wedding crashers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

What are you renting this week? Let us know in the comments! To get you started, here's our look at more than a dozen new releases.

Serenity
Joss Whedon's TV series Firefly inspired a rabid fan base, myself included. The sci-fi Western featured good-looking, likable characters, witty dialogue, and a breezy pace. The 2005 movie was a thrilling, fitting capstone for a series that ended far too soon, but stands on its own just fine. Previously released on DVD and HD-DVD, the Blu-ray version adds several new features (detailed by Peter Bracke at High-Def Digest). Serenity is buoyant entertainment and rewards repeat viewings. Buy it.

Woman on the Beach
A sublime tale, Woman is a leisurely, dramatic battle of the sexes that's funny and insightful. J. Hoberman of the Village Voice described it as "a rueful tale of karmic irony, self-deceived desire, squandered second chances, and unforeseen abandonment." He noted director Hong Sang-soo's affinities with Eric Rohmer and Albert Brooks "in his deadpan presentation of absurd antics." In Korean with English subtitles. The DVD includes a "making of," interviews, and a trailer. Woman on the Beach is an ideal choice for date night. Rent it.

Towelhead
Directed by Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under), this "controversial and polarizing" drama relates what happens to "a 13-year-old Lebanese-American girl living in Texas during the first Gulf War," per our own Eric D. Snider, who was writing in response to an Islamic group's call for a title change. The DVD includes a two-part featurette, "Towelhead: A Community Discussion." Sight unseen (by me), it sounds like a sure cure for a New Year's Day hangover. Rent it.

Also out: An American Carol (DVD; Blu-ray next week) and Surfer, Dude (DVD and Blu-ray).

At some point this past summer, between all but consecutive viewings of The Dark Knight, I slipped into a screening of Step Brothers with the same tempered expectations with which I had greeted Blades of Glory and Semi-Pro -- and found myself equally surprised in the coming days and weeks and months by just how admittedly tickled I was by any of them (quoting lines was moderate on all counts). Mind you, I'm saying this as the guy who chuckled during Anchorman, sure, but not really enough to keep it on my shelf or call myself thankful for it.

That's nothing against our Eric D. Snider, and nothing against the star of each film mentioned, Will Ferrell (yes, he was actually Batman). In fact, with Step Brothers hitting shelves today (with reports of a wholly sung commentary track), it only seemed fitting that we go over his most amusing roles as overgrown man-children (Ferrell's, not Snider's). Because they're there, and they always will be, and the sooner that I admit to being vulnerable to his shtick, a better world this very well may be.

What with the firestorm over John McCain's ad calling Barack Obama a hollow celebrity akin to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, you'd think someone would have pointed out that McCain actually has Obama beat in the "number of Hollywood movies appeared in" category. Here's a video -- unearthed by Movie Moron via SlashFilm -- of John McCain's amusing cameo in Wedding Crashers, shaking hands with Christopher Walken's remarkably well-connected Secretary Cleary at his daughter's wedding. And yes, that's James Carville next to him, but Carville shows up in everything.

Just a bit of harmless fun for McCain or despicable participation in a BOOB RAUNCH FEST? You be the judge.

Also: Number of cameos on 24: John McCain: 1; Barack Obama: 0. You can check that video out over here. What's that old saw about glass houses?

Although the Justice League of America film still doesn't have a firm cast, it looks like we have a director for the first official JLA spin-off. MTV Movies Blog reports that they've spoken with David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers), and he's confirmed to them that he's taken over directing reigns on The Flash. Not only that, but he also says his version of The Flash will exist in the JLA universe, the same as the upcoming live-action film. The film has already gone through two different directors; first it was David Goyer, and then it was Shawn Levy (who was going to use elements of Goyer's script). Now it's Dobkin ... who's never directed a comic book film before. But neither had Christopher Nolan when he did Batman Begins, or Bryan Singer when he did X-Men, or George Miller, who's directing Justice League -- so, really, does it matter?

When asked which Flash would be The Flash (there have been four of them), Dobkin replied, "Wally West." West took over for Barry Allen, his Uncle, when Allen died. As MTV pointed out, recent rumors over at AICN suggest the new live action JLA flick will open with Barry Allen's funeral. Dobkin even threw out the following tagline when asked about his vision for the film: "You can't outrun yourself." Deep. No word yet on when this film will begin, but you bet whoever signs on to play The Flash in JLA will most likely do so under the condition that they star in the spin-off. What do you think about Dobkin? Is he better than Levy? Goyer?

