tracy morgan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Everything about Kevin Smith's A Couple of Dicks sounds too good to be true. How can you not look forward to a movie that promises to be a throwback to the glory days of 1980s buddy cop comedies and the next Roadhouse? It even lured in Bruce Willis, and if you can bring back The Last Boy Scout side of him, your job is half done. But the film might just score an extra point of goodness: Empire caught up with Smith who revealed that 1980s soundtrack-meister Harold Faltermeyer might be lending his steely sound to Dicks.

"As I'm putting the flick together, I see it as a real throwback to the 80s buddy cop genre," said Smith. "So I'm putting some music on this scene, see if it works. I take this piece from Fletch, which I've always loved, and it works. Now I take this piece of music from Beverly Hills Cop, and it plays the comedy well. It plays the action well. And, after doing those temp cues, I said to a few people, 'Is it crazy to see if Harold Faltermeyer will want to score this movie?'"

Faltermeyer hasn't done a soundtrack since 1994, but fortune favors the Smith. "Warners said he'd recently come in and talked about getting back into the game. And so Harold Faltermeyer is watching the movie next week!" Nothing is set in stone, however, and even if the composer agrees, Smith has his own conditions. What I'm looking for is that old Harold Faltermeyer sound that I grew up on. If he's moved on from that sound, I'll respect that. I'll go get a Casio and f*** it up myself!"

Head beyond the jump for some end-of-the-week mood music ...

We live in a marvelous age, one where technological advancements have made it relatively easy to produce a film in which computer-generated guinea pigs interact seamlessly with flesh-and-blood humans. What's extraordinary is that a film can have all that and still be boring. Eighty years ago, people were delighted just to see movies talk. In 2009, you can watch animated rodents save the world and still think, "Meh. What else you got?"

G-Force is the subject, a harmless and good-natured family flick that unfortunately relies so much on its central conceit -- small animals have been trained as government spies!! -- that it forgets to do anything else. Take the animals out of the equation and you're left with an exceedingly generic secret-agent adventure -- which may be no surprise, given that the screenplay is by the husband-and-wife team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, who also wrote the National Treasure movies, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and Bad Boys II. If anyone knows by-the-numbers action movies, it's those two. (The first-time director is Hoyt Yeatman, an Oscar-winning special-effects wizard with a long Hollywood résumé.)

The G-Force is a squad of three guinea pigs and a mole that have been fitted with devices that translate their squeakings into human speech, and then trained as spies by a low-level government scientist named Ben (Zach Galifianakis). Ben can also train insects to carry tiny cameras into small spaces, though it doesn't seem to be a matter of "training" them so much as just telling them what to do and they do it. Ben is almost literally the lord of the flies.

Like most of the moviegoing world, we here at Cinematical are pretty excited for Kevin Smith's new comedy, A Couple of Dicks, particularly since Smith is promising it'll be the next Roadhouse. The world needs another Roadhouse, just like this generation needs a new buddy cop comedy.

We won't have too long to wait, as The Hollywood Reporter says that the film begins shooting on Monday in New York -- but before it goes before cameras, Smith has added Seann William Scott and Adam Brody to the cast. Scott will play a thief known as "The Sh*t Bandit" due to his trademark of leaving a scatological gift for his robbery victims. (Remember, Smith didn't write this script, Robb and Mark Cullen did. But now we know one reason he liked it!) Brody will play "an abrasive detective" who is less than thrilled to be working with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan's maverick cops. He seems so young to be the abrasive, badass type ... but hey, it's New York. You grow up fast there.

Still missing from the cast is one Mexican beauty, who Willis and Morgan rescue in the course of their adventure, and who holds the key to millions of laundered drug money. I bet we'll meet her next week, but you could throw out a few casting guesses or recommendations just to pass the time, as Dicks isn't due in theaters until February 26, 2010.

Back in January, we all recoiled a little bit at the news that Neil LaBute was remaking Death at a Funeral -- a nice little British movie that only just came out in 2007, making a remake seem even more superfluous than they usually are. The fact that he was making it with Chris Rock made the whole thing seem even more cheesy. (Not that we don't like Rock ... it's just that we like him in original, edgy stuff.)

