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harold ramis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Michael Cera and Jack Black Talk About Going To 'Year One'

Filed under: Comedy », New Releases », Sony », Newsstand », Movie Marketing », Summer Movies »

The buzz might be mixed on this weekend's primitive buddy comedy Year One, but the combination of Jack Black and Michael Cera is a pretty irresistible one on-screen and off. Our friends at Moviefone caught up with the comedic duo, who were more than happy to talk about getting back to their prehistorical roots (both in the acting and follical sense of the word), define bromance, rip on each other's bad breath, and update us on the Arrested Development movie, School of Rock 2, and whether or not either of them will be doing some ghostbusting.

From the sound of it, neither actor really enjoyed being a caveman thanks to feathery wigs that just never stay out of your lunch (welcome to the fun of long hair, boys!), and the close encounters with bodily excrement. When asked what time period they'd like to return to, both opted for eras of a little more refinement:

If you guys could live during any time throughout the course of history, when would it be?
Black: My favorite time in history ... the Renaissance.
Cera: I would say ... the '30s. The 1930s.
Black: The '30s? Wait, isn't that the Depression?
Cera: Like '33, that was a great age.
Black: Come on, the Renaissance! Haven't you ever been to the Renaissance fair? Don't you wish that was real life? A little mead, a little roast ...

That knowledge undoes everything girls have been taught about men! I mean, for years girls have labored under the delusion that you wanted to return to the simpler days of hunting with spears, and cooking by fire. If you prefer civilization then please, start up some petitions or websites or something to set the record straighter ...

Watch This: Bill Murray in 'Caddyshack Now' (Sorta)

Filed under: Comedy », Fandom », Trailers and Clips »

Bill Murray in 'Caddyshack'Twenty-nine years later, Carl Spackler dresses much nicer, but talks the same. Bill Murray, of course, made an indelible impression as the disheveled, constantly muttering, yet wily groundskeeper Carl in Harold Ramis' comedy classic Caddyshack way back in 1980, roaming the Bushwood Country Club and waging a fierce battle with an even more wily gopher. In his youth, Murray worked as a caddy, and in recent years he's become a familiar, popular player at pro-am events.

It's no surprise, then, that a local TV reporter caught up with Murray at the U.S. Open Championship in Bethpage, New York, which started yesterday. The tournament was plagued by torrential rains, which delayed play, so the reporter asks him questions about the weather until finally Murray smiles and slips into his Carl Spackler voice as he minimizes the rainfall: "This is by no means a downpour."

Naturally, it's reference to the sequence in Caddyshack, where Carl accompanies a bishop as he plays the round of his life in a steadily increasing storm. When the minister asks if he should keep playing, Carl says, "I don't think the hard stuff's coming down for quite a while." The scene is so well-known in golf circles that ESPN.com used it to introduce an article about the first, rainy day of the Open. And even though it's only a fleeting glimpse, it's a welcome reminder of a very funny movie and a very funny character.

After the jump: Watch the clip!

Review: Year One

Filed under: Comedy », New Releases », Sony », Theatrical Reviews », New in Theaters »



Harold Ramis has worked in comedy a long time, and his career has taken many directions. With his work on the Ghostbusters (1984) script and his straight-man performance in the film, he managed to allow Bill Murray room to move and riff within the confines of a visual effects-heavy summer blockbuster. As for the meticulously crafted classic Groundhog Day (1993), I hesitate to call any movie "perfect," but it comes close. But then there were phoned-in hits like Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002) that seemed too tightly wound and too slavishly dependent on plot to be very funny.

Ramis' new film
Year One, on the other hand, comes closer to the spirit of his directorial debut Caddyshack (1980). I'm not saying it's quite as funny or as brilliant, but it's in the same spirit. It cares thankfully little about its plot or its character arcs, or historical accuracy; it's a bit flabby and careless, but it's also gleefully stupid, and it has the ability to knock you off guard and make you giggle helplessly.


