MichelleTrachtenberg Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It sounded promising when Jason Lee was set to get Thicker back in 2008. Perhaps we'd finally get another taste at the old Lee, the one that made every Kevin Smith movie he graced all the tastier, especially when he'd rant away with all of his comedic snarkiness. He may have left that film, but Lee found an even better project to fill his now Earl-free days. Variety reports that he, along with Michelle Trachtenberg, have signed on for roles in A Couple of Dicks -- Kevin Smith's first project not written by his own pen.

The film, which stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, focuses on two cops who search for a stolen baseball card, rescue a sexy Mexican woman, and face gangsters. With the buddy cop roles long-filled, Lee won't have much face time, but hopefully it will be quality face time. While Trachtenberg plays Willis' daughter, Lee will play her stepfather.

At least it's something. Not a lot, but a hell of a lot more interesting that the family fare that Lee keeps doing. That being said, and even loving Willis' classic cop ways, I wish Lee was taking the role. Wouldn't he make an excellent gruff detective? (If he can't be the new Fletch, he could at least get a blockbuster buddy cop film! Willis and Morgan are already a far cry from the originally cast Robin Williams and James Gandolfini.)

But maybe better fare is on the horizon. What sort of starring role would you like to see Jason Lee take on?

Consider this Burr Steers day on Cinematical. Just as word hits that he's going to work with Anne Hathaway on The Fiance, the trailer for his current film hits the web. Straight from Moviefone, you can check out the all-too-familiar trailer for Seventeen Again above -- the flick where Matthew Perry gets turned back to the age of 17 (as Zac Efron) and goes to school with his kids.

The only thing this trailer doesn't have is a foot-tapping keyboard at FAO Schwartz. Yes, basically this is Big for the next generation. If you can get beyond its derivative flavor, the movie looks decent enough -- all the requisite silliness and jokes. But I do have to ask: How long is Michelle Trachtenberg going to keep up with the teen roles? She's 23, so she isn't into 90210 territory yet, but it'd be nice to see her graduate to the next phase of on-screen life.

Watch the trailer and weigh in below: Will you go see Seventeen Again, or will you just rent Big?

If you want to see the trailer Hi-Def, click on the film's title above.

I don't know why everyone keeps referring to 17 -- the Zac Efron movie in which a 40-year-old guy is suddenly a teen again -- as Big in reverse. Or, as The Hollywood Reporter writes today: "turns the concept of Big on its head." I guess nobody remembers the George Burns-becomes-Charlie Schlatter comedy 18 Again! Either that or it's simply easier to reference Big because it's a million times more well-known. Anyway, there's another movie 17 will make people think of: Back to the Future. Apparently, Efron's character (aka Matthew Perry's character as a teen) becomes the object of a crush -- from his own daughter! Playing the poor girl, who obviously doesn't realize her own Electra complex, is Michelle Trachtenberg. Also joining the cast, which includes Leslie Mann as Efron/Perry's wife and Trachtenberg's mom, is Melora Hardin ("Jan" on TV's The Office) as a high school principal.

So here's what I find strange about the new plot revelation: how is it the daughter doesn't recognize her own father as a young man? Hasn't everyone seen photos of their parents from when they were younger? At least with Back to the Future, in Lea Thompson's defense she hadn't yet birthed Michael J. Fox, and she had no way of ever having seen his face before he traveled back in time and became the object of her desires. In both scenarios, it is pretty gross to think about seriously. According to the main plot synopsis for 17, the reason Efron/Perry enrolls in high school is to be closer to his kids (hey, another movie this reminds me of: Mrs. Doubtfire). I guess he truly gets his wish in a terribly sick sort of way. Production on 17 begins this month.

