February is all about quality over quantity in terms of appealing premieres to look out for. The new month packs two specials, one highly anticipated series premiere, and the return of the show that popularized the art of binge-watching. It’s all after the break. Continue reading TV reminder: 4 premieres to look out for in February
Despite a last-second reception that will go down in history as one of the best, the Seattle Seahawks lost to the New England Patriots in an exciting, nail-biting Super Bowl that ended with a final score of 28-24. Now that the game’s over, instead of analyzing Russell Wilson’s downright barbaric decision to throw the ball instead of run it into the end zone for an easy touchdown, let’s take a look at some of the most memorable commercials that aired between the gameplay. A whole bunch of them, including the buzziest movie and TV trailers, are posted after the break.
Update (2/2): NBC and the advertisers who shelled out $4.5 million for a 30-second spot have reason to celebrate today just as much as the Pats did last night. The final tally is in and a record 114.4 million people tuned into the big game. So many eyeballs; somebody do the math. This makes Super Bowl XLIX the most watched telecast in U.S. history. Bam. Continue reading Super Bowl XLIX: the emotionally-charged commercials and buzzy trailers inside!
The Super Bowl is just a day away, and to stoke the proverbial fire, late night host Conan O’Brien pitted competitors Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks and Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski of the New England Patriots against each other in an epically hilarious Mortal Kombat X showdown. The next-gen MK title doesn’t drop until April, but luckily Conan was able to get his hands on it for his “Clueless Gamer” segment; if you haven’t watched these, ahem, video game reviews you’re sorely missing out. This latest installment featuring NFL heavyweights duking it out before Sunday’s big game is an instant classic. Plus, MKX pushes the violence to a whole ‘nother level (fair warning!) and it looks incredible. Enjoy!
It’s fitting just how personal the music video is for Kanye West’s “Only One.” When the Paul McCartney-assisted track dropped earlier this month, West spoke out about how the “stream-of-consciousness riff” came to him; the lyrics are a spiritual message from ‘Ye’s late mother Donda West to his daughter North West (Nori for short). The rapper enlisted film directer Spike Jonze (Her, Where the Wild Things Are) to helm the music video, and it plays very much like a father-daughter home video; it’s adorable and it’s touching. Watch it here.
Your favorite foul-mouthed CG-animated bear returns in a sequel to 2012’s Ted. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane remains in the director’s chair, and he’s joined by returning writers Alec Sulkin & Wellesley Wild. Ted, voiced by MacFarlane, stars alongside Mark Wahlberg, Giovanni Ribisi, and new cast members Amanda Seyfried, John Slattery, and Morgan Freeman. MacFarlane previously worked with Ribisi and Seyfreid on A Million Ways to Die in the West. This round, Ted marries his crush and asks Wahlberg’s character to donate his sperm so he can raise a child with his wife. The roadblock here is that government requires Ted to prove he’s a person in a court of law if he wants to move ahead with child rearing. A solid plot description unfolds in the funny trailer above.
Ted 2 hits theatres June 26.
After gestating for so. many. years., the Ghostbusters are making a comeback and it’s one you likely never saw coming.
Original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman expressed interest in making a threequel some time ago. Even OG castmembers Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson were game to reprise their iconic roles; Bill Murray, unfortunately, could not commit to the reunion. And then Ramis sadly passed away and the project simply didn’t come to pass.
Enter Paul Feig, director of recent female-driven comedies such as Bridesmaids and The Heat. Sony Pictures aligned with his vision of a rebooted version of the famous franchise: one that would star an all-female cast. And today he made it official by tweeting the above image on his Twitter account. The new Ghostbusters film will star Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones pulverizing poltergeists. The latter three, of course, all hail from Saturday Night Live. More, Feig previously collaborated with McCarthy and Wiig on Bridesmaids (and McCarthy would go on to star alongside Sandra Bullock in The Heat).
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in October, Feig explained his passion for flipping the playbook and featuring women in his version of Ghostbusters:
I just find funny women so great. For me it’s just more of a no-brainer. I just go, what would make me excited to do it? I go: four female Ghostbusters to me is really fun. I want to see that dynamic. I want to see that energy and that type of comedy and them going up against these ghosts and going up against human detractors and rivals and that kind of thing.
