zach galifianakis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Get ready all you Twispians, because Cinematical has just received this exclusive teaser poster for Youth in Revolt, which stars Michael Cera as the ultra-angsty (and legendary) Nick Twisp and is based on one of my favorite books of all time. Ah, what can you say about Youth in Revolt? The book, written by C.D. Payne, has amassed a huge, cult-like following partly because we can all relate to being an awkward teenager who'd do anything to capture the love of that special someone, and also because it's just damn funny.

For those who haven't read the book (seriously, read it -- the thing is hilarious), Youth in Revolt follows the misadventures of a love-sick teen who stops just short of destroying the world in order to win the love of one Sheeni Saunders. Cera plays said teen, Nick Twisp, while newcomer Portia Doubleday plays Sheeni. The film also boasts a pretty impressive supporting cast, including Steve Buscemi (as Nick's seedy, trailer-trash father), Zach Galifianakis, Justin Long, Fred Willard, Ray Liotta, Jean Smart and Ari Graynor. Needless to say, I cannot wait to see this cast bring some of these wacky, ridiculous (and memorable) characters to life, and I'm sure you Revolt fans are right there with me.

Youth in Revolt hits theaters on October 30. Click the image below to view entire poster.

It seems redundant and pointless to talk about how intimidating Mike Tyson is, but I admit that I was nervously excited when Cinematical was offered the opportunity to interview him in conjunction with the release of The Hangover. Having spoken to Tommy Lee Jones, the toughest of tough celebrity interviews, I'd survived gauntlets far more fearsome than dealing with a former heavyweight, especially since I'd recently seen Tyson, which offers a portrait of him at his most reflective, self-aware and lucidly articulate. But I did want to get a good, and more importantly real interview with him, not just lob softballs in his direction and be yet another guy who was too scared to ask a substantive question.

Tyson's cameo in The Hangover is just one great moment in a film with plenty of other ones, but it seems to mean more for him, if not also to him: while the film's $45 million opening-weekend haul means higher paychecks and better roles for co-stars Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, its visibility and success gives Tyson a sense of humor, and moreover, a humanity that he's never quite achieved on such a significant scale. Cinematical spoke to Tyson on May 17 in Las Vegas, where the former prizefighter discussed what it meant to appear in the movie, looked back on the experience of making Toback's documentary, and talked about what the future holds for him following his recent adventures on the silver screen.

Todd Phillips scored a hit in 2003 with the raucous R-rated comedy Old School, then for some reason moved to tamer waters for Starsky & Hutch and School for Scoundrels, neither of which amounted to anything. Duly chastened, he now returns home with The Hangover, a movie that's as gleefully dirty as Old School, and maybe funnier.

It's a story of friendship, camaraderie, and alcohol. As such, it can only be set in Las Vegas. That is where Doug (Justin Bartha), who is getting married Sunday, is taken by his friends for an epic bachelor party: Phil (Bradley Cooper), a schoolteacher who hates his students almost as much as he hates being married, is the ringleader; Stu (Ed Helms), a wimpy dentist with a controlling shrew for a girlfriend, is the nervous nellie; Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug's soon-to-be brother-in-law, is the spacey, grubby, possibly mentally handicapped one who recalls Will Ferrell in Old School (which means he also recalls John Belushi in Animal House).

The four embark on a night of revelry. The next morning, Phil, Stu, and Alan wake up in their hotel suite with a tiger and a baby. There's no sign of Doug, the groom-to-be. And no one can remember anything that happened the night before.

As comedy premises go, this one is brilliantly simple. Three hungover guys stumble around Las Vegas in search of clues as to their missing friend's whereabouts, not to mention the origin of the baby and the tiger, and not to mention the other various things that have gone awry that, well, I won't mention. (Spoiler: Ed Helms is missing that tooth in real life.)

Remember that night you can't forget when you did that thing you can't remember? Director Todd Phillips mines familiar territory for fresh laughs in the new trailer for his upcoming film The Hangover, starring Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms (The Office) as three buddies who lose a friend after a wild bachelor party in Las Vegas.

