Topher Grace Seeks 'Truth'; Tyson Ritter will 'Miss You Already'; Nikki Reed Joins 'The Highway is for Gamblers'

It's the Tophernaissance! Okay, maybe not, but Topher Grace is definitely on the way up again with a role in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and now he's scored another major gig by joining Truth, about the infamous 60 Minutes "Rathergate" scandal. Robert Redford, Cate Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss, and Dennis Quaid star in James Vanderbilt-directed drama about Rather's story on George W. Bush's sketchy military service record. Grace will play researcher Mike Smith, who exposed the the truth and ruined Rather's career. [Deadline]

All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter, who also has a recurring role on NBC's Parenthood, has joined Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore in Miss You Already. He'll get to snuggle up to one of the ladies in the film about childhood friends who experience a rift when one struggles to have a child and the other develops breast cancer. Fun times. Dominic Cooper, Paddy Considine, and Jacqueline Bisset co-star with Catherine Hardwicke directing.

Twilight's Nikki Reed and Harry Potter's Bonnie Wright will star in The Highway is for Gamblers, a Kickstarter-funded film from writer/director Alexandra McGuinness. Vikings star Joe Jonas also has a role in the desert-set story about "Jane (Reed), a newly crowned rodeo queen who goes missing, and her friend Heidi (Wright), who uncovers secrets and encounters the violence of life on the road while searching for her pal."

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Chris Evans, Michelle Monaghan, Anthony Mackie and More in First 'Playing It Cool' Trailer

So what is it that causes a movie with an A-list cast to get delayed indefinitely? While sometimes it has to do with legal issues, like with Dakota Fanning's Effie Gray, more often than not it's because the movie isn't very good. But even then the right cast usually trumps quality, and that would seem to be the case with Serena, the period drama with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. But what about the romantic comedy Playing it Cool? It's been gathering dust since 2012 and even though the first trailer is out the film still doesn't have a release date.

The reason for the delay can't have anything to do with the cast because it's pretty phenomenal from top to bottom. Chris Evans, Michelle Monaghan, Anthony Mackie, Aubrey Plaza, Luke Wilson, Topher Grace, Martin Starr, Giovanni Ribisi, and Philip Baker Hall lead this one about a screenwriter who really wants to do a big action movie but is encouraged to write a romantic-comedy instead. Naturally this proves to be a problem because he doesn't know the first thing about love and doesn't believe it exists...until he meets the perfect woman. And maybe that's the issue with this film, which used to go under the title A Many Splintered Thing, is that it sounds like any of a million other similar movies. But that shouldn't be a problem given the generic state of rom-coms nowadays, and their continued box office success.

Chances are Playing it Cool with arrive some time in 2015 but for now it's on the shelf.


Playing it Cool - Official Trailer (2014) Chris Evans by MovieSpawn

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Snap Judgments Review: 'Don Peyote'

Dan Fogler (Take Me Home Tonight, Balls of Fury) co-writes, co-directs, and stars in the trippy stoner comedy Don Peyote as Warren, an unemployed graphic artist who goes down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and Doomsday scenarios to deal with anxiety over his upcoming marriage.  The film co-stars Anne Hathaway, Josh Duhamel, Jay Baruchel, Topher Grace, and Kelly Hutchinson.

Check out my Snap Judgments review of Don Peyote below. The film is available now On Demand and will hit theaters on May 16th.

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Topher Grace Joins 'American Ultra'; 'Spy' Enlists 50 Cent; Archie Panjabi Goes to 'San Andreas'

* Topher Grace continues to bounce back in a major way, joining Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in American Ultra. Directed by Nima Nourizadeh with Walton Goggins and Uma Thurman co-starring, the film follows "a stoner whose small-town life with his live-in girlfriend is upended when his past catches up with him, putting him the crosshairs of a government operation bent on wiping him out." Grace will play a CIA agent who has let power go to his head.[Deadline]

* Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson will take on the monumental task of playing himself in Spy, the espionage comedy marking the third pairing of Melissa McCarthy and director Paul Feig. McCarthy plays a CIA analyst who goes into the field for the first time to find her lover's killer. Jude Law, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, and Nia Long make up a pretty impressive ensemble. [THR]

* The Dwayne Johnson-led disaster flick San Andreas just got a whole lot better with the addition of Archie Panjabi. Brad Peyton directs the action thriller about a helicopter rescue pilot who must save his wife and daughter when "The Big One" hits California. Panjabi, an Emmy winner for CBS' The Good Wife, was also terrific in The Constant Gardener and A Mighty Heart. She's also very good in Brit Marling and Mike Cahill's I Origins (review here), due out later this year. Also starring Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario, San Andreas opens June 5th 2015.

