More Muppets today, with a well-timed jab to the ribs of The Twilight Saga in the midst of its global release week, and these new posters are just perfect.

With any other film there would be a distinct danger of oversatuaration but this campaign has been running for a long, long time (and thanks to a thoroughly irritating release delay for us chumps in the UK will run a little longer) and there hasn’t been a misstep along the way.

Every franchise or series The Muppets have targeted they have nailed perfectly, and while it’s not an exaggeration to offer up the equation that Anything + Muppets=awesome it’s still a sight to behold.

Our excellent friends at Den of Geek had the exclusive look at these fine posters. I wonder what’s next…

Here are the images,

Disney have released a sneak peek at the opening dance sequence from the highly anticipated The Muppets this week.

The clip is short but it certainly lets us know what we are in for. And that’s a whole load of fun, familiar faces and goofiness. Now all we need is for February to hurry up.

The Muppets follows Walter (Jim Parsons), the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) who plan to stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever in attempt to raise $10 million to save the Muppet Theater.

The trio reunit Kermit with the rest of the Muppets gang who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino house band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.

The film also stars a number of other big names including Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Neil Patrick Harris, Zach Galifianakis, Jack Black, Ricky Gervais, Mila Kunis, and Selena Gomez, and is set to be released on 23rd November in the US and on 10th February, 2012 in the UK.

Read more about The Muppets and watch the dance sequence clip below:

Source: Collider.

Everything, and I mean everything, that we’ve seen so far for the upcoming feature film The Muppets has been amazing, and I think it’s a pretty fair assessment to say that an enormous number of people are looking forward to this film.

The film has been written by Jason Segel and fellow collaborator Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and will see the feature debut of director James Bobin (TV’s Flight of the Conchords). And it looks brilliant.

We’ve got the second full trailer for the film to share with you, courtesy of Yahoo Movies, and it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s got a few clips that we’ve seen before – though they hold up really well to repeated viewings nonetheless – and plenty of great new stuff for us to enjoy. It should be so much fun for all the family, giving us the magic for all the different generations that have grown up with The Muppets over the past few decades.

The Muppets has also got a terrific cast lined up, led by Segel and Amy Adams, with performances from Neil Patrick Harris, Jack Black, Rashida Jones, Mila Kunis, Katy Perry, Ricky Gervias, Zach Galifianakis, and many more.

And, as Statler and Waldorf (who I know best for playing the Marley brothers in my personal favourite Christmas film, The Muppet Christmas Carol) joke about in the trailer, it won’t be in 3D! So no higher ticket prices, and no attempts at gimmicks, or anything like that. Just Muppets magic.

The US is lucky enough to be getting it at the end of next month, but we have a bit of a longer wait to see it here on 10th February next year. Until then, and without further ado, here’s the brilliant new trailer. Enjoy.

Will Gluck’s latest film has a lot to live up to with last year’s Easy A quickly becoming a hit and keeping Emma Stone’s star firmly in the ascendant.

Friends with Benefits has Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis getting to know each other very well indeed while keeping the trappings of a full on relationship at bay. Though this short synopsis offers up huge clues to how the story will play out it’s the chemistry of the actors and the wit and spark of the script that will make it stand out in a very crowded arena.

Adam reviewed the film for HeyUGuys and gave it a pretty glowing write-up, and it appears to have overturned expectations and done very well. The director recently sat down to talk about the film, how the characters and the relationships developed and what’s next for him.

Here’s the clip, Friends with Benefits is out on the 9th of September.

Dylan (Justin Timberlake), a talented art director for a small, bouquet-y online website in Los Angeles, travels to New York to touch base with GQ Magazine in regards to a high-profile position there. He’s met upon his arrival by an Executive Recruiter named Jamie (Mila Kunis) who hails from a leading job agency, and has been tasked with helping Dylan get to job.

