Review - The Wedding Ringer starring Kevin Hart, Josh Gad and Kaley Cuoco

My first review of the year and it’s a Kevin Hart movie. I know how that sounds, like man Julian is starting the hate MAD early. See I like Kevin Hart, I laugh at Kevin Hart and I see most of his output even, that Real Husbands of Hollywood show on BET. I just find it interesting that we might be in a thing where mid-January is his time to shine in the theaters and get money. One more year after Ride Along last year and this movie The Wedding Ringer and proof will be in the pudding. The Wedding Ringer is another starring vehicle for Hart this timed teamed with Josh Gad aka Olaf the new GOAT snowman. Also in this movie is Kaley Cuoco and a personal fav of mine Olivia Thirlby.

The Wedding Ringer is about Jimmy, played by Hart, a man that sells his services as a Best Man to people who don’t have one for their weddings. Josh Gad plays Doug, a man with no friends at all and is marrying his dream girl but has been lying about a made up best friend by the name of Bic Mitchum to her since they got engaged. Doug ends up being referred to Jimmy to help him in his problem and he hires Jimmy to be Bic and also get him groomsman and an entire history of friendship in two weeks before he weds Cuoco’s Gretchen. That’s essentially what you learn in the trailer and to be honest I wasn’t totally impressed with the idea in itself. Luckily I was surprised with The Wedding Ringer, not only was there a lot more to the movie than I thought, they also didn’t spoil all the great laughs in the trailer. I wanted to give someone a high five for that alone.

Hart and Gad really play off of each other well. The script and the performances play the dynamic of cool loner guy and lonely uncool guy really well. The plot of the movie is very easy to guess in what happens to all the characters. Friendships are made, backs are had, and muddy football games are played. For the most part the film is pretty down to earth in what happens with the comedy but for some reason once they get to the Bachelor Party things get a little too wild, a little too, I might say, Adam Sandler-esque then thankfully it goes back to a nice sense of normal. Another weird thing that stood out to me is that Olivia Thirlby is shot almost entirely in soft focus like it’s in the 60s. I don’t understand totally why they made that choice for a movie in 2015 but hey whatever man. It’s not that distracting for 99.9% of the audience.

So to wrap up The Wedding Ringer is a pretty decent R rated comedy for this time of the year. It’s also a bit different type of character for Hart instead of the annoyingly loud sidekick or narrator all-knowing funny black guy i.e. Think like a Man or About Last Night.  In this terrible season of weak releasing and Award season catch up it’s something new that you can see on weekend night and laugh.

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New Trailer and Red Band Clip for 'The Wedding Ringer' starring Kevin Hart

In the midst of the hacking scandal that shall never end, Sony still has movies coming out. One of those is The Wedding Ringer, which the studio hopes will be next year's first big hit with comedy gold Kevin Hart in the lead.  They recently had to cancel a press event for the film due to all this hacking nonsense, but they still have plenty or reason to be optimistic. While we've seen plenty of the R-rated buddy comedy already, a new trailer and red band clip have been released for you to enjoy.

Why shouldn't Sony be confident? Hart has found success with Ride Along, Think Like a Man Too, and About Last Night in the last year alone, and there's every reason to he can do the same thing with The Wedding Ringer. Josh Gad stars as a groom with no friends who hires Hart to be the Best Man at his wedding, and of course the whole thing goes awry.

Pretty much everything Hart's fans are looking for, right? Also starring Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting and Olivia Thirlby, The Wedding Ringer opens January 16th.

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Olivia Thirlby heads to Antarctica in Trailer for 'Red Knot'

“Red Knot is a film that I shot in Antarctica almost three years ago on a boat", Olivia Thirlby told Collider about her upcoming film, Red Knot. "It was a film that was improvised and it had very interesting circumstances while making the film, obviously.We were on a small boat bobbing around in Antarctica.  It was a really remarkable experience.  The filmmaker, his name is Scott Cohen, has taken several years to craft the footage that we shot into the film that it is now.  But it seems that it is finally coming together and I am very excited about it.  It is a very small non-narrative drama about a young married couple going through problems in their marriage and it takes place on a boat in Antarctica, which is kind of remarkable.”

