A Movie Inside a Movie

James Franco and Seth Rogen come together yet again on another film project and I can practically hear the cheering. This time, Franco will be directing The Disaster Artist, which will tell the story of the making of The Room (2003), considered to be one the worst drama films of all time. Franco will not only direct the movie, but will also star as Tommy Wiseau, the director of The Room. After The Room was pulled from many theaters due to lack of audiences, Wiseau began to get requests for the film to be shown. Celebrities like Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd began to show up to watch the film and soon it became ritual for movie goers. This cult classic tells the story of a love triangle between a man, his fiancé and his best friend. Tom Bissel and an actor from the The Room, Greg Sestero, wrote a book together about the making of The Room and named it The Disaster Artist. The book explains life on set with a director who had no filmmaking experience when he decided to write, direct and produce this famously bad movie.

We can expect to see some other big names in The Disaster Artist. Dave Franco is already set to play Greg Sestero. Rogen will undoubtedly have a part in the movie, and will possibly feature Evan Goldberg and Vince Jolivette as well. Franco and Rogen have had a fairly successful past collaborating together, with projects including The Interview, This Is The End, Pineapple Express, and Freaks and Geeks. With such an interesting premise for their new movie, I look forward to this project which will start production in December.

This Is The End

Finally after way too long, I got around to seeing This Is The End written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. There was so much hype about it that I had to see it. Unfortunately hype leads to unrealistic expectations. Even though it didn't quite reach my expectations, I was laughing the whole time. I thought it was a fantastic idea having all of these actors together because their personal lives are something people are interested in seeing. Then adding in the whole apocalypse theme into it was hilarious. The party scene at James Franco's house was so perfect. Michael Cera slapping Rhianna's butt, Emma Watson and Craig Robinson joking around, and James Franco showing off all of his art. The dynamic of that party was unheard of. Then when all hell let's loose (literally) it just keeps getting more and more absurd. Actors fighting actors to not fall into the fiery pit. Then when they all get back in the house all of the different actors and character dynamics just lets loose.

Although it was nonstop comedy and absurdity I thought it was pretty nice to have the whole "work your way to heaven" aspect. That gave it a nice goal and reason for the actors to stay alive and work towards something. Through that goal, the actors were able develop into better human beings or die from their selfishness. For example, James Franco sacrifices himself for the other two, getting him into heaven. But then while he's being beamed up, he's being a bad winner about it and shows that he hasn't really changed from the experience and gets dropped back down into the group of cannibals. I think that's an amazing scene because one, it's hilarious having James Franco being a dick, and two, it sticks to the moral of the story.

I thought the production