Reggie Watts brings his improvised musical comedy back to Comedy Central in the world premiere of Reggie Watts: A Live At Central Parkairing Friday night, May 11th at 1am ET/PT.
The renowned vocalist/beatboxer/musician/comedian performs live in Central Park in this all-new special. Using nothing but his voice, keyboard, and a looping machine to create completely impromptu musical sets, Watts covers topics from reggae music to sex and everything in between.
As a quirky added bonus to the special, a reoccurring sketch is woven throughout the stage sets, in which the adventurous Watts tries to determine whether his performance in the Park was real or just a haunting dream.
A Live At Central Park CD/DVD will be released by Comedy Central Records on May 15th. Recorded live at Central Park, Watts’ new full-length disc contains an album of storytelling and his best new songs, including the single “Having Sex,” as well as a DVD of the live performance and Comedy Central special.
A Live At Central Park CD/DVD follows the release of Watts’ debut comedy album and DVD Why $#!+ So Crazy? on Comedy Central Records, and Reggie Watts Live at Third Man Records, available on limited edition vinyl.
Leading up to the on-air premiere, the Comedy Central Stand-Up web site will feature preview clips from the special.
Check out the trailer for the psychological thriller “Entrance.” The film explores the thin line between anxiety and naked horror in the life of Suzy (Suziey Block), a young woman in Los Angeles who can’t get comfortable in her own skin.
A loner who wallows in nostalgia and finds herself wandering aimlessly through life in the city, she can’t shake the gnawing suspicion that a true menace grows just outside her field of vision. As she scrambles to take control of her life, her anxiety rises to a fever pitch that boils over into a waking nightmare.
“Entrance” will be in theaters and available nationwide on IFC Midnight Cable VOD and digital outlets on May 18.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Clifford the Big Red Dog will be coming to the big screen. Universal and Illumination Entertainment will be collaborating on the project which follows the lives of Emily Elizabeth and her giant dog Clifford.
Matt Lopez (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”) is set to pen the script and the film will be a live-action/animation hybrid. “Clifford the Big Red Dog” first appeared on bookshelves in 1963 and spawned a popular PBS show in 2000.
Another beloved childhood classic will be receiving a big screen makeover as well. StudioCanal will be financing the film adaptation of Paddington Bear, will be produced by “Harry Potter” lynchpin David Heyman, and directed by “Bunny and the Bull” and “The Mighty Boosh” director Paul King.
Let’s hope these movies turn out better than “Garfield.”
Just in time for Mother’s Day, Eva Mendes stars in “Girl in Progress,” the story of a single mom, who is too busy juggling work, bills and her very married boyfriend (Matthew Modine) to pay attention to her daughter (Ansiedad, played by Cierra Ramirez).
As a result, Ansiedad hatches a crazy coming-of-age plot to skip adolescence and jump start a life that will not include her mother. But along the way, her plans hurts those she loves as well as herself. It takes a near tragedy for both Ansiedad and Grace (Mendes) to learn that growing up means acting your age.
In this interview with Mendes, she talks about why the title is so perfect for her life, what her transition for girl to woman was like, how she feels about playing a mother, and more. Check it out.
Are you a “Girl in Progress?”
I often refer to myself as a work in progress, so it’s funny that this should be the title of the film because I’m always taking the odd class, anything to grow, anything that I can get into, any area whether it be a singing class or whether it be — I just took a course in Thai massage.
I know it sounds so funny, but I enjoy giving massages. My mom has always had terrible neck problems and back problems, so I grew up massaging her, so I feel like she trained me well. So, I took a course in Thai massage and I’ve got to say I’ve been told I am pretty good.
Are you a certified masseuse now?
Well, not in the States I’m not certified, but overseas I am. It’s harder to get certified here in the States.
What was your own transition from girl to woman? Did you have a rough time with it or was it easy?
I think between, like, seventh grade and maybe my junior/senior year in high school were pretty difficult [years] because I was on a mission. I wanted to be my own independent person and I’m so close — especially back then — I’m so close to my family and so closely tied to them and their beliefs that I really wanted to divorce myself from them and figure out who I was independent of them. So that was my mission and that was rocky. It was really rocky.
What did you see in this role? When you read the script, what was it that really pulled you in and made you think, “Oh, that’s good.”
I was attracted to the fact that the character was such a mess of a woman, such a disaster of a mother, but really, truly trying her best. So I wanted to play a real, flawed, human being and I knew within the first few pages of the script that she was that.
You made Grace a likable character even though she was flawed.
Really? You think so?
We wanted to root for her.
