Yahoo! Movies has the first look at the trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and yes, all those sassy creatures that moviegoers dug to the tune of $193.5 million in the summer of 2005 are back, and this time... the penguins still seem to be stealing the show (I don't really have anything against the first movie, but the penguin-centric holiday short spin-off was itself far more amusing and, as such, has been included after the jump.)

From the look (sound?) of things, the entire voice cast is back, as lion Alex (Ben Stiller), hippo Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith), giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer), and zebra Marty (Chris Rock) try to return home to New York City from the eponymous island on which they were last stranded. Sacha Baron Cohen also appears to be returning to his role as the nutty Julien, king of the lemurs. Those working on the production have been tight-lipped as to whether or not hijinks and/or pop culture references ensue.

With original directors Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath at the helm, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa - although they're technically already in Africa - is scheduled to open opposite the latest from James Bond on November 7.

Cinematical has received this exclusive poster for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (click to enlarge), a follow-up to the very successful Madagascar. The film, which stars the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith, follows our animal friends as they hatch a plan to get back to New York; more specifically, Central Park. However, when they attempt to fly themselves out, the crew accidentally crash land in the wildest place of all -- the vast plains of Africa itself. While there, they'll get a better feel for their roots, as well as the difference between life in the concrete jungle and life on the world's second largest continent. But with danger right around the corner, will this family reunion be cut short a little too soon? And will our heroes ever return home?

Find out for yourself when Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa arrives in conventional theaters and IMAX on November 7.

What do you get when renowned portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell decide to collaborate on a film on black culture, inspired by the idea of a coffee table book? You get The Black List (recently bought by HBO Documentaries and retitled The Black List: Volume One), a portrait of black America that is at once intimate and larger than life. Picture a gorgeous coffee table book filled with portraits of famous African-American men and women, brought to life and saying the most erudite and occasionally unexpected things, and you have an inkling of what's been captured in this film.

Born over a lunch date between Greefield-Sanders and Mitchell, The Black List, the title of which is a deliberate play on the negative connotation often given to the word "black," was initially conceived as a book, but Greenfield-Sanders quickly realized that it needed to be a film, done as a series of interviews with prominent African-Americans. Mitchell also has a book in the works that will flesh on the snippets of interviews in the film into longer stories.

We have an unofficial motto around here: as fast as they're dealing at Sundance, we're typing to tell you about it! Of course, we're all benefiting from the great coverage already being provided by indieWIRE. In the third deal announcement of the day -- and remember, the festival doesn't officially begin until Thursday night -- HBO Documentary Films has picked up The Black List: Volume One.

The doc, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, "presents a fascinating series of mini-portraits of 20 influential African Americans." Elvis Mitchell (pictured), former film critic for The New York Times, interviews names like Lou Gossett Jr., Chris Rock and Keenan Ivory Wayans. Mitchell, an affable interviewer, also served as one of the producers. The Black List: Volume One is part of a project that will include "a traveling exhibit, portrait book and a user-generated campaign designed for multiple platforms," and no, I have no idea what that last phrase means.

The reason for the portrait book --director Greenfield-Sanders had originally intended to become a filmmaker, but became fascinated by portraiture and switched to photography full-time. (He is currently a contributing photographer to Vanity Fair.) He then dipped back into filmmaking with Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart, a 1998 Sundance premiere. More recently, he made Thinking XXX, a brisk, entertaining doc for HBO based on his best-selling book of porn star portraits. FYI: The porn stars were more comfortable posing for pictures nude, rather than dressed.

A source told indieWIRE that HBO is planning a theatrical run later this year to quality the film for Academy Award consideration. At some point, of course, it will show up on the pay cable channel, but a separate deal is also planned for the DVD.

In the spirit of the season and goodwill and whatnot, I thought I'd forgo griping about the sorry state of things this week and instead send out some love to the downtrodden, the small films of 2007 that were somehow overlooked, underrated or outright ignored in some way. Let's start with the Russian film The Italian, released in January, which caused critics to dredge up the word "Dickensian" for the first time in a while. But for all that it was a surprising, deeply-felt story of an orphan who escapes the orphanage to find his birth-parents.

