BradleyCooper Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Set the bar low enough, and it can only be exceeded. That's how I feel about the upcoming big-screen version of The A-Team, a 80s television series entirely beholden to the staid formula of the day and ripe for reinvention. I didn't hate the series so much as I found it routinely mediocre. My colleague Monika Bartyzel loved the series as a kid, yet still questioned the casting choices that were being entertained: Liam Neeson as Hannibal? Bradley Cooper as Face? Adding fuel to the fire, rapper The Game is being considered to play the role of B.A. Baracus, according to blackfilm.com, which quotes "a very highly reliable source in the entertainment industry."

For me, the only thing that made The A-Team watchable was the bantering between the characters, and the choices so far all indicate that director Joe Carnahan is aiming for a more straightforward action picture, based on a script by Wanted's Michael Brandt and Derek Haas. Which is crazy, like moving Miami Vice to Seattle or transforming the lead character in Get Smart into a fairly bland, somewhat competent secret agent. (Even though the latter still made money.)

The mistake would be in confusing brand recognition with brand loyalty. If you're promising fans of the TV show that you're going to deliver the same thing, only bigger and better, then you damn well better deliver something in the same spirit. I haven't seen The Game's work as an actor (Waist Deep, Street Kings) yet; is he any good? If this rumor is true, could he wear the mohawk of the immortal Mr. T?

I'm reaching a point that I don't even want to report on The Green Lantern because its casting and script rumors just haven't reached a satisfying end, despite having a director, a shooting location, and a start date.

Nevertheless, Marc Guggenheim is always dropping a few interesting tidbits when he talks about the Lantern script. The MTV Splash Page was the latest to catch up with him, and he tried to put worried fans to rest by clarifying just what his latest script revisions were. "It's basically the exercise of changing the movie from being just a script that people are reading to being a script that people will actually shoot, perform and produce." He stressed again to pay no attention to casting rumors, even when they're as ruggedly handsome and popular as Bradley Cooper.

But here's the part you Lantern fans will find the most interesting. Guggenheim wouldn't comment on which faces of the Green Lantern Corps will appear in the film, but you will see familiar ones. "One of our rules has been: 'Don't create a new Lantern when a pre-existing one from the comic books would work just as well. There's only one Lantern who we've decided to completely create from scratch, but there's a very specific reason why we've made that decision." Speculate away, my friends, and start those Kilowog petitions now.

It seems redundant and pointless to talk about how intimidating Mike Tyson is, but I admit that I was nervously excited when Cinematical was offered the opportunity to interview him in conjunction with the release of The Hangover. Having spoken to Tommy Lee Jones, the toughest of tough celebrity interviews, I'd survived gauntlets far more fearsome than dealing with a former heavyweight, especially since I'd recently seen Tyson, which offers a portrait of him at his most reflective, self-aware and lucidly articulate. But I did want to get a good, and more importantly real interview with him, not just lob softballs in his direction and be yet another guy who was too scared to ask a substantive question.

Tyson's cameo in The Hangover is just one great moment in a film with plenty of other ones, but it seems to mean more for him, if not also to him: while the film's $45 million opening-weekend haul means higher paychecks and better roles for co-stars Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, its visibility and success gives Tyson a sense of humor, and moreover, a humanity that he's never quite achieved on such a significant scale. Cinematical spoke to Tyson on May 17 in Las Vegas, where the former prizefighter discussed what it meant to appear in the movie, looked back on the experience of making Toback's documentary, and talked about what the future holds for him following his recent adventures on the silver screen.

I could never get enough of The A-Team as a kid, because, well, it was one of those shows that was so much better than the damned cartoons everyone else watched. Because of that, I've been keeping a close eye on the whole A-Team remake through its many incarnations. (Catch up here.)

I was pretty psyched in the beginning of the year, all because of the excellent reader suggestions. Jason Lee or Sam Rockwell as Murdock? Both sounded so splendid that I don't think anyone could compete with these choices -- pure perfection. George Clooney as Hannibal? Yes, please. Brad Pitt as Face? Why not? They're not all hugely original choices, but it's quite easy to see each actor sliding into the action-packed world with a sarcastic smile on their faces.