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Billy Bob Thornton Joins 'Entourage'; Topher Grace goes 'Home'; Adrien Brody Leads 'Manhattan Nocturne'

* HBO's Entourage was all about cool stuff, cool places, and cool people, so it only makes sense the movie would have more than its share of celebrity cameos. With the gang all set to return for the film by series creation Doug Ellin, one new addition will be Billy Bob Thornton, taking on the role of a cowboy billionaire and financier for Vinnie Chase's Dracula movie. He's making a Dracula movie? Uh, okay? Thornton will also have a son who is sent to oversee the expensive production. Adrien Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Jerry Ferrara, Kevin Dillon, Scott Caan, and Jeremy Piven will be back, and Deadline notes that Perrey Reeves will return as Ari Gold's put-upon wife. [THR]

* Is Topher Grace on the verge of a comeback? He's already lined up a role in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and now he's set to star in Home, a haunted house thriller from the maestros at Blumhouse Productions. Written and directed by Adam Alleca and Dennis Illiadis, the duo behind The Last House on the Left remake, the film centers on a man recently released from a mental institute, who inherits his parents' mansion only to come to believe it's haunted. Patricia Clarkson is also in talks for an unspecified role. Not even Grace can screw up a Blumhouse film, right? They always make money. [THR]

* Adrien Brody will star in an adaptation of Colin Harrison's novel, Manhattan Nocturne, written and directed by Brian DeCubellis. Co-starring Yvonne Strahovski and Roger Dodger duo Campbell Scott and Jennifer Beals, the story follows "a devoted husband and accomplished journalist who is asked by a seductive stranger to dig into the unsolved murder of her husband." [Variety]

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Trailer for Dan Fogler's 'Don Peyote' Featuring Anne Hathaway, Jay Baruchel, and Topher Grace

It kind of looked for awhile like Dan Fogler might be the next Jack Black or something, and then Balls of Fury happened. But he's stuck around and has actually been pretty good in movies like Take Me Home Tonight and Scenic Route, and recently moved behind the camera for his directorial debut, Hysterical Psycho. Now he's back with his follow-up, titled Don Peyote, and while it's mostly flying under the radar, one look at the list of cameos could change that.

The first trailer for the indie comedy has been released and it features appearances by folks who dwarf Fogler in star power. Anne Hathaway, Jay Baruchel, Wallace Shawn, Abel Ferrara, and his Take Me Home Tonight pal, Topher Grace. What's it about? Who the heck knows? Here's the synopsis courtesy of Yahoo!

Warren Allman is an unemployed stoner who finally finds a purpose in life after an unpleasant encounter with a homeless man preaching the end is near. Fueled by vivid apocalyptic dreams, Warren becomes obsessed with 2012 doomsday theories and decides to make a documentary on the subject while his fiancé is busy planning their wedding.

Looks chaotic and not especially funny, but Fogler deserves credit for wrangling this crew of celebs together. Don Peyote opens this May.

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Topher Grace Joins Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar'

In most cases, superhero movies are a decent boost to an actor's career. Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, and Chris Pratt (hey, three Chris's) have all been shot into stardom by the mighty hands of Marvel. But it didn't work out so well for Topher Grace, whose turn as Venom in Spider-Man 3 was mostly laughable, and didn't do anything for his career. Fortunately, he's about to get an unlikely hand up from none other than Christopher Nolan.

Grace has joined Nolan's super secret sci-fi film Interstellar, which already features an incredible cast consisting of Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Mackenzie Foy, and Timothee Chalamet. We don't know what role he'll be playing because, as usual, we don't know much about the plot except that it involves a group of explorers on a heroic mission where they travel through wormholes.

Interstellar opens on November 7th 2014. [Deadline]

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Zachary Quinto, Luke Wilson, and Topher Grace to star in Karyn Kusama's 'The Invitation'

Karyn Kusama's directorial career got off to a heck of a start with the boxing drama, Girlfight, and with that film's acclaim she also brought Michelle Rodriguez into the spotlight. Thanks for that, really. I love Michelle Rodriguez. Unfortunately, the two have gone in totally different directions ever since. We can argue about Rodriguez playing the same role all the time, but she does it well. Kusama....well, she has Aeon Flux and Jennifer's Body to her credit.


Her next film doesn't sound so hot, either, and I see a straight-to-DVD release in its future. Luke Wilson, Zachary Quinto, Johnny Galecki, and Topher Grace are set to star in The Invitation, some sort of supernatural horror. Wilson will play a guy who stupidly attends a dinner party for his ex-wife(who does that??), and over the course of the night figures out that something insidious has taken hold of his wife and her friends, with everyone there having a secret, horrifying agenda. The script comes courtesy of Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, who we can also hold partially responsible for the crapola that was Aeon Flux.

Quinto makes for an intriguing member of this bunch, and I feel like he's beyond this sort of stuff. Wilson has never lived up to the promise of his early career and likely never will. You know something's wrong when he couldn't even find his way into Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. I've met and had a great time talking to Topher Grace, but he makes terrible movies. We'll see just how bad this turns out to be when production kicks off this summer.

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Trailer Time: The Double, starring Richard Gere and Topher Grace

Has Richard Gere always been this boring and emotionless, or is this a recent phenomena? In The Double, a film which the trailer is more than happy to tell you is from the writers of Wanted(because it's script was a strength), Gere has all the energy of a throwrug as an ex-CIA operative paired up with a young upstart FBI Agent(Topher Grace, out of his element) to solve the murder of a politician, believed to have been committed by a bunch of Russians. Of course there's more to it than that, and the trailer pretty much gives exactly what that is away. >sigh<  When people complain about movie trailers revealing too much, this is a prime example of what they're talking about....