Kino released the documentary Romantico in January as well, and they're apparently counting it as a 2007 release. I wrote a few weeks back about the documentary format; there's certainly a place for journalism and reporting, but the very best documentaries, the ones that stand the test of time, are the ones that capture the details of life, like Crumb, Hoop Dreams and To Be and to Have. Romantico is one of those. It tells the story of a mariachi illegally based in San Francisco who decides to go back to Mexico to see his family, even though he risks never being able to return (of course, his income in the States is much higher than in Mexico). Romantico will most certainly be overlooked in any discussion of 2007's documentaries, but it's worth seeking out on DVD.

Dang, there sure are a lot of hitman characters in the movies. And what's the difference between a hitman and an assassin, anyway? Does Jason Bourne count, or is he no longer a hitman/assassin by the time his cinematic story begins? Are Pulp Fiction's Vincent and Jules really hitmen or are they technically bagmen? Yeah, it's a difficult task to make a list of prominent hitmen in film. So, I'll let someone else make a "25 Greatest Hitmen" list; here, I present my seven favorites.

Feel free to mention your own preferences. With so many characters, whether easily falling within definition or not, I'm certainly leaving out a lot of good ones. But, as I said, these are my favorites. The cool, the funny, the interesting, they're the ones I enjoy watching over and over again, despite their lethal nature.


Martin Q. Blank in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, George Armitage)

There is no better hitman than John Cusack's Martin Blank. He's good at his job, and he's funny, and he's willing to give it all up for love. Of course, he's bored enough by the occupation that he'd probably give it up for any good reason. It doesn't seem to matter to him that it's morally wrong; he's just another normal guy, dissatisfied with his job. And while it does seem to be a gag that's stretched thin, his issues do make him more entertaining than the usual silent-yet-conflicted hitmen. Plus, it's enjoyable to think that this is what really happened to Lloyd Dobbler, or Lane Meyer, or any other Cusack character from the '80s.

Signature line: "I was hired to kill you, but I'm not going to do it. It's either because I'm in love with your daughter or because I have a new found respect for life."

According to a story in The New York Times (who, surprisingly enough, have appeared to scoop the scoopers, and their scoopers), The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce today that Jon Stewart will be invited back to host the Oscars this year. The event, which is scheduled to air on ABC this coming February 24, will mark Stewart's second time hosting; he last took the reigns reins back in 2006. Although this is The New York Times, I do have to throw out the requisite "rumor" warning since they claim their sources are "two people involved with the plan who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the news media." And I imagine those two people would suffer a major beatdown if someone were to find out who they were. It was you Colbert! Wasn't it! Damn you! Damn you I say!

So now we have to raise the obvious question: Should Stewart be back? Last time out the man was fairly well received, but not according to the numbers. Last year, Ellen DeGeneres helped score the show 39.9 million viewers, whereas Stewart took in only 38.9 million. Compared to Chris Rock's 42.1 million in 2005 and Billy Crystal's whopping 55 million in 1998 (when Titanic was pretty much guaranteed to win everything -- and it did!), Stewart doesn't seem like the obvious choice ... on paper. But he's a likable enough guy, his jokes and mannerisms are usually pretty funny, and he's tame. He'll most likely be asked, once again, to hold back on all the political humor -- everything will be fine and dandy -- and we'll live-blog the whole thing. Sweet. Now all Hollywood needs is a big fall, because nothing looks appetizing from a viewer's standpoint thus far. And Stewart had Brokeback Mountain (as well as all the jokes that went along with it) back in 2006; will anything even come close this year. I doubt it. What do you think?