With so few opportunities to see the terrific Thirlby on the silver screen we should probably hold it against Cohen for taking so long completing the film, but if she's excited about it then so am I. Red Knot is on the verge of release in just a couple of weeks and now the first trailer for it has arrived. Thirlby stars alongside Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser and Billy Campbell (Gods and Generals) in the story of a couple who see their relationship crumbling while on a cruise to Antarctica. 

It's an interesting contrast considering I just saw Thirlby in 5 to 7 (review here), another relationship film about the propensity of couples to stray from spouses. Red Knot is considerably more serious on the subject, though, and combined with the gorgeous cinematography it looks like one to keep an eye out for.

Red Knot will get a limited run beginning December 5th. 

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VFF Review: '5 to 7' starring Anton Yelchin, Berenice Marlohe, and Olivia Thirlby

In French culture, "cinq a sept" literally means from 5 to 7, a time of day we here in America would generally consider to be "Happy Hour". For us it's a time to kick back and unwind with a few friends after work and down a few frosty beverages before hitting the homestead. But it has a dual meaning to those of an adulterous disposition, with the hours marking the unofficial time when such affairs are deemed acceptable, and in some cases encouraged. Victor Levin's directorial debut 5 to 7 sees itself as a fanciful, classic romance, and occasionally hits on just the right notes, but it's too cloying to be anything more than a dalliance.

Following many of the same neurotic tics and rhythms of Woody Allen, Levin's 5 to 7 follows Brian Blum (Anton Yelchin), one of those aimless, talentless yet somehow not starving wannabe writers you only find in the movies. Never published, and with a wall of rejection letters to prove it, Brian still manages to live in the posh Upper East side without a care in the world. Other than a single observation, fairly flimsy observation that "The best writing won't be found in books or plays" but in the personal love inscriptions on Central Park benches, we're given little evidence of Brian's talent, but the overwhelming impression that he isn't especially talented at all. Fortunately, Brian's career as an author is less intriguing than the sudden affair he enters into with high-class French beauty, Arielle (Berenice Marlohe), who he meets randomly outside of the Manhattan St. Regis hotel. He's immediately smitten, and apparently so is she for some reason. But she's also married to a wealthy diplomat (Lambert Wilson) with two kids at home. However she and her husband have an arrangement, a very "French" agreement that keeping lovers is fine between the hours of "5 to 7", as long as it never interferes with home life.

Pretty hard to believe, right? The film goes to great lengths to explain why this is acceptable, but never why a stunning and sophisticated woman like Arielle would fall for someone like Brian, who has absolutely nothing going for him except some "aw shucks" charm. Rather than doing cartwheels at the extraordinarily awesome situation he's stumbled into, Brian can't wrap his head around it. Snobbishly brushing her off at first and going back into his hole to work (on that writing he's terrible at), ultimately he can't resist and leaps into the affair with both feet. In-between passionate trysts, Arielle and Brian's abundant differences, both in age (she's nearly 10 years older), culture, and life experience only drive them together rather than apart. While the boundaries of the relationship can never change, she still finds new ways to shock him, in particular when he's invited to Arielle's home for dinner. There he meets her husband and his own mistress (Olivia Thirlby), conveniently a young and attractive book editor. You can probably see where that goes. The openness of the affair throws Brian for a loop, which is nothing compared to what it does to his parents (Frank Langella and Glenn Close, both terrific here), who bicker hilariously over the morality of the whole affair.