Really? Oh, that’s cool because I think she’s just awful. I mean, I love that she’s a work in progress and I love that she’s trying her best and she somewhat bides her way but, yeah, I just think, “Wow.” It’s hard for me to divorce myself too, from the character at this point to be objective because I still see her and like [want to say], “Stop blowing smoke in your kid’s face. What are you doing?” You know, stuff like that.
Some actresses are conscious about age. One of them told me, “Now I gotta play the mom.” When you get these kind of roles where you can’t be the sexy one in the movie but you’re the mom, what’s your take on that?
Well, first of all, sexy is just one component. It’s not a thing I am. It’s a thing I can be. It’s a side of myself I can tap into, just like I can tap into my funny side, or my quirky side, or my dramatic side. But it’s not what I am. So, and then just kind of rewinding a bit, my first role that put me on the map in this business was in “Training Day,” and it was only two scenes but that’s what got me in. That’s what started it all and I played a mother. So I think that when you play a mother, just by the nature, whether you play a bad mother or an amazing mother, being a mother already, it’s already so complicated. It’s already three-dimensional automatically no matter what the rule is because you’re playing a mother. So I welcome it. The more complicated a role can be, the more flawed a character can be, that’s what I’m looking for.
The careers that I admire and actually try to emulate in a way are those of Julianne Moore and Annette Bening. Those women to me make amazing choices and they’re sexy, beautiful women but that’s doesn’t dictate their choices.
You have this epiphany moment, this ah-ha moment in the movie, where she realizes she is just like her own mother. Do you think that’s really real? That people can change that quickly? Is there anything in your life that you could maybe relate to that?
That people can change that quickly, like I think an epiphany can change a lot so, yeah. I do believe that people can change quickly but then I think—that’s a good question. Why didn’t you ask me that at the beginning? No, but I do. I have full faith in people and I think that we have the ability to change because I think we’re habitual creatures and once we figure out that bad habit, whether it’s behavioral or whatever it may be, once we figure out and identify that, we change it and then we change our habits and, obviously, I’m simplifying it and it sounds very easy to do and we all know it’s very difficult, but it’s do-able.
“Girl in Progress” opens in theaters on Friday, May 11.
Check out the official trailer for “Hick,” starring Blake Lively and Chloe Grace Moretz.
Small town teenager Luli (CHLOË GRACE MORETZ) escapes to Las Vegas, leaving behind her alcoholic and abusive parents. Armed with her smarts, a pistol and pocket money, she hitchhikes her way west. Along the way, Luli crosses paths with Eddie (EDDIE REDMAYNE), an unstable rebel with questionable motives and Glenda (BLAKE LIVELY), a cocaine-snorting drifter on the run. Adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by Andrea Portes, this powerful story pulls you into a provocative world of drugs, seduction and murder.
The dramady “Ashley’s Ashes” will be available on VOD May 23rd. The film follows the journey of a man who works to uncover the mysterious origins of an urn of ashes that was left to him anonymously in a will. The film stars Lee Arenberg, Daniel Baldwin, Orson Bean, Christian Clemenson, Scott Michael Foster, Willie Garson, Googy Gress, Clint Howard, Gigi Rice, and Craig Sheffe.
Director Tim Burton brings the cult classic series “Dark Shadows” to the big screen in a film featuring an all-star cast, led by Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter.
In the year 1750, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from England to start a new life in America, where they build a fishing empire in the coastal Maine town that comes to carry their name: Collinsport. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet.
The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of falling in love with a beauty named Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote) and breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death—turning him into a vampire, and then burying him…alive.
Nearly two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972, a stranger in an even stranger time. Returning to Collinwood Manor, he finds that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin, and the dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets.
Family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the one person Barnabas entrusts with the truth of his identity. But his rather odd and anachronistic behavior immediately raises the suspicions of the live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), who has no idea what kind of problems she’s really digging up.
As Barnabas sets out to restore his family name to its former glory, one thing stands in his way: Collinsport’s leading denizen, who goes by the name Angie…and who bears a striking resemblance to a very old acquaintance of Barnabas Collins.
Also residing in Collinwood Manor are Elizabeth’s ne’er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Chloë Grace Moretz); and Roger’s precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gully McGrath). The longsuffering caretaker of Collinwood is Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), and new to the Collins’ employ is David’s nanny, Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), who is, mysteriously, the mirror image of Barnabas’ one true love, Josette.
Burton directed “Dark Shadows” from a screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith, story by John August and Grahame-Smith, based on the television series created by Dan Curtis. The producers are Oscar® winner Richard D. Zanuck (“Alice in Wonderland,” “Driving Miss Daisy”), Oscar® winner Graham King, (“Rango,” “The Departed”), Johnny Depp, Christi Dembrowski, and David Kennedy. The executive producers are Chris Lebenzon, Nigel Gostelow, Tim Headington, and Bruce Berman.