I’m sure there will be real-life human detractors up in arms about this unexpected switch-up, especially those who have been holding on tight to the idea that Reitman’s original crew would return for a threequel. I will say this: as an avid fan of franchise, I am so stoked to watch Feig reinvent and reinvigorate Ghostbusters with this truly hysterical cast that just happens to be members of the female sex. Feel me?
Ghostbusters, which is currently being scripted by Katie Dippold (whose talents did not go unnoticed in The Heat), is aiming for a July 22, 2016 release.
[Via THR]
20th Century Fox is rebooting the Fantastic Four franchise with a more youthful cast, just as Sony Pictures did with Spider-Man in 2012. Miles Teller (Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic:), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm / Human Torch), Kate Mara (Susan Storm / Invisible Woman), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm / The Thing), and Toby Kebbell (Victor Domashev / Doom) are the Marvel superhero film’s stars this time around. Josh Trank (Chronicle) directs. Here’s the current logline:
Fantastic Four, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.
Fox (and Marvel for that matter) have been uncharacteristically quiet about this film which has a summer release date. Rumors about creative difficulties aside, this is very much a teaser that doesn’t do much in the tantalizing department. We’re briefly introduced to the updated cast and we get a strong monologue about the human desire to discover spoken by Reg E. Cathey who plays Dr. Storm. But there’s nothing here that truly amps me up, unfortunately. It looks and feels like your run-of-the-mill superhero flick–but maybe that’s because the box office has been flooded with them as of late. Who knows. Of course I have faith in Marvel, as well as Chronicle helmer Trank whose work on that film was surprisingly risky and rewarding. Here’s to hoping a beefier full-length trailer adds some oomf to this lackluster first look.
The new Fantastic Four (whose title is actually stylized like this: Fant4stic, ugh) releases August 7 in 3D.
Set on the last day of camp, in the hot summer of 1981, “Wet Hot American Summer” follows a group of counselors who are each trying to complete their unfinished business before the day ends. The entire summer of pent-up sexual frustrations, unresolved post-traumatic stress, pending separations and of course, the talent show, all weigh heavily on the minds and groins of counselors and campers alike.
Now follow me here. Flash-forward 14 years after the release of that 2001 cult comedy and coming soon to Netflix is an 8-part limited series that will take us back to the summer of ’81 following the events of the first day of camp!
Who needs a theatrical sequel when streaming giant Netflix can round up the film’s director, writers, and pretty much the entire wildly impressive ensemble cast to make a Wet Hot American Summer TV series?! WHAS director David Wain and his co-writer Michael Showalter (he also played Coop!) are reuniting to produce the show that serves as a prequel to the movie. As maybe not so conveniently explained above, the series takes place at Camp Firewood in the same summer featured in the movie, except this time we’ll be witness to the first day of camp instead of the last. Get it? Good!
The video above blasts out the returning cast and your favorite camp counselors. Think you might recognize a name or two: Elizabeth Banks, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, Judah Friedlander, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Christopher Meloni, Marguerite Moreau, Zak Orth, Amy Poehler, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Michael Showalter. Getting this all-star cast to return today to reprise their 2001 roles–especially when many of them like Banks, Cooper, Poehler, and Rudd have turned into massively talented and constantly working actors–is beyond impressive.
Wain and Showalter’s Wet Hot American Summer reunion hits Netflix (you guessed it) this summer.
Update (1/28): Deadline reports new cast additions today and they are: Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Kristin Wiig (SNL, Bridesmades), Jason Schwartzman (Bored to Death), and Chris Pine. “I hear Hamm will play a secret spy, Wiig is playing a snobby counselor at the preppy rival camp Camp Tigerclaw, Schwartzman is the boy’s camp head counselor while Pine’s character is described as mysterious,” reports Deadline. The already amazing cast just got amazing-er.