He soon succeeds in nabbing the position and the two go out to celebrate that night and end up becoming fast friends. Having both shared the pain of being recently dumped by their other halves, neither is looking for romance as they causally hang out together. However, one night during beers and bad TV at Jamie’s apartment, they both admit that they’re missing the physical side to having a relationship and hit upon an idea to engage in sexual relations with each other (“fuck buddy” in this modern parlance), keeping it purely at that level, and without any of the emotional baggage which comes with a full-blown relationship.

This no strings attached rule appears to be easy to maintain at first, but complications inevitably arise as their relationship as friends gains momentum. Another figure offering the possibilities of romance enters the picture, and both this (and some deep-rooted family matters), threatens to comprise their seemingly perfect arrangement.

First and foremost, those of you out there who may be concerned that all the funny scenes have been shoehorned into the trailer (normally the first tell-tale sign of an absence of quality) can all relax. In reality, Friend With Benefits is very much the opposite of this, as there’s so much more on offer here than what can be glimpsed at during a two minute-plus taster. It’s a smart and often very amusing romantic comedy, which is breezily told and features extremely likeable performances from its two leads. Timberlake in particular is very endearing, and much more at ease on-screen here that that of his rather smug and lacklustre turn in the recent Bad Teacher. He has fantastic chemistry with Kunis, and their rapid-fire, back and forth banter is a joy to watch, and calls to mind the verbal sparring found (minus the explicit sex talk) in those classic Hollywood comedies from days of yore. It’s also encouraging to see a mainstream picture depict the act of sex in such an open and humorous fashion, without going down the usually coy and infantile route.

It doesn’t hurt to surround the couple with memorable turns by a trio of greatly-admired character actors, either. As Timberlake’s gay colleague, Woody Harrelson is both highly camp and outrageous without ever coming across as a caricature, and Patricia Clarkson as Kunis’ wayward mother – a free-spirited soul in arrested development and completely at odds with her more mature, career-driven daughter, is hilarious whenever she opens her mouth. Richard Jenkins (utterly underused in the abysmal Farrelly brother’s Hall Pass from earlier this year) is fanatic here too, playing Dylan’s father. Suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s, he tackles this small role with a quiet dignity, always managing to find the audience’s sympathy without ever succumbing to the Hollywood disease showboating syndrome. When Dylan laments the fact that his father is slowly becoming the shell of the once great man he used to look up to, you can’t help but empathise with him.

Director Will Glick (coming off the critical and commercial success of last year’s Easy A) knows a thing or two about pacing, and he really succeeds in establishing a believable relationship between the two stars in a short space of time on-screen, without it ever feeling contrived or rushed.

The film falters a little when the makers try to add a meta angle and have Timberlake and Kunis debate on how the movies paint an unrealistic portrayal of love and relationships. Kunis’ love interests from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segal, even crops up in a fake whimsical romantic film the duo find themselves arguing over. All this is unnecessary however, as the film does a fine job of managing to get its point’s across without this extraneous baggage.

If the end is a little predictable and something which you can see coming from the very beginning, it really doesn’t matter. Glick is unconcerned with rewriting the rules for the genre, and instead is happy to focus on telling an emotionally rewarding and  fun tale of two friends who may ultimately benefit from being more than that, and he does so with much skill and gusto. Friends With Benefits is a smart, character-driven comedy which is a welcome respite from a season stuffed with uninspiring aliens and wall-to-wall caped crusaders.

****~ (4/5)

Emma Stone gives this new Red Band trailer for Friends with Benefits the thumbs up – and only a fool would argue with Emma Stone on anything.

Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake shag a lot and find that feelings, like John Candy, often arrive unexpectedly* and then – oh boy, consequence-free sex becomes anything but..

R-rated comedies appear to be the order of the day and if a saucy rom com such as No Strings Attached can pull in the punters why not this one? Acting as support to preternaturally pretty are Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Patricia Clarkson and is the whole shebang is directed by Will Gluck.

Eyes front for a pre-clip synopsis,

The relationship between two friends gets complicated when they decide to get romantic.  Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it’s going to be easy to add the simple act of sex to their friendship, despite what the Hollywood romantic comedies would have them believe.  They soon discover however that getting physical really does always lead to complications!

