, the intelligence of the scenarios Cameron Diaz is positioned in (no pun) is perhaps too fundamental and could have been better.  The reason they work is because her character doesn’t lose the R-rated edge even with the foreshadowed themes the flick is obviously building toward.  She still swears like a pirate and her unapologetic persona keeps the viewer casually waiting for what she’ll do next.  The one-liners hit more than they miss (barely), but there is an awkward silence on a few of them.  As in, not funny at all.  As in why were they left in the final cut?  Solution:  Quick, pan to hard-on or somebody swear.

Overall, Bad Teacher isn’t destined to be a comedy treasure as the trailer suggested.  The jagged, under-developed script sealed the deal on that.  The flick will find a place in people’s minds though, thanks to its desire to stay “Bad” the entire way through.

RATING: 3 out of 5

Read similar posts to Review: Bad Teacher at Filmonic

Normally a movie starring Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake would cause me to gag a little bit. However, Bad Teacher also has Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and How I Met Your Mother), Lucy Punch (Hot Fuzz and Dinner For Shmucks), and Phyllis Smith from The Office. Despite the title, it’ll probably be a long way from Bad Santa, but hopefully more irreverent and funny than your average PG rom-com.

The film follows a foul-mouthed, junior high teacher who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague. Check out the trailer below:

See? I think there might be some potential. Bad Teacher is set to be released June 24th.

Read similar posts to Bad Teacher trailer at Filmonic

When it came to The Green Hornet, I was more curious than anything else. What would a buddy-cop action superhero comedy written by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg and directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) look like? Don’t let its troubled production history fool you – this is actually a really enjoyable movie. I’ve been calling it this year’s The A-Team; the plot makes very little sense at times and the physics are ridiculous, but it’s a lot of fun to watch.

The opening scene is a good representation of the tone we get in the rest of the film. A young Britt Reid has his favorite superhero toy’s head ripped off by his father, an overbearing news magnate played by Tom Wilkinson. While not subtle in the least, the message is clear: this is not going to be your typical superhero movie. Turns out that promise is only partly true; The Green Hornet plays on the conventions of the superhero film that we all recognize but succeeds in separating itself enough from the pack that it stands as its own relatively unique project. Ten years after Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man helped usher nerd culture to the mainstream, it’s impressive that any superhero movie can feel even remotely fresh.

As to be expected from a script co-written by Rogen and Goldberg, the characters here feel especially self-aware. Nowhere is this more evident in the case of the main villain, a character named Chudnofsky underplayed by Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz (in a role originally played by Nic Cage). Chudnofsky is not your normal Los Angeles gangster: he’s constantly worried about his reputation and how scary he appears to his fellow members of the underworld. He carries around a gun with two barrels (“very difficult to make”) and seems to take criticism of his clothing choices to heart. He’s a likeable villain, someone with enough little character moments to overshadow the lack of originality in his evil plan. (At one point, he wants to change his name to “Bloodnofsky” because he thinks it sounds scarier.)

A high profile cameo in the early minutes of the movie adds to the humor of the villainous portrayals. He comments about the furniture in his lair (“I’ve got sh*tloads of glass everywhere…I have a see-through piano!”) and seems totally aware of both the ridiculousness of his surroundings and the expectations of how a movie villain is supposed to dress and behave. This is easily one of the most entertaining scenes in the film.

The rest of the movie hints at a deeper understanding of the genre and its conventions, but seems to stick just a little too close to the formulaic nature of an origin story instead of truly mining new ground. Long sections of the film that feel as if we’ve seen similar content before are almost enough to make us question the flashes of creativity which with Gondry peppers the movie – almost. If you’re even loosely familiar with Gondry’s filmography (which includes Eternal Sunshine, The Science of Sleep, Be Kind Rewind, etc.), then you’re aware of the man’s distinct visual style. That gets lost through most of The Green Hornet, but the occasions in which those touches make it on screen are pretty spectacular. Kato’s fight sequences turn the character into an almost Terminator-like character (complete with red eyes), with Gondry opting for POV vision that highlights bad guys’ weapons in red but puts martial arts on full display. Perhaps the most “Gondry-esque” scene plays out near the end of the film, in a lengthy exposition scene that would be unbearable if not for his unique approach.

