jason biggs Tagged Articles at Cinematical

With filthy, foul-mouthed R-rated comedy making a huge comeback (thanks, in part, to the success of Judd Apatow's films) coupled with the fact that the original cast of American Pie aren't exactly A-listin' it up on the big screen lately -- well, it doesn't take a brainiac to imagine some folks might want to revive the popular teen sex comedy franchise and stick a new one in theaters. Seeing as the direct-to-DVD installments featuring Eugene Levy all did well for Universal, now might be the perfect time to reunite this cast -- all of whom could probably use the extra paycheck (ahem, we're looking at you Tara Reid).

According to Moviehole, that's exactly what Universal is looking to do. Though no one has officially joined the cast (I think it's easy to say Eugene Levy would do it for a credit and a gift certificate to the Olive Garden), but the site claims things are inching along and an announcement could be made soon-ish. One imagines any sort of theatrical sequel would revolve around the married lives of Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), and perhaps they'll tap in to the recent big-screen pregnancy boom and churn out something like American Baby ... or whatever.

What do you think? Is there room for another big-screen American Pie film? Would you see it?

Yesterday, Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere put up the poster for the new comedy My Best Friend's Girl, starring Kate Hudson, Dane Cook, Jason Biggs and Alec Baldwin. The poster (which premiered online earlier this summer) is boring in the extreme, making the film look like your typical snoozerific rom-com, and the digital altering on the photo makes everyone involved look rather ... freakish.

My first reaction on seeing the poster was, "Boy, somebody's screwing up the marketing on this film," quickly followed by "Hey, I don't remember Dane Cook's complexion looking quite so dewy-fresh ... "

I've seen the red-band trailer, which is actually pretty funny, if you can overlook the more misogynistic elements (or at least, in my own case, overcome the feminist tendency to be immediately annoyed by blow-job jokes) , and the film being marketed in that trailer and the film being promoted on this poster are not the same film. Not that it looks like something I'd choose to see over a good indie flick, but if I wanted a lightweight comedy film, and I'd already seen Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express, and couldn't find anything else to do here in Seattle on a nice day, I'd maybe see this.

The trailer for My Best Friend's Girl (originally known as "Bachelor No. 2"), starring Kate Hudson and Dane Cook, is now online, and the only word that comes to mind is "monstrosity". Why don't you take a look at it up top. Go ahead, I'll wait here.

Are you as horrified as I am? Normally I prefer not to inflict my negativity about upcoming releases on you; if all I have to contribute is whining, I try to leave the blogging to someone else. But I couldn't pass this up. What we seem to have here is: a) the ten-millionth iteration of the plot where X starts a relationship with Y on a bet or a job but ends up falling in love; b) starring Kate Hudson, the reigning queen of the nondescript rom-com (at least Matthew McConaughey is nowhere to be found); c) co-starring Dane Cook, whose very presence is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, as a professional a**hole, and Jason Biggs as an awkward nice guy; and d) directed by Howard Deutch, who is responsible for some of the worst comedies of the last ten years. Oh, and it's named after a song. Despite not being dead, the Cars are spinning in their graves.

On one hand, I'd love to be proven wrong about My Best Friend's Girl; on the other hand, I really, really don't want to subject myself to it. Would it be a dereliction of duty to skip the thing?

Even when a movie looks unpromising, you can often find some ray of hope that gets you to the theater or eventually the DVD. In the case of Over Her Dead Body, I latched optimistically onto Paul Rudd. (Not literally. Unfortunately.) Rudd has that rare and magnetic combination of good looks and great comic delivery that worked so well for his supporting characters in Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Anchorman and other movies that didn't involve Judd Apatow ... not to mention a recurring role in the last season of Friends as Phoebe's boyfriend. (Ohh, to have to choose between Hank Azaria and Paul Rudd. Geek girls everywhere are sighing with me.)

You can imagine my disillusion when I realized that because Rudd is playing a guy who is deeply mourning his dead lover, someone decided he should look wan and tired. This devotion to reflecting his character's stress and debilitation is truly unnecessary -- it's a movie that includes ghosts and angels, so why would you invoke realism and give a romantic lead these dark circles under his eyes? Very sad, indeed.

Rudd plays the mournful Henry, a veterinarian whose self-centered, bitchy fiancee Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) is killed in a freak accident on their wedding day. Kate finds herself in Limbo and after insulting the angel who is supposed to help her, ends up as a ghost back on Earth with no idea what to do. She decides it must be her job to protect Henry from encroaching females. Meanwhile, a year after Kate's death, Henry's kooky sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane) drags him to a psychic who hopefully can assure him that Kate is resting in peace, so he can move on with his life. The part-time psychic, Ashley (Lake Bell), is a flaky caterer who is willing to help Henry after Chloe insists ... and also because she's attracted to Henry. Kate doesn't like any of this hanky-panky, and Hilarity Ensues.