Well, the remake just got a lot more over the top. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan have joined, along with Loretta Devine, Ron Glass, Danny Glover, Regina Hall, James Marsden, Zoe Saldana and Columbus Short. (Who wants to bet money that Marsden is the gay lover? Anyone? Anyone?)

It's keeping the exact same plot of misplaced cadavers, gay blackmail, hallucinogenic drugs, and family secrets, though Rock cowrote the script with Ayesha Carr, so we can expect some changes. It's just not clear yet what they might be ... but at least it probably won't involve bear suits or misogyny. I'm still not convinced this needed to be remade, but I suppose if you're going to do one, it ought to feature Danny Glover. Let's just hope Tyler Perry stays a million miles away from the set.

ETA: Yes, the title originally read Tracy Jordan. I watch way too much 30 Rock.

If nothing else I guess you can never say that Kevin Smith doesn't learn from his past. Just a couple of days after Erik brought us the news that Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan were rumored to be starring in Smith's action comedy, A Couple of Dicks, Variety has confirmed that Willis and Morgan are on board, but there's been a slight change. The film has now been given the much more 'billboard friendly' title of A Couple of Cops (doesn't exactly have the same ring to it, now does it?). I mean, we're all adults here, has it really gotten to the point where even a pun as vanilla as a variation on 'Private Dicks' is too much for audiences?

I would've thought after all of the MPAA's prudishness over Zack and Miri Make a Porno that Smith would surely be headed for another battle royale. Remember, last summer, there were fights over Zack and Miri posters, the title, and even the film itself. Heck, there was even trouble when it came out on DVD thanks to the family-minded folks at Wal-Mart. But I guess Smith (and Warner Bros., for that matter) isn't interested in another fight with theater owners or enraged special interest groups, and this time he's just going to go with the flow (or maybe this time he's just a little tired of tilting at windmills). But, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise if you consider the fact that he's making a lot of changes in his career lately. Not only is he directing someone else's script, but he's working with a major studio and his longstanding relationship with The Weinstein Co. seems to be a little on the rocks.

Before Zack and Miri Make a Porno hit movie theaters, I sat down for an extensive conversation/lunch with writer-director Kevin Smith where we talked all things, well, Kevin Smith. During that conversation (and the subsequent press junkets), Smith stated that he wanted his next film to be the kinda-sorta horror flick Red State, or a sci-fi comedy potentially starring Seth Rogen. Now, however, ERC is reporting that Warner Bros. has signed Smith to direct the comedy A Couple of Dicks (yup, he's leaving The Weinstein Co.!), starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Additionally, ERC says that Warners has already given the film a January 29, 2010 release date.

But here's the most fascinating part of this whole thing: A Couple of Dicks was not written by Kevin Smith -- instead, it was written by Robb and Marc Cullen, and it was featured on the 2008 Blacklist (which is a not-so-secret list of the year's best unproduced screenplays in town). The brief synopsis listed goes as follows: "Two veteran LAPD detectives attempt to track down a stolen, mint-condition, 1952 baseball card." Originally, Robin Williams was set to star in the comedy back when the Cullen brothers were also directing, but he wound up suing the production company when they pulled out and told him they were no longer making the movie (read more at Variety).

So is the film back on now with Kevin Smith behind the camera? And will Smith rewrite the script to make it more of his own? We've sent a note to Kevin to see if this is all legit and will report back with his response.

We are all well aware that David O. Russell doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to working with actors. We've heard the stories about near fist-fights on the set of Three Kings, and everyone has seen the meltdown during I Heart Huckabees. The latest casualty of Russell's people skills is celebrated actor James Caan, who has officially quit Russell's political comedy, Nailed.

What caused the irreconcilable rift, you might ask? It was all over a cookie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the final straw for Caan was during a scene in which his character is supposed to be choking on a cookie. Russell instructed Caan to cough and choke at the same time during the scene, which Caan thought was impossible for a human being to do both. The two couldn't come to an agreement and Caan left the set never to return. The film's producer got to work on the damage control and was quoted as saying the disagreement was "part of an ongoing creative conversation between the actor and director", and that Russell had been nothing but professional throughout the shoot.

