THR is reporting that Jim Carrey is going to be making a cameo appearance in the finale of season seven of The Office over in the States. If memory serves, this will be Carrey’s first television role in well over a decade, since his part(s) in the ’90s TV series, In Living Color, created by Keenen Ivory Wayans, and starring no less than five of the Wayans family (Keenen included), Jamie Foxx, and Jennifer Lopez.

For most people, myself included, Jim Carrey is a comedy genius, and there’s no doubt that he’ll be a brilliant addition to the already high-profile line-up of guest stars for the season finale. He’ll be joining Ricky Gervais (naturally from the British original), Will Ferrell (Anchorman), James Spader (Boston Legal), Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), Catherine Tate (The Catherine Tate Show), and one of my all-time favourite actors on television, Will Arnett (Arrested Development).

Steve Carell has been the lead character, Michael Scott, in all of the show’s seven series to date, but announced a few months ago that he would be leaving the show, and his final episode, entitled Goodbye, Michael, is airing in an extended version on NBC this Thursday. Despite Carell’s exit, the series has been renewed for an eighth season, with no announcement yet as to who will be filling the actor’s shoes. According to THR, the big names that are starring in the series finale, which will air on 19th of May in America, will be interviewing on the show for the management position left open with Michael’s departure.

Of all the names on the bill, Carrey’s is undoubtedly the least likely to fill the open position, which is a good thing in my eyes. I think Carrey is a brilliant actor, whose talent is probably best served through starring in films. His upcoming film, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, looks surprisingly good, and I think it’s the kind of film that could only really work with Carrey in the lead. And his performance in Yes Man back in 2008 was one of my favourites throughout his brilliant career, and I’m hoping we have more films like that to look forward to in the future.

The Office’s season finale will almost certainly be riotous comedic affair, and much of the best of that comedy will likely be coming from Carrey and Arnett. Putting all these big names together in the same hour-long episode is all but a sure thing, and should make for an excellent end to the season. Whether or not Carell’s replacement will be made clear in the finale awaits to be seen.

20th Century Fox have released a new trailer for their upcoming romantic-comedy Monte Carlo whcih is released in the UK 26th August.

Directed by Thomas Bezucha (The Family Stone), Monte Carlo stars Leighton Meester, Selena Gomez, Cory Monteith, Katie Cassidy, Andie MacDowell, Brett Cullen, Catherine Tate and Amanda Fairbank-Hynes.

Three young women (Meester, Gomez and Cassidy) vacationing in Paris find themselves whisked away to Monte Carlo after one of the girls is mistaken for a British heiress.

Watch the trailer below:

Rob Letterman’s big screen adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is out in UK cinemas on the 26th of December and we had the chance to sit down with the director and cast to get their take on this larger than life tale.

We spoke to one of the most luminescent stars in our sky at the moment, Emily Blunt on her role in Gulliver’s Travels and what it was like working with Jack Black and the array of British talent which included Catherine Tate, Billy Connolly, James Corden and Chris O’Dowd.

Check out our interviews with Billy Connolly and director Rob Letterman and you can see our review of the film here.

Interviewer: Hilary Oliver

Updating the tales of Lemuel Gulliver to an age of iPhones, Guitar Hero and internet plagiarism is all well and good and as a frame on which to hang another virtuoso ‘Jack Black as Jack Black’ performance it should provide a broad enough base for an enjoyable, engaging comedy. It doesn’t.

Black plays a postal room worker in a publishing house who begins the film by being overlooked for a managerial position in favour of an employee on his first day and decides to change his life, and win the heart of Amanda Peet’s Travel Editor by applying for a travel writer’s position. One night of cribbing from the Time Out and Lonely Planet websites and he gets his first assignment – to investigate the Bermuda Triangle and so we are on our way.

A fancy visual effect later and Gulliver wakes to find himself on a mysterious island, tied down by an army of tiny people. From this point on two things happen: any meaningful connection to Jonathan Swift’s novel is lost and Jack Black leads an almost inexplicable collision of pantomime and pop culture with few redeeming features.

Arriving in Lilliput Black wins over the King and Queen (Billy Connolly and Catherine Tate) and their daughter (Emily Blunt) but immediately enrages the captain of the guard, and the Princess’s fiance, played by Chris O’Dowd. With Jason Segel appearing as a man imprisoned for falling in love with the Princess you can easily guess how this one plays out, but people have made great things with far less. How does Gulliver’s Travels fare?

What script there is exists to pepper a staggering level of platitudinous bilge into an idea of Swift’s tale without any kind of worth or weight to it; logic is stomped underfoot as the narrative lurches from one point to the next without warning. It’s an uneven journey we are on together and while the visual effects are diverting the script is woefully uninspired; both your face and your palm will be numb by the end of the film.