"I want us to be open to new experiences -- I want us to say 'yes' to everything." That's what Owen Wilson's character tells his two brothers throughout The Darjeeling Limited, but what if someone actually lived a year of their life while saying 'yes' to everything? Someone tries to sell you something. Yes! Your friends want to jump off a bridge for hell of it. Yes! That girl from work who's always had a crush on you, but kind of looks like a werewolf, asks you out on a date. Yes! Man, the adventures you'd go on -- the stories you'd be able to tell if you somehow survived the year. Unreal. Well get this -- some dude actually did this ... in real life. He wrote a book about it, they're turning it into a movie called Yes Man starring Jim Carrey and Variety tells us Bradley Cooper has signed on to star as Carrey's best mate.

The book, which is also called Yes Man, was written by Danny Wallace. He was the type of guy who said 'no' a lot, until one day someone on a bus told him to say 'yes' more often. So what does he do? He spends one year saying 'yes' to everything -- and at some point along the way, this helps him win $48,000. Damn. Maybe I should say 'yes' more often. Cooper has a number of film roles coming up (apart from his TV work on shows like Nip/Tuck), but moviegoers might best remember him as the slimy boyfriend of Rachel McAdams in Wedding Crashers. Peyton Reed (The Break Up) will direct Yes Man, which I imagine will take some cues from one of my favorite Carrey comedies, Liar Liar. They will probably use some stuff from the book, as well as introduce new scenarios in which saying 'yes' could get our hero in a lot of trouble. A romantic interest hasn't been cast yet -- and you know there's going to be one -- so be on the lookout for a cute female actress to make her way into the picture soon.

It takes cojones to make an R-rated movie these days, when the proven money-makers are PG and PG-13 movies that can attract a wider audience and thus rake in the big bucks. Still, there is a great tradition of hard-R classics in Hollywood, dating back to the likes of Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House and Vacation in the late '70s and early '80s, and continuing down through the ages. But while these flicks continued to be produced, they rarely took off at the box office. All that is changing now, thanks to the one-two money-making punch of Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin in the summer of 2005. This summer has already seen one hard-R smash-hit in Knocked Up and will hopefully see another one in Superbad.

To salute those filmmakers and studios that still have the stones to make hard-R flicks, Moviefone has ranked the 25 Best Raunchy Comedies of all time, celebrating those R-rated movies that contain a cornucopia of cursing, drinking and gratuitous nudity and generally blow straight by the line between good taste and off-the-charts offensive. Check out the list, then hit us with your two cents: What do you think are the best raunchy R-rated comedies ever made?

Over at quigspot.com is a listing of what the blogger deems the "Ten Most Obnoxiously Overquoted Movies." He says in the intro: "Nothing makes a great movie suck like people quoting it day in and day out for months at a time. It's the go-to route used by individuals who aren't clever enough to come up with their own material, made worse by them thinking (thanks to the select few that laughed at their referencing) they've suddenly become the most hilarious stand-up comedian since George Carlin." I agree to some extent, but while it's true that quoting movies is not the most enlightened form of comedy, it can be a lot of fun. The key is to stick to obscure quotes -- avoid "Luke, I am your father" and "Say hello to my little friend." At a party, an obscure quote that someone else recognizes can help you recognize a kindred spirit, and snag you a new friend or even a romance. Still, there are some movies that get quoted far too frequently, and it becomes particularly hard to deal with once they're embraced by the "frat guy" crowd, as almost all of quigspot's choices are.

The ten selected overquoted films are: 10) Office Space (good call, but the boss' voice is just too much fun to do. Quoting this one simply has to be done sometimes, especially in an office setting), 9) Monty Python movies (disagree -- I don't hear Python quotes much these days), 8) Wedding Crashers (definitely getting obnoxious, especially at bars), 7) Anything with Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes on a Plane, absolutely), 6) The 40 Year-Old Virgin (maybe, but when the lines are that funny, who can argue?), 5) Anchorman (see #6, although "I'm kind of a big deal" has reached the end of the line), 4) The Austin Powers series (yup), 3) Borat (Should have been #1 -- some guy dressed as Borat at a Halloween party I attended stayed in character the entire night and almost drove me to murder), 2) Napoleon Dynamite (absolutely) and the choice for the #1 most obnoxiously overquoted movie is ... 300.

Movies I'm guilty of quoting? 1) Wayne's World -- whenever anybody orders Chinese food, I can't resist throwing in "I'll have the cream of sum yung guy." I'm also a fan of "If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick." 2) The Naked Gun series. Endless possibilities really, but my favorite is "Like a midget at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes." 3) Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski -- literally every line of both is gold. Which movies do you love to quote? And which movies do you think get quoted too frequently?

