Wedding Crashers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Odds and ends from Tuesday:

• Hey, at least someone's involvement with Lindsay Lohan didn't end in rehab. Chris Pine, who co-starred with Lohan in Just My Luck, is in final negotiations to star in an untitled post-apocalyptic thriller with the Pastor brothers set to write and direct. Pic will revolve around four friends who, while trying to escape a viral pandemic in the American West, discover that it's not the virus they should be escaping, but each other. Recently, Alex Pastor was awarded the Sundance jury prize for his international short, The Natural Route (or La Ruta Natural). Here's hoping this new route propels these boys to bigger and better places.
• What is it about Las Vegas that's just so funny? The sex? The crime? The drugs? The booze? The bankruptcy? Actually, all of that is pretty hilarious -- strike that first sentence. 20th Century Fox has pre-emptively dropped a boat-load of money on a comedy pitch by Dana Fox (no relation ... I think) with Michael Aguilar and Dean Georgaris set to produce. The plot for Untitled Vegas Comedy (has a nice ring to it, right?) is being kept under wraps, but folks are saying it's a romantic comedy in the vein of Wedding Crashers. This leads us to assume it will have something to do with all of those Vegas quickie weddings and three-legged trapeze artists. Okay, so the three-legged trapeze artist was my idea ... but a boy can dream, right?
•  I've always said that if Robert Downey Jr. were ever to become a school principal, life as we know it would get a whole lot cooler. While the actor will not be a real-life principal, he has signed up to play one in a film called Charlie Bartlett. Also starring Hope Davis, Anton Yelchin, Kat Dennings and Tyler Hilton, the coming-of-age dark comedy will focus on a wealthy teen who charms his way into becoming his school's resident "psychiatrist." Jon Poll, who has edited for Jay Roach on films like Meet the Fockers and Austin Powers in Goldmember, will make his directorial debut.

Apparently the MTV Movie Awards happened last night -- who knew? (I didn't even know MTV showed anything that wasn't a car-wreck-tastic reality show about scary rich girls anymore.) It turns out, shockingly, that MTV viewers are among the 30 zillion Americans who saw and dug Wedding Crashers, so they voted it best movie, named stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (AKA Wilson #2) best on-screen team, and gave Isla Fisher the award for breakthrough performance. Another big winner was Jake Gyllenhaal who, in addition to taking home the best dramatic performance award, shared the best kiss golden popcorn with Heath Ledger. (Has a same-sex kiss ever been up for anything at MTV and not won? Those crazy kids love their gay macking.)

In addition, the ceremony honored Jim Carrey with the MTV Generation Award, whatever that is. Needless to say, he did something annoying when he accepted it (he "took the stage with a cadre of winged angels and performed a spontaneous hip-shaking jig"), though he surely thought it was utterly hilarious. Joining in the crazy fun was poor Spike Lee, who took home the Silver Bucket of Excellence for Do the Right Thing, "a movie from the past that has present-day resonance." While I am fully in favor of lauding Do the Right Thing, the MTV Movie Awards is a rather odd venue for addressing racial tension -- I'm sure Lee's acceptance speech fit in perfectly between Carey's pelvis and Christina Aguilera's half-naked torso.

For those of you who can't get enough of this sort of thing (or who want to look at Jessica Alba -- she's hosting, you know), the show airs Thursday at 830pm eastern time.

• Christa McAuliffe: Reach For The Stars - Massachusetts native Christa McAuliffe has become quite inseparable from the image of the ghastly tendrils of smoke hanging over the Florida sky after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1986, but she's also remembered as a schoolteacher who never stopped teaching. It is this second image on which first-time filmmakers Renée Sotile and Mary Jo Godges focus, going beyond blindly reverent fluff and digging into the humanity that made the loss of McAuliffe and the subsequent grounding of the Shuttle so much of a tragedy. With a warm, comforting narration by Susan Sarandon and a note-perfect song track by Carly Simon (whose tapes McAuliffe brought aboard Challenger), the film captures the spirit of exploration and discovery through McAuliffe's example, and not by just stating she was a shining star we should all try hard to emulate.
 

Speaking as someone who went through the process of planning a wedding last year, I can honestly say the entire experience could be compared to riding the world's fastest roller-coaster without a seat belt. I'm assuming New Line tapped into some of those emotions after recently acquiring Jared Bush's spec script, Save the Date -- a comedy about feverishly planning a wedding that doesn't exist.

The story will center on a Type-A woman who has spent her entire life plotting out every little detail of her wedding, right down to the type of flowers, menu and location. However, the one thing she forgot to reserve was a groom. Upon finally meeting "the perfect guy," she must figure out a way to pull off the wedding of her dreams without the dude catching on to her life-long plan. Yay, sounds like the perfect date movie for a single guy who wants to leave the theater and dive head-first into a nervous breakdown. Raise your hand if you're that guy. I didn't think so.

New Line is still flying high after their latest wedding-themed film crashed the box office with a sweet $210 million domestically. Remember that one? It was about weddings and the people that crash them? Damn, what was the name again?

 

Director David Dobkin (too much alliteration there) made waves with his summer sleeper hit Wedding Crashers, and is riding the Vince Vaughn train right into his next flick, the film previously known as Fred Claus. However, once he's done with that project (and maybe one or two others) he'll be getting in on the comic book-to-movie action with the help of writer Phil Hay, who is penning the script to the big screen adaptation of R.I.P.D. In an interview with Cinematic Happenings, Hay described the project as a "spectral police force" film along the lines of Ghostbusters and Men In Black. He went on to further categorize the film as "action comedy, very heavy on the comedy." No word yet on an expected release date.