Hey, so who watched the never ending Live Earth concert on Saturday? It bothered me to no end that they would show one song from each artist, but I found another station which broadcast the full performances later that night. Honestly, out of all 150 or so performers, Linkin Park from Tokyo was probably my favorite. Did you see how jazzed the crowd was for that? Oh, and The Police, Genesis and Roger Waters stuff was fun to watch as well. But enough about the music, during the concert Jonathan Ross interviewed Chris Rock and Ricky Gervais who chose that time to announce a new film called Badge Buddies. Dark Horizons has video of their chat, in which Rock said of his controversial turn hosting the Oscars: "It's not good weed if you don't choke."

But about the film, Rock says he "wouldn't call it a buddy cop flick because we're not really buddies." In it, Gervais plays a cop whose partner is retired and so, for one reason or another, he winds up teamed up with Rock, an ex gang member. I imagine Chris Rock as an ex gang member would be like trying to watch Michael Cera play The Incredible Hulk. But I digress. Ross then compares the idea to Rush Hour, saying Rock is "like the Chris Tucker" character. The guys go back and forth on that one, eventually saying that it's "Rush Hour meets Shakespeare in Love." Now there's a comparison you don't see every day. The guys also tease a major twist (of which Gervais almost gives up) and say the flick will come out next year. While I love Gervais in pretty much everything, Rock irritates me to end. Plain and simple, the guy just can't act. Will working with a comedy genius help? I guess we'll see when Badge Buddies rolls into theaters in 2008.

I was working at a movie theater in the summer of 1998, the summer Lethal Weapon 4 was released. One of my job responsibilities was to stand and wave goodbye to people as they'd leave their movies. (Armageddon came out the week before LW4, and I got a lot of mileage out of the line, "With all this waving, my Armageddon tired!"). I was excited about Lethal Weapon 4. I hadn't loved the previous installment, but Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were back, I had come to terms with the fact that Joe Pesci wasn't going anywhere, Rene Russo is about as solid a love interest as an action movie can get, I think Chris Rock is hilarious and I had heard amazing things about Jet Li. Plus, this would be the first Lethal I saw on the big screen. How could it go wrong?

Answer: In just about every conceivable way.

Lethal Weapon 3 was a mess, but it was a fun mess. LW4 isn't fun at all. It's downright boring. Everyone looks tired and uninspired (rhyme). The laughs aren't there. The action, aside from a great highway chase, is run-of-the-mill and confusingly shot. And there's a downright icky sentimental streak running through it -- a sappy side that is light years away from screenwriter Shane Black's original vision for these characters.

Being a huge Seinfeld fan, I'm really looking forward to Dreamwork's Bee Movie this fall. Originally, Jerry Seinfeld and friends were creating these hilarious live-action shorts (check out both teasers here) to promote the film, instead of giving us a normal trailer. Basically, they consisted of Seinfeld dressed up in a big goofy bee costume, while he awkwardly attempts to shoot scenes for the movie. With cameos from folks like Chris Rock and Steven Spielberg, they're pretty fun to watch, and provide an interesting lead-in to the real trailer that AOL Moviefone just released. Finally, we get a good look at some of the outstanding animation in glorious HD; the tennis ball scene being my favorite -- damn, does that look good.

In the film, Seinfeld voices Barry B. Benson; a recent college graduate who isn't so crazy about making honey for the rest of his life. Upon leaving the hive and discovering that humans consistently steal the honey for their own greedy consumption, Benson decides to sue them, er, us. Though none of that is in the trailer (they're probably saving that for a larger trailer down the line), what we do get is a rather funny sequence in which Benson cautiously maneuvers his way around the city streets (with amusing consequences), then meets up with a woman (Renée Zellweger) who can actually hear him talk. It's your typical "animated animal lost in unfamiliar territory," but I'm stoked to see what Seinfeld writers Spike Feresten and Andy Robin (as well as Seinfeld himself) have in store for us. In case you're wondering, pic also stars Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Eddie Izzard, Alan Arkin and Kathy Bates, among others. What, no Kramer?! Bee Movie buzzes into theaters on November 2.