Any trace of satire is swept away in favour of a barrage of pop culture references (as opposed to jokes) and Gulliver’s Travels becomes a strange live action version of a Shrek film. The sharp blade of Swift’s wit is blunted repeatedly by an overriding crassness, it consoles itself with drenching Billy Connolly in a jet stream of urine and inserting trailer friendly moments with Jack Black using the Lilliputians as foosball players, or daubing them in Kiss makeup for a real life version of Guitar Hero – all of these ideas are fine, but never amount to anything other than a slap around the face for the audience members who may have dozed off while the film plays out.

Amanda Peet appears as Gulliver’s unattainable love interest and is typically charming, given that she’s asked to do very little here other than be the focus of Gulliver’s affections, play angry at the plagiarism element, then arrives in Lilliput (don’t ask) to need rescuing and finally watch as Gulliver believes in himself and overcomes an enormous evil robot. Like Blunt, Connolly and Tate she is given so little room to move and is criminally underused.

Enlisting some one of the finest British comic talent to accompany Mr. Black on his adventure should provide a decent comedic front to balance the wild yahooing of Black’s Gulliver and Blunt and O’Dowd do very well with the material, with O’Dowd in particular standing out from the crowd, adding a dash of Python to his Pantomime, but it is of little consequence as he is forced into a Wallace and Gromit-esque robot by journey’s end.

Emily Blunt’s character is drawn from the richest variety of pantomime with mood swings like a pendulum in a hurricane, her princess glides through the motions with a few good comedy moments and Jason Segel, playing her lovestruck admirer, was perhaps the only genuinely affecting performance in the whole shebang.

On the plus side Blenheim Palace looks very pretty.

I believe the intentions of Rob Letterman and the writers Nicholas Stoller and Joe Stillman were good, but this particular road to hell is a massively uneven one, with misstep after misstep and at the end all we have is an inexplicable song and dance number.  There is no definitive adaptation of Swift’s classic novel and while a family-friendly comedy starring Jack Black was never going to delve into the satirical depths of the source material there’s no excuse for this comedy wasteland. The film aims low and fails to meet its potential at every turn. It could have been a lot of fun, but the good time the cast were having on set failed to make the journey back from Lilliput.

*½~~~ (1.5/5)

Gulliver’s Travels in out in the UK on Boxing Day.

Rob Letterman’s big screen adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is out in UK cinemas on the 26th of December and we had the chance to sit down with the director and cast to get their take on this larger than life tale.

Director Rob Letterman is the man behind Monsters Vs. Aliens and Shark Tale and he steps into live action to direct (or rather contain) Jack Black as he runs riot over Lilliput with Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Catherine Tate, Billy Connolly, James Corden and Chris O’Dowd in support.

Check out our interviews with Billy Connolly and Emily Blunt on Friday and you can see our review of the film tomorrow.

Rob Letterman’s big screen adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is out in UK cinemas on the 26th of December and we had the chance to sit down with the director and cast to get their take on this larger than life tale.

Billy Connolly is one of the most celebrated comedians alive today and his role as King of the Lilliputians alongside Catherine Tate, James Corden, Chris O’Dowd and Emily Blunt is his latest role in a nicely eclectic filmograpy which takes in The Last Samurai, a role in the recent X-Files film and the two Boondock Saints films.

We sat down with the man to talk about working on this classic tale. Check out our interviews with Emily Blunt tomorrow and director Rob Letterman on Wednesday and you can see our review of the film on the site this Thursday.

Inerviewer: Hilary Oliver

Rob Letterman’s 3D update of the Jonathan Swift novel Gulliver’s Travels is almost upon us and to further stoke the fires on anticipation caused by a multitude of posters and trailers I’m very happy to sate your desire for more outsized Jack Black with a new TV spot and a couple of posters.

I saw the film last week and am wedged under a heavy embargo so cannot tell you any more about what I thought until late December but there will be the interview I did with the director up on the site around the same time so you can hear what he has to say for himself.

The new TV spot is full of exactly the Jack Blackisms that will sell the film and the supporting cast, which is considerable, are on show as well, with Billy Connolly and Emily Blunt among the little people.

Here’s the TV spot, noticed by the /Film guys,

And now we move onto the posters, which take Photoshop down to a whole new level – seriously, look at Jack Black’s head in the second one. Man…

The posters both come from IMPA

Twentieth Century Fox have released a brand new International trailer for their new movie, Gulliver’s Travels which stars Jack Black, Amanda Peet, Catherine Tate, Emily Blunt, Billy Connolly, Jason Segel, Chris O’Dowd, T.J. Miller and was shot right here in England at Pinewood Studios.

The movie is directed by Rob Letterman and will be in 3D. Fox have also confirmed that the movie will be released on Boxing Day in the UK, 26th December.

Synopsis: Lemuel Gulliver is a mailroom clerk at a New York newspaper. After Gulliver bluffs his way into an assignment writing about the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, he is hurtled to an undiscovered land, Lilliput. In this fantastical new world, Gulliver is a bigger-than-life figure — in size and ego — especially after he starts telling tall tales, taking credit for his world’s greatest inventions, and placing himself at the center of its most historic events. Gulliver’s position is enhanced even further when he leads his new friends in a daring battle against their longtime enemies. But when Gulliver loses it all and puts the Lilliputians in peril, he must find a way to undo the damage. Gulliver only becomes a true giant among men when he learns that it¿s how big you are on the inside that counts.