While these cultural mishaps and romantic interludes are sharply written in exploring the contours of a very unusual affair, Levin's already mushy screenplay goes into full blown schmaltz as the situation grows more complicated. Brian, naturally, can't deny his true feelings of love for Arielle, and when things don't quite go as planned the film takes an undeniably dark and sappy turn, sucking the air out of what had been an enjoyable trifle of a romance. The transition from light and witty to overly sentimental is clumsy, and as Brian wallows in melancholy we're treated to an abundance of shallow platitudes about love and heartbreak. Not that 5 to 7 was ever all that deep to begin with; at best it's a light-hearted fling rather than a film worthy of a long-lasting commitment.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Olivia Thirlby, Tye Sheridan, and Nelsan Ellis Take Part in 'The Stanford Prison Experiment'

 It's taken more than a decade for The Standford Prison Experiment to get moving, but this past summer we started to see things take shape with the additions of Billy Crudup, Michael Angarano, and Ezra Miller to the cast. The film, which is based on the notorious 1971 social experiment, has now gotten even better with six of Hollywood's youngest and brightest stars coming aboard.

Joining the Kyle Alvarez-directed drama are Olivia Thirlby (Dredd), Nelsan Ellis (True Blood, Get on Up), Tye Sheridan (Mud), James Frecheville (Animal Kingdom), Johnny Simmons (Jennifer's Body), and Ki Hong Lee (The Maze Runner). The story is based on the landmark experiment in which a group of 19 and 20-year-olds were divided into "prisoners" and "prison guards" to see how their behavior would change over the course of a couple weeks. Unsurprisingly, the prison guards became abusive and sadistic toward the prisoners, forcing the program's early termination. Crudup leads as Philip Zimbardo, the man who ran the experiment, wrote a book on it, and gave the blessing for this film to happen. Thirlby will play Zimbardo's wife, also an academic.

Filming is underway now and my fingers are crossed it's finished in time for Sundance. [Deadline]

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Kevin Hart is The Best Man in First Trailer and Images from 'The Wedding Ringer'

This weekend will see Kevin Hart play the worst best man ever in Think Like a Man Too, the sequel to the film that sparked his career and led to hits such as Ride Along and About Last Night. Next year Hart will reteam with uber-producer Will Packer for The Wedding Ringer, and again he'll be part at the center of someone's impending nuptials.

The first images and trailer for The Wedding Ringer have been released, and they feature Hart getting his groove on alongside Josh Gad. Directed and co-written by Jeremy Garelick (The Break-Up), the film has Hart playing a guy who runs a best man service, standing up for grooms who don't have a friend close enough to be part of the wedding. Gad's character hires him, but also decides to fabricate nine other friends and the two must keep things from spinning out of control and ruining the wedding.

Also starring Olivia Thirlby, Kaley Cuoco, Alan Ritchson, and Mimi Rogers, The Wedding Ringer opens January 16th 2015.


THE WEDDING RINGER (2015) Official HD Teaser Trailer by NewTrailers BOS
 

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Nicolas Cage will 'Pay the Ghost'; Halle Berry Joins 'Kidnap'; Olivia Thirlby Rises for 'Phoenix'

* Nicolas Cage will star in the forever-developing adaptation of Pay the Ghost, a supernatural thriller based on Tim Lebbon's short story. Dennis Illiadis (Plus One) had been attached to direct but he has since dropped out and the search for a new helmer is on. Dan Kay's screenplay follows "a hard-working NYU English professor bucking for tenure when his 8-year-old son mysteriously vanishes from a Halloween day parade." The boy's presence begins to make itself known in frightening ways a year later, leading to a search through New York City and the discovery of a vengeful spirit. [Variety]

* As far as generic movie titles go does it get any worse than Kidnap? That's the film Halle Berry has just become a part of, which is directed by Luis Prieto (that Pusher remake nobody saw) and is about a mother who will stop at nothing to rescue her kidnapped son. Well, The Call sounded super lame too and Berry took it to $70M so maybe the joke will be on us again.

