We got the teaser trailer for Judd Apatow's This Is 40 — his first directorial effort since 2009's divisive Funny People — back in April. Now Judd's gone and dropped another one on us, graciously cutting this new trailer with all types of heretofore unseen footage instead of just trying to slide by with the same old trailer spruced up with, like, half of a new scene (I'm looking at you, majority of trailer editors!). A few observations:
Kristen Stewart & Rob Pattinson: Pattinson is sequestered at Reese Witherspoon's ranch in Ojai while he sorts out his feelings. Reese understands Pattinson's situation, as she weathered her own cheating scandals with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. Damn you, Tracy Flick. Always meddling!
Pattinson has been running a lot to work off some of his anger, "huffing past a lavender-scented meadow, a pool, and a horse paddock" as he jogs his way around the compound. "Yet no matter how peaceful the scenery, the actor, 26, could not escape the hell his days had become." The news that Kristen Stewart had cheated on him with Rupert Sanders "blindsided" Pattinson. "He's questioning everything and wants nothing to do with her." Stewart's public apology made him even more furious. An "inconsolable" Stewart is camped out at her parents' home in the San Fernando Valley. Pattinson is "not using electronic cigarettes anymore. He's been smoking real ones since this news came out." He had noticed that Kristen "was being really weird lately but she reassured him nothing was going on." Rob is "disgusted because he had a feeling about this director." Nobody but Rupert and Kristen knows exactly when the affair started. Stewart realizes "how totally self-destructive this was. She just can't believe she fucked all this up and ruined everything." Even her parents are embarrassed for her. Now they must brave the Breaking Dawn: Part 2 press tour together, during which their every mumble will be parsed for clues.
Kristen Stewart Cheats on Robert Pattinson: The story absolutely nobody saw coming to knock Tom and Katie off the tabloid covers. "From the start, Robert Pattinson longed for more in his relationship with Kristen Stewart. Anything that would prove the guarded actress loved him as ardently as he loved her." I love how this story is written like Wuthering Heights. It's so perfect. Pattinson was planning to propose. "He wants to spend the rest of his life with her." Or at least, he thought he did until "photographers captured Stewart in a series of steamy rendezvous with her Snow White and the Huntsman director, Rupert Sanders, 41. Like a pair of hormone-addled teenagers, the actress and the dad of two — married to British Vogue model Liberty Ross, 33 — spent the afternoon driving around L.A. in search of secluded places to make out."
Except when you're the star of a film franchise, there's no such thing as seclusion from the wily paparazzi.
I read an interview with Woody Allen recently in which he talked about how he releases his movies during the summer because he thinks big tentpole movies are moronic and smart people need something else to see. Whatever you think about that, it's true that a lot of comic-book movies are targeted at younger kids, and maybe you want something rated a hard R. Something like Woody Allen might make if he'd come up in Gen X. I recommend Wanderlust, David Wain's commune comedy that functions as something of a companion piece to his Wet Hot American Summer and a spiritual successor to Caddyshack and Stripes.
In a recent interview, Nicholas Stoller — the director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Five Year Engagement, in theaters today — revealed that Jason Segel takes personal credit for jump-starting the latest golden era for male full frontal: “Jason will say, too, that [Sarah Marshall] was the first movie where a lead of a comedy showed his penis, and since then there have been penises … there’s been a wangolution, culminating in the Fassbender.” You can certainly quibble with the kick-off point (Vulture did happen to declare 2007, the year before Sarah Marshall, the Season of the Wang) but there’s no denying that a recent junk-upheaval has occurred, peaking with Michael Fassbender gloriously hanging dong in Shame last year. Now, with the end of the wangolution at hand with the release of The Five-Year Engagement (don't get too excited, we’ll explain later), we've charted out the course of its growth. (Get it?! Growth?!!) Anyway, here we go.
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis: "Friends with benefits?" Kelso and Jackie "took a mini-vacation together" to Carpinteria. They stopped at a roadside stand where "Mila bought sunflowers and blueberries," then had sushi for lunch. "They hadn't seen each other for years" but got back in touch during a That 70's Show reunion segment for Fox's 25th anniversary special. "He's so not her type." And as for Ashton's famous wandering eye? "Mila wouldn't stand for that kind of stuff. She's a strong, smart girl."