Mumblecore heroes Jay & Mark Duplass have more than sufficiently entertained viewers with their new series Togetherness, so much so that HBO has renewed it for a second season after airing only two episodes.
“We began our love affair with HBO in our parents’ living room in 1983, and to have these brilliant creative people put a ring on our fingers with a second season of Togetherness is a real-life dream come true,” said the brothers Duplass upon hearing the great news.
Mark, along with ensemble cast members Melanie Lynskey, Amanda Peet and Steve Zissis, have constructed a show that is inherently funny, fascinatingly introspective, and most of all, fun. A husband and wife with kids, his best friend and her sister living under one roof in Los Angeles just trying to make their way and find meaning in their lives–even after just two airings Togetherness manages to captivate with its unapologetic realism and strife. Plus, Zissis is a breakout star whose fame is long overdue (see previous Duplass works Baghead, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon).
Togetherness airs Sundays at 10:30pm on HBO.
Louis CK’s got a new stand-up special for you to purchase and download and own and enjoy for five dollars. Just like before with his Live at the Beacon Theater show, the profane comedian is making it dead simple and super cheap for you to skip torrenting and directly send a few bucks his way to help cover the costs of production. CK’s popular distribution model is something that other comedians and artists have picked up on as a real stand-up way to treat paying customers looking to support and appreciate content creators. He keeps his blurb short and sweet this time, since his bold new philosophy was sufficiently laid out before.
I developed and prepared this material over the last year or so, mostly in comedy clubs. This special kind of goes back to when I used to just make noises and be funny for no particular reason. It felt right to shoot this special in a club to give it that live immediate intimate feeling. The show is about an hour long. The opening act, who is seen at the beginning (good place for an opening act) is Jay London. One of my favorite club comics going way back to the late 80s when I first started in working in New York.
I hope you like it.
Download Live at the Comedy Store at Louis’ site today. In 1080p HD. For $5. You’re welcome. This should hold you over until Louie returns to FX in April.
Here’s your first taste of Death Cab for Cutie minus Chris Walla. The founding band member amicably parted ways with DCFC over the summer, and so this brand new single offers up the alt-rock band in a new light. No doubt, “Black Sun” still sounds like classic DCFC; frontman and lead singer Ben Gibbard remains the soulful face of the band. Fans will have to wait for nuanced differences to surface once their eighth studio album comes out; Rick Costey (a Muse, Franz Ferdinand, and Kimbra collaborator) replaced Walla as lead producer on it. Kintsugi, the followup to 2011’s Codes and Keys, drops March 31. Bassist Nick Harmer described the inspiration behind the album’s unique title to Rolling Stone: “It’s a Japanese style of art where they take fractured, broken ceramics and put them back together with very obvious, real gold. It’s making the repair of an object a visual part of its history. That resonated with us as a philosophy, and it connected to a lot of what we were going through, both professionally and personally.”
As a longtime Death Cab fan, it’s certainly sad to see Walla go after being a part of the band for 17 years, but it gives DCFC an opportunity to move forward in new directions and I’m glad that Gibbard and co. are taking it in stride. “This is an opportunity for the band to become something it could only become by losing a founding member,” Gibbard says. “It’s our goal to make records that rank amongst the best work we’ve ever done.”
When Kanye West dropped “Only One,” an emotional track featuring keyboard improvisation by The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, we knew this was just the beginning. In fact, a press release at the time stated, “[The track] will be the first publicly available recording from what has become a prolific musical collaboration between these two legendary artists.” In a surprise move, however, the next West/McCartney collab comes out of Rihanna’s camp, not West’s. Today the Barbadian singer released a fresh song called “FourFiveSeconds” and interestingly none of the three artists are labeled as being featured guests. iTunes merely reads “Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney.” Whether the song lands on RiRi’s followup to Unapologetic or gets tagged with “Only One” on West upcoming seventh studio album is anybody’s guess. For now, preview and download the track at iTunes. It’s soft and acoustic, with Rihanna adding a bit of a country flair with her vocals. She harmonizes with West, who again leaves rapping behind here and sings with auto-tune assistance. McCartney strums a cool guitar all the while.