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comedy Archives - Page 3 of 5 - ShowBizCafe.com

comedy Archives - Page 3 of 5 - ShowBizCafe.com

Jack Rico

By

2012/05/25 at 12:00am

First set pics of Adam Sandler in ‘Grown Ups 2’!

05.25.2012 | By |

First set pics of Adam Sandler in 'Grown Ups 2'!

It’s funny how sometimes you stumble upon some good movie news exclusives from people that have nothing to do with the Hollywood scene.

Michael Kay, from ESPN Radio 98.7FM NY (formerly known as ESPN 1050AM) and the Yankees’ TV play by play man is an extra on Adam Sandler‘s new comedy sequel Grown Ups 2, starring Salma Hayek, Taylor Lautner, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, Kevin James, Maya Rudolph, David Spade, Nick Swardson, Cheri Oteri. He was tweeting pics from the set and we now have them here for your first look, sneak peek.

The pics have Sandler what looks to be at a high school football field getting ready to throw the football. Kay looks like the high school coach ready to take Sandler thru the mill.

Grown Ups 2‘ is a follow up to the 2010 comedy about a group of childhood friends who reunite years later. The first part was one of the worst films of that year and we still can’t believe a sequel was greenlit. Sandler has some hardcore fans.

‘Grown Ups 2’ is set to be released July 12, 2013.

Adam Sandler and Michael Kay in 'Grown Ups 2'

Adam Sandler in 'Grown Ups 2'

Karen Posada

By

2012/04/30 at 12:00am

‘Think Like a Man’ keeps the #1 spot!

04.30.2012 | By |

'Think Like a Man' keeps the #1 spot!

‘Think Like a Man’ once more took over the first place with $18 million dollars. Obviously the public agrees that this hilarious romantic comedy should continue headlining the box office.

‘The Pirates! Band of Misfits’ a perfect movie for the whole family follows it, with $11.4 million dollars. Hugh Grant’s first animated film along with other actors like Salma Hayek, has earned this spot because of the intricate details that form this wonderful story.

The romantic movie ‘The Lucky One’ fell to third place with $11.3 million dollars. Leaving ‘The Hunger Games’ in fourth place, which indicates that possibly it will loose a place in the top 10 rapidly.

 

 

 

The Top 10 Movies in the Box Office are:

1. Think Like a Man – $18 mil

2. The Pirates! Band of Misfits – $11.4 mil

3. The Lucky One – $11.3 mil

4. The Hunger Games – $11.3 mil

5. The Five Year Engagement – $11.2 mil

6. Safe – $7.7 mil

7. The Raven – $7.3 mil

8. Chimpanzee – $5.5 mil

9. The Three Stooges – $5.4 mil

10. The Cabin in the Woods – $4.5 mil

Karen Posada

By

2012/03/08 at 12:00am

Sofia Vergara To Work With Woody Allen?

03.8.2012 | By |

Will Sofia Vergara work with Woody Allen? There’s a lot of buzz about ‘Fading Gigolo’, a movie written by John Turturro who will also be the director and star. It has been confirmed that Woody Allen will be in the movie as an actor, he will play the character that will convince Turturro to work as a gigolo, so he would technically be his pimp. The big deal is that we haven’t seen Allen acting in a movie he’s not directing since the year 2000 when he had two small appearances in ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ by Alfonso Arau and ‘Company Man’ by Douglas McGrath. Read More

Jack Rico

By

2011/12/20 at 12:00am

Midnight in Paris (Movie Review)

12.20.2011 | By |

Just being in Paris at midnight is a memorable experience that true romantics will appreciate, and most likely, never forget. In the case of Woody Allen, he decided to make a movie about it. Its title is self explanatory – ‘Midnight in Paris,’ and it is without question, his best work since ‘Matchpoint’, a powerful drama that echoes the writings of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It is also, through May, one of my top 10 films of 2011.