But the casting isn't going according to our early hopes. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Bradley Cooper is in talks to play Face. Cooper is far from a terrible choice, but it just doesn't have that magic. Surprisingly, I say the same for the other casting notice: Variety reports that -- believe it or not -- Liam Neeson is in talks to play Hannibal. I love the guy, but in this instance, my brain just keeps shouting: "No!"

Maybe there's a brilliance to this that I haven't latched onto yet, but as it stands, it all sounds like a misfire. But what do you think? Is Joe Carnahan onto something with Cooper and Neeson, or do you have better choices?

Todd Phillips scored a hit in 2003 with the raucous R-rated comedy Old School, then for some reason moved to tamer waters for Starsky & Hutch and School for Scoundrels, neither of which amounted to anything. Duly chastened, he now returns home with The Hangover, a movie that's as gleefully dirty as Old School, and maybe funnier.

It's a story of friendship, camaraderie, and alcohol. As such, it can only be set in Las Vegas. That is where Doug (Justin Bartha), who is getting married Sunday, is taken by his friends for an epic bachelor party: Phil (Bradley Cooper), a schoolteacher who hates his students almost as much as he hates being married, is the ringleader; Stu (Ed Helms), a wimpy dentist with a controlling shrew for a girlfriend, is the nervous nellie; Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug's soon-to-be brother-in-law, is the spacey, grubby, possibly mentally handicapped one who recalls Will Ferrell in Old School (which means he also recalls John Belushi in Animal House).

The four embark on a night of revelry. The next morning, Phil, Stu, and Alan wake up in their hotel suite with a tiger and a baby. There's no sign of Doug, the groom-to-be. And no one can remember anything that happened the night before.

As comedy premises go, this one is brilliantly simple. Three hungover guys stumble around Las Vegas in search of clues as to their missing friend's whereabouts, not to mention the origin of the baby and the tiger, and not to mention the other various things that have gone awry that, well, I won't mention. (Spoiler: Ed Helms is missing that tooth in real life.)

We here at Cinematical haven't missed an episode of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifinakis, and we're not about to now since the damn show keeps getting funnier and funnier with each absurd interview. Essentially, this Funny or Die original series stars Galifinakis (the fat, bearded dude in The Hangover) as the ridiculously jaded host of a show that interviews celebrities and asks really bizarre, insulting questions. Of course the celebs know it's not real, but even so this staged version is just as funny.

In the latest installment, Galifinakis interviews his Hangover co-star Bradley Cooper -- who's up for just about every major role you can think of these days, from Green Lantern to the live-action Fat Albert (kidding about that last one, though you never know). The Hangover is definitely shaping up be this summer's most memorable R-rated raunch-fest; in their review of the film, Variety called it a "profanely funny comedy" that "satisfies as a boys-gone-wild laff riot that also clicks as a seriocomic beat-the-clock detective story." Needless to say, the comedy geek in me is itching to see this one. We'll have our full review and interview with director Todd Phillips real soon. In the meantime, check out the NSFW video below ...

Warning: The following includes foul language and is NSFW

For a business that is notoriously slow to develop groundbreaking creative projects, the film industry can be remarkably quick when it comes to cashing in on proven success. Thus, when the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You -- timed for release to capitalize on Valentine's Day earlier this year -- grossed an estimated $94 million for New Line Cinema / Warner Brothers, the company decided to prepare something similar for Valentine's Day next year, reports the New York Times.

Since He's Just Not That Into You featured an ensemble cast of notable actresses (Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston), the new project, imaginatively titled Valentine's Day, hopes to pack Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, and Shirley MacLaine into a storyline about "would-be romantics working their way through a tangle of circumstances in Los Angeles." None of the women have signed on yet, nor has the company's director of choice, Garry Marshall, nor has Ashton Kutcher, whose name has also been floated, but potential Green Lantern Bradley Cooper has agreed to play a man in the movie.