Seth Rogen dropped a lot of weight for this movie, and looks good as a result. He never shows much of a physical presence as the masked hero (or is it anti-hero?) Britt Reid, but he doesn’t have to: he can hide behind the toys designed by his coffee maker/mechanic Kato (played by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou). A gas gun and the infamous Black Beauty are utilized to their full potential, though some could make the argument that the latter is a bit overused. They seem to form a friendship fairly quickly, but there’s no conceivable reason as to why Kato would want to be friends with Britt in the beginning – he’s kind of a douche who only finds his calling as the Hornet after what essentially is a lucky break during a drunken night out with Kato. In real life, Chou’s language barrier hinders the banter of the characters; it’s clear Rogen, who cut his teeth in improv comedy, wishes he could have someone who could keep up with him in that area, and the film is written as if Chou has those abilities even though he’s clearly lacking.

Regardless, the characters’ friendship progresses and the rest of the movie is spent meandering through ganglands with them as they dispense vigilante justice however they wish. This pisses off Chudnofsky, who is watching the Hornet rack up massive media attention while he gets left in the dust. Since Britt’s father died (under suspicious circumstances – guess if THAT will come back as a plot point), Britt now controls a huge media empire and devotes all the resources of the newspaper to giving coverage to the Green Hornet. Britt and Kato know nothing about journalism or the criminal life they’re trying to infiltrate, so they enlist the help of the unwitting Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz in a forgettable part), a secretary who basically uses her “minor in criminology” to inform the guys’ decisions as the film progresses. Like I said – much of this film makes very little sense.

For me, the most surprising aspect of this movie was how great the 3D looked. This is some of the best post-converted 3D we’ve seen, and this film stands as a beacon that this process can be completed with successful results if done correctly. Much has been made of the rise of 3D, and many of the complaints surround dark picture quality and murky visuals. There’s none of that to be found here, since Gondry and company have somehow cracked the code: the image is crisp, and even scenes set in the dark pop and have nice contrast. And I don’t think I can rave about this enough: the final credits sequence looks phenomenal. Even if you absolutely hate the film, go to sleep and wake up for the end credits because that’s nearly worth the price of admission.

I’m not sure how many people are truly anticipating The Green Hornet, considering it’s based on a character popularized on the radio in the 1930′s and in an almost forgotten TV series playing second fiddle to Adam West’s “Batman.” But if you’re willing to excuse many of the logical flaws and a preposterous climax involving a car riding in an elevator, I think you’ll find a few things to like about this film. Until next time…

Read similar posts to Review: The Green Hornet at Filmonic

Columbia Pictures has released a new poster for The Green Hornet. In the film Seth Rogen plays Britt Reid whose father mysteriously dies, leaving him his vast media empire. Britt teams up with one of his father’s employees named Kato (Jay Chou), and with the help of Britt’s new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), they begin hunting down the man who controls LA’s gritty underworld: Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).

Check out the dark and mysterious poster out below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KZ8pJkHLi8

The Green Hornet will be released in January 2011 and is directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

Read similar posts to New Green Hornet poster at Filmonic

20th Century Fox has announced that Knight and Day starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 30th. The film failed to make its budget back in the US (only $76 million) but overseas it did better with $150 million, giving it a total of $230 million worldwide. You can read Filmonic’s review here, and check out the DVD cover and specs below.

KNIGHT AND DAY 3-Disc Combo Pack Blu-ray with Digital Copy

Disc 1:

• BD Disc with Theatrical Version
• Wilder Knights and Crazier Days
• Boston Days and Spanish Knights
• Knight and “Someday”: Featuring the Black Eyed Peas and Tom Cruise
• Viral Video: Soccer
• Viral Video: Kick
• Knight and Day: Story
• Knight and Day: Scope
• Theatrical Trailer
• BD-Live Extras
• What’s New
• Live LookUp
• Exclusive: Not Your Regular Spy
• Highlight: Excerpt from Wilder Knights and Crazier Days

Disc 2:

• DVD with Theatrical Version
• Wilder Knights and Crazier Days
• Knight and “Someday”: Featuring the Black Eyed Peas and Tom Cruise
• Viral Video: Soccer
• Viral Video: Kick
• Theatrical Trailer

Disc 3:

• Digital Copy

KNIGHT AND DAY Limited Time Only Holiday Gift Set 2-Disc

Disc 1:

• BD Disc with Theatrical Version
• Wilder Knights and Crazier Days
• Boston Days and Spanish Knights
• Knight and “Someday”: Featuring the Black Eyed Peas and Tom Cruise
• Viral Video: Soccer
• Viral Video: Kick
• Knight and Day: Story
• Knight and Day: Scope
• Theatrical Trailer
• BD-Live Extras
• What’s New
• Live LookUp
• Exclusive: Not Your Regular Spy
• Highlight: Excerpt from Wilder Knights and Crazier Days