‘Midnight in Paris’ is a simple romantic comedy set in Paris that bursts with engrossment. As the story begins, Gil (played by Owen Wilson) and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) are tagging along on a trip to Paris with her father, John (Kurt Fuller), and mother, Helen (Mimi Kennedy). These two young people, who are engaged to be married in the fall, have Woody-Allen-like experiences there that change their lives forever.

In true Allen fashion, our New York legend need not be on screen to be felt. His words and direction are immediately recognizable from the onset as we hear the protagonist’s dialogue off-camera while the opening credits are still on screen. Allen, who is filming in Paris for the second time in his career (his first was Everyone Says I Love You), finds his imaginative form again here as his star Owen Wilson meets legendary historical figures of the literary, art and film world, including Spaniard/Mexican Luis Buñuel. It’s this type of inventiveness humor that has been sorely missed from his work. Somehow he has found it in ‘Paris’. Throughout the years, Woody has had a very consistent track record of making very good to very bad movies. His last two films Whatever Works and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger didn’t impress the way ‘Matchpoint’ or ‘Midnight’ do. In ‘Whatever Works comedian Larry David didn’t even managed to crack a smile on my face. The script wasn’t interesting enough nor was the payoff. In “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger , Woody improved the story and even threw in Antonio Banderas for kicks, but it ended up being a rehash of previous average films and had nothing original. Then suddenly he comes out with a gem like this that is simple and honest, true to the Woody of old. To say it titillates the mind’s eye is more than effective.

On the acting front, Owen Wilson, fresh off being a part of one of the worst films of 2010 – How Do You Know – and the overhyped and awkward comedy ‘Hall Pass’, is obliviously innocent and likable as Gil, a hack Hollywood screenwriter that is penning his first novel which he can’t seem to get passionate about. He’s an uncouth and distracted person that finds it difficult to please his fiance or her family. Wilson plays the role with a wonderful, natural comic instinct and charm that we as the public have come to grow fond of. As is typical for a Woody Allen film, the rest of the superlative supporting cast is top notch. They range from stars like Adrien Brody and Kathy Bates, Carla Bruni to talented newcomers like Corey Stoll, Nina Arianda, Tom Hiddleston, Alison Pill, and Léa Seydoux.

But no matter what actor steps in as the ‘star’, the real star will always be Woody Allen’s essence which he leaves on the screen so richly. The script is tight, it always moves forward and there are no frills to be had. The performances are quirky, funny, sexy and astute. ‘Midnight in Paris’ is Woody Allen’s valentine to the City of Lights, and I hope he comes back to New York yearning to recapture his love for the city like he has in Paris.

[youtube id=”FAfR8omt-CY”]

Jack Rico

By

2011/06/21 at 12:00am

Cameron Diaz Explains Her Latina Heritage

06.21.2011 | By |

Cameron Diaz isn’t known to talk much about her Latina roots, but on a press day for her new R-rated comedy ‘Bad Teacher‘, Diaz opened up to me about her cultural heritage in a detailed fashion like never before. She said she doesn’t speak Spanish, but you could tell that she has close ties to her Cuban side and seems to be proud of it. So, what is Cameron Diaz’s ethnicity? Watch the interview. Read More

Jack Rico

By

2011/06/20 at 12:00am

Penélope Cruz in Woody Allen’s ‘The Bop Decameron’

06.20.2011 | By |

Penélope Cruz in Woody Allen's 'The Bop Decameron'

New York (June 20, 2011) – Woody Allen announced today the full cast for “The Bop Decameron,” his latest film in pre-production. Starring, in alphabetical order, are: Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page. Co-stars include Antonio Albanese, Fabio Armiliata, Alessandra Mastronardi, Ornella Muti, Flavio Parenti, Alison Pill, Riccardo Scamarcio and Alessandro Tiberi.
 