Casting bites for the day:

• We've got one more person to add to the cast of Topher Grace's Kids in America, the flick about the guy who has that one last chance to get with the girl of his dreams during a party in the 80's. Ice Princess Michelle Trachtenberg began filming in Phoenix last week. Her part: a Cure and New Order-loving goth girl who clashes against "the Flock of Seagulls mentality surrounding her." It might seem like a big jump for the actress, but she was half-way there with Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, so I bet she'll do just fine. Since MTV News says that the film is hoping to be the Dazed and Confused of the 80's, let's hope it does better than That '80s Show.
• There's yet another movie on the pike for Stomp the Yard actor Chris Brown, who has both After School and This Christmas coming later this year. This one is a basketball drama called Phenom. The 17-year-old is the only person cast so far, and there is no director, but he seems to be pretty active in the process: "I'm trying to get Antoine Fuqua, but there are so many different people we're trying to pitch it to as far as the actors and director is concerned." First step: Grammy nom, second step: stomping, third step: the world!
• Lastly, we've got the rest of the main cast set for Sci Fi Channel's upcoming Wizard of Oz re-imagining, Tin Man. Deschanel, Cumming and Dreyfus are being joined by Neal McDonough (The Hitcher) as the Tin Man former cop, Raoul Trujillo (Apocalypto) as Raw, the Wolverine-like creature and Kathleen Robertson (Splendor) as Azkadellia -- the wicked witch. It's not a bad cast to take on the weird project. My interest is up just to see Robertson as the "scintillatingly wicked sorceress." Do you think she'll don the famous tights?

Black Christmas is a slasher film of what I like to call the 'speed-demon' variety. Unlike, say, a Friday the 13th film where Jason Vorhees gets a lot of screen-time, often doing a geriatric stroll toward his intended victims in full view of the camera, the speed-demons are not stars: they are disposable villains who must remain in the shadows, anonymous, until they are finally 'revealed' in the third act. The speed-demon is forced to prowl around outside for most of the running time of the film, tending to the cutting of phone lines, slashing tires, leaving calling-cards or other busy work. When it's time to kill, the speed-demon will typically attack with great speed from outside of camera range or burst out of the closet like a Tazmanian devil, slashing a victim into scissor dolls before the camera has time to get a fix on what's going on. Defenestration is also a good tactic for a speed-demon -- one lightning-fast blur of action, and the busty brunette is sailing down toward the pavement, mission accomplished.

Since we usually never find out who the speed-demon is until nearly everyone is dead, the last fifteen minutes of the film must be squared away for a pointless blab-a-thon in which a third-grade sleight, prom date gone wrong or other psycho-forming event is re-hashed in a therapy session at knife-point. Black Christmas mixes this up a bit, providing us with an entire parallel story-line, told in flashbacks throughout the present-day action. It's in those flashbacks that we meet the Lenz clan, who are sort of like a Far Rockaway version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family. The mother, played by Karin Konoval, not only keeps her teenage son Billy padlocked in the attic at all times, she also rapes him, gets pregnant, and carries Billy's sister-daughter to term. The link between the flashback action in the 1980s and the present is the family home itself, which has, in the intervening years, become an upscale sorority house populated by the likes of Lacey Chabert and Michelle Trachtenberg.

One of the very few good movies that Bob Clark can claim to have directed is the 1974 holiday chiller Black Christmas, a film that's been accurately cited as one of the original inspirations for what's now known as the American Slasher Renaissance. Long before Jason grabbed an axe, Freddy sharpened his claws and Mikey hacked his big sister to death, there was a sorority house full of kids who were hacked up solid over Christmas break.

And yeah, you heard about it a while ago: MGM & Dimension decided that the flick was worthy of a remake, so they hired the two-man filmmaking unit that is Glen Morgan & James Wong (aka the guys who brought you Final Destination, The One and Willard) and ogled a late December release date. The original Black Christmas starred Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, John Saxon and Andrea Martin. The new version features the likes of Michelle Trachtenberg, Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert and ... Andrea Martin.

So I'm taking bets now, horror fans: Go watch the new teaser and then answer this question: Will this be one of those good remakes (Chainsaw, Dawn, Hills) or one of the other (Amityville, Fog, Wax) ones?