Lionsgate has sown up Halloween with the Saw franchise, so, strictly from a business perspective, this makes good sense. Of course, just packing "names" into a movie for the sake of names won't necessarily work. Still, if Valentine's Day is successful with big stars and establishes a new franchise for New Line, they could populate sequels with less-expensive stars and turn a decent profit for years to come.

The waiting game on The Green Lantern has been kind of agonizing. While they have confirmed Martin Campbell as director a dozen times, as well as its shooting location in Australia, we still don't know who will wield the ring. (But we know who wants to -- right Brian Austin Green?)

Drew McWeeny over at HitFix is exclusively reporting that the choice may be made -- and it might be the handsome and funny Bradley Cooper. The Hangover star is poised to be a breakout star of the summer, and becoming the Emerald Knight would pretty much launch him into superstar territory.

McWeeny stresses that nothing is official yet, and that Campbell likes to look at and screen test a lot of actors before making his choice. "But the process is far enough along that this is more than just a meeting or some spot on a wish list ... But with the film set to shoot later this summer, they've got to start making their choices, and now's the time to put people in front of the camera and see who really works in the suit. I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet that Cooper's going to be the guy."

So DC and Lantern fans, what do you think of Cooper as Hal Jordan? He's got the look and he has a lot of rakish charm that's neccessary for a test pilot. Does he have that special something that would make Abin Sur bestow the ring on him?

What does it take to get a sequel these days? Nothing more than a good response to a trailer and test screenings. Though The Hangover doesn't hit theaters until June 5, the buzz has been good enough that Warner Bros has made a "multimillion dollar commitment" for Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong to make a follow-up.

According to Variety, the trailer brought the house down at ShoWest, encouraging the studio to move forward with a sequel. Phillips will return to direct it, and Warners is making deals to reunite the existing cast of Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms. They hope to go into production later this year.

Now, we all enjoyed the trailers (William Goss brought you the first, Peter Martin brought the second), the cast is top notch, and Phillips' past efforts have been a lot of fun. (I'll even include Starsky & Hutch in that -- I seem to remember the "Don't Give Up On Us Baby" scene at very inopportune moments.)

But it seems like the appeal of a film like The Hangover is because it's a one-shot comedy based around an absurd situation. Sort of like Phillips' Old School, which also was supposed to get the sequel treatment, though one assumes Warners managed to reunite the cast of Hangover for a much cheaper price than it would've taken to get the Old School gang back together. I haven't seen The Hangover, but going purely on on the trailer, where is a sequel going to go? More drunken debauchery which results in another lost friend, and another encounter with Mike Tyson? Might as well throw in a corpse named Bernie for good measure ...

Remember that night you can't forget when you did that thing you can't remember? Director Todd Phillips mines familiar territory for fresh laughs in the new trailer for his upcoming film The Hangover, starring Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms (The Office) as three buddies who lose a friend after a wild bachelor party in Las Vegas.

"Lose," by the way, is not a euphemism for death; they literally can't find the dude (played by Justin Bartha). They wake up on the morning after to discover a trashed hotel room, a tiger in the bathroom and a crying baby in the closet. They piece together the events of the evening before as they try to find the missing groomsman in time for Cooper's wedding, somehow also encountering a real life, former heavyweight boxing champion. I won't spoil all the laughs, but it definitely looks like Old School with more alcohol, a silly, cheerfully incorrect tale of 30-something men celebrating boozing and general debauchery.

Phillips took somewhat of a left turn with School for Scoundrels in 2006, which didn't quite work the way it should have; before that, Starsky & Hutch was funny without being as consistently hilarious as Old School or as warmly goofy as Road Trip. As for Brad Cooper, he has a chance to knock one out of the park in a leading role after yeoman work in comic supporting parts (he was quite good as the star of the very good horror flick Midnight Meat Train). We previously posted a shorter teaser trailer; we've embedded the new, longer one below. The Hangover hits theaters on June 5, courtesy of Warner Brothers.