Nearly everything on television — at least everything not on CBS — is aimed at twentysomethings, but very little of it represents them the way they really are. Most people in that decade aren’t hyperactive post-teenage bone machines or pre-adult money-dropping slicksters; they’re an odd, often uncomfortable mash-up of the two. Rare is the program able to keep a foot in both worlds — one in stilettos, one in shower shoes — and depict life after college the way it really is: in flux. Lena Dunham’s Girls, which premieres this Sunday night on HBO, might not be exactly that show for everyone, but it’s the closest we’ve come in quite some time. (In a typically self-aware move to blunt criticism and/or coronation, Dunham’s Hannah Horvath immodestly downgrades herself from the voice of her generation to the voice of “a” generation.) This is because unlike most entertainment about youngish people, Girls isn’t being focus-grouped by 30- and 40-year-olds in Burbank. (Ever notice how most televised twentysomethings have taste that’s 10 years behind? Surf's up, Poochie!) Dunham, the writer, creator, director, and star, is only 25; she knows of what she tweets. And while the specific circumstances of her angsty slouching toward Bethlehem (or at least Boerum Hill) may be new, her messy attempts at selfhood are universal and cringingly enduring. Watching Girls is at once exhilarating and mortifying — I spent much of it alternating between holding my sides and covering my face — an instant Delorean back to a time in one’s life when everything is possible and nothing seems right.
Really! Will Ferrell showed up on Conan Wednesday night in full Ron Burgundy gear — complete with mustache, jazz flute, and insults — and made it very clear: "I want to announce this to everyone here in the Americas ... to our friends in Spain, Turkey, and the U.K., including England ... that as of 0900 Mountain Time, Paramount Pictures and myself, Ronald Joseph Aaron Burgundy, have come to terms on a sequel to Anchorman ... it is official: There will be a sequel to Anchorman." Burgundy also tweeted, "Hey America & Hawaii. Looks like Paramount & my lawyer Gene Tigerworthy have agreed to terms on a sequel to Anchorman. Whiskey sours on me!" Well, I don't know about you, but to me, this news smells exactly like the opposite of a used diaper filled with Indian food.
Paul Rudd as an actor is extremely glib and likable. On the phone he’s no different. We recently spoke with him on a variety of subjects ranging from his new movie, Our Idiot Brother, to facial hair, hippies, incest, and his I Love You, Man-esque relationship with Jon Hamm. He wouldn’t share details about his role in Judd Apatow’s top-secret, currently-filming, quasi sequel to Knocked Up, in which he once again plays husband to Apatow’s wife and father to his kids, but he did admit to the existence of at least one human being immune to his charms: 8-year-old Iris Apatow.
Following Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence back to TV will be Roseanne Barr, who just signed a script deal with 20th Century Fox TV to write Downwardly Mobile, a sitcom about an "an optimistic blue-collar family living in hard times." Casting is underway for a third Becky. Grade: B+ [Deadline]
Mark Wahlberg will broaden his horizons with a role as a law-enforcement official in 2 Guns, an adaptation of Steven Grant's graphic novel about a DEA agent and an undercover naval officer who waste tax dollars by investigating each other as each steals money from the mob in the line of duty. Exiting the project, which has been kicking around for a while, are Vince Vaughn and David O. Russell, who must have just realized there's no law that says he has to direct only Mark Wahlberg movies. Grade B [HR]
What do auteurs Michael Bay and Terrence Malick have in common — other than that they’ve both made Megan Fox wash their cars in a bikini in lieu of auditioning for a role? (Fox got the part in Bay’s Transformers but her performance as "Celestial Dinosaur No. 3" was sadly cut from Malick's of Tree of Life.) They’ve both written letters to projectionists, advising them on how best to present their 2011 films! While the letters themselves strike differing tones (Malick terms his a "fraternal salute" to a "forgotten art" while Bay, unsurprisingly, uses capitalist logic – "your theaters invested a lot of money in this equipment" — in his plea for 3-D perfection), they are the latest missives in a trend that stretches at least as far back as noted control freak Stanley Kubrick, whose own letter re: Barry Lyndon also recently surfaced.
But this epistolary practice goes deeper than most cinephiles realize. Grantland gained access to some other recently-penned letters to projectionists from the directors of a few of summer 2011’s other prominent releases. We are proud to share excerpts of them with you now.
