Billy Crystal's Heartfelt Tribute to Robin Williams from the Primetime Emmy Awards

"He made us laugh, hard." Through all of the laughter and celebration of last night's 66th Primetime Emmy Awards there was a notable sadness lingering in the air over the recent passing of Robin Williams. There have been so many tributes to Williams since his death and Hollywood has yet to fully recover, but only his longtime friend Billy Crystal could capture what everyone was feeling so perfectly.

“He made us laugh. Hard. Every time you saw him on television and movies, in nightclubs, arenas, hospitals, homeless shelters, for the troops overseas, and even in a dying girl’s living room for her last wish."

Crystal spoke at length about the admiration he had for his friend, who he worked with numerous times on Comic Relief alongside Whoopi Goldberg.

“I spent many happy hours with Robin on stage. I used to think if I could just put a saddle on (him) and stay on eight seconds I was going to be okay. He was the greatest friend you could ever imagine – supportive, protective, loving. It’s very hard to talk about him in the past, because he was so present, in all our lives."

Crystal's moving, heartfelt words were followed by a clip reel featuring many of Williams' memorable performances, of which there were so many they could have made up an entirely separate show. It was a fitting tribute to a great actor, and far better than the hatchet job MTV did at the VMAs over the weekend.

You can watch the entirety of the Robin Williams tribute below.

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New 'Parental Guidance' trailer with Billy Crystal and Bette Midler

"Grandpa tells lots of jokes....that you won't get."  They should put that as the marketing motif for Parental Guidance, an old and tired comedy that looked bad when the first trailer emerged a couple of months ago, and somehow looks like it aged about ten years since.

Who needs all those pesky Oscar contenders next month? Sometimes you just want to get away and watch somebody getting hit in the groin by a child. Or getting sprayed with water....again in the groin. The film stars Billy Crystal and Bette Midler as grandparents who discover their old school ways of parenting may no longer work when they're asked to take care of their daughter's three kids. Marisa Tomei, Bailee Madison, and Tom Everett Scott co-star.

Parental Guidance opens on Christmas Day, where it'll go head-to-head with Django Unchained. There's a pretty good chance families will gather around to see this so don't be surprised if it debuts strong before burning out quickly. I'm afraid if it does too well it may turn into the next Meet the Parents-style franchise. Check out the trailer below....

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New trailer for 'Parental Guidance' with Billy Crystal and Bette Midler

Y'know, if this were 1988 then Parental Guidance would be the most talked about movie of the fall season. Why, it stars two long-in-the-tooth comedic heavyweights like Billy Crystal and Bette Midler, and the premise is light and airy enough that families can go to it without fear of having their brains taxed all that much or seeing anything more vulgar than the occasional baseball bat to the groin.

But this is 2012 and Parental Guidance just looks really old and terribly unfunny. It's basically the cinematic equivalent of Crystal's fossilized hosting performance at the Oscars earlier this year. The film stars Crystal and Midler as old fashioned grandparents who agree to babysit their daughter's kids, and of course they can't quite keep up with how things have changed in modern times. Everybody involved deserves better than this, including Marisa Tomei as their daughter and Bailee Madison(Brothers) as the oldest grand kid.

Parental Guidance is directed by Andy Fickman and opens against Django Unchained on Christmas Day. Which one will you be taking your family to?

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Sure Shots: Billy Crystal; Reese Witherspoon; Steve Carell

* Zzzzzzzz! Huh? Oh, excuse me. Just the thought of Billy Crystal hosting the Academy Awards for ninth(!!!!) time puts me instantly to sleep, but that's exactly what's happening. I guess it's to be expected after the walking disaster that was Brett Ratner, leading to his resignation followed by his buddy Eddie Murphy. With Brian Grazer now producing, I guess he wanted to just play it safe. Looks like I'll be doing my usual routine, which is keeping the show on mute until I'm absolutely certain an actual award is being handed out. [Deadline]

* It's been a few years now since Courtney Hunt received critical acclaim in the form of an Academy Award nomination for her directorial debut, Frozen River. For her follow-up, Hunt is veering off in a totally different direction, both in tone and celebrity stature. She's lined up Reese Witherspoon to star in Rule #1, a comedy about a woman with OCD who takes in a mother with ADD as part of some elaborate plot to get her husband back. I imagine it doesn't go well. Terrel Seltzer(such a cool name) wrote the script, but don't get your hopes up on this one being all that good, as the film has been floating around for a couple of years now. [THR]

* Another day, another project for Steve Carell to star in. At this point he has to be the busiest man in Hollywood, with no less than eight films slated for the next couple of years. Some of those might not come to pass, but at the rate he's going he'll just add more to fill in the gaps. The next to be added to that list is Lunatics, based on the upcoming book by Dave Barry and Alan Zwiebel. Carell would play the owner of a pet store and a part time referee for kids' soccer, who gets into a tiff with an irate soccer dad, which leads to a wild adventure that sees them pursued by the police, soldiers, terrorists, subversives, bears, and a man dressed as Chuck E. Cheese.[Deadline]

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Bailee Madision, Bette Midler join Billy Crystal in Us & Them

Child actors tend to be a big distraction for me. Most of the time they're so bad as to totally take me out of the moment, and since they are kids don't have the ability to do much but scream and act bratty.  Bailee Madison was a rare exception, though, providing quite the emotional punch in 2009's Brothers, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire. She was so impressive that Natalie Portman basically got her the lead gig in Guillermo Del Toro's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which she was totally irritating in. But even though she hasn't really lived up to her performance in Brothers ever since, Madison's future is still pretty bright, and now she'll get to star in a comedy with two Hollywood legends, Billy Crystal and Bette Midler.

Variety reports that she and Midler have joined the cast of Us & Them, a family comedy starring Crystal and directed by Andy Fickman(You Again, Reefer Madness: The Musical). The script is by the City Slickers duo of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, and I only wish this was the third part of that series. Instead the film has Crystal and Midler as a married couple in the midst of a separation, who find themselves forced together staying at the home of their three grandchildren.

Sounds hilarious. Old fogeys rendered dazed and confused by all that new fangled technology and modern parenting techniques. We'll see how this one shakes out. Production kicks off later this month in Atlanta.

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