Disc 2:

• DVD with Theatrical Version
• Wilder Knights and Crazier Days
• Knight and “Someday”: Featuring the Black Eyed Peas and Tom Cruise
• Viral Video: Soccer
• Viral Video: Kick
• Theatrical Trailer

KNIGHT AND DAY 1-Disc DVD Special Features

• Theatrical Version
• Wilder Knights and Crazier Days
• Knight and “Someday”: Featuring the Black Eyed Peas and Tom Cruise
• Viral Video: Soccer
• Viral Video: Kick
• Theatrical Trailer

You can now pre-order Knight and Day from Amazon on: DVD | Blu-ray

Read similar posts to Knight and Day DVD and Blu-ray details at Filmonic

When the first official trailer for The Green Hornet hit a few weeks ago it surprised a few people as it actually looked pretty watchable. There was talk of a turd following Columbia’s decision to push it back to January and convert it into 3D, add to that it is the first superhero movie to go the comedic route as opposed to being ‘dark and gritty’.

Well today Sony released a new UK trailer for the film, and it contains a bunch of few scenes including more slo-mo action shots and more of Christoph Waltz (although we have yet to hear him speak).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KZ8pJkHLi8

In the film Seth Rogen plays Britt Reid whose father mysteriously dies, leaving him his vast media empire. Britt teams up with one of his father’s employees named Kato (Jay Chou), and with the help of Britt’s new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), they begin hunting down the man who controls LA’s gritty underworld: Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).

The Green Hornet will be released in January 2011 and is directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), although you wouldn’t have thought it.

Read similar posts to International Green Hornet trailer at Filmonic

Knight and Day suffers from what I see as one of the most egregious transgressions possible in the film world: being completely average. The most interesting films are almost always either A) great movies or B) unmitigated disasters worthy of tearing apart. Since Knight and Day isn’t especially interesting, it doesn’t fall into either category; James Mangold has made some impressive films before (Cop Land, Walk the Line, 2007′s 3:10 to Yuma), but this isn’t one of them. This film doesn’t ask to be taken seriously, but it fails to convincingly bring us along for the ride.

Much has been made of Tom Cruise’s behavior over the past few years, but I’ve remained staunchly in the camp that appreciates his acting talents and still considers him an entertaining personality. He can do whatever he wants off screen, and as long as he entertains me when I buy a ticket to one of his films, I’ll be pleased. Knight and Day was hailed as his comeback film – “Tom Cruise at his ‘Jerry Maguire‘ best,” the TV spots proclaimed – but so far it has performed poorly at the box office. Since the film’s opening, there have been many articles written about how Cruise’s career is over, proclaiming he’s no longer the bankable actor he once was. Sure, he might not bring in as much money as he did in his prime, but I don’t think Cruise is anywhere near the end of his career. The guy just got an entire film greenlit centered on Les Grossman, his character in Tropic Thunder. And he’s still got the upcoming fourth installment of Mission: Impossible franchise. He’s not going anywhere. Pajiba has a pretty good article up about this very topic right now, so head that way if you’re interested.

Make no mistake, though – Tom Cruise makes Knight and Day watchable. The film certainly can’t depend on Cameron Diaz to hold the movie on her shoulders; she’s not offensively bad or anything, but she simply doesn’t have the charisma that Cruise effortlessly exudes on screen. There’s something about his affable persona (“I’m the guy! I’m the guy!”) that makes him mesmerizing to watch. The Jerry Maguire connection can certainly be felt in lines of dialogue like the “With me…without me” repetition bit from the trailers, echoing the delivery style of his famous “Help me help you!” line from the 1996 film.

But try as Cruise might, even he can’t manage to make this script believable. It’s Mission: Impossible Lite, a spy story not imbued with any sense of danger and reliant on a script that increasingly tests the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief. Any time the main characters get into a predicament that seems insurmountable, one of them is drugged and then, through flashes of consciousness, the problem is miraculously solved off screen. This is the debut feature for writer Patrick O’Neill, and his lack of experience and creativity translates to the final product. Lazy writing prevents us from actually seeing the most interesting parts of the film, and even though Mangold tries to cover for it with out-of-focus blurriness and POV shots, it’s painfully obvious that these scenes equate to a massive cop out.