MTV have gifted the world with 28 new images for movies that are coming up over the next few months. In a series of posts over the next few hours, I’m going to be putting up the image(s) and giving you a low-down on the cast, the synopsis and the release date (if there is one). If you want to see all the other posts in this series, click here.

This new image comes from Jack Black’s new movie, Gulliver’s Travels which I cannot wait to see. It looks completely nuts and i’m hoping will prove a real hit! It also stars Amanda Peet, Catherine Tate, Emily Blunt, Billy Connolly, Jason Segel, Chris O’Dowd, T.J. Miller and is directed by Rob Letterman.

Synopsis: Travel writer Lemuel Gulliver takes an assignment in Bermuda, but ends up on the island of Liliput, where he towers over its tiny citizens.

It’s scheduled for release in the UK 26th December and was filmed at Pinewood Studios.

Remember Cannes last year? We had Inglourious Basterds, A Christmas Carol and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This year, there’s a bit of Robin Hood, some Tamara Drew and probably a whole lot more promotional material from all the other big movies coming out later on this year. Simon Gallagher is our man on the ground in Cannes this year and he’ll be bringing reports from the Film Festival over the next week.

The chaps from Empire Magazine are out there too and have found a brand new poster for Jack Black’s new movie, Gulliver’s Travels which is based on the novel by Jonathan Swift written back in the 1700′s. It’s directed by Rob Letterman and also stars Emily Blunt, Jason Segel,  Billy Connolly and Catherine Tate.

It’s scheduled for release late 2010 and will also be in 3d.

You know the drill by now. iTunes offer a random film for cheap rental every week, I take the bullet and let you know if you’d be better off buying a can of Coke and a Twix.

I aim to raise the profile of the 99p rental, and it’s working already. Just six weeks since I started and in this month’s Total Film magazine they’ve named iTunes 99p rental number 16 in their ‘Future 100′. Nice to know they’re fans of HUG.

Starter for 10 is based on the book by David Nicholls, who also adapted the screenplay. Directed by Tom Vaughan (What Happens in Vegas), it’s the story of Brian (McAvoy), who leaves his working class town and his widowed mother to go off to Bristol University. When he arrives he finds he has nothing in common with his room mates. He meets a girl, Rebecca, at a party that night but his nervous patter screws up any chance he had. Dejected and drunk, he stumbles back to his digs. Along the way, much to his excitement, he finds a notice for University Challenge auditions. At the auditions, he helps an attractive girl, Alice, with her test questions and as a result, she beats him to the final team place. Named as first alternative, he makes the team after all due to one of their team-mates suffering a mishap.

The set-up for Starter For 10 leads you to believe it’s going to be about Brian and his team striving for victory. However, the contest, and indeed Brian’s academic studies, take a back seat to his romantic (mis)adventures. Though he is clearly better suited to the intellectual and sensitive Rebecca, he strikes up a relationship with the sexually charged blond-bombshell Alice instead.

Whether this movie is intended as drama, comedy or romance isn’t clear, but it fails on all three counts. When Brian stays with Alice’s family for Christmas, his poor social skills lead to misunderstandings that are clearly meant to be humorous, but fall flat. The one-liners are weak too. At the auditions, only four people turn up to begin with, and we’re treated to the obvious ‘only the top four will make the team’. The drama should come when Brian’s best friend takes a shine to his love Alice, but by this point we’re past caring.

That’s probably the biggest problem here. Whilst we’re supposed to find Brian’s bumbling charm endearing, he’s really just annoying, and his shallow relationship choices actually fairly obnoxious. James McAvoy, so good in The Last King of Scotland, initially appears to be slumming it here. But then you realise he’s not even doing the best with what he’s been given. The only real acting stand-out is Catherine Tate as Brian’s Mum, and that’s not a great recommendation.

The outcome of the contest, when we finally get back on track, is unexpected. In fact, compared to the rest of the film, it’s almost a stroke of genius, the only good moment. It’s far too little, far too late however. The best thing about watching on an ipod touch was that i could just pick it up and watch the film in short bursts.

Part of the reason i started the 99p rental segment was so i’d be forced to watch films I normally wouldn’t bother to watch. And sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. But I’d give ten points to anyone who could answer me the question – how does anyone see this film as a good investment, when great British films like Academy Award winner Slumdog Millionaire, and the forthcoming Harry Brown struggle to find funding?

So, my opinion of Starter For 10? Even more pointless than Exeter University, the team with the lowest score in the last 30 years of University Challenge. Starter For 10 is available at the discounted rental price until Monday 5th October at Midnight. Is it available on DVD? Seriously, who’d buy it..?

Bazmann