steve carell Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As much as I love James Franco (for reasons both personal and professional) I sometimes worry he's going to wear out his welcome with these shorts that keep popping up wherever you look. So far, we've had acting lessons, re-enactments of The Hills, commencement speeches, and even abstract art ... and now we've got Gucci. Over at Funny or Die, they have the latest comedy short which is presented as outtakes from the actor's turn as a spokesmodel for Gucci, and even though you know what to expect from the moment you hit play, that doesn't mean that it won't make you laugh (in my case there was even a little snorting involved).

But maybe the genius of Franco is that you can never quite guess what he's going to do next (I mean, I don't think anyone saw the General Hospital stint coming). He's still a movie star after all, though, and his upcoming roles in the Steve Carell and Tina Fey comedy Date Night, along with his portrayal of Beat poet Allan Ginsberg in Howl, guarantees that his comedic and dramatic skills won't be going to waste any time soon. But as this short proves, maybe his most memorable attribute will always be that he's never afraid to make a complete ass of himself -- a lovable quality if there ever was one.

After the jump: what Gucci didn't want you to see and another Franco classic....

The lovable and hilarious Steve Carell is a bona-fide TV star, but his big screen career has never taken off quite the same way. There were plenty of successes along the way, and he hasn't had an honest to goodness flop (actually, Evan Almighty lost a whole lot of money), but he just hasn't had that movie role that makes you think "Uh-oh, I think Scranton is going to get a new branch manager," you know? I don't know if Carell's latest will be the role that makes him into a full-fledged movie star, but The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business Blog is reporting that the comedian is in talks to star in the golf-comedy Missing Links.

Links is based on Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly's novel by the same name, and it centers on a group of working class friends who scheme to sneak into an elite country club to escape their crappy public golf course. Reilly has some experience as a screenwriter, having already written the period sports comedy Leatherheads, but for Links, The Break Up's Jay Lavender will be in charge of the script. Carell has yet to commit to Warner Bros for Links, and he already has a pretty tight schedule with his role on The Office, the upcoming sequel to Get Smart, and Brigadier Gerard, so I guess we will have to wait and see if he signs on the dotted line.

After the jump; moments from other great golf comedies -- and no, I didn't include Dorf...

Jay Roach's Dinner for Schmucks is adding another seat at the table for Ron Livingston; the movie also stars funny guys Zach Galifianakis, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd. Dinner is based on the famous French movie directed and written by Francis Veber, Le dîner de cons, otherwise known as The Dinner Game, which won a César for best writing. Dinner is the story of a dining group with a rather interesting twist; they have a contest to see who can bring the biggest idiot to dinner. Soon enough, though, the guests realize their little snarky game isn't so harmless.

The question is, who will be the biggest schmuck? Carell and Rudd star, and either could be schmucky, although Carell can play dumb with a straight face pretty damn well. (He loves lamp, after all.) However, I can't picture Zach Galifianakis as a bougie dinner party guest and not a schmuck. Maybe he's a more minor schmuck? In any case, this dinner table is getting full of schmuckitude, and will give all us writers a great chance to exercise our mastery of Yiddish slang for weiners.

Now that Robert Rodriguez won't be making Barbarella anytime in the near future it looks like he has put his live-action Jetson's flick at the front of the pack instead. The director recently told MTV that he hopes to get the film in front of cameras by next year. A script was completed by Adam F. Goldberg (Fanboys) back in 2007, but Rodriguez has been hard at work on a rewrite and keeping quiet about casting prospects.

The Jetsons was the story of a futuristic family living in a world run by sprockets ... and that was about it, really. Each week, George Jetson would get fired, promoted, you name it -- and then head home to his family which consisted of the perfect housewife, a genius son and boy-crazy daughter. Their dog would mispronounce words; the robot maid would get a few wisecracks in and voila! A cartoon classic was born.

I'm not a big Jetsons fan, but I do love to play fantasy casting director, so here are my picks for a live-action Jetsons:

George Jetson: Steve Carell
Despite having a spotty record on the big-screen, Carell proved once before that he can walk away from a TV adaptation with his dignity intact. He not only has the look down, but he can play a lovable loser with the best of them and has a knack for physical comedy. What more could you ask for in a George Jetson?

Jane Jetson: Reese Witherspoon
Jane wasn't exactly a ditz, but let's just say she wasn't the sharpest sprocket in the pile either. Witherspoon has made bank on playing these kinds of characters in the past, and I think she has just the right amount of uptight to be the doting wife (and straight man) to her wackier better half.

After the jump: my final picks...

Great Odin's *beard raven! It looks like a sequel to Adam McKay and Will Ferrell's comic classic Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy has gotten a little closer to reality. During a press event for Land of the Lost in Australia on Monday, Ferrell told the Aussie radio DJs Jono & Dano that, "he expected to meet with Paul Rudd and Steve Carell "next week" to discuss ideas...and salaries: "[Because] believe me, I'm not taking a pay-cut. No way!" -- It's a long segment, but if you have the time, Ferrell drops the 'Burgundy bomb' around the 8:20 mark.

McKay and Ferrell have been hinting at a sequel as far back as last summer, and they told Entertainment Weekly that they were already developing a script that would fast-forward Ron Burgundy to the 80's. Now, normally the word sequel is a cause for concern when it comes to a favorite flick, but I have to admit; it's an idea that has tons of possibilities. I mean, who wouldn't love to see the Ron in the world of cable news pundits? I wonder if Burgundy would be a Fox News or a MSNBC kind of guy? Nobody can play a lovable blow-hard like Farrell, and as long as the whole thing doesn't become overrun with bad '80s jokes about Rubik's Cubes and Thriller jackets, we should be good, right?