The Bop Decameron” is a Gravier Productions film produced by Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum. This is Allen’s first film to be financed by the Italian production and distribution company, Medusa Film. “The Bop Decameron” begins production on July 11 and marks Allen’s first time shooting in Rome. His latest film, “Midnight in Paris,” is currently playing in theaters.

Karen Posada

By

2011/05/10 at 12:00am

’30 Minutes or Less’: The Set Visit!

05.10.2011 | By |

'30 Minutes or Less': The Set Visit!

ShowBizCafe.com was very excited to get invited to Grand Rapids, Michigan back in September 2010, where we spent a chunk of the nighttime in a scrap yard seeing the cast of ’30 Minutes or Less’ film a couple of pretty neat scenes. A few of us film junkies were picked up at our hotel by 7pm the day we arrived and were taken to a secret location to see Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña and Dilshad Vadsaria making the movie directed by Ruben Fleischer with Ben Stiller as an executive producer.

The action/comedy is set to come out in theaters on August 12, 2011. The plot: Nick (Eisenberg) a pizza delivery guy who has no real goals set for himself in life is forced to get himself together when two small time robbers (McBride & Swardson) make him rob a bank; making Nick realize how much life has to offer. Chet (Ansari) his best friend comically helps him along the way and the final push is given when the love of his life (Vadsaira) is put at risk, in the meantime, Peña is given a task to accomplish from the bad guys themselves. This is a dream team, with Eisenberg’s silly/serious comedy skits, McBride & Swardson’s jokes bouncing from one to the other, Ansari & Peña’s nonchalant crazy behavior and Vadsaria’s beauty this is set to be a good laugh out loud comedy with bits of good action.   

When we arrived on the set we walked to the scrap yard where we got to see the main character, Nick, struggling to keep his cool as a bomb attached to him is about to explode and he’s trying to get the main lady to safety (since she plays the damsel in distress). We hear the bad guys who are dressed in monkey suits (to avoid getting recognized) screaming, cursing and making jokes as poor Nick tries to man up to the situation. Fleischer takes various shots of this scene, from different angles, distances and even let’s the actors play with their own lines to make their own script as they ease into character. In another scene we see a struggle between the bad guys dressed in monkey suits and Michael Peña. It was a cool, clear summer night and the lights on the set cast beautiful shadows off of the mountains of scrap metal set around the lot; there’s even some fake metal deer, computers and funky machinery. We were quiet on set and could see from the camera and a TV set up close to us how the scene plays out. Vadsaira’s screams are loud as are the laughs of McBride & Swardson (the bad guys), Eisenberg’s character breathes nervously and tries to find the right words as cool sweat fills his forehead. We got to interview the entire cast along with the director and the props, visual effects, stunt coordinator and special effects guys. After a great buffet dinner we got to see the coolest thing of all, a flame thrower getting used! It was the first time it was being used on set by Swardson, you must have been able to see that thing from space; that’s how big the flame was. 

Here’s some of the stuff the cast & director got to tell us:

Jesse Eisenberg‘s character is closer to what he was in “Zombieland” than on the “Facebook movie”, although here he looks more grown up and mature. Eisenberg cautiously and kindly approached us as we bombarded him with questions late in the night.

ShowBizCafe (SBC): What was it like working with Ruben(director) once again and how was it compared to Zombieland?

Jesse Eisenberg (JE): It was great! Ruben has a great kind of sense of how to create a comedic movie and not compromise the characters and he does that really well. I mean the tone of the movie is a little bit different from Zombieland  since this is set in more of a real world context, in that movie for my  character was more heightened comedy, here my character is pretty straightforward. The comedy in this is a little less winking to the audience, Zombieland constantly was playing on the absurdity of the real characters whereas this movie is genuinely scary in a real way. The stakes in this movie are legitimately high and the character, at least Aziz and my character are real world characters.   