WARNING – this clip is Red Band, which means it contains adult themes, some sexual swear words and Adam Samberg.

*I’m talking about Uncle Buck of course.

Here’s what I think is the first clip from the new Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis movie, Friend with Benefits which looks like it’s going to be pretty much a carbon copy of No Strings Attached which starred Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher but maybe I’ll be wrong!

The film also stars Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Patricia Clarkson and is directed by Will Gluck. It’ll be with us in the UK 9th September.

Synopsis: The relationship between two friends gets complicated when they decide to get romantic.  Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it’s going to be easy to add the simple act of sex to their friendship, despite what the Hollywood romantic comedies would have them believe.  They soon discover however that getting physical really does always lead to complications!

 

2010′s Easy A won director Will Gluck a lot of fans and if his name wasn’t attached to this film there’s little chance that I’d care much for another round of Pretty People Shagging and Learning About Life, or as this one is called Friends With Benefits.

It does have a pretty great cast with Emma Stone reuniting with the director and Justin Timberlake ad Mila Kunis stepping up to lead the whole shebang. The synopsis looks a little sorry for itself however,

The relationship between two friends (Kunis and Timberlake) gets complicated when they decide to get romantic.

I know – don’t all rush at once. But hold, fellow cynic, take a while to watch the new trailer and then decided whether Gluck’s brand of sass and sauce will benefit from the leading duo of Timberlake and Kunis.

Synopsis: The relationship between two friends gets complicated when they decide to get romantic.  Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it’s going to be easy to add the simple act of sex to their friendship, despite what the Hollywood romantic comedies would have them believe.  They soon discover however that getting physical really does always lead to complications!

Friends with Benefits is released 9th September.

Entering the crowded arena of horror movies swoops Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, with grace and style enough to show up the borrowed nostalgia scares and toothless gorefrenzies of modern horror films for what they are, and in doing so giving me one of my favourite films of last year.

The merits of Darren Aronofsky’s latest were well argued in Ian’s review of the film back in January, and it was a clear favourite when it played the festival circuit last year.  Now that the film arrives on Blu-ray and DVD we can revisit it to see if the dark tale of perfection and perception holds up to a second viewing. Short answer: It does. Here’s why.

I cannot deny there was a tangible thrill when I opened the envelope containing the Black Swan Blu-ray; the film’s release in Japan has just pushed its earning past the $300 million mark proving two things: audiences will flock to challenging adult drama and that Aronofsky continues to develop as a filmmaker capable of producing work to critical and commercial acclaim.

Aronofsky’s film of a fragile ballet dancer finding her dark side in order to play both the white and black swan in Swan Lake is a masterclass is disorientation and seduction with Natalie Portman deservedly winning her Oscar for her portrayal of Nina, and the transformation she undergoes is painful and carefully handled. We are drawn into her rapidly enfolding world as the preparations for the opening night see her losing her grip on reality, ‘helped’ by Vincent Cassel’s domineering director and Mila Kunis’s flirtatious understudy. Aronofsky peppers the film with visual tricks and eerie images, but we never lose focus on Nina’s struggle and doomed triumph.

It’s my favourite of the director’s film; it’s an eerie and very serious fairy tale, dripping with paranoia and we watch the onslaught of a dozen psychological and physical terrors on our Swan Queen again and again, not because she it is fun to watch her crumble beneath the numerous weights, rather it is the constant tension between the light and dark, the real world and Nina’s constructed reality which gives the film its momentum.

The Blu-ray is a shining example of delivering a polished high-definition transfer of a film and embellishing it with some decent extras. Here we have a mixture of superficial portraits of its stars as well an essential ninety minute documentary, entitled Metamorphosis, taking us from the initial ideas, through design, choreography, shooting and post production. Aronosfksy and his cast and crew are a rightfully proud and gregarious bunch, happy to go into details of the challenges of shooting in a bitterly cold December New York as they are to tease us with alternative visual effects for the final transformation. Some of the film’s obvious symbolic elements, the overarching light and dark is one example, are given time and are illuminated by the comments made. The documentary’s style borrows from the vérité nature of the film itself and a feeling creeps upon you that Arnofsky’s passion pervades the production completely; the film is brighter and sharper on a second watch after the documentary has been viewed.

