Matthew McConaughey’s out promoting the sci-fi action thriller Interstellar and during his stop on The Tonight Show, he engaged in a game of Facebreakers with host Jimmy Fallon. The object of the game: Jimmy and Matthew had to throw footballs at glass panels, breaking the panels featuring the face of their opponent. The first to break all of their opponent’s panels wins.
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Girls will be back for season four beginning on January 11, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT. The award-winning HBO comedy series will have a 10-episode fourth season with Lena Dunham back in the lead role and executive producing. Returning cast members also include Jemima Kirke, Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver, Alex Karpovsky, Andrew Rannells, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
In addition, the network will be premiering the new series Togetherness and bringing back Looking for season two on January 11th. Girls runs 9-9:30pm, Togetherness airs at 9:30pm, and Looking has the 10-10:30pm time slot.
Togetherness, created by Jay and Mark Duplass, will have a first season run of eight episodes with Melanie Lynskey, Amanda Peet, and Steve Zissis in starring roles. Per HBO, the series “follows two couples living under one roof on the fringes of Los Angeles. Brett and Michelle are struggling to rekindle the spark in their relationship, which has puttered out from the stresses of marriage and children. When Brett’s friend Alex and Michelle’s sister Tina move in with them, the foursome engage in a tragically comedic struggle to follow their personal dreams, while still remaining good friends, siblings and spouses to each other.”
Season two of Looking brings back Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez, and Murray Bartlett for 10 new episodes.
“Hello, I am Baymax, your personal health care companion,” says the plus-sized inflatable medical robot Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit) to young Hiro (Ryan Potter), a brilliant 14 year old robotics prodigy who’s still grieving the loss of a loved one in the animated family-friendly action/comedy Big Hero 6.
After wasting his time with robot fighting, Hiro gets extremely motivated to harness and focus his talents on going to the same university that his big brother, Tadashi (Daniel Henney), attends after witnessing all the amazing experiments and devices his brother and his friends are working on. However, when a horrible fire breaks out at the university and seems to claim the lives of two people who Hiro respected and cared about, Hiro becomes despondent and withdrawn.
Baymax, Tadashi’s medical robot expert, becomes activated and determined to help Hiro through his depression and time of grieving. When a mysterious masked figure suddenly appears in the city with some of Hiro’s small but very useful micro-bots (small robots that working together and can take almost any form) that Hiro believed had been destroyed by the fire, Hiro becomes determined to find out who the masked figure is and what he’s up to. He turns to Tadashi’s friends and Baymax and transforms the brainy geeks and medical robot into a group of high-tech heroes called Big Hero 6.
Action-packed, funny and heartfelt, Big Hero 6 is an animated superhero adventure which will have audiences rooting for Hiro and Baymax right up to when the credits roll. This is a bright, colorful, and visually impressive film with wonderful animation and better than average character development.
Scott Adsit does a great job of bringing to life Baymax, the medical robot who’s Tadashi’s crowning achievement and becomes, thanks to Hiro, a most effective crime fighting, flying robot. Adsit’s delivery of Baymax’s lines, especially when he and Hiro are in some sort of danger, is pitch perfect and often hilarious. Ryan Potter is very effective as the voice of Hiro and adds plenty of emotion for the grief-stricken and later furious under-age hero who’s just trying to uncover the truth about the masked man and his micro-bots.
Big Hero 6 looks stunning with its semi-future design of San Fransokyo and the use of bright, almost glowing colors. The writing is both humorous and at times very touching, dealing with such emotions as grief, love, friendship, fear, anger, and pride in a more serious and mature nature than most animated films these days.
With thrilling action, laugh-out-loud moments, and well-developed characters, Big Hero 6 is one of the few 2014 animated movies not to be missed up on the big screen.
GRADE: B
– Interview with directors Don Hall and Chris Williams
Big Hero 6 is rated PG for action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements.