SBC: can you tell us about the toughest scene to make and about the love story in this film?
JE: Every scene kind of has some challenge logistically. I’m wearing this bomb throughout the whole movie, but as I said, the movie kind of takes place in this very real world setting, so it’s occasionally been challenging  because there’s so much action and there’s also so many things that are comedic elements  in the movie but it’s my job to kind of maintain the emotional honesty. At the risk of being pretentious, that’s my job, so that’s occasionally challenging. The love part,  I’ve been in love with my best friend’s twin sister; I’ve spent the last several years not doing anything important in my life and never taking control of my life so one of the things that the bomb does is allow me to… kind of lights a fire under me so to speak and one of the things I’m inspired to do is to go confess my love to this girl.

SBC: What do you have coming up after this movie?
JE: I’m not sure. I have a lot of publicity engagements(for the Facebook movie, which was coming out then) which last until like October and then I’m trying to do a play in New York City. I write stage plays.

Jesee Eisenberg

The director, Ruben Fleischer, made sure to give us a full run down on what we were seeing, showing us pictures and sketches of the scenes and explaining to us how certain things work; such as the flame thrower and car chases. He also spoke about the freedom he gives actors with their lines and their characters.

SBC: How much liberty do you give the actors and how are you able to control that at a certain point?
RF: We work together, Aziz who is basically the co-star here has helped write some scenes for himself, we worked on them together to try and get a nice voice that suits him, but Nick kind of customs everything to himself. It’s more in the performance than the page I guess. Some scenes are very improv-y, there’s scenes where Danny and Nick  just go off into their own territory; those guys are so funny and they can come up with hilarious sh*t all day long.  When you have really funny people being really funny sometimes it’s hard to control it, but we try and get through it. Nick has a tendency to break more and laugh, Danny it’s really hard to get him to laugh in a scene.

SBC: Besides the entertainment factor, would you like the audience to get something else out o the film?
RF: The theme of the movie is: Jesse plays this pizza delivery guy who just sits on his couch and has let life pass him by, he’s kind of never really done anything and when he’s faced with the circumstances of the bomb he’s forced to prioritize. He essentially has one day to live, so it forces him to get off his ass and do something and also to tell the girl he’s always loved how he feel and finally to be real with his best friend about some sh*t he’s never talked about. it’s really about if you only had one more day to live, what are you going to do with that day and what’ most important to you? More than anything else, that’s what hopefully the audience will take home from this; that life is precious and you have to make the most of it and if you are delivering pizzas, you might want to reevaluate your priorities; unless that’s what you want to do.

Ruben Fleischer

Danny McBride and Nick Swardson make up a necessary component of the film. They seemed to also have formed a tight friendship outside of the film as we interview the two together behind the cameras and they continued to finish each other’s jokes.

SBC: What kind of bad guys are you?
NS: We are almost like dumb and dumber bad guys, we’re not pure evil. We are just bored and don’t know what to do with our lives.
DM: I don’t know, we are motherf*&*ers in this thing. We’re making some bad choices but we have goals and ambitions, you know. Maybe people will root for us, we wanna change the world; we want to create the first tanning salon where guys get…

SBC: Talk to us a little about your improv skits and freedom.
NS: well they let us improvise a lot, we definitely got the scripts as much as we could but we were given free reign to add stuff and whatever. We have to stay in check though, it’s bad because when I look at Danny and when I look at Jesse, and Jesse cracks up and it’s just like I’m susceptible to it.
DM: The cool thing about working with Nick is he isn’t like one of the improvisers, you are just doing like stand up comedy in the scene. We never take it too far off the page, the scene is always what it’s about and we’ll just try to come up with different ways to spit the jokes out.
NS: Yeah, you don’t’ want to be self-indulgent. You want to make sure to stay in character, it’s not just us doing fart jokes in the middle of a drive-by shooting.
DM: That’s not to say that there aren’t.
NS: There are. But, it’s in the context (laughs)

SBC: What brought you to this project and what projects do you guys have coming up? Danny you have a noir detective movie with Jody Hill, when’s that coming out?
DM:
For me it just seemed like a cool project and I liked everyone involved so you just kind of make time for the things you want to do. You know Diliberti and Sullivan, the same guys who wrote L.A.P.I., it’s kind of a throwback to movies like The Long Goodbye and Chinatown, yeah it’s a noir/comedy, Jody and I are both very tired. We’ve had long years. I don’t know what the booking is, but it probably won’t be until next year.