* Olivia Thirlby, last seen fighting crime in Dredd, has come aboard Phoenix, directed by Robert Redford's daughter, Amy. Justin Bartha and Constance Zimmer also star in the romance about "a one-night stand between love-averse strangers that sends them on a 4,000-mile trip from Brooklyn to the Grand Canyon and back." [ScreenDaily]

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'The Gambler' Adds John Goodman; William Hurt is a 'Midnight Rider'; Olivia Thirlby in 'The White Orchid'

 
* John Goodman has been busy of late, as he can currently be seen in Inside Llewyn Davis, and will soon be a part of George Clooney's Monuments Men. The sought-after actor never stays idle for long, and has now joined Mark Wahlberg, Brie Larson, and Jessica Lange in a remake of The Gambler. Directed by Rupert Wyatt, the original 1974 film centered on an English professor who gets into gambling debt with the mob, but can't kick the habit because of the thrill gambling provides. The Gambler is expected to open in 2015. [TheWrap]

* CBGB director Randall Miller is moving on to another music biopic, only this one centers on the Allman Brothers. He's directing Midnight Rider, and coming aboard to play the older version of Gregg Allman is William Hurt. Tyson Ritter of All-American Rejects fame is playing the younger version, and the story will have the older Gregg looking back on his career as he attempts to get clean. [THR]

* It's a shame we haven't really seen much of Olivia Thirlby since Dredd, but hopefully that's about to change. She'll star in The White Orchid, a noir thriller from writer/director Steve Anderson that co-stars Jennifer Beals, Nichelle Nichols (the original Uhura from Star Trek!), Brendan Sexton, and John Carroll Lynch. Thirlby will play a social services investigator helping to track down the murderer of a blonde woman known as The White Orchid. [THR]

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Jessica Brown Findlay In 'Frankenstein'; Olivia Thirlby Joins 'The Wedding Ringer'; Ray Stevenson Hunts 'Big Game'

* Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay has been making some pretty big moves lately, and she's just landed the female lead in an updated Frankenstein, opposite Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy. Written by Max Landis and directed by Paul McGuigan, plot details are under wraps but we know Radcliffe will play Igor while McAvoy is Victor von Frankenstein. [THR]

* The uber-talented Olivia Thirlby has come aboard Jeremy Gerelick's untitled comedy starring Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, and Kaley Cuoco. Hart plays a charismatic guy who offers best man services to grooms without the friends to fill the role. Gad is a husband-to-be who fabricates not only his  best man, but all of his groomsman, and he must team up with Hart to make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch. Cuoco plays the selfish fiancee, while Thirlby is her sister who falls for Gad's character. *UPDATE*  The film has now been titled The Wedding Ringer, and will co-star Cloris Leachman, Alan Ritchson, Jorge Garcia, and Mimi Rogers.

* Jim Broadbent, Ray Stevenson, and Mehmet Kurtulus have joined the cast of Big Game, which is probably best known as the action flick with Samuel L. Jackson as the President of the United States. Written and directed by Jalmari Helander (Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale), the film follows a shy 13-year-old boy (Onni Tommila) who must prove his manhood by spending a day and night alone in the wilderness. That evening Air Force One is shot down by terrorists nearby, and the boy must team with the President to stay alive. Filming begins tomorrow so we can probably expect Big Game ready for 2014.

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Olivia Thirlby hopes to make a difference in new clip from 'Dredd 3D'

 

For a film that's going to make its money luring in those eager for some cinematic ultra-violence, the most recent clips from Dredd 3D have been pretty tame. Not sure what the marketing strategy is behind that, but I guess when you've got two talented actors like Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby you want to show people they'll be doing more than just bustin' caps.

In this brief clip, rookie Judge Anderson(Thirlby) expresses her desire to actually help the people of crime infested Mega City One, rather than just blowing everybody to smithereens. Dredd doesn't seem to quite understand the point. Maybe my ears are deceiving me, but does Urban sound like he forgot to put on his throaty Dredd voice at the beginning? Let me know.