There are other problems, too: Diaz’s character is not particularly likable, and makes a series of bad decisions that make it hard for the audience to pull for her to succeed. Her chemistry with Cruise is present, but not overly convincing. There’s a truth serum sequence that’s been done to death in action comedy films long before this one (True Lies immediately comes to mind), and the ending – while shying away from a terrible finale I thought they would settle for – is cliche to the point of nausea. I’m guessing a sizeable portion of the film’s budget went to special effects, which, for the most part, were disappointingly dismal. Also, the title only makes partial sense – you’ll see why if you see the movie.

The supporting cast may as well not have shown up at all. Viola Davis is a one-note CIA chief, and Maggie Grace, who plays Diaz’s character’s sister, has little more than a cameo. Peter Sarsgaard (an actor I usually really like – he was fantastic in Shattered Glass) had one of the worst Southern accents I’ve heard in recent memory, and was just godawful as a fellow agent out to get Cruise’s character. Paul Dano, a guy I consider to be one of the best young actors in Hollywood right now, was horribly miscast as a tech nerd who developed The Zephyr, a MacGuffin that moves the plot forward. Dano has done some really great work in the past, and the only reason I can figure he’d be willing to do this part is to fulfill a childhood fantasy about working with Tom Cruise. [Note - I have no idea if Dano actually had a childhood fantasy about working with Tom Cruise.] A lot of actors could have played this part, considering how little he actually appeared in the film; Dano didn’t add much to it and I wish he used this time to fully explore his talents elsewhere. Combined, all of these supporting actors shared about ten minutes of screen time.

To be fair, this movie does have some good moments. The opening plane scene is very fun to watch, and there are a few “Tom Cruise running” shots across the rooftops of Vienna that will make solid additions to the montage videos on YouTube. There’s also a sequence in which Cameron Diaz accidentally empties a full magazine of bullets from an automatic weapon, swinging her arm frantically in circles around Tom Cruise’s character, who tries to dodge her erratic fire and – SPOILER! – narrowly avoids getting shot. It’s a scene that sounds kind of stupid on paper, but works pretty well in the film; I’ve never seen it done before on screen, and in an action-comedy that seems content to be a mashup of True Lies, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and every other “couple spy” movie of the past few years, any new idea presented on screen makes me take note.

There were two parts that I freaking loved about this film. One involved a quick “Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions” shot, but the other was a bit more complicated. Sarsgaard enters a train car where Cruise and Diaz were just minutes before and examines the window. Breathing directly on it, he discovers someone traced a circle with his/her finger on the glass. As Sarsgaard looks through the circle, he sees Cruise – wearing sunglasses, natch – in the busy crowd outside, standing directly in the center of the circle. Cruise then instantly disappears. Let’s think about that for a second. For someone to have the foresight to not only know that his opponent is going to inexplicably breathe on the glass and draw a circle on it, and also figure out the exact angle at which his opponent would look through the aforementioned circle and stand in that exact spot is nothing short of amazing. For this feat alone, Tom Cruise’s character should be given The Most Badass Guy in the History of Ever award.

Knight and Day reminds me of 2008′s Vantage Point: that film had a great cast, an interesting premise, and was well-directed, but somehow ended up being almost totally forgettable. The whole was inexplicably not as good as the sum of its parts. This movie, despite having a decent cast and a competent director, just can’t overcome a level of mediocrity that holds it down and prevents it from being one of this summer’s better theatrical offerings. (Note: this summer has also been one of the most disappointing in years.) Save your money and catch this one on TNT in 2012. Until next time…

Read similar posts to Review: Knight and Day at Filmonic

The first official trailer for The Green Hornet has been released online. In the film Seth Rogen plays Britt Reid whose father mysteriously dies, leaving him his vast media empire. Britt teams up with one of his father’s employees named Kato (Jay Chou), and with the help of Britt’s new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), they begin hunting down the man who controls LA’s gritty underworld: Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).

It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would. There have been some negative reports that have surfaced following Columbia’s decision to push it back to January and convert it into 3D, but it looks pretty watchable. Although I wouldn’t have thought Michel Gondry is the man behind it.

Watch the trailer below:

Cameron Diaz and Christoph Waltz seem a bit underused but that may be different for the next trailer. After winning an Oscar for Inglourious Basterds Waltz has jumped onto the radar of many movie-goers so they will be wise to show a more of him in the marketing.

What do you think of the trailer?

Read similar posts to The Green Hornet trailer at Filmonic