Michelle Williams and Jason Segel: Four years after the death of her ex Heath Ledger, "If anyone deserves a little chivalry and happiness, it's Williams," who is "finally moving on with Segel, 32. After years of platonic friendship, the two have turned up the heat, meeting for several intimate dates in New York and L.A." An insider says "Romantically, this kind of happened overnight!" He won her over by being good with her daughter Matilda, prompting her to tell a friend "I love him!" Let's hope Segel isn't just trying to promote The Five Year Engagement with this romance, since "Michelle doesn't do flings. Every person she gets involved with is someone she can entertain the possibility of spending the rest of her life with." No less of a cad as Russell Brand has spoken of envying Segel's rampant cockmanship, calling him "a falcon among gulls when it comes to womanizing." But supposedly "Jason is trying to be more of a grown-up lately. He is taking care of himself more, exercising, eating right and dressing better. Basically, not acting like a frat boy anymore." He thinks Michelle is "the kind of girl he can bring home to his mom." Segel has been perma-single with side trips to the Isle Of Lohan since splitting from Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) while Williams has weathered failed relationships with hipster directors Spike Jonze, Cary Fukunaga, and other "assholes who didn't treat her right" and were "just looking for an unserious situation." Let's hope "puppet collector" Segel can step up to the plate. "Jason can be a bit of a playboy. The only way this will work is if he completely devotes himself to Michelle." "She wants a good guy who will give her a stable family life."
Michelle Williams and Jason Segel: "No more blue valentines for Michelle Williams! The demure three-time Oscar nominee has fallen for longtime pal Jason Segel." The demure Jason Segel, you mean. "They are smitten and very serious." Despite living on opposite coasts, they've been spotted having dinner on both. "He put his arm around her and made her laugh as they walked."
Pregnant Jessica Simpson Is the Best Quote Machine:
"Oh, my God, y'all. I just had a daydream that my vagina ate a bag of Skittles!"
"I made 'slutty' brownies today!"
"The average person expels gas 15 times each day. The average pregnant woman farts 15 times that!"
"It's time for my big girl panties and sleeping bra!"
"I feel like I have a bowling ball sitting on my hoo-ha. Apparently I have a lot of amniotic fluid, so whenever my water breaks, it will be like a fire hydrant!"
"I just started calling myself Swamp Ass. Like, I have 'swamp ass' right now. I had major swamp ass because I was wearing these Spanx to hold in my gut. It's like the bayou up in that region."
Vulture reports that a sequel to Jason Segel's franchise-revitalizing The Muppets is on the horizon — but that its screenplay's pages won't ever run through the golden touch of Segel's magic typewriter of good scripts. Why the hell not?! Basically, the guy is way too busy: “Disney insiders tell Vulture that between his commitment to the CBS sitcom, his other feature-writing efforts, and promotional work for Five Year Engagement (due out this coming April) and Judd Apatow's This Is Forty (in December), there won't be time to collaborate on a Muppets sequel.” That means Nicholas Stoller, who co-wrote The Muppets with Segel, is writing the new one with James Bobin, who directed The Muppets. And when it all shakes out, Segel might still star in The Muppets: Revenge of the Fallen Side of the Moon.
Even though there are only two songs officially nominated for awards this year at the Oscars, that's no reason you can't make a 2012 Oscars mixtape anyway. We compiled some tunes related to and/or inspired by (loosely speaking!) this year's nominees. Maestro, play them off!
"Man or Muppet" - Jason Segel and Walter the Muppet (Oscar nominee)
Need a reedy-voiced inspirational ballad about maturing into adulthood for your Muppet movie? Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords and Jason Segel are here with a '70s AM-flavored serenade to self-exploration. Segel can SANG, but we knew that already from "Lady L." (He can also play basketball, but that's another story.)
In The Muppets, the big-hearted, big-screen return of America’s favorite googly-eyed talking socks, Jason Segel plays Gary, an impossibly sweet-natured guy with walls covered in Kermit paraphernalia. It couldn't have been much of a stretch. Just 36 hours after hosting the highest-ratedSaturday Night Live of the season (on which he deep-tongued fellow Grantland interview subject Paul Rudd), Segel was unfailingly enthusiastic and humble — perhaps a result of keeping it kosher at the after-party (“Disney has me on a tight leash, brother!”). “I haven’t seen the show yet. Did it go all right?” he implored earnestly. After being assured it went well, Segel was game for a spirited conversation about The Muppets — which he co-wrote with collaborator Nicholas Stoller — Internet rumors, his secret felt-skinned crush, and why, if given the choice, he’d rather be sitting.
Matthew McConaughey will star alongside Gerard Butler and Sam Worthington in Thunder Run, an adaptation of David Zucchino's book Thunder Run — The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad about the three-day assault at the beginning of the Iraq War. Here’s the thing, though: This will be a 3-D CG movie that will use facial-capture technology and green-screen technology to create a unique effect. “What we capture in our cameras will be them,” explains producer Brian Presley. “It’ll have a stylized effect to it but we are shooting them.” “That means when CG Matthew McConaughey takes his shirt off, the real Matthew McConaughey has also taken his shirt off,” Presley did not add. Grade: B+ [HR]