Interview: 'Year One' Director Harold Ramis

Filed under: Comedy », Sony », Fandom », New in Theaters », Interviews », Summer Movies »

Harold Ramis is the comedy writer and director everyone's cribbed from, from Sandler to Apatow. After leaving "Second City TV," Ramis went on to write, direct, and occasionally star in comedic touchstones like Animal House, Caddyshack, Stripes, Groundhog Day, and of course, Ghostbusters, which have starred a slew of loveable losers fighting to get their sh*t together in the army, on the golf course, or in the middle of a war with supernatural beings. After taking a few years off, Ramis is taking it back to the beginning with this summer's Year One, which stars Jack Black and Michael Cera as loveable loser cavemen who, when Black's Zed accidentally burns down the village, find themselves in the middle of a very familiar holy war. Read on and find out what the big daddy of buddy movies had to say about evolution and self-improvement, male full frontal nudity and the lack thereof, and what the heck is up with Ghostbusters 3.

Year One opens nationwide this Friday, June 19th.

Cinematical: How much more stressful is it to deal with marketing a summer blockbuster and competing with the other movies that are out?

Harold Ramis: You know, it's the same level of stress every time you make a movie, because you've pinned all your hopes and dreams on it and you've fantasized what success will be like, but at the time you can't escape fantasizing what failure will be like. [laughs]

I conceived this movie on a big scale, to do a Biblical epic comedy. I knew it was ambitious and when the studio said "Yes, we'll do it," and it became real, I thought, "Oh my God!" [laughs] It's one thing to fail small, but to make a big movie that doesn't work is so risky.

Cinematical Visits The Set of 'Year One' -- Part One

Filed under: Comedy », Fandom », Summer Movies »



Last year Cinematical had a chance to visit the set of this summer's Year One, and to be quite honest it was unlike any set I'd been to before. All I knew going in was that Harold Ramis was directing some sort of biblical comedy with Michael Cera and Jack Black, and it was filming in Shreveport, Louisiana. "Cool!", I thought -- "Shreveport rocks like a pint of hardcore!", I shouted as I stepped off the plane. All kidding aside, what I soon realized was that Shreveport had become its own mini Hollywood thanks to fabulous tax incentives, and a number of different movies were shooting there (according to my cab driver, who also knew where to score some fabulous crawfish).

Soon after I arrived, myself and a group of other notable professionals from other websites that aren't as awesome as Cinematical shipped off to what I can only describe as a giant city in the middle of "Where the hell are we?" Turns out the Year One production crew had taken five whole acres and built the ancient city of Sodom, complete with royal chambers, massive courtyard, stores, roads, caves and tons of little nooks and crannies. You can see part of the main courtyard -- where they built this giant tower -- in the image above. And see those costumes all the extras are wearing? Yup, guess who had to throw one of those on as soon as he got there? I'll show you a couple of pictures after the jump -- in the meantime, check out this clip from the film below.

'Year One' Gets Its PG-13

Filed under: Comedy », Distribution », Movie Marketing », Summer Movies »

There's been a flurry of activity this week around Year One, the Harold Ramis-directed and Judd Apatow-produced comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera as a pair of shiftless cavemen on a epic journey. (To see the film's kinda funny trailer, mosey on over here.)

Some time ago, the MPAA awarded the film an R rating -- something that neither Harold Ramis, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera nor Jack Black are strangers to. This Tuesday, Sony appealed, hoping to get a PG-13 without making any cuts to the film, but the MPAA stuck to the R, prompting many of the internet usual suspects to speculate that Sony would give in and release the film with the tougher rating. It wouldn't have surprised me -- Apatow has plenty of clout, and a great track record with R-rated comedies; the same, to a lesser extent, goes for Ramis. But no: Sony made cuts to the film, and merely two days after the appeal ruling, Year One is rated PG-13 "for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence."

Ramis Talks 'Ghostbusters 3' - Confirms Plot Rumors

Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Fandom », Newsstand », Remakes and Sequels »

It's one of those projects folks are approaching very carefully as if it were a bomb ready to go off. All of these guys -- Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Ivan Reitman -- they know that if they're going to bring this franchise back, it'll have to be on their terms and it'll have to only happen if the script is stellar. It's been 20 years since the last Ghostbusters movie, and while a lot of us would certainly welcome another installment, we know what happened to Indiana Jones after 19 years away ... so, yeah, take your time, boys.