This is one of those movies that has a premise so incredibly bizarre, yet has cast so strong, that I figure there is some promise I am simply not seeing. David O. Russell's romantic comedy Nailed already stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel, and The Hollywood Reporter says that the film has now added Catherine Keener, James Marsden and Tracy Morgan to the cast.

The plot follows a naive waitress, Alice, who is shot in the head with a nail. The injury causes her behavior to be erratic and outrageous (the IMDb says it causes her to become a sexually adventurous bombshell), and she heads to Washington to campaign on behalf of better health care for the freakishly injured. She ends up falling for a young and clueless new congressman, who must summon up his political courage to save her. Biel plays the waitress, Gyllenhaal the congressman. Keener will be playing a self-serving congresswoman, and Marsden the small-town boyfriend of Alice. Hopefully he's not the one who shot her with a nail. Morgan's character has yet to be decided.

Like I said, there is probably something I am not seeing. The script is penned by Russell and Kristen Gore, so the charm must lie there. But is the waitress' naivete the reason she was shot in the head? Or is she naive because she thinks her insurance will cover the cost of her injury? And must James Marsden lose a girl not only to Wolverine, to Superman and to Patrick Dempsey, but to Congressman Jake Gyllenhaal too?

To be fair, I'm willing to give Mr. Russell a fair shot after the surprisingly unique Three Kings -- although people still keep dissuading me from seeing I Heart Huckabees.

Most guys probably prefer to look at Penélope Cruz. I think I would rather listen to her. Really, who could resist that cute Spanish-accented voice? I especially like in Vanilla Sky when she says, "I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats." Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, I'll get to listen to her voice without seeing her body in the upcoming live-action/animated combo film G-Force. But instead of her being a cat, Cruz is playing a guinea pig named Juarez.

If you remember back to my post from last November, Juarez isn't the only guinea pig in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie. There's also Blaster, a Cavia porcellus (aka guinea pig) voiced by Tracy Morgan. Other animals and their respective voices include a mole named Speckles (Nicolas Cage), a hamster named Bucky (Steve Buscemi) and some humans (Will Arnett, Bill Nighy, Kelli Garner and others).

The humans are, of course, live-action and played by real-life actors. The animals, on the other hand, are computer-generated toons (like Alvin and the Chipmunks, I guess). And they're super-smart commandos that work for the government. And they're out to stop a evil billionaire from taking over the world (isn't it enough to be a billionaire?). As we've told you before, the script for the family-friendly action pic was written by National Treasure team Cormac and Marianne Wibberley (aka The Wibberleys) and it will be helmed by first-time director Hoyt Yeatman, who has two Academy Awards -- one for his visual effects work on The Abyss and one Technical Achievement Award "for the identification and diagnosis leading to the elimination of the 'red fringe' artifact in traveling matte composite photography." We'll have to see if the guy can score another Oscar someday for directing, though I doubt he'll manage that goal with G-Force.

See the expression on Ice Cube's face in this photograph? I wore that same expression for the entire running time of First Sunday. The transition of the holiday movie season into the barren movie wasteland of January is always a jarring one. For the past three months, it seems like I've seen nothing but Oscar-caliber movies -- masterful films by outstanding filmmakers working from amazing scripts. So maybe First Sunday just pales in comparison...

But I don't think so.

No, this is not yet another sequel to that terrific Ice Cube comedy Friday, as many have suspected. Sunday tells the story of "new" characters Durell (Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan). As the movie opens, the boys are picked up by the cops for their involvement with some stolen wheelchairs. They are sentenced to 5,000 hours of community service, the owner of the wheelchairs comes to collect, and Durell finds himself broke. Things get even more desperate when Durell's ex-girlfriend (Regina Hall) tells him she intends to move to another state with his son...unless he can come up with $17,000 to pay off a debt. So Durell and LeeJohn do what anyone in their shoes would do -- they decide to rob a church. And of course, after a night amongst good Christian folk, they learn that crime is bad and God is good and blah blah blah.