Character profiles of the main players are a nice thought as the film invites you to dive beneath the surface but the pleasure of this film is to notice what is not obvious, the moments that passed you by in the cinema, the moment the dance troupe are made up of Nina’s dopplegangers is one I missed and I have a feeling that there are more to be found. Aronofsky has created a disquieting and powerful film, reminiscent of Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and elements had me in mind of a lost Disney Horror The Watcher in the Woods, but this is so much more than The Red Shoes remade by David Lynch. The transfer is solid, the sound design tremendously effective in any half decent home cinema system and I was surprised at how little the film lost in translation to the smaller screen. If you haven’t seen it, you should and quickly.

Film: ****~ (4/5)

Blu-ray: ***~~ (3/5)

Special Features:

• Metamorphosis: A Three-Part Series–A behind the scenes look at the filmmaking process from Darren Aronofsky’s visionary directing, to the physically-demanding acting, to the stunning special effects. Illuminating and essential viewing.
• Behind the Curtain–An inside look at the film’s costume and production design. Worth a watch for the production design conversation.
• Ten Years in the Making–Natalie Portman and Darren Aronofsky discuss their creative journey, from “preparing for the role” to “dancing with the camera”, thankfully light on the “she’s such a wonderful actress” balls.
• Cast Profiles: Roles of a Lifetime–Fox Movie Channel Produced superfluities.

Screen Gems have released the first poster for R-rated comedy Friends with Benefits.

Directed by Will Gluck (Easy A), Friends with Benefits stars Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Patricia Clarkson, Woody Harrelson, Rashida Jones, Emma Stone, Andy Samberg, Jenna Elfman and Richard Jenkins.

Jamie (Kunis) and Dylan (Timberlake) think it’s going to be easy to add the simple act of sex to their friendship, despite what Hollywood romantic comedies would have them believe. They soon discover however that getting physical really does always lead to complications.

Friends with Benefits is scheduled to be released in the UK on September 2.

Check out the poster below:

Source: Comingsoon

Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) has been cast as Glinda in Oz, the Great and Powerful.

Williams will star opposite James Franco (127 Hours), Mila Kunis (Black Swan) and Rachel Weisz (The Brothers Bloom) in the fantasy adventure.

Oz, the Great and Powerful – a prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – tells how the Wizard (Franco) arrived in Oz and became the ruler.

Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) will direct from a script penned by Mitchell Kapner (Romeo Must Die) and David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole).

Production is expected to begin later this year.

Source: Showblitz

Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan was an almost permanent fixture in critics’ Top Tens and Best Film award nominees for last year and the powerful film is out on Blu-ray and DVD on Monday the 16th of May, perfect time then to share this clip with you.

This video is part of the Special Features on the Blu-ray and if there’s a film that benefits from a thorough deconstruction it’s this one, thankfully there’s an extensive breakdown of the film included on the disc, with contributions from cast and crew with Aronofsky in particular in a generous mood and watching how he builds the mental landscape of Natalie Portman’s fragile Nina is fascinating.

We’ve got a clip for you which hints at the ideas behind the film, the comprehensive extras are well worth a look.

Black Swan is out on Blu-ray and DVD May the 16th and our review will be up shortly.

© 2011 Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LCC. All Rights reserved.

Just last week, Rachel Weisz was in talks for Sam Raimi’s upcoming Oz: The Great and Powerful, and now Deadline is reporting that she’s also in deeper talks to take the female lead in Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy.

Both films are expected to be very successful, so Weisz will have a hard choice on her hands if she must pick between the two.