– Reviewed by Kevin Finnerty
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Lev Grossman’s bestselling book series The Magicians is heading to the small screen and Syfy’s booked three actors to take on key roles. Stella Maeve (Chicago PD), Hale Appleman, and Arjun Gupta have signed on to the pilot which will shoot next month in New Orleans.
Mike Cahill (Another Earth) is directing from a script by Sera Gamble and John McNamara.
The plot involves “20-somethings who, while studying magic in New York, discover that the magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real and poses grave danger to humanity.”
For those familiar with Grossman’s Magicians trilogy, here’s the details on who Maeve, Gupta, and Appleman will be playing, courtesy of Syfy:
– Stella Maeve will play the beautiful and confident Julia, a wealthy and brilliant Ivy-Leaguer who seems destined for success. But Julia’s future plans are forever altered after she is denied admittance to the mysterious Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. Unaccustomed to failure, Julia finds life meaningless now that the possibilities of a previously unseen magical world have been denied to her. But she may get another chance to pursue a career in magic when she’s recruited by a secret society.
– Hale Appleman will portray Eliot, a student at the Brakebills who is an odd combination of a preppy with intrinsic coolness. Effortlessly hip, with his air of self-possession, Eliot is accustomed to commanding any clique, and he’s a natural leader of his fellow magical students. He will prove a sometimes frustrating ally in Quentin’s fortunes — and may soon factor into a series of perilous adventures.
– Arjun Gupta will portray Penny, a young man with an edgy look and attitude. He’s deliberately intimidating to Quentin, his new roommate and fellow magic student at Brakebills. A reluctant telepath, he is bedeviled by voices that hint at pathways to other worlds.
The Weinstein Company’s new trailer for Paddington is an improvement over their initial offerings, with this trailer showing more of the CGI animated bear’s personality. Written and directed by Paul King and based on Michael Bond’s popular children’s books, Paddington is voiced by Ben Whishaw and stars Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Nicole Kidman, Imelda Staunton, and Julie Walters.
Paddington opens in theaters on January 16, 2015.
The Plot:
From the beloved novels by Michael Bond and producer David Heyman (Harry Potter), Paddington tells the story of the comic misadventures of a young Peruvian bear who travels to the city in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone, he begins to realize that city life is not all he had imagined – until he meets the kindly Brown family who read the label around his neck that says “Please look after this bear. Thank you,” and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though his luck has changed until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist.
Watch the trailer:
Nacho Vigalondo’s ambitious cyber thriller Open Windows starts off strong but ultimately adds in so many layers that the story becomes indecipherable. The ‘windows’ of the title refers to windows opened on a computer screen, and as happens when too many are opened at the same time on an actual computer, the film slogs down with the additional windows involved in the story. By the time the end does come and there’s a semblance of a resolution as to who did what to whom, you’re left wanting to do a hard reboot to clean things up and start over.
Visually, the production design and cinematography perfectly capture this seedy, voyeuristic world of internet hacking and spying. It’s not much of a stretch to accept the idea of hidden cameras and live streaming of the victimization of a sexy celebrity, but where Open Windows falters is in trying to take the story too many different directions and by adding in assorted players who dilute the impact the film could have had on viewers.
The Story:
Elijah Wood plays Nick Chambers, the webmaster of a fan site for celebrity Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey…yes, that Sasha Grey). He’s been promised a date with Jill as part of a prize package he won, but unfortunately for superfan Nick, she backs out of the dinner, something he’s informed of by Chord (Neil Maskell) who offers him the opportunity to spy on her as a consolation prize of sorts since he won’t actually have the chance to be with her face-to-face. That offer sets off a chain of events that leads to Nick becoming a pawn in a much larger game in which he’s alternately being manipulated and acting as the manipulator.
The Bottom Line:
Wood’s in nearly every frame, and he does a fine job of feeding out information to the audience, a difficult task as the rules and players constantly change, and an actual list of the players and their intentions becomes necessary. Casting adult film star Grey as the female being manipulated by sexually aroused males actually makes sense, and Grey does handle her part – and her few lines of dialogue – well. There’s a genuine vulnerability to her performance as she’s being forced to reveal herself to strangers on the internet that’s actually kind of touching.