*Correction: You'll have to forgive the Burgundy misquote, it happens to the best of us.

Okay, not quite. I think it's safe to say that Steve Carell will never be the paragon of all things masculine (at least not in a beefcake sort of way), but that doesn't mean he can't soup up with extra doses of testosterone.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Carell's Carousel Productions is whipping up a new comedy called Hi-T, for Carell to potentially star in. He'll play a man who suffers an injury that somehow rids him of testosterone. To rectify the situation, he starts getting injections and finds his mood swinging uncontrollably.

Yup, I'd say that's a pretty apt character for Carell to play. But it's not set in stone quite yet. Should he decide to star in the film (which had a different name over at New Line a handful of years ago), chances are this won't be on the top of his list. THR says that the funny man is looking towards Date Night for his Office hiatus project this May. I can't say I blame him. As wacky as fluctuating moods can be, the thought of him paired up with Tina Fey is too sweet to postpone.

But should Carell decide not to, who should they pick?

If you rue the era that canned voice actors for big celebrities, you might not like this bit of news, but if you love big, star-calibre cast lists, you might like this:

Variety reports that Steve Carell has signed on for a new 3D CG-animated film called Despicable Me, from Horton Hears a Who scribes Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. But he's just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the voice cast includes: Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, Danny McBride, Russell Brand, Jemaine Clement, Jack McBrayer, and Julie Andrews.

Carell will voice the title character, a "deplorable man" named Groo who "masterminds the mother of all heists when he plots to steal the moon." Since his evil mother (Andrews without a spoon full of sugar) is egging him on, there's only one obstacle between him and the big cheese chunk in the sky -- three orhpaned girls who he has to temporarily take care of, who won't leave. I guess he never read Papa, please get the moon for me.

There's no word on how the other names will come into play, nor who will voice the three moon-saving girls. Nevertheless, this sounds like it could be an incredibly cute film. Unfortunately, we have a while to wait for this -- the film is currently scheduled for release in 2010.

You know the hells of type-casting, right? Someone kicks ass in a certain role, and next thing you know, that's all they can get, whether it's laughs, screams, moans, or groans. But usually at least the stories are different.

Not so for Steve Carell. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the actor has signed on to a new period comedy called Brigadier Gerard, which will have him playing French soldier fighting in the Napoleonic wars. Sure, this sounds mighty different from his other fare, but I'm not finished -- he'll play "Etienne Gerard, a soldier who considers himself a gallant swordsman but whose actual skills often pale in comparison to his own conception of them."

Carell is getting smarted right back in time! So not only do we get two doses of Smart (#2 is on the way), but one more with his delusional grandeur set back in time. On the plus side, King of the Hill writers John Altshuler and David Krinsky pulled the film out of a series of Arthur Conan Doyle stories, so there's good source material to work from.

What do you think? Will you take Carell in any form, or is it time he stopped taking on roles rife with obvious delusions of grandeur?

This summer's Get Smart reboot, with Steve Carell as Maxwell, was far from brilliant, but sweet Jebus, Carell is funny. His improvised dance with a bewildered-but-willing overweight partygoer is one of this year's comic highlights -- a perfect blend of good-natured mockery and non sequitur. So the official announcement of the inevitable sequel strikes me as a good thing. I doubt they'll ever come up with any sort of finely tuned masterwork, but I figure it's guaranteed to have a bunch of great moments. Big budget comedies are often so dire that "uneven with flashes of inspiration" is music to my ears.

Even better, the success of Get Smart has earned Carell a three-year deal with Warner Bros., giving him a chance to develop both starring vehicles and projects for others. It's good to see the right people take off like this, y'know? On the other hand, it's kind of unfair: why do today's teenagers get to inhabit a comedic landscape dominated by the likes of Carell, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, etc., while I got Adam Sandler and Mike Myers? Kids these days, they don't know how good they got it.

I guess I liked Mike Myers back when; I was 13 when the first Austin Powers came out. I still kind of like him. But he's certainly overshadowed by the crop of comics in today's mainstream.

Look, I'm thinking the same thing you are: Here comes Hollywood to screw up another one of our beloved franchises by re-imagining it for this new, hip generation. Whenever they try to mess with nostalgia, it always comes back to bite them in the ass -- but could things be different with a franchise like Ghostbusters, which gave us two films ... and, let's admit it, only one real classic? Here are five ways to make a cool Ghostbusters sequel ...

1. Get the Apatow crew involved

When you look back at the original Ghostbusters, you see names like Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis and Ivan Reitman. Back in 1984, these were the folks who made us really laugh. These were the young-ish voices of the time; the guys you wanted to pay money to see because you knew they'd be worth it. Today, the same can be said for guys like Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Steve Carell, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Craig Robinson. At least a few of those names should show up in the sequel in order for it to have a really good shot of succeeding with fans.

2. Get a director who understands the franchise (ie: Harold Ramis or Ivan Reitman)

While there's a very good chance we'll end up seeing Judd Apatow's name tossed around as producer (no way he's directing this), the best way to hold on to what we love about Ghostbusters is to bring on a man who was there for the first two and knows what, exactly, makes this franchise work. Ramis has been working with the Apatow clan a lot lately (directing Year One, appeared in both Knocked Up and Walk Hard), and is perfectly capable of directing and acting in a film (Hello Egon cameo!). He'd by my choice for this, and, I'm sure, will also lend his voice to the script.