The Bourne Legacy has found its leading man in Jeremy Renner, who has become more and more popular over the past few years, getting Academy Award nominations for Hurt Locker and last year’s The Town. He will certainly make a great new character for the Bourne series, playing,

“an operative from a covert government program that is even more dangerous than the Treadstone brainwashing program that hatched Bourne.”

Oz: The Great and Powerful has also cast its leads with James Franco playing Oz and Mila Kunis as the lead female, Theodora. If Weisz joins Franco and Kunis, both exceptional actors, she would be playing Evanora, Theodora’s evil witch sister.

The problem lies in the possibility of a scheduling conflict. Production for Oz is set to begin this summer, whilst The Bourne Legacy is looking to start shooting in September, which could mean that Weisz must decide which of the two roles she would prefer. I think she would excel in both, so it is thankfully a case of neither choice – if a choice must be made – being a wrong one. Either way, we can look forward to seeing even more of Weisz in the next few years. She currently has four projects in post-production, including Terrence Malick’s as-yet-untitled follow-up to The Tree of Life (which is premiering at Cannes), opposite a stellar cast including Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, and Olga Kurylenko.

Rachel Weisz (The Mummy) is in talks to star in Walt Disney Pictures’ Oz: The Great and Powerful.

Weisz is in line to play Evanora, a powerful and evil witch who intends to rule the land, and will star opposite James Franco (127 Hours) and Mila Kunus (Date Night).

Oz: The Great and Powerful is a semi-prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, told from the point of view of the Wizard, and tells how the Wizard arrived in Oz and became the ruler.

Sam Raimi (Drag Me to Hell) is attached to direct, with production expected to begin later this summer.

Weisz will be seen next in Jim Sheridan’s mystery-thriller Dream Home, opposite Naomi Watts (Fair Game) and Daniel Craig (Cowboys & Aliens).

Source: Heat Vision

As the tenth Family Guy boxset hits shelves in the UK, it’s fair to say that you probably know what to expect. Pop culture riffs are the order of the day, served up with the usual dose of surreal cutaways and a cast of characters so well established that Peter’s buddy Cleveland is now two seasons into his own spin-off show. As a result, a new series of Family Guy can be expected to yield just two major questions: how funny is it and who have they p*ssed off this time?

Indeed, with Season 10 (actually Seasons 8B and 9A in the original American running orders) containing episodes that deal with divorce, sexual reassignment and Republicanism, it’s almost inevitable that what will generate belly laughs in some viewers will cause offense to others. Most likely to divide audiences, however, is “Partial Terms of Endearment”, a controversy baiting look at abortion that was deemed unsuitable for air during the series’ original American run (though it did show on BBC Three last June).

Serving as a perfect paradigm of the season – and indeed the show as a whole – the episode demonstrates that when on top form, Family Guy possesses some of the best laughs going; the kind of moments that make you grin in simultaneous states of amusement and disbelief, wondering how they got away with that one. Perhaps it’ll be the ever escalating orgy scenarios Peter presents to Lois’ college friend, which end up with him wearing a Nazi uniform. Or maybe it’ll be the ribbing of pro-life campaigners, with a video asserting that “within hours of conception a foetus has already started a college fund and made you your first mother’s day card out of macaroni and glitter”. In any case, there’ll be something that makes you giggle and others shake their heads. Or perhaps both. I mean, the idea of Peter trying to make Lois miscarry the baby she’s carrying for a friend is pretty shocking, but could you really judge somebody for laughing at his sudden wager that he can drink more bleach than her?

Where the show has waned slightly over the years, though, is in its formerly effective use of irony. Several jokes feel like they’ve made it into episodes at a template stage, lacking the balance required to make them seem passable. This is particularly relevant with regards to the topic of race, with one joke managing to imply that “black gentlemen” is synonymous with “shoplifters”, whilst another plays on a stereotype I’m not even aware of by showing a “Chinese NASCAR race” that ends in an instant pile-up and a collection of angry drivers. Similarly, the show’s staple cutaway gags are now often just an excuse to be bizarre whilst casting aside all subtext – a reference to “those cats you see in the Special Animalympics” serving as just one example. Family Guy has never been a comedy that sticks strictly to storyline, but its still better when the jokes retain at least some semblance of a point.