But Vigalondo’s Open Windows wastes Wood and Grey’s performances in an unnecessarily convoluted story. Strip the tale down to its bare essence and Open Windows would have been a timely moral tale of celebrity worship and internet hacking. Instead, in attempting to do too much, it neutralizes the impact of the film and lessens its entertainment value.
GRADE: C+
Downton Abbey has more upstairs and downstairs stories to tell, with Masterpiece on PBS renewing the series for a sixth season. The critically acclaimed drama will start shooting in 2015, with series creator Julian Fellowes once again writing the scripts.
Season five will finish up in the UK on November 9, however, audiences in the US have to wait until January 4, 2015 for the premiere of the fifth season.
“Good news! Just as our audience settles in for the beloved Crawley family drama, we can announce that Season 6 will arrive a year later. How lucky can you get?” said Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton.
“At its heart, television is about storytelling, and Downton Abbey is certainly storytelling,” said Paula Kerger, PBS President and CEO. “Downton Abbey and the Crawley family have kept us on the edge of our seats as they navigate through some of the biggest moments of the 20th century. Along with our member stations, PBS can’t wait to share the next season of Downton drama with our audiences.”
NBC’s new comedy series Marry Me teams up Ken Marino (Burning Love, Party Down) and Casey Wilson (Happy Endings) as a couple who’ve been dating for six years and are finally…after many, many missteps, misadventures, and misunderstandings…engaged to be married. The half-hour comedy airs on Tuesday nights at 9pm ET/PT and in support of the hit series, Wilson and Marino took part in a conference call to chat about the show, their characters, and the scripts.
What do you think about describing the show as ‘cute’? Is that an appropriate term?
Casey Wilson: “I mean I think it is cute. I think it’s also kind of subversive and has some heart. But I guess maybe if you combine those, we get cute. I’ll take it.”
Ken Marino: “That’s right. If subversive and heart ran into each other, they would make a cute baby.”
Casey Wilson: “At the end of the day we’re hoping it’s funny. I think Ken and I and the rest of the cast, I think everyone really does have really great chemistry, which I think is probably why you’re feeling that way. So I think it’s good, yes. I think it has to be the right chemistry and I think we did get lucky on the show.”
Casey, how much of Casey is in Annie, and how much of Annie’s in Casey? When you go to work is it like you’re slipping into a costume or are you already that character when you go to work?
Casey Wilson: “I think Annie is a little more upbeat and probably friendlier than I am. No, I think there are definite similarities and I think I’m pretty emotional and I get big ideas and I want to see things through and they’re often wrong-headed ideas. But I feel as though I’m playing a character, but you never know. Maybe I’m not. You’ll never know. Ken, do you want to tell them about your character process?”
Ken Marino: “Sure. I mean I have a whole process. You know, there’s a big difference between me and Jake. I am actually six foot one. I’m 6′ 1″ and Jake is six foot. So every day I have to act an inch shorter on set.”
Casey Wilson: “It’s very expensive to dig those trenches.”
Ken Marino: “Yes. Well sometimes if I act too hard, they’ll get the dailies back and I’ll be 5′ 8″. And then we have to do a whole re-shoot where I have to act less. But, you know, the key to acting is less acting and just reacting. So when I get to the reacting part, I’m usually coming in at six foot.”
Casey Wilson: “And I’ll tell you, these are the kind of pearls that I get showered with all day on set. And it’s really scintillating as everyone on the line can hear.”
What stories from your real-life relationships are making it on screen or what can we expect to see?
Casey Wilson: “Well, I’ll tell one on you Ken.”
Ken Marino: “Go ahead.”
Casey Wilson: “Which is that I think it’s more of a runner right now but I’ve heard news that it might turn into more of a full-fledged intervention between Annie and Jacob about Jake’s karaoke problem. And that is a problem Ken struggles with.”
