kevin connolly Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Living lives of loud desperation for the sake of your entertainment / enjoyment / enlightenment (a generous assessment on all three counts) are Rachel from Friends, the Mac Guy, Firestarter, Daredevil, and a dozen other familiar faces and names, all of them hell-bent on telling you that if He's Just Not That Into You, all one merely has to do is swap out that target of affection. In a weird way, it's a strategy that the film itself seems to employ: If you don't like what supposed relationship insights we have to offer up across 10 blocks of Baltimore and 130 minutes of running time, just wait -- we all change our tune to make each other happy eventually.

Since this romantic omnibus already has too many characters for its own good, let's go ahead and get their introductions out of the way real quick like. There's the desperate-to-date-and-then-some Ginnifer Goodwin, who is blown off by Kevin Connolly in favor of the company of Scarlett Johansson, and who is friends with Jennifer Connelly and Jennifer Aniston and, now, Connolly's frank pal Justin Long. (With me so far?) Connolly buys ad space in the local paper from Drew Barrymore and yet flirts with Barrymore's friend, Johansson, who is herself more interested in tempting Bradley Cooper, who is currently married to Connelly (Jennifer, not Kevin) and happens to be friends with Ben Affleck, who refuses to propose to long-time love interest Aniston, and oh, great, now I've gone all cross-eyed.

It has been a depressing month. First Scott told me that Jennifer Connelly is just not that into me. And today the Hollywood Reporter informs me that Jennifer Aniston feels the same way. In He's Just Not That Into You, Miss Aniston will play a role just bursting with originality -- "a woman in a long-term relationship with a boyfriend who will not commit to marriage." Aniston joins one of the most attractive casts in recent memory. You've got the previously mentioned Jennifer Connelly, Entourage's "E" Kevin Connolly (that's going to get confusing on set), Bradley Cooper (the jerk boyfriend in Wedding Crashers), Justin Long (who should be commended for not ruining Live Free or Die Hard), Ginnifer Goodwin (the youngest wife on Big Love, I've got a huge crush on her), and Drew Barrymore (you know who Drew Barrymore is, right?).

Barrymore is also a co-producer on the film, which will be directed by Ken Kwapis (director of License to Wed - boo! But also several episodes of The Office - yay!). The script was written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (writers of Barrymore's Never Been Kissed, which I enjoyed more than I expected to). It is based on the wildly popular book by ex-Sex and the City writers Liz Tuccillo and Greg Behrendt (if you never saw Behrendt's daytime talk show, you're a luckier person than I). It's good to see Aniston returning to romantic comedy after...oh wait, that's pretty much all she does. She does it well though. After Rumor Has It almost caused me to walk out (and I was on an airplane!), she hit me with the one-two punch of Friends With Money and The Break-Up. I liked both of those a lot. Into You is set in Baltimore and will consist of "interconnecting story arcs dealing with the challenges of reading or misreading human behavior." Interconnecting story arcs set in Baltimore, eh? Any chance we can tie this all in to The Wire somehow? Brilliant as that show is, I always felt it could use a romantic comedy element.

Gardener of Eden was the perfect film for Kevin Connolly's (Entourage) directorial debut; not only does it put him on some familiar turf, but it shares a few similar themes with his hit HBO show. Picture Entourage if it was set in New Jersey and revolved around a group of guys who, instead of being hot-shot Hollywood play-makers, were simple blue-collar offspring with drug habits and no career aspirations. (Actually, this was probably Vince and his crew before they hit it big.) For anyone who grew up in the suburbs of New York or New Jersey, these were guys you knew (or still know); their parents were war veterans-turned-city workers who could never afford to show their kids the world outside their small town. Their fathers made an honest living, put food on the table, and all they wanted in return was a little quiet time with an alcoholic beverage of their choice. Meanwhile, their mothers were perpetually pissed off -- at them, at their husbands, at the grocery store clerk. These were kids who didn't give a shit. They didn't have to. Best case scenario: They go to college, graduate and get a cozy job in the city. Worse case scenario: They wind up like their parents; stuck, drunk and bored. But hey, they're still alive, right?

These were kids who didn't need an education because their parents couldn't afford one. So, instead, they worked at delis, diners, gas stations and sold drugs. They played cards, smoked pot, threw parties and had sex. And while most were perfectly happy with this existence, there were a select few who wanted more out of life. They wanted to be noticed. They wanted to make a difference. Enter Adam Harris (Lukas Haas): After he gets kicked out of school for inviting prostitutes to his dorm room, Adam winds up back at home in New Jersey with his parents and a crummy job at an Israeli-owned deli. When he witnesses a deadly car crash involving a friendly elderly customer, something clicks inside -- Adam no longer feels an urge to relive those old high school glory years like his four best friends. He's angry. He's jaded. He wants to know why bad things happen to good people. Thus, he looks for answers with the only tool he owns: his fists.

Giovanni Ribisi, Lukas Hass and Erika Christensen (a/k/a The Anti-Julia Stiles) have joined the cast of The Gardener of Eden; an independent film produced by Leonardo DiCaprio which Martha first told you about earlier this month. Directed by Entourage star Kevin Connolly, pic is a dark comedy about a guy who accidentally saves a girl's life, only to feed off the exposure and set out to become a vigilante.

Although DiCaprio is producing, chances of him actually showing up in the film are slim to none - so don't go getting your hopes up, girls. Connolly will officially mark his directorial debut with Gardener, off a script written by Adam "Tex" Davis (Just Friends.) Actually, I was lucky enough to read an early draft of this script awhile back and it was absolutely outstanding. I want to say it felt like a modern-day Taxi Driver, but for some reason, I don't see Lukas Haas (remember the Amish boy in Witness?) pulling off a De Niro-esque performance. Gardener is currently shooting in and around New York City.