"Lose," by the way, is not a euphemism for death; they literally can't find the dude (played by Justin Bartha). They wake up on the morning after to discover a trashed hotel room, a tiger in the bathroom and a crying baby in the closet. They piece together the events of the evening before as they try to find the missing groomsman in time for Cooper's wedding, somehow also encountering a real life, former heavyweight boxing champion. I won't spoil all the laughs, but it definitely looks like Old School with more alcohol, a silly, cheerfully incorrect tale of 30-something men celebrating boozing and general debauchery.

Phillips took somewhat of a left turn with School for Scoundrels in 2006, which didn't quite work the way it should have; before that, Starsky & Hutch was funny without being as consistently hilarious as Old School or as warmly goofy as Road Trip. As for Brad Cooper, he has a chance to knock one out of the park in a leading role after yeoman work in comic supporting parts (he was quite good as the star of the very good horror flick Midnight Meat Train). We previously posted a shorter teaser trailer; we've embedded the new, longer one below. The Hangover hits theaters on June 5, courtesy of Warner Brothers.

We've posted an episode of Between Two Ferns before, back when Zach Galifianakis interviewed (and subsequently molested) poor Michael Cera. Now, though, in Episode 3 of this hysterical little bit, Zach sits down with Jon Hamm, from AMC's Mad Men and the new flick The Day the Earth Stood Still. While Hamm has made a huge name for himself lately, Galifianakis is slowly emerging as well with six films in different stages of production, including the Youth in Revolt adaptation and the Todd Phillips comedy The Hangover. I'm still waiting to catch his indie Visioneers (which we reviewed here), and these little bits he does for Funny or Die just crack me up.

Also on Funny or Die today is a little advertisement for Will Ferrell's new George Bush show, A Final Night with George W. Bush, which hits NYC in January. Watch that here, and watch the Zach interview below. Warning: This interview contains mild foul language and may be inappropriate for young, normal children.

Operating out of a small space on Fairfax, the nightclub Largo quickly became more a legend than a venue. Intimate and loose, part of the appeal of Largo is that you literally never knew (I only use the past tense as the club has moved from its Fairfax location to a larger venue on La Cienega in the past month) what, or who might turn up. Largo's where Jack Black and Kyle Gass did some of their earliest work as Tenacious D; Jackson Browne's dropped in to sing a few songs. John C. Reilly has hosted casual, extemporaneous chat shows there; composer Jon Brion (best known for his work on Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love) has held shows where he alternates constructing songs out of intricately arranged loops of instrumental figures he records live and composes and conducts on-stage with spirited cover versions of requests shouted out from the audience.

Co-directed by Largo manager and co-owner Mark Flanagan and Andrew van Baal, Largo recreates the Largo experience; loose, smart, random and unique. Mixing concert musical performances with snippets of comedy, the final film makes you feel like you've been to Largo, even as the more elegant notes in the black-and-white composition and the vignettes of the club's rhythm and tempo between the acts make it abundantly clear you're watching a film that was constructed and not just a tape that was turned on.

Finally, we have our first ridiculously odd film of 2008: Visioneers. Truth be told, I knew nothing about this film when Cinematical received the exclusive clip above. And if you watch that clip, you'll say "okay" and get mildly turned on by Judy Greer in a nightgown with her husband (played by the wonky Zach Galifianakis) and friend "Betty." But then you have to watch the trailer for this flick (either on the official website or after the jump). That's when Visioneers takes it up to a whole different level; one that involves lots of yelling, exploding people, middle fingers and what has to be one of the oddest stories we'll see on screen this year. Quite frankly, I cannot wait to see this.

Here's the synopsis from the site: George Washington Winsterhammerman lives an ordinary life. He has a wife, a kid, a house and a boat. Every day George gets in his minivan and goes to work as a Level Three Tunt at the Jeffers Corporation, the largest and most profitable corporation in the history of mankind. It is an utterly comfortable life, but when people around George begin exploding, he fears he might be next. George visits his doctor and learns that the dreams he's been having are a symptom of impending explosion. Unfortunately, George can't stop dreaming, and as the explosion epidemic worsens, he is forced to question the life he's been living.