Would you ever believe that Eva Longoria dated Jason Biggs? Well, Hollywood is asking us to suspend our disbelief, because the two are starring in a comedy in which they play former flames. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sexy "desperate housewife" and the doofy "pie f**cker" have been cast alongside Rob Corddry in Lower Learning, the debut feature from writer-director Mark Lafferty, who was responsible for the gay-centric Sixth Sense spoof, The Seventh Sense ("I see gay people"). In Lower, Corddry will play a shady elementary school principal under investigation by Longoria's inspector with help from her ex, a former cop who is now a vice principal. The cast will also include Corddry's old Daily Show co-worker Ed Helms, Tenacious D's Kyle Gass and Saw's Monica Potter. I don't know about you, but I expect this to be another movie in which the adults are less mature than the children.

I hope there aren't too many disappointed men out there, but Jason Biggs isn't much of a substitute for Beyoncé Knowles. Remember last year, Longoria was said to be doing a lesbian film with Knowles, but the rumor was quickly and unfortunately shot down. Well, let's just hope Longoria's character doesn't end up getting back together with Biggs' character, so we don't have to suffer through their reunion kiss -- though I've already suffered from imagining it. I'm rather hoping this movie focuses more on Corddry, who is a lot more enjoyable to watch. However, I might be in a minority here, considering audiences weren't too receptive to his recent sitcom The Winner, nor were they interested in his starring role in Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story nor as support in The Heartbreak Kid. Personally, I think he needs another shot at carrying a movie -- his next few roles are fairly small, playing second fiddle to Justin Long, Will Ferrell, Harold & Kumar and Ashton Kutcher. Like Longoria, he could definitely do better.

Hey, remember Jason Biggs? Since starring in Woody Allen's Anything Else, he hasn't really appeared in ... anything else. Okay, so he co-starred in Jersey Girl and Eight Below, but he hasn't done anything of notice in years -- except for that hysterical short film, The Glitch, of course. I was beginning to think I might see him in the next American Pie direct-to-video sequel before I see him in a big-screen starring role again. Fortunately, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Biggs just got a new gig playing Dane Cook's best bud in Lionsgate's Bachelor No. 2. In addition to Cook, he joins Kate Hudson, Alec Baldwin and Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls), who just signed on as Hudson's roommate.

As we told you previously, Bachelor follows a guy named Tank (Cook) who makes a living by giving women the worst dates of their lives. Hired by dumped men, Tank's promise is that he'll make the exes come crawling back. However, when his friend (Biggs) is the one broken up with, Tank ends up falling for the dumper (Hudson), making it a tough decision whether to stay loyal to his buddy or follow his heart. Yeah, in some ways it sounds a bit like Cook's upcoming movie Good Luck Chuck -- in which he sleeps with women who then go on to marry their next beau -- with a bit of the competitive love triangle thing from his Employee of the Month thrown in. Bachelor will be directed by Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful's Howard Deutch, but I wouldn't count on anything similar to those John Hughes classics, even with the love triangle storyline. So far this decade, Deutch's most notable work has been The Whole Ten Yards.

Other Biggs movies that could see the light of the projector one day include Michael Ian Black's The Pleasure of Your Company (aka Wedding Daze, aka The Next Girl I See), which MGM has been sitting on in the U.S. for almost a year now. He's also got another movie that seems to have changed names since the last time we wrote about it: Over My Dead Body, which was formerly titled How I Met My Boyfriend's Dead Fiancee (phew! good thing they changed it) -- though THR still gives the longer name.

To give you an idea of how good this short film is, my best friend (who practically watches shorts for a living) had no problem declaring this to be one of his favorite short films of all time. And trust me, coming from him that's huge. For those of you who aren't yet familiar with Funny Or Die, it's a website that was started with help from Will Ferrell -- and since then, we've been lucky enough to watch a number of hilarious short films featuring Ferrell, his young daughter, his creative partner Adam McKay, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera and a number of other funny folks. Well now, Jason Biggs has joined the action in a film directed by Mike Samonek called The Glitch. It's truly one of the funniest shorts I've ever watched, and it also comes with its own teaser -- hosted by Biggs (everyone's favorite pie f**ker) -- which is equally as funny.

I don't want to ruin too much for you, but I will say that the short features Biggs as a guy who's out on a second date with a pretty girl. They're sitting in the middle of a restaurant, eating their meal, when she decides to pop the big question: "So, where do you see you and us going?" From there, let's just say it heads in a Groundhog Day direction and the comedy keeps building to a pretty hilarious conclusion. Although it's a tad too long (I believe it clocks in at around 10 minutes), there's definitely enough here to keep you laughing throughout. I've included both the teaser and the short after the jump, so definitely come back here after you watch and let me know what you think. Is Jason Biggs still worthy of the big-screen treatment, or was he just another flavor of the month? You be the judge.