Dredd 3D opens on September 21st. Check out the clip below....[Digital Spy]

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4 new images from 'Dredd'!

One thing you'll notice immediately after checking out these four new shots from Dredd is that the criminals appear to be dead in both pictures featuring them. Well, in one case it's Olivia Thirlby in the process of splattering one perp's brains all over the wall. There'll be no taking prisoners in this film, with Dredd and the of the elite Street Judges are free to execute thug they deem fit.

It's Thirlby, playing the psychic law enforcer Judge Anderson, that has me most intrigued. Karl Urban...y'know, we're probably not going to hear him say much if Alex Garland's script bears any resemblance to the Judge Dredd comics. And we definitely won't see him without his helmet. Thirlby, who I've always considered the true breakout star from Juno, is the one we're going to have to identify with. It'll be interesting to see her taking on something so vastly different than anything else she's ever done.

Just basing off the images we've seen so far, it looks like director Peter Travis is fixing all the mistakes from the terrible Sylvester Stallone film from 1995, which I might add didn't even have Judge Anderson in it. Pathetic.

 Dredd will open in 2D and 3D on September 21st. Check out the new images below...[2000AD]

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From the Terminator to Judge Dredd; Lena Headey nabs primary villain role

Thanks to my Kevin and Josh Movie Show compadre Brendon Connelly over at BleedingCool for this story, which he picked up from a popular Judge Dredd fansite. Lena Headey, who most of my faithful fanboy friends will remember from The Sarah Connor Chronicles, has won the prime villain role in 'Dredd', the Judge Dredd relaunch directed by Pete Travis and starring Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby.

Since I'm not much of a Judge Dredd expert, I don't recall if her character, Ma-Ma, was featured in the comics or not. She's described as "a woman in her late fifties or early sixties with a big scar through her cheek and lip."  Ma-Ma is the leader of a gang that takes over the Peach Tree City Block where most of the film will be taking place.

They better not touch that face of hers. Ah who am I kidding, she'll still be hot even with a fat scar across her mug. She's come a long way since I first thought she was awful in the 2000 teen thriller, Gossip. Now she's one of my favorites, and Dredd is turning out to be a film I'm really getting amped for.

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Judge Dredd officially retitled--Synopsis revealed

I'll admit it, the original Judge Dredd is a guilty pleasure of mine. This is not, however, the opinon of the masses. Most disliked if not hated the original flick starring Sylvester Stallone, which is why I found it odd that they were doing a reboot. Well it looks like they are trying to completely wash their hands of any sembelence of the original flick and have officially retitled the movie, Dredd. The film, starring Karl Urban as the helmeted peacekeeper, is already promising to stay true to it's comic roots and be a much less cartoonish, much more violent film and is vying for a hard R rating. Here's the official synopsis:

DREDD takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared of elite Street Judges, with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot - if necessary. The endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland and the frenetic vision of director Peter Travis bring DREDD to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s revered comic strip.



Read more: Judge Dredd Movie Retitled ‘Dredd’; Official Synopsis Revealed | /Film http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/09/07/judge-dredd-movie-retitled-dredd-official-synopsis-revealed/#ixzz0yrxfiOCw

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Olivia Thirlby joins Judge Dredd

Oliva Thirlby is my favorite actress working today. Bar none. She was the highlight of Juno for me, not Ellen Page. She hasn't blown up the way Page has, but the roles she's taken since have been far more interesting. I'd count this as one of them, even if she's an odd choice for the part. Thirlby will be co-starring(along with Karl Urban) in the new Judge Dredd film currently in pre-production through DNA Films and Reliance Big Entertainment.

Thirlby will be playing Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson, a spychic member of the force who's emotions often put her at odds with the rigid Dredd. Anderson is probably the 2nd most popular character in the Judge Dredd universe, having gained enough popularity to spawn her own spinoff series, so it's likely that she will play a pivotal role in the film. 

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