Visioneers premieres at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 12th and 14th, before hitting up CineVegas (where Cinematical will review) on June 18th and 19th. (I know it's early and it's only a clip and a trailer, but I think I'm in love ...)

Yes! Funny or Die is back with their first comedic masterpiece of 2008. I love it when they use Michael Cera for stuff, because when you stick him next to a maniac, you're almost guaranteed comedy gold. In the video above, watch as comedian/actor Zach Galifianakis interviews Cera for a fictitious show called Between Two Ferns. Poor Michael Cera. Will there ever be a video that features Cera abusing someone else? Everytime I see this kid in some viral piece, he's always on the opposite end of the joke. Sure, he's an easy target and that's part of his shtick, but it'd be nice to see him as the bully for once. So Michael, if you're reading this, please take on the role of badass in your next video. I want to see you punch someone. We all do.

I love talking animals as much as the next guy, but does Steve Buscemi always have to play some kind of toothy rodent? Actually, it's possible he only did that once, for Charlotte's Web (I'm not sure what kind of animal he is in Home on the Range). But wasn't that enough? Sure, he kinda looks rodent-like, but I'm sure he has the range when we're not looking at his mug. Anyway, according to The Hollywood Reporter, this time around it's a hamster named Bucky, who Buscemi will provide his voice for in the Disney movie G-Force. As we told you a few months back, G-Force is a Jerry Bruckheimer production that mixes live-action and computer animation and is about a group of genetically enhanced commando guinea pigs who have to stop an evil billionaire with world-domination dreams. Other voices will be provided by Nicolas Cage, as a mole named Speckles, and Tracy Morgan, as a guinea pig named Blaster.

As for the live-action roles, new to the cast are Bill Nighy, as an industrialist, and Will Arnett, as an FBI agent. And thank goodness for them, because the actors previously brought on to appear in the movie were too obscure for me to handle. They included Gabriel Casseus (Black Hawk Down) , Zach Galifianakis (Into the Wild), Kelli Garner (The Aviator) and Jack Conley (Fun With Dick and Jane). I know in a movie like this it's all about the talking animals, but with Nighy we've got ourselves a real movie. And with Arnett we have a funnier movie. Bruckheimer told THR that this will be another movie to be enjoyed by everyone "from the smallest kid to the oldest grandparent." He also pointed out that the movie's director, Oscar-winning visual effects master Hoyt Yeatman, came up with the idea with his son. From there it was apparently passed on to National Treasure screenwriters Cormac and Marianne Wibberley (aka The Wibberleys). G-Force is currently in production and expects a May 2009 release (Just a hint to Bruckheimer: it might make sense to add an extra dimension to this movie, since I think everything else animated coming out that month is going to be in 3D).

If it wasn't for those Shiny Happy Fabio followers, comedian Zach Galifianakis would've stopped Bubble Boy before his journey even began. (He was the ankle-weight-wearing bus dude who wouldn't give the kid a nice, cheap discount.) Since then, he's been a hacker, a homeless man, Santa, a friend of time-traveling Tru, and taught a certain kid about hunting Into the Wild -- just to name a few. Now he's got two more roles on the way, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

One of the roles will be in Tom Vaughn's What Happens in Vegas. He's going to play "Dave the Bear," Jack's (Ashton Kutcher) anti-marriage best friend who is less than happy when Jack marries Joy (Cameron Diaz) during a drunken night in Vegas. As I told you when news broke on the project, the pair get hitched and then undermine each other to get the big payout they win in Vegas. I imagine the Bear will plot against the aptly-named Joy, as THR says he's playing her nemesis.

For role number two, Galifianakis is going to get scientific by starring in the Disney/Bruckheimer flick, G-Force. His role is that of "the lead government scientist in charge of a guinea pig commando program, helping [to] send the highly trained elite agents on a dangerous mission." Elite animal agents, that is. Sounds like appropriate wacky-scientist casting to me. But for now, we've got Largo, Visioneers, and Little Fish, Strange Pond on the way -- all of which are in post-production.