After being pleasantly surprised by Wedding Crashers, I've got to agree with Hay when he says that Dobkin is a great choice for director because he knows his way around comedy. I've never read R.I.P.D., but the premise certainly sounds amusing - I may have to go hunt down a few episodes for a trial run. Any readers out there familiar enough with the title to tell me why I should (or shouldn't) dig in?

We reported about a month ago about a movie called Fred Claus, in which Vince Vaughn was set to play Santa's "black-sheep" older brother, and which was inevitably going to be utterly hilarious. Sadly, unspecified "rights issues" have led to the yanking of the title (Who the hell acquires the rights to the name "Fred Claus?" If the guy isn't clairvoyant, he's clearly a very odd individual.). The good news, however, is that the great, Dan Fogelman-penned plot -- deadbeat Fred heads back to the North Pole in search of some redemption -- remains in place, as does the Wedding Crashers dream team of Vaughn and director David Dobkin.

In addition, Variety reported this morning that Fred now has a brother: Paul Giamatti will play Santa. Now, I will confess that when I first read the article, my main reaction was disbelief -- Giamatti? As Santa? Please. But then I looked at his face, and thought about his mellowness playing off of Vaughn's depressive madness, and it all fit into place -- Warner Brothers, this is officially brilliant. (And, just so you know, if the movie is bad, I will be the saddest, most bitter person on earth. That is all.)

It was announced late last year that The Lookout, screenwriter Scott Frank's directorial debut, had secured the considerable talents of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jeff Daniels for its starring roles. Gordon-Levitt plays a disabled janitor who is caught up in a heist, while Daniels is a blind ex-biker who is also involved, though no one in the press seems to know exactly how. While the two of them alone certainly have the ability to carry a well-written film (and, since Frank wrote the script, it's good), it's now being reported that three impressive names have been added to the cast, and the movie is sounding better and better. Playing a criminal (presumably one involved in the heist) will be Matthew Goode, who won praise for his performance as Scarlett Johansson's boyfriend in Match Point, and another scene-stealer, Isla Fisher of Wedding Crashers, has been cast as "a scandalous vixen." (Boys, that one's for you.) Rounding out the trio of additions in the role of a therapist is the wonderful Carla Gugino who someday, maybe, will get the attention she deserves.

The movie is scheduled to begin filming in Canada later this month.

My little brother Stephen, who is 23 and fresh out of college, was visiting Austin last weekend. I thought I would consult him about his Oscar predictions. His taste runs more to horror, science fiction, and comic-book movies than to the type of drama the Academy loves to reward, but I thought that would make him even more clear-headed than most people in picking Oscar winners.

In addition to discussing the top five Oscar categories, Stephen also informed me that the Best Foreign Film category should have included the Turkish film G.O.R.A. and something directed by Takashi Miike, and that special "redemption" awards should go to Eric Bana (Munich) and Frank Miller (Sin City) for reviving their careers after the disasters of The Hulk and RoboCop 3, respectively.

We compromised on his Oscar picks; I let him pick twice in each category. For his first pick, I limited Stephen to the actual nominees. But he also named a second pick, the winner he thought was most deserving from all 2005 films. Needless to say, the second picks are a lot more fun than the "real" predictions. I think we should find a way to let Stephen nominate and vote for films next year, because I like most of his anything-goes picks much better than the official Oscar selections.

According to Variety, Wedding Crashers team Vince Vaughn (who is rumored to be approaching the $20 million/picture mark for the first time) and director David Dobkin are in negotiations to topline Fred Claus, a new comedy from Warner Brothers. Though talks are still in the very early stages, the hope is that a deal will be struck quickly and the movie will zip into production - gee, it's a good thing Dobkin jumped ship on I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, huh? His sudden free time has really worked out for Warner's.

The screenplay by Dan Fogelman revolves around Santa's bitter older brother Fred (to be played, obviously, by Vaughn), "who heads back to the North Pole and gets a chance to redeem himself." You're laughing already, aren't you? Me too. Though nothing not involving either a hobbit or a man in a fat suit and drag can be called a sure thing in Hollywood these days, this has got to come pretty close - Vaughn combines put-upon misery with grudging good guy-ness better than anyone I can think of, and based on that whole Wedding Crashers thing, he and Dobkin are box office gold. Hurry up and get these deals done - I expect Christmas hilarity this year, dammit!

[via Dark Horizons]

For some reason, Universal has been working on I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, a movie about firemen who pretend to be gay in order to win domestic partnership benefits, for years and years and years. (Actually, many states offer domestic partner benefits for heterosexual couples, too, but I guess that's less funny.) The movie's been through an almost endless parade of writers (Jon Favreau among them) and stars (Will Smith, Nicolas Cage, James Gandolfini, Vince Vaughn, and Wilson #2), but has never gotten out of the blocks. Now, however, the studio has found its dream team, and the movie is a go: according to The Hollywood Reporter, Adam Sandler and Kevin James will play the happy "couple."

The Sandler-James edition of the script has been written by, of all people, the Sideways team of Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne, and currently slated to direct is David Dobkin of Wedding Crashers fame, all of which sounds pretty promising. Though there are a lot of people in that Nearly Starred list that I'd rather see in this movie than the two currently on board, it's hard to deny that the behind-the-scenes team that's in line for this installment is the best group so far. Of course, whether the movie will actually happen this time is something else entirely.