The Double is the directorial debut for Michael Brandt, and co-stars Martin Sheen and True Blood's Stephen Moyer. Look for it...somewhere when it releases on September 23rd.

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The Sunday Drive: 3/6/11

3. Take Me Home Tonight
Underachieving genius(Topher Grace) tries to weasel his way into his dreamgirl's life by lying about his job prospects. As if working at Goldman Sachs is more honorable than shelf jockey at Suncoast Video!? A retro 80s comedy from the writers of That 70s Show, this is a film that gets the tone and the style of the decade absolutely perfect. Dan Fogler does his best Belushi sidekick character as Grace's troublemaking best friend, and Teresa Palmer continues her scene stealing trend begun in last year's The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
2. Rango
Get this: a lonely pet chameleon finds himself freed from his confines starts on an existential journey to find himself. Along the way he runs into  Don Quixote-like armadillo, The Man with No Name, and ends up in a dust bowl town that's ripped straight out of the Old West, where our hero transforms himself into a gunslingin' outlaw. Oh, and Johnny Depp provides the lead voice. Sounds like some crazy shared fever dream of Sam Peckinpah and Tim Burton, but it actually springs from the mind of director Gore Verbinski, Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean partner. Along with amazing visuals from the special effects masters over at ILM, Rango features a quirky script, fun villains, and enough film references to keep adults entertained the whole way. Kids might not be as enthusiastic at the realistic presentation and mature dialogue.

1. The Adjustment Bureau
How much control do we really have over our lives? Do we forge our own destinies, or are we just slaves to fate? The Adjustment Bureau asks these heavy philosophical questions while engrossing you in a love story like no other. Matt Damon is aspiring politician David Norris, who meets Elise(Emily Blunt), the girl of his dreams on election night. The spark is undeniable, but then David comes to realize that some men in very high places want to make sure he and Elise are never to be together. As the veil is lifted over an unseen curtain, David and Elise's love is put to the most ultimate of tests. Written and directed by George Nolfi(The Bourne Ultimatum) and based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau is the first truly great film of 2011. 

DVD Pick of the Week: 127 Hours
If there's still any doubt left about James Franco's ability to captivate, then it should all be silenced by his performance in 127 Hours. As adventurous free spirit Aron Ralston, who found himself trapped in a canyon by a collapsing boulder, Franco's charisma is undeniable. Essentially a story told from one location with only a handful of characters, Franco carries all of the emotional weight. Danny Boyle, still fresh off his Best Picture win for Slumdog Millionaire, controls what could've been a very static film with his typical camera flourish. This is a remarkably personal, inspirational film well deserving of all the accolades it received.

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Trailer Time: Take Me Home Tonight, starring Topher Grace and Anna Faris

I guess if Anna Faris is going to bounce back from the disaster that was Yogi Bear(review on Friday), this is probably her best shot with me. The first trailer for Take Me Home Tonight, a teen comedy set in the 1980s, has been released and it's the type of movie that I almost always fall head over heels for. The problem is that I've been waiting for this flick for....oh, two years or so. 

At one time it was titled Kids in America, and was shot way back in 2007. It's been sitting around ever since, not instilling me with a ton of confidence. The upshot is that since this is set back in the year 1988(the title is taken from the Eddie Money hit), there's no worry of it becoming dated. In fact it already looks a lot more authentic than the similarly set Hot Tub Time Machine.

The trailer will probably remind you of a number of different "one wild night" flicks you've seen lately. Topher Grace stars as a college grad who, along with his twin sister(played by Faris) and best friend(Dan Fogler) try to figure out the rest of their lives over the course of one crazy evening at a Labor Day party. I have to admit I cracked a smile at Grace and Fogler's acting out of NWA's "Straight Out of Compton". Obvious? Yes. Funny? Absolutely.

Directed by Michael Dowse(It's All Gone Pete Tong) and written by Jackie and Jeff Filgo(That 70's Show), Take Me Home Tonight will finally be released on March 4th 2011. You can check out the trailer below!

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Venom Spinoff Film Confirmed!

Sci-Fi Wire has a story confirming that Sony is moving ahead on a proposed Spider-Man spinoff focusing on his evil alien doppelganger, Venom. Venom was the key nemesis for Spider-Man in the underwhelming third film, and was played at the time by That 70's Show's Topher Grace. No word on whether or not he will return as Eddie Brock or if they will go in a new direction. The script is being handled by Zombieland screenwriters, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese.

This is a big mistake. First of all, they didn't exactly make Venom all that impressive in Spider-Man 3. He was cool to look at, but they didn't really give us a reason to care about what he does next. The only route this can take is if they turn him into an anti-hero, which as any Marvel fan can tell you was exactly when Venom became uninteresting in the comics. Ofcourse these studios aren't concerned about the long-term viability of the character as they are about how much money it can make immediately, so maybe that won't matter. It doesn't appear as if Sam Raimi is in any way attatched to this, a fact that will not escape fans.

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