NS: My reason for this project was perfect timing, I just finished a romantic comedy in June so it was perfect timing to jump into something completely different. I have a show coming out in October, a sketch show; so it was a perfect window before doing press for that. The sketch is called Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time, it will be on Comedy Central; just more filth in the airwaves.

We also caught up with the co-star Aziz Ansari; so we continued on with the comedic strike as he spoke to us as he spoke us about his character in this film along with some of his more known characters.

SBC: Tell us about your character in this film and about some of the action you got to be a part of.
AA: Well my character is just a guy whose best friend is given this impossible situation and they have a rough time in the begging because he confessed to being in love with his twin sister and they are forced into this situation when they are robbing a bank together. Jesse did stunt driving and I’m just kind of driving in the car with him, other than that there’s the bank robbery but the stunt driving was fun because I never did anything where I had to be in a car chase and it was pretty cool. They have these rigs that like pull the car and stuff, you know action is very easy it’s a lot of “Ah! Look out!” so it’s fun. It’s the first time I had a stuntman that wasn’t a caucasian stuntman that needed to be painted brown, his name was Neta he’s half Hawaiian and Philipino. 

SBC: What are some of your favorite movies?

AA:  When I was growing up my favorites, the ones that I watched all the time, I mean I watched comedies and stuff but the movies I watched all the time were Die Hard and Terminator 2, like the classic 80’s, 90’s action movies. In this movie there is a thing where these guys like Lethal Weapon a lot…so i brought that out in my personality, so I was like this guy must really be into action movies like Point Break  and Terminator 2 and Die hard, like those are his favorite movies.

SBC: We heard you are working on writing with Danny, can you tell us about that and about the Randy movie?
AA: with his company Rough House and my friend Harris Little, who is a writer on the show Parks and Recreations that I’m on, he’s writing it and I think we are keeping a log-line under wraps for now but I think it will be a lot of fun. Randy…we are working on these three movies for Apatow right now, and one of them is the Randy thing, but the one we’ve been working on the most is this idea about me and another guy playing astronauts who are disgraced and have to go back to the moon to clear their names. We’ve been working on that script, I’m really excited about it. 

Finally, we got to ask Michael Peña on his take on the movie and on his character.

SBC: What’s your character like?

MP: He’s a professional assassin, or at least he thinks he is. Along the movie though it is proven he’s not. a little bit like someone I know from Chicago who’s always in and out of the pen and he loves Scarface, the Good fellas and the Godfather he always talks like them and is always quoting them. He has a partner who is a stripper, she’s the one that basically sets me up with the other bad guys and we have a romantic scene. 

SBC: How have you balanced the comedy and action in the film?
MP: It’s been interesting to me, because when I did Observe and report, like you knew you were doing the comedy and I was kind of the bad guy for that, this one is interesting because you have to do a little bit of drama…some of the scenes are more like drama the other ones you can around with, there’s just some that are drama and some that are comedic.   

Michael Peña

After a long night on set we were greeted off by the viewing of the flame thrower and left the cast to continue working into the wee hours of the morning. We had a chance to explore Grand Rapids the next day and even got to sneak into one of the museums across our hotel. This set visit gave us a pretty intimate look into the making of this film as well as the people involved in it. It definitely has all the ingredients to entertain with it’s action and comedy, we look forward to seeing the outcome.

Mack Chico

By

2011/04/11 at 12:00am

‘HOP’ is #1 at the box office, again!

04.11.2011 | By |

'HOP' is #1 at the box office, again!