The behind-the-scenes creative team includes cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, Oscar®-winningproduction designer Rick Heinrichs (“Sleepy Hollow”), Oscar®-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood (“Alice in Wonderland”) and editor Chris Lebenzon. The score was composed by four-time Oscar® nominee Danny Elfman (“Milk,” “Big Fish,” “Men in Black,” “Good Will Hunting”).
A Warner Bros. Pictures presentation in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, an Infinitum Nihil/GK Films/Zanuck Company production, a Tim Burton film, “Dark Shadows” opens on May 11, 2012, and will be distributed worldwide in theatres and IMAX by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.
The film has been rated PG-13 for comic horror violence, sexual content, some drug use,language and smoking.
Brave Disney•Pixar
U.S. Release Date: June 22, 2012
Voice Talent: Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane, Julie Walters Directors: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
Since ancient times, stories of epic battles and mystical legends have been passed through the generations across the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland. From Disney and Pixar, a new tale joins the lore when the courageous Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald) confronts tradition and challenges destiny to change her fate. “Brave” follows the heroic journey of Merida, a skilled archer and headstrong daughter of King Fergus (voice of Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (voice of Emma Thompson).
Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the unruly and uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin (voice of Kevin McKidd), surly Lord Macintosh (voice of Craig Ferguson) and cantankerous Lord Dingwall (voice of Robbie Coltrane). Merida’s actions inadvertently unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom, and when she turns to an eccentric Witch (voice of Julie Walters) for help, she is granted an ill-fated wish.
The ensuing peril forces Merida to harness all of her skills and resources – including her clever and mischievous triplet brothers – to undo a beastly curse before it’s too late, discovering the meaning of true bravery. Directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, and produced by Katherine Sarafian, “Brave” is a grand adventure full of heart, memorable characters and signature Pixar humor that audiences of all ages around the world have come to eagerly expect. The film takes aim at theaters on June 22, 2012, and will be presented in Disney Digital 3D™ in select theaters.
People Like Us Dreamworks Pictures
U.S. Release date: June 29, 2012
Cast: Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, Michael Hall D’Addario, Philip Baker Hall, Mark Duplass and Michelle Pfeiffer
Director: Alex Kurtzman
Written by: Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci & Jody Lambert
From DreamWorks Pictures comes “People Like Us,” a drama/comedy about family, inspired by true events, starring Chris Pine (“Star Trek”) as Sam, a twenty-something, fast-talking salesman, whose latest deal collapses on the day he learns that his father has suddenly died. Against his wishes, Sam is called home, where he must put his father’s estate in order and reconnect with his estranged family.
In the course of fulfilling his father’s last wishes, Sam uncovers a startling secret that turns his entire world upside down: He has a 30-year-old sister Frankie whom he never knew about (Elizabeth Banks). As their relationship develops, Sam is forced to rethink everything he thought he knew about this family—and re-examine his own life choices in the process.
The Odd Life of Timothy Green
Walt Disney Pictures
Cast: Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, Dianne Wiest, CJ Adams, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ron Livingston, M. Emmet Walsh, Odeya Rush, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lois Smith and Common
Director: Peter Hedges
Story by: Ahmet Zappa
Screenplay by: Peter Hedges
Academy Award®–nominated director/writer Peter Hedges (“Dan in Real Life,” What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”) brings enchantment to the screen with “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” an inspiring, magical story about a happily married couple, Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton), who can’t wait to start a family but can only dream about what their child would be like. When young Timothy (CJ Adams) shows up on their doorstep one stormy night, Cindy and Jim—and their small town of Stanleyville—learn that sometimes the unexpected can bring some of life’s greatest gifts.
Check out the official trailer for Stash House, one of the five films to be released in theaters on May 11th as part of After Dark Action. Stash House starsDolph Lundgren, Sean Faris, Briana Evigan and Jon Huertas.
Synopsis: For her birthday, Dave Nash buys his wife, Emma, a beautiful foreclosed home. Gated, serene, and surrounded by friendly neighbors, it seems too good to be true… and it is. Dave and Emma soon discover the walls are lined with bricks of heroin.
Before they can leave, cartel thugs trap them inside. Imprisoned in their own home, Dave and Emma withstand relentless attacks from thugs seeking to plunder the “stash house” of its riches. As the deaths of innocent bystanders mount, and they come ever closer to losing one another, Dave decides to take matters into his own hands…