In one year, Isla Fisher went from the giggly model replacement for Naomi Watts in I Heart Huckabees to a starring role in Wedding Crashers. Personally, I think her luckiest grab was the arm of sexy-when-not-Borat Sacha Baron Cohen, but maybe that's just me. It's been a few years, but now she's got a mountain of movies on the way, the first of which is Wedding Daze (previously called The Pleasure of Your Company). She's teamed with Jason Biggs who danced his bare butt right out of the spotlight after wrapping up his time in the American Pie series.

But oh, if you've missed that arse, you have no farther to go than the Daze trailer. The black screen opens up to a rather small, sparkly bikini bottoms resting on the thankfully underwear-clad bum of Biggs. From there the trailer goes on to explain the film -- Anderson proposed to his girlfriend, in a crazily over-the-top manner, and killed her. Seemingly not interested in going back to that whole dating thing, he proposes to a cute waitress he doesn't know. However, because this is a romantic comedy, it becomes one of those cheek-pinchy happy stories rather than a disastrous train wreck. (If only life really worked that way! Well, then again, the guy deserves it since he accidentally killed his girlfriend while proposing.) There's lots of Fisher's crazy laugh, and of course, no movie like this is complete without a dance scene, although this time it is dance charades with Biggs, who looks like he got some lessons from Paul Rudd. So, if over-the-top, unbelievable wackiness and Biggs bum are your cup of tea, this film will be a grand old time.

Indie film Smother is getting underway with Liv Tyler, Dax Shepard and Diane Keaton signed to the flick. Inferno Distribution will finance and produce the pic with Jay Roach's Everyman Pictures. The script was penned by Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio, and is about a 30-something guy who is fired from his job just as his wife wants to have a baby and his overbearing mother moves in with them. Di Meglio will make his directorial debut with the film. The scribes have another project in IMDb listed as Untitled Rasmussen and Di Meglio Project, about a "Southern father meeting his three daughters ethnically diverse boyfriends for the first time at Thanksgiving." That project has been sold to Warner Bros and David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights, Wedding Crashers) attached to direct.

The Pleasure of Your Company, which premiered at Toronto, has been picked up by MGM for North American distribution. The romantic comedy, written and helmed by Michael Ian Black, stars Jason Biggs (American Pie) and Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers, I Heart Huckabees). MGM also recently acquired Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, and is set to distrib The Weinstein Company's Bobby and Harsh Times.

Speaking of the Weinsteins, TWC has also pegged Tony Leondis to helm animated CG pic Igor, which will focus on a mad scientist's assistant. Script is being written by Chris McKenna. Leondis previously scribed other animated flicks including The Prince of Egypt and Home on the Range.

Three-time Oscar nominee Frank Darabont, currently listed on IMDb as writing and directing an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, has optioned rights to the book Rescue Me, He's Wearing a Moose Hat : and 40 Other Dates Over 50, a comedic memoir by Sherry Halperin about her misadventures reentering the dating world after being widowed at the age of 51. Halperin will co-produce on the project.

(Ed's note: All links to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter stories require a subscription to read the full piece, but you can get a free 14-day trial from Variety.)

Odds and ends from Thursday:

• Okay, so now that we know there are two Philip K. Dick biopics in the works, the question becomes: Which one will garner more heat? So far, according to reports, one (Panasonic) has Bill Pullman in the lead role and the other (The Owl in Daylight) has Paul Giamatti. The screenplay for Panasonic is already complete, though Daylight's script still needs to be written. However, while Panasonic has a very random director in Matthew Wilder attached, word* has it Terry Gilliam has come on to direct Owl in Daylight. Hmm, knowing Gilliam and Giamatti are involved now forces me to heavily favor The Owl in Daylight. Then again, I'm just pumped up about two Philip Dick biopics -- I think the guy is warped.
• The always lovable Jason Biggs has joined Eva Longoria and Paul Rudd in How I Met My New Boyfriend's Dead Fiancée (or How I Just Typed That Title Five Times and Still Screwed it Up). As previously announced, pic will tell of a "female psychic who falls in love with a skeptic while the ghost of his dead fiancée ... tries to keep them apart." Right now, it's being described as "Ghost, except really, really funny." Wait, so Ghost wasn't supposed to be funny?
• After beginning negotiations to helm the next James Bond film (currently titled Bond 22), Roger Michell (Notting Hill) has, apparently, dropped off the project due to "creative differences." With Michell gone, producers will now have to scramble and find a replacement, seeing as they've already scheduled Bond 22 to be released on May 2, 2008. Whether or not this setback will actually affect the film's release is yet to be seen.

*And by "word", we mean "totally unsubstantiated rumor." Make of it what you will.