Though the full extras list was unavailable at time of publication, a half-hour Comic-Con panel contains a few good laughs – such as finding out that Meg’s unfortunate lot on the show spawned from the male writers’ frustration at not knowing how to script a teenage girl. And therein lies the secret; it was funny because it came naturally, not because it was forced. If the show as a whole can regain just a bit more of that organic feeling, it may return to being great instead of just being good.

***½~ (3.5/5)

Screen Gems have released a trailer for their latest romantic-comedy Friends with Benefits.

Directed by Will Gluck (Easy A), Friends with Benefits stars Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Woody Harrelson, Patricia Clarkson, Emma Stone, Nolan Gould, Richard Jenkins, Jenna Elfman and Andy Samberg.

Synopsis: The relationship between two friends (Kunis and Timberlake) gets complicated when they decide to get romantic.

Friends with Benefits opens in the US on July 22 and in the UK on September 2.

Check out the trailer below:

Source: Digitalspy

So it ends. Disney has found its wizard for the Sam Raimi directed prequel Oz: The Great and Powerful and it’s the man who most of us cinephiles will be watching in 48 hours time when he co-hosts the Oscars – James Franco.

For a long time Disney had Robert Downey Jr. pegged as the man who would pull on the cape of the Pre-Wizard of Oz wizard for Sam Raimi but he pulled out and it has taken a while for Disney to find their man. David Lindsay-Abaire’s story is based on the journey of the Wizard before met Dorothy in the Emerald City, and it is one of the many Oz projects on the go at the moment.

Deadline‘s report confirms the rumour that Franco was in talks to star in Raimi’s film and as well as garnering plaudits for his performance as Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours Franco is set to lead Rise of the Apes, itself a prequel, later in the year.

Seth MacFarlane (the man who unleashed Peter Griffin on audiences around the world), is currently in pre-production with live-action feature, Ted. Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis are reported to be in final negotiations to appear, and now another name is in the mix.

Coming Soon has revealed that Giovanni Ribisi (last seen trying to drive those perky Na’vi out of their natural habitat) has joined the cast in the tale of a grown man who attempts to shed the everyday presence in his life of his favourite teddy bear from childhood.

This premise sounds like a cuddly reinterpretation of Drop Dead Fred (recently mentioned itself as a possible remake and vehicle for Russell Brand), although Family Guy creator MacFarlane must have cruder tricks up his sleeve, given his propensity for pushing the bad taste boundaries in his small screen work.

Vulture are reporting that Mila Kunis (Black Swan) has been cast in Oz, The Great and Powerful, the prequel to the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz.

With her involvement confirmed, it seems she will no longer be involved in the Hughes’ brothers live-action remake of Akira.

Kunis will star opposite James Franco (127 Hours), who has finally agreed to take on the main role.

Oz, The Great and Powerful tells the story of how the Wizard (Franco) arrived in Oz became the ruler.

Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) is attached to direct from a script penned by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole).

I wish I had the power to make this happen! Magazine powerhouse, Vanity Fair has released a new image and behind the scenes video from the photo-shoot which they hosted for their 17th version of the ‘Hollywood Issue’ this month.

The list of actors assembled includes:

Oscar presenters, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, then Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Jennifer Lawrence, Noomi Rapace, Anthony Mackie, Olivia Wilde, Mila Kunis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Andrew Garfield, Rashida Jones, Garrett Hedlund, and then veteran acting legend, Robert Duvall

According to the details, the cover was shot in both Los Angeles and New York by photographer, Norman Jean Roy and what a fantastic job he’s done with it too! The behind the scenes video (which i’ve also embedded) was hosted by Krista Smith who spoke to pretty much all the subjects.

Keep your eyes peeled at your local newsagents for this issue in the coming days.

Thanks to @lpoolfilmclub for sending this our way. head over to the Vanity Fair website for the full lowdown.