Ken Marino: “It’s not a problem.”
Casey Wilson: “You can see that’s the thing. He’s in denial right now.”
Ken Marino: “There’s no problem whatsoever. I enjoy karaoke. I can do it when I want.”
Casey Wilson: “Who does it hurt? Who does it hurt?”
Ken Marino: “It doesn’t [affect the rest of] my life.”
Casey Wilson: “That’s what he thinks. He thinks it doesn’t hurt anyone. But I know a lot of artists who have been hurt be hearing his renditions.”
Ken Marino: “As a matter of fact I just went last night. I’m a little hoarse.”
Casey Wilson: “See? He can’t get up in the morning. He can barely talk the next day. He can’t go to work. It’s a problem.”
Ken Marino: “Look, I’m not going to deny I don’t enjoy a good karaoke like a good four or five-hour karaoke session. But who doesn’t?”
Casey, is there anything from your relationships that made it into the show?
Casey Wilson: “I’m trying to think. Well, we did have a few episodes ago where my character, or actually Ken’s character, tried to get me to do this thing called the open-eye cuddle, which is an intimacy exercise that I learned in acting school that I tried to get my husband to do where you stare about two inches from each other’s face and just stare into each other’s eyes. My husband thought I was insane and refused to do it. It did not go well. It went on about eight seconds. I don’t even think that much. And, if anything, we are less close from that experience.”
Given that you’re both writers and both very funny, how much of this is actually scripted and how much are lines that you come up with?
Ken Marino: “Well I mean David [Caspe] and the room full of writers are amazing and they write great scripts. David will encourage us to improvise off of that a little bit. But I mean a lot of it – probably 95% of it – is scripted I would say. Right, Casey?”
Casey Wilson: “Yes. It’s definitely, you know, collaborative in a sense of if there’s something we want to do, we definitely do it and have fun with it. But the scripts are pretty tight. Ken and I have initiated our own writer’s room with just the two of us that…”
Ken Marino: “We go off…”
Casey Wilson: “I wouldn’t say it’s gone over well.”
Ken Marino: “No, no. They’re not big fans of it. But we mostly use stuff from Bazooka Joe bubblegum wrappers and just kind of try to reinvent those jokes because those are classics and, you know, I think America wants to kind of enjoy the classics. You can’t get enough of it.”
Casey Wilson: “It’s caused, I guess, a rift is the word but it’s okay. We think that the writers [will move] our way by the end.”
Ken Marino: “I mean, who wants to talk to the writers of the show anyway?”
Casey Wilson: “That’s why they’re not on this call. They’ll never be on this call.”
Casey, current female comedians are showing that women don’t have to be perfect to be considered funny or sexy or smart. They’re breaking down barriers, which you are doing as well. That said, do you think your character Annie feels the same way and why do you think she’s so relatable to women?
Casey Wilson: “Well, thank you. I don’t know if Annie feels exactly the same way. I think Annie’s a little more high-strung and kind of self-conscious about how her life should look, and it obviously never works out the way she’s planned. But, you know, I’ve seen a little bit of criticism about especially our opening episode because Annie really wants to get married.
But I actually think there’s something a little bit more like [relatable] about it in the sense that this couple’s been together for six years and for a woman who works and kind of does it all, sometimes getting engaged is the one thing you don’t have any control over, which I think can be kind of frustrating. I think it is actually relatable that – and I know a lot of women like this – you want to be in control of the one thing you kind of can’t be in control of in a way. I don’t know if that answers your question but I think Annie is a little bit less so in thinking that everything needs to be perfect. I think she’s does think everything needs to be perfect.”
Will your characters have as long an engagement as you did a courtship?
Ken Marino: “I think the idea is that we’re going to marry sooner than later. Right, Casey? No?”
Casey Wilson: “Yes. I think we’re probably going to get married at the end of the season because I don’t think the show’s going to be about will they, won’t they, really. That’s kind of a spoiler alert. I think we will get married. And the show’s more following this couple and their friendships and I think it’s more about what happens when you are committed to someone than when you are on the fence.”
