Big Screen Little Screen

It brings me great joy to know that the best film of 2007 can’t be swept under the carpet, and that P.T. Anderson’s Little Boston has become the internet’s playground. Despite what you may have been hearing over the past few weeks, the problem isn’t with these types of smart, ballsy films being over our heads. It’s just that nobody wants to sit through the Oscars anymore because they have better things to do with their three hours, like constructing their own tiny, hemp-infused epics.

The definitive There Will Be Blood parody:

Tags: there will be blood, p.t. anderson, daniel day-lewis, there will be bud

Brooklyn rapper Jamal Woolard, aka “Gravy” is your fake Biggie Smalls in the upcoming biopic, Notorious. He’s even been shot before - in the ass! Says Nah Right (photo credit), Woolard was in the running to play The Notorious B.I.G. part in the Fox Searchlight production two years ago but they had an exhaustive internet casting call, looking over big guys with little to no rapping or acting experience anyway. Furthermore, Derek Luke will pass for the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy, and Angela Basset will play Big’s mother. Production begins this month and the film is scheduled for a January 2009 release.

Tags: notorious big movie, p. diddy, gravy

“It’s not that these girls are better than the girls who preceded them. They’re luckier. They came along at a time when the boys allowed them to do this. In comedy, timing is everything.” - humorist Fran Lebowitz

“Who Says Women Aren’t Funny?” - a great read from Vanity Fair on the past, present, and future crop of women writing and performing comedy - seeing evolving demands and valuations teeter-totter between sex appeal and talent (via Goldenfiddle). For the piece in the April issue, Annie Leibovitz shot Susie Essman, Amy Sedaris, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey (all pictured), Jenna Fischer, Chelsea Handler, Leslie Mann, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, and Sandra Bernhard (links for brief interviews of each).

A Sundance entry in 2006 - The Foot Fist Way, a low-budget, crude, strip-mall Taekwondo comedy - was according to the trailer’s boast, “slipped to” Funny or Die duo Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who’ve since “watched it at least 20 times”, quoting and obsessing over it. They persuaded Paramount Vantage to purchase it and put the film under their own “Gary Sanchez” production company label. Director Jody Hill, writer Ben Best, and star Danny R. McBride were all listed among Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch in 2007, and have since been working on a comedy pilot for HBO entitled P.E., also produced by Ferrell and McKay.

So with so many people co-signing for Foot ,the trailer has to be bowl-over material right? There’s a Super Troopers vibe to it (or maybe it’s just that McBride reminds me of Farva), but fits of laugher inducing, it’s not. Scheduled release: May 30th.

The Foot Fist Way trailer (NSFW)

Tags: foot fist way, will ferrell, funny or die

Not a vote of confidence on expanding upon one of the very few high-replay-value comedies of the decade - when asked by MTV News (video) about the odds of a Zoolander sequel, Will Ferrell’s response was, “I brought it up to Ben really five years after the fact. I know there’s been some Old School talk but it never quite happened…For whatever reasons, it [Zoolander 2] is not crystallizing.”

Don’t hold your breath for Landlord: The Movie, either says Will.

Tags: will ferrell, ben stiller, zoolander 2, owen wilson

“He’s a serial killer that only kills other serial killers!” - young Dookie, The Wire (3/2/08)

IGN reports that Showtime is expected to announce today that they will partner with Mark Ecko Entertainment in launching an upcoming video game for their hot, crossover hit series Dexter. Release date and gaming platforms were not confirmed as of this morning. (via TV Squad)

“Dexter is the extremely rare TV show with enough layers of action and tension to translate perfectly into a compelling videogame,” said Marc Fernandez, Vice President of Ecko Entertainment. “Our game designers, writers, and artists are going to give Dexter’s morally complex world the kind of interactivity that gamers will love.”

But if you want to totally immerse yourself in the whole Dexter experience, killing in the game shouldn’t really feel fun per se, it’s more like an inconvenient obligation. And if you really want to be like Dex (not because you’re a gamer), I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to enjoy sex either.

Tags: showtime, dexter the video game, michael c. hall

– New York Times on the Gilmore Girls creator’s Return of Jezebel James starring Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose (Registration required). Also: Rashida Jones (The Office) in the Farrelly brothers sitcom: Unhitched, Gus Van Sant’s latest: Paranoid Park, and the interactive “Be Kind Rewind” exhibit at the Deitch Projects in Soho.

– Ellen Page drops out of Sam Raimi’s horror flick Drag Me to Hell due to delays that would have caused conflicts with her upcoming roles in Whip It!, a roller derby comedy directed by Drew Barrymore, and Peacock, a thriller with Cillian Murphy (Hollywood Reporter)

– Diablo Cody’s United States of Tara, her rookie TV offering to Showtime, will start shooting this month. The comedy stars Tilda Swinton as a mother with multiple personality disorder. Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl ) will direct. (Variety)

– Coens at Cannes: their next film, Burn After Reading - a spy comedy starring George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Frances McDormand - rumored to be premiering at the Cannes Festival on May 14th. (NY Post)

– “Well, the ball has started rolling down the hill again. So hopefully, all the adults can get the business stuff together - because all the creatives are on board.” Jason Bateman’s status report on the Arrested Development movie along with his upcoming State of Play. (MTV News)

– “Man, I hope they talk about blogs and the Arcade Fire. I also hope that the Cloverfield monster attacks these people as well.” Skeet on Mischa on Bumped, a film unfortunately described as The Breakfast Club at an airport.

– “I saw Sacha Baron Cohen doing filming as Bruno (gay Austrian)…He was interviewing parents with their children pretending to be an german/austrian ad agent looking for a child to do a car commercial. He asked questions like : are you willing to film your child with ants? bees or wasps?” (Defamer)

– Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (of Once) go major label (Variety)

– ABC and NBC fighting over Scrubs? What the hell for? (Show Tracker)

– AV Club compares There Will Be Blood to its source material: Upton Sinclair’s work of historical fiction - Oil!

– Adam Yauch of The Beastie Boys vaguely lists his top ten Criterion DVD’s (Row Three)

– “8 Mile’s focus on Eminem’s early, pre-fame career gave the film a natural story arc and taught us things we didn’t already know. Notorious — on paper, at least — plays like a loose-knit highlight reel; it’s basically the screenplay adaptation of Biggie’s Wikipedia entry.” (Vulture) Related: watch the Biggie casting videos from Fox Searchlight’s internet search, because I can’t bring myself to do it.

– A project once thought to be D.O.A., a trailer for The Onion Movie has resurfaced on The Darjeeling Limited DVD (Film Junk)

– Heady stuff: 24 Lies a Second draws parallels between the real-life trials of Owen Wilson to themes explored in his Wes Anderson collaborations (via Kottke)

– Video: Unlikely pairing of the week goes to Jack McBrayer (30 Rock) and Mariah Carey for her video: Touch My Body (A.V. Club)