Many did not imagine that a story based on the popular Easter Bunny who brings chocolate eggs, could be so fruitful.

Hop,” the film that chronicles the adventures of the successor of the Easter rabbit, again led the box office this weekend to add 21.7 million in its favor. The film also was the most watched last week from the day of its release.

The actor Russell Brand, husband of singer Katy Perry, is also among the top box office earnings, as well as lending his voice to the character bunny, the film starring comedy called Arthur took second place with profit of 12.6 million dollars.

The thriller Hanna managed to steal third after adding $ 12.3 million, the film Soul Surfer with 11.1 million and fourth after the movie “Insidious in fifth with 9.7 million.

Estimated box office receipts of films for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canada.

1. ”Hop”, 21.7 millon.
2. ”Arthur”, 12.6 millon.
3. ”Hanna”, 12.3 millon.
4. ”Soul Surfer”, 11.1 millon.
5. ”Insidious”, 9.7 millon.
6. ”Your Highness”, 9.5 millon.
7. ”Source Code”, 9.1 millon.
8. ”Limitless”, 5.7 millon.
9. ”Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules”, 4.9 millon.
10. ”The Lincoln Lawyer”, 4.6 millon.

Mack Chico

By

2011/03/28 at 12:00am

‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2’ is #1 at the box office

03.28.2011 | By |

'Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2' is #1 at the box office

The family comedy ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules’ took this weekend’s box office contest.

The sequel to ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ (2010) from Friday to Sunday raised $24.4 million, which quickly regained its production costs of 18 million dollars.

The adventures of a student who recorded his life experiences in a journal are based on the hit book series by Jeff Kiney.

Meanwhile, the fantasy action film ‘Sucker Punch’ had to settle for second place with $19 million. The successful film director Zack Snyder (“300”, “Watchmen”), fell behind industry expectations.

Limitless’, the winner last week at the box office, slipped to third place. The science fiction thriller with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro managed to generate $15.2 million, totaling $41 million dollars since its release.

1. ”Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules”, $24.4 millon
2. ”Sucker Punch”, $19 millon
3. ”Limitless”, $15.2 millon
4. ”The Lincoln Lawyer”, $11 millon
5. ”Rango”, $9.8 millon
6. ”Battle: Los Angeles”, $7.6 millon
7. ”Paul”, $7.5 millon
8. ”Red Riding Hood”, $4.3 millon
9. ”The Adjustment Bureau”, $4.2 millon
10. ”Mars Needs Moms!”, $2.2 millon

Jack Rico

By

2011/02/07 at 12:00am

Ed Helms: “Hosting SNL would be epic!”

02.7.2011 | By |

Ed Helms: “Hosting SNL would be epic!”

Comic actor Ed Helms, known mostly for his work in 2009’s super hit ‘The Hangover’ and NBC’s The Office, was in New York to promote his new, very funny comedy, ‘Cedar Rapids’, coming out this Friday, and I caught up with him to ask him about his days living in New York trying to make it on the sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live. Helms, who grew up in Atlanta, always dreamed of being discovered and landing a spot in the cast of SNL.

ShowBizCafe.com: Your dream has always been to be a part of SNL, but you are now achieving enough celebrity status to possibly host the show one of these days. Where would that moment rank amongst all your achievements?

Ed Helms: (Chuckle) Well, ah, I’d rather not, it’d be you know, that would just be epic. That would be really, really exciting and awesome. Hasn’t happened… yet and if it and when it does, I would be over the moon.

ShowBizCafe.com: If you had to pick a musical guest to accompany you on that special night, who would it be?

Ed Helms: (12 second pause) Hmmmm…. Paul Simon is inextricably linked with that show. He has such a history with Lorne Michaels, that would be… his music was such an important part of my adolescence. That might actually take the cake.

Here’s to you Ed. I hope your dreams come true very soon. Helms will next be seen on the sequel of The Hangover and The Muppets this year.

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