I just spent the last half hour double-checking the MPAA ratings on my all-time favorite comedies, and I noticed the majority of them are rated R. There's been a real push over the last several years to get films down to a PG-13 rating. Two comedies that did really well this year with audiences, but not critics, were both rated PG-13 (Norbit, Wild Hogs). But let's take a look at the last several comedies that did well with both audiences and critics: Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers, Little Miss Sunshine, The 40 Year-Old Virgin -- all rated R. Around this same time last year, the teen comedy Accepted hit theaters. The film starred an up-and-coming Justin Long, and some new guy (who happened to steal the movie) named Jonah Hill. At the time, I thought it was a nice surprise for a PG-13 comedy -- although now that I know how good Superbad is (a film that stars the same Jonah Hill), I'm left wondering how much better Accepted would've been had it opted to go 'R.'

With Superbad, it's not even like the film carries a ton of nudity. In fact, Superbad is one of those extremely rare R-rated teen sex comedies that doesn't have an ounce of nudity anywhere in it. Instead, we have several references to sex, combined with more foul language than you know what to do with. But, like Jonah and Michael Cera told me during our interview, this is how kids talk. This is how real teenagers act around each other. And like with the majority of Judd Apatow's films (whether he's a producer or director), it's funny because it's relatable. I had a conversation with a friend of mine last night, and Apatow's name came up. In my opinion, Apatow and his crew have achieved in two years (on the big screen) what Kevin Smith should have 10 years ago (although when you factor in budgets versus box office, Smith's films have been very successful) -- writing raunchy, relatable material (sprinkled with pop culture references) that caters to a wide audience. It's not that Smith's stuff isn't funny (it totally is -- my friend and I talked Clerks for an hour last night), it's just that his films unfortunately never found a way to reach the mass audience Apatow has.**. But to get back on track ...

... what do you think: Is a comedy funnier when it's rated R? And, like Accepted, are there comedies that would've been funnier had they gone for the 'R' rating?

**Leave it to me to start a topic within a topic and not explain myself further. That's what happens when caffeine hasn't entered my system yet. But to further explain, what I meant to say is that Apatow and his crew stole a bit of Smith's thunder, and we should remember that Smith could probably be credited for starting this whole "relatable foul-mouthed humor" with little more than a bunch of credit cards and a unique sense of humor. Scott made some great points in his follow-up post, so head on over there to continue this discussion.

Time travel is, well, a time-honored tradition in Hollywood with movies like Back to the Future, The Terminator, The Time Machine and the upcoming New Line film The Time Traveler's Wife, based on the bestselling novel by Audrey Niffenegger. The movie version of the novel was announced recently with screenwriter Jeremy Leven of The Notebook handling the adaptation duties, while Steven Frears (The Queen, Dirty Pretty Things) and director Robert Schwentke (Flightplan) are left to battle it out for helming duties. And now we can add some casting news to the mix as well.

According to TMZ (via Coming Soon), super-hot Rachel McAdams, star of Wedding Crashers, Red Eye and The Notebook, is in serious talks to star in the film as Clair, a beautiful art student who falls for Henry, a librarian with a problem: At random moments he disappears and travels through time to other parts of his life. Obviously, this causes a great deal of trouble for Henry and Clair as they struggle with children, jobs, friends and any semblance of a normal life. If she takes the role, this will mark McAdams' second go-round with screenwriter Leven after their work together on The Notebook.

No word yet on who will play time traveling Henry, but if producers are looking for any suggestions, I'll throw one out: How about casting McAdams' co-star from The Notebook Ryan Gosling in the role? Although Gosling might be a little busy these days seeing as he's appearing in at least four new movies over the next year, including director David Michael's The Other Side and The Last Face for director Erin Dignam. Still, casting these two actors together worked pretty well for The Notebook and I'm sure the duo could do wonderful things with The Time Traveler's Wife too.

What do you think, is Gosling a good idea?

Usually when a movie is adapted into a TV series, either the situation of the movie's plot or its characters are brought from the big screen to the small, but New Line has announced a TV version of the comedy hit Wedding Crashers that doesn't have much to do with the original source. Rather than making a sitcom based on the roles originated by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, the series will be more of a candid-camera reality show, in the style of Punk'd. In fact, the show will be produced by Ashton Kutcher and his partners at Katalyst Films.

Wedding Crashers will follow a group of improv actors as they crash actual weddings -- in a good way. What? Well, rather than imposing on and embarrassing the bride and groom, the actors will make the weddings more fun for the parties, contributing memorable stunts and pranks much like Wilson and Vaughn do in the first 20 minutes of the movie. I can only imagine that sometimes the wedding parties will not appreciate the stunts and pranks as much as New Line thinks they will, however. Just think about whether you'd want your wedding exploited for reality television. Okay, so many people might welcome the 15 minutes of fame. So, what's next, New Line? Snakes on a Plane, the realty series?