Ken Marino: “Yes. But then we’ll probably get divorced a number of times and get back together throughout the seasons.”
Casey Wilson: “It’ll be funny though.”
The fourth episode dealt with curses. Do you think that some situations are just cursed or do you think that you after a while things just go wrong because some situations are just like that?
Ken Marino: “I personally don’t believe in curses.”
Casey Wilson: “Some people are cursed.”
Ken Marino: “Yes. I’m going to have to agree with Casey on that. I think some people are really cursed.”
Casey Wilson: “And a lot of animals are cursed too.”
Have you ever gotten a script and there’s some humor in there that isn’t necessarily inappropriate but maybe we haven’t seen on network TV before and that leaves you wondering how you’re going to get away with it on TV?
Ken Marino: “You know, I think that it’s always nice to read a script and see something that you haven’t seen before or something that’s pushing the envelope a little bit. That’s always exciting for me to kind of go in and do that. And then whether or not it’s going to work on TV is kind of out of hands. It’s just an exciting thing to approach and do and then you hope, especially if it’s funny, you hope that it gets on the air. I don’t know if we’ve been pushing the envelope or anything but we’re doing what we want to do on the show and then that stuff is getting out there. I think that’s what makes the show special.”
Casey Wilson: “Yes. There’s obviously so much programming and so many great cable shows that people love and gravitate to to some degree that I think in some way we’re trying to do a show that exists on the line as much as we can, just because I think there’s a reason people love something a little bit edgier. I think in one episode…Ken, I’m thinking of the fertility episode… there was a scene that I think the network had the show [air it] like halfway through the season instead of earlier because it was a little too much. But I think ultimately it’s better to try that and see where we land.”
There have been two recent cancellations of new comedies. Do you feel like comedies have a harder road to success than dramas? How have you felt about the reception that Marry Me has received so far?
Casey Wilson: “I think it’s very hard these days to make any television show, and anyone who’s trying to do anything should be applauded. It’s really hard. I don’t think shows are given enough of a chance. And it’s a bummer because whenever I see anything on TV, and not to be too dramatic, but I think those people worked really hard on that show no matter how you feel about it. So I was bummed.”
Ken Marino: “I think it’s been nice the reception that Marry Me‘s been getting. I feel like people have been responding mostly positive to it and both critically and they’re just fans and people I run up to us on the street – and certainly my mom.”
Casey Wilson: “Ken’s mom loves it.”
Ken Marino: “My mom really loves it and so that’s good. You know, so does my dad. And so it’s nice to see that people are enjoying the show as much as we are enjoying making it.”
Paramount Pictures has debuted the first trailer for the dramatic film Selma starring David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The biopic is directed by Ava DuVernay (Middle of Nowhere) and in addition to Oyelowo the cast includes Tom Wilkinson, Cuba Gooding Jr, Alessandro Nivola, Giovanni Ribisi, Common, Carmen Ejogo, Lorraine Toussaint, and Tim Roth.
Selma will open in limited release on Christmas and will expand to other theaters on January 9, 2015.
The Plot:
Selma is the story of a movement. The film chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernay’s Selma tells the story of how the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his brothers and sisters in the movement prompted change that forever altered history.
Watch the trailer:
The official poster for the dramatic movie Black Sea has been released featuring Jude Law in profile. Directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and written by Dennis Kelly, the Black Sea cast includes Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, and David Threlfall.
Black Sea will open in theaters on January 23, 2015.
The Plot:
A suspenseful adventure thriller directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald, centering on a rogue submarine captain (two-time Academy Award nominee Jude Law) who pulls together a misfit crew to go after a sunken treasure rumored to be lost in the depths of the Black Sea. As greed and desperation take control onboard their claustrophobic vessel, the increasing uncertainty of the mission causes the men to turn on each other to fight for their own survival.