MTV recently got the chance to ask Harold Ramis for a status update on the sequel, and he confirmed that the old cast (Ramis, Murray, Aykroyd and probably Hudson) would be returning, but ... as Ramis notes, "We're all going to be in it in different kinds of roles. We're going to be the sage mentors. There are going to be young Ghostbusters." Yup, that confirms the mentor angle and the younger Ghostbusters -- who may or may not come from the Apatowverse -- but it's early and things can change; Ramis later adds that he's still waiting to see a first draft of the script, from Office (and Year One) writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who are consulting with Ramis, Reitman and Aykroyd as they go. As far as who'll direct the thing, Ramis said he and Reitman are kinda hoping "someone else will do it." Personally, I have a feeling it'll be either Ramis or Reitman who ends up helming, but I guess we'll see.

Are you excited for this version of Ghostbusters, with older, familiar faces mentoring the new recruits?

'Year One' Gets a Proper Trailer

Filed under: Comedy », Fandom », Trailer Trash », Movie Marketing », Trailers and Clips »



I wasn't crazy about the Superbowl ad for Year One because it's tough to sell biblical comedy in 30 seconds to a Superbowl audience overdosing on hot wings and testosterone. But now Sony has released a proper full-length trailer for the film (watch below or over on Yahoo), and I dig it. But look, I'll be completely honest with you and say that I don't know how well biblical comedy will sell to today's one-fart-joke-per-minute audience. I personally find this stuff hilarious; I visited this set, I know the movie and I think it will totally entertain. But will the Superbad kids get this humor? And do they need to in order to enjoy the film?

Based on the trailer, it looks like the biblical jokes will be there for those who want them, but other than that it seems like a straight-up fish-out-of-water comedy with two guys who know what they're doing -- who know how to get the laughs. Plus director Harold Ramis stacked this puppy with tons of cameos, and so I feel there will be enough here for the old-schoolers and the new-schoolers. This should be an interesting film to watch; definitely the riskiest to come out of the Apatow camp. Year One hits on June 19.

But what do you think?



Discuss: Que Sera, Cera

Filed under: Comedy », Independent », Sony », 20th Century Fox », The Weinstein Co. », Religious »

After finishing up the first four volumes of the hilarious and endearing Scott Pilgrim graphic novels (the fifth hits stores on Wednesday), I was talking with one of my fellow Cinematical writers who was similarly fond of them and yet quite vocal in his discontent with the casting of Michael Cera in Edgar Wright's forthcoming big-screen adaptation (admittedly, the character does deserve someone a little... livelier).

Between that, the less-than-amusing spot for Harold Ramis' Year One from yesterday's Super Bowl, his potential part in that fingers-crossed Arrested Development movie, the release of Youth in Revolt being bumped back, and his role in last month's Sundance curio Paper Heart (oh, heck, and tomorrow's DVD release of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist while we're at it) -- is 2009 due to be the year of Michael Cera, or rather, is Cera due for a backlash against his seemingly limited range of bumbling performances?

What do you guys think of the once and future George Michael?

Ramis Confirms 'Ghostbusters 3' Talk and Apatow Connection

Filed under: Action », Comedy », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Deals », Fandom », Newsstand », Remakes and Sequels »

Well if you read our Five Ways to Make a Cool Ghostbusters Sequel -- and agreed with our take -- then you'll be happy to know that two of our wishes may soon come true. In an email to the Chicago Tribune, Harold Ramis confirmed all this brand new Ghostbusters 3 talk, and added a few other interesting nuggets of info. Check it out:

"yes, columbia is developing a script for GB3 with my year one writing partners, gene stupnitsky and lee eisenberg. judd apatow is co-producing year one and has made several other films for sony, so of course the studio is hoping to tap into some of the same acting talent. aykroyd, ivan reitman and i are consulting at this point, and according to dan, bill murray is willing to be involved on some level. he did record his dialogue for the new ghostbusters video game, as did danny and i, and ernie hudson. the concept is that the old ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity. not much else to say at this point. everyone is confident a decent script can be written and i guess we'll take it from there."

So for those who wanted the original stars to be involved, this does sound like good news -- except you're going to have to deal with the fact that they'll appear more as mentors and torch passers than anything else, which I'm personally fine with. And whether you like it or not, Apatow and his clan will probably be involved. Again, I think this is a good move ... but surprisingly most of you thought otherwise. We shall have fun debating this one for a good while, huh?
 

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