Ken Jeong Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Apparently, the Japanese American Citizens League thinks so. The group is angry about a scene featuring a racist rant against the Japanese that leads to an ass-kicking of the lone Asian in the group, played by Ken Jeong, who is of Korean heritage.

The AP reports there are other things in the movie that the JACL are displeased with besides the Pearl Harbor rant given by Jeremy Piven's character, Don Ready, like when he uses the word "Jap" and engages in other human resource department nightmares.

Paramount Vantage responded, "We understand that when presented out of context, jokes and situations in the movie about a variety of topics might be offensive to some people... To be very clear, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is in no way meant to be mean-spirited, disparaging or hurtful to any individuals and we regret any offense taken."

If you want to chat about whether or not The Goods tickled your funny bone or pissed you off, producer Adam McKay wants to hear about it. He announced last weekend on Twitter that he'd respond to calls about the movie and live-stream his answers, and based on how it went last Sunday, he is planning to do it again. He's also responsive to Tweets (and is very, very funny), so I suggest you follow him, Goods or no.

Have you seen The Goods? Were you offended?

How strange it is to think that a comedy isn't brash enough or absurd enough or funny enough (okay, that one's not so strange), but the truth about The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is that, while it is brash and absurd and funny in fits and starts, it also seems to lose its nerve as it goes on, running low on laughing gas and coasting to a stop or whatever it is that auto-minded metaphors for auto-minded comedies do.

A wheeler and dealer even in grade school, the now-grown Don Ready (Jeremy Piven) sells cars like nobody's business when somebody's business is in trouble, and that's just the predicament that Ben Selleck (James Brolin) finds himself in. Ready's entourage includes the likes of Ving Rhames, Kathryn Hahn and David Koechner; I'll leave you to guess which of the three is the willful slut. Selleck's staff includes Ken Jeong, Tony Hale and Charles Napier; I'll leave you to determine which of those three suffers most at the racist outbursts of another (hint: not Hale).

Click image below to view full poster

Cinematical has just received this exclusive character poster featuring the hilarious Ken Jeong as Teddy Dang from the upcoming comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard. Starring Jeong, Jeremy Piven, Ed Helms, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Tony Hale, Rob Riggle and an assortment of random comic talent, The Goods follows a used-car liquidator (Piven) who's brought into a flailing car dealership to help them dodge impending bankruptcy by turning one helluva profit during their Fourth of July sale.

The month of August is known for its sleeper comedy; the kind that sneaks up on you after a summer full of overly-hyped popcorn fluff. I remember Accepted being a late-August surprise, as was Superbad -- and now The Goods is shaping up to be this year's raunchy little guilty pleasure. As someone who loves to watch Jeremy Piven lead a rag-tag team of morons to victory (see the excellent PCU), I'm definitely down for a wild late-summer laugher before the fall season begins.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is due in theaters this Friday, August 14th. Click the image below to view the full poster.

It looks like Brooke Shields is making her way back to the big screen, and this time she won't be getting saucy in The Blue Lagoon. After a decade away, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Shields has signed onto the live-action comedy Furry Vengeance. Actually, considering the title, it's probably good to note that this is a family film. There's no word on what role she'll play in the Brendan Fraser flick, which follows a real estate developer who gets a hard time from a band of raccoons. One -- What's the obsession with coons lately? Davey Crockett on the brain? Two -- It might be the usual Fraser fair, but the cast does boast Ken Jeong, Samantha Bee, and Dick Van Dyke as well.

Meanwhile, in the shadow of Parenthood heading to the small screen, THR also posts that Freestyle Releasing has picked up Motherhood, and will release it this October. This is the Uma Thurman/Minnie Driver/Anthony Edwards project that has Uma trying to pull together her daughter's sixth birthday party in the midst of "urban challenges." As the ed note pointed out in the post about her casting last year, "More Goose!" But there's also the perk of a practically fully female production. Katherine Dieckman wrote and directed it, and it's produced by Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon, Jana Edelbaum, and Rachel Cohen. They say: "From the outset, Motherhood has been a labor of love for us. As a collection of female filmmakers, we immediately took to the humor and honesty of the project."

Hopefully the labor is worth it!

And here's... part two!

• Professional wonderman Ken Jeong, who just so happens to be a doctor as well as a comedian, has nabbed himself another high-profile gig. You probably recognize him as the pain-in-the-arse doc from Knocked Up, or maybe from Mad TV, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or Boston Legal. While he's also popping up in Judd Apatow's Pineapple Express, word has come from Variety that he's also nabbed himself a role in Jeremy Piven's The Goods: The Don Ready Story. Leaving his medical know-how aside momentarily, he'll play one of the car salesmen.
  
• Toni Trucks is well, sorry for the pun, trucking along. She's popped up in television shows like Barbershop, Veronica Mars, and All of Us, and she popped up in the musical romcom Music and Lyrics, and now Variety reports that the actress has nabbed herself three indie roles on top of her new role int he VH1 series The Life and Times of Marcus Felony Brown. She's playing Agent Murphy in the mafia and pizza parlor comedy called Pizza with Bullets, as well as a starring role in Hitting the Bricks -- the story of a post-prison man who becomes a recording artist, and finally -- Mr. Art Critic, which has her co-starring with one Mr. Bronson Pinchot. (If you don't know who that is, go watch Perfect Strangers.) After this, maybe she'll take on the world!
• Last but not least, Less than Perfect co-star Sherri Shepherd has nabbed herself a new gig, according to Variety. She's signed on for one of the lead roles in Push, which is currently filming in New York City. The film, a remake of Sapphire's 1997 novel, is about an overweight, illiterate, and pregnant teen who enrolls in an alternative school and learns how to communicate through poetry and language. Shepherd will play someone called "Cornrows." The film will star newcomer Gabourey 'Gabbie' Sidibe as the teen, along Mo'Nique and Lenny Kravitz.
  

Part of me thinks this is a really great thing for the undiscovered talent out there, but then another part of me is a tad worried that MTV is looking to YouTube for their feature film ideas. Whatever you make of it, the deal is done -- and Variety reports that MTV plans to bring the comedy duo (and YouTube stars) Million Dollar Strong to the big screen, with Todd Phillips (Old School) onboard to produce. But before you go and say to your friend: "Holy crap, MTV is turning a couple of YouTube schmucks into stars!," comedians Mike O'Connell and Ken Jeong (aka Million Dollar Strong) have been around the block once or twice already. Which is to say these guys aren't going from mom's basement to movie stardom in just one hop, skip and jump.

The film, like O'Connell and Jeong's ultra popular YouTube music video What's It Gonna Be, will follow the two "playas" while they attempt to take on the hip-hop world. Essentially, it's like extending what amounts to be a hilarious SNL sketch to an hour and a half -- which, as we all know, has worked (Wayne's World) and, well, not so much (A Night at the Roxbury, Stuart Saves His Family, The Ladies Man, etc ...). O'Connell, who's been a standup comedian and recently shot a pilot for Fox, will pen the script, with Jeong (Knocked Up, All About Steve) co-starring. Since I'm a nice guy like that, here's the music video they shot (though keep in mind it does feature some foul language). No director is assigned yet, but I imagine MTV will try to shovel this one out pre-strike.