Identity Thief looks to make identity theft funny again!

Trailers and character posters for the comedy Identity Thief have hit the web, and despite the fact director Seth Gordon’s Horrible Bosses was largely awful with a few very funny moments, Identity Thief looks like it will be more funny than runny. I don’t know what that joke means, because I stole it.

Unlimited funds have allowed Diana to live it up on the outskirts of Miami, where the queen of retail buys whatever strikes her fancy. There’s only one glitch: The ID she’s using to finance these sprees reads “Sandy Bigelow Patterson”… and it belongs to an accounts rep who lives halfway across the U.S.

With only one week to hunt down the con artist before his world implodes, the real Sandy Bigelow Patterson heads south to confront the woman with an all-access pass to his life. And as he attempts to bribe, coax and wrangle her the 2,000 miles to Denver, one easy target will discover just how tough it is to get your name back.

The trailer and plot make it look like one of those road trip buddy comedies where they aren’t buddies and get caught up in danger and bad things. Which could be good. Melissa McCarthy is hilarious and Jason Bateman can play a good sweet straight man who does occasional wacky things. John Cho, Jon Favreau, Amanda Peet, T.I., Genesis Rodriguez, Morris Chestnut, and Robert Patrick also star, so Identity Thief has potential. And if it does suck, they’ll just rename the movie Star Wars! Can Identity Thief be funnier than the time the Lifelock CEO guy got his identity stolen 13 times? We shall see on February 8, 2013!

Identity Thief Jason Bateman
Identity Thief Melissa McCarthy

Cookie Monster and Grover riff on Hunger Games, Avengers, and Doctor Who

Grover Cookie Monster

If you haven’t seen this video made by Sesame Street for EW, you need to, as Cookie Monster and Grover riff on some recent blockbuster spectaculars and TV series. They take down Hunger Games, The Avengers, Newsroom, Doctor Who, it’s spectacular. The Muppets rule, Sesame Street rules, Cookie Monster rules, Grover rules, Super Grover rules, and this video rules. It’s an exclusive at EW so I can’t embed it, so click the link and watch!

Hunger Games RiffTrax out today!

I haven’t even bothered to see The Hunger Games, but now I have to watch it. And then watch it again, in RiffTrax form! This will be spectacular, in a flaming dress sort of way. The description below is already hilarious, and I haven’t even gotten off work and located a Hunger Games movie in some form. Which Riffer will snap first? Will they battle to the death in the closing credits? And Hunger isn’t a game, you guys…

Just when things looked grimmest for Hollywood’s bottom line and executives started seriously considering adapting the origin stories of cereal mascots for the silver screen, along came The Hunger Games to save the day! Yes, The Hunger Games, the series that critics are saying is “Almost definitely going to have the last book split into two movies” finally arrives to bring you archery, love and oh so much reaping!

Star of the show is Jennifer Lawrence, who wowed audiences in Winter’s Bone by being able to make it through a movie called Winter’s Bone without cracking a smile at the fact that the movie was named Winter’s Bone. Starring as Katniss, she volunteers for the games as a substitute for his sister Primrose, which forces her to leave behind her sort of boyfriend Gail, and get sent off to the capitol with a guy named Peeta. We contacted the folks at NASA and asked them to fire up some of their supercomputers in order to calculate which of those four names is the stupidest. They were willing, of course, but as soon as they hit start, we heard a loud buzzing in the background, and some people saying “No…No, this can’t be happening!” and “I’ve never seen a mainframe melt that fast before!” and “To the escape pods! No children allowed!”, so we figure we’re due to receive those results any minute now.

Anyways, at some point in time Lenny Kravitz shows up, bringing back fond memories of the wonderful moments just before he shows up. Stanley Tucci interviews the doomed contestants and determines whether they will join Hufflepuff or Slytherin. And Woody Harrelson, one has to imagine, took the role thinking he’d get to hang out on set all day with noted babe Elizabeth BanDEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO NOTED BABE ELIZABETH BANKS!?

We’ll just say this: at one point Peeta claims that his professional, almost magical level of talent as a camouflage artist all stems from the fact that he is good at frosting cakes in his family’s bakery. Even this part of the movie is five hundred times less stupid than any given part of Twilight. Join Mike, Kevin, Bill, Katniss, Peeta, Canfinflas, Scrappy-Doo and Sylvester McMonkey McBean for the 74th annual Hunger Games!

Hunger Games RiffTrax

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Age of Hobbits pics

Into Battle

Asylum’s mockbuster Age of Hobbits has hit the point where they put a bunch of photos up on flickr, so let’s celebrate by embedding a few of them in this post! As I’m sure you recall, the plot of this future epic feature is:

In an ancient age, the small, peace-loving Hobbits are enslaved by the Java Men, a race of flesh-eating dragon-riders. The young Hobbit Goben must join forces with their neighbor giants, the humans, to free his people and vanquish their enemies.

Age of Hobbits was filmed in Cambodia, and stars Christopher Judge and Bai Ling. This will turn out to be one of the least weird movies Bai Ling has been in! It comes out on DVD/VOD on December 11, 2012.

More info on Asylum’s website

A Competition

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Lore gets Barry Sonnenfeld as director

The comic Lore is basically MIB for mythical creatures, so getting MIB, MIIB, and MIIIB director Barry Sonnenfeld sounds like a good deal. Add that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is attached and it sounds even better. The Lore comic is made by Ashley Wood and T.P. Louise and features Shepherds that hold back mythical creatures from causing problems. Except the line of Shepherds is broken and a replacement is chosen, thus leading to drama fit for visual storytelling.

The screenplay by Cory Goodman and Jeremy Lott led to a bidding war between Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Sony. Warners won on a seven figure deal.

With The Rock attached and the studios excited because the film at least has enough good stuff to get people interested, maybe we’ll end up with a fun fantasy romp. And it’s cool how I didn’t make a joke about Lore also being the name of Data’s brother….WHOOPS!!

Via THR

Lore

Li Bingbing to be one of 400 Boys

Li BingBing

Li Bingbing comes fresh off of her Resident Evil: Retroboogie fame to star in another Western flick, 400 Boys, a British action fantasy set in the future, where the rich and powerful live trapped in paraplegic bodies and battle teenage freedom fighters that can defy the limits of their physical bodies.

I know what you are thinking, but Cory Doctorow had nothing to do with this script, otherwise it would be open-source underage WoW wiki-farmers vs. corrupt communazi multi-galactic fabbing corporations. This was in fact written by the director, Alastair Paton, who doesn’t seem to have done much of anything. But he somehow got funding for a $26 million film that starts shooting next month in Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. Paton and Bill Chamberlain are producing through China Hollywood Film and Television Entertainment. It looks like they are financing through theater presales across China and other countries around the world.

This brings up an interesting business model, finance a relatively inexpensive film through China theater presales and film most of it there with international stars, guaranteeing more theater presales. It’s like how a lot of the old DVD presales making films profitable before they were even filmed from a decade ago. What that means is, if these start making money, expect thousands of them.

Besides Li Bingbing, 400 Boys will also star Karena Ng (Magic to Win), Jodelle Ferland (BloodRayne II: Deliverance), Maria Valverde (The Anarchist’s Wife), Frank Leboeuf, Elliot Knight (Sinbad), and Chiara Von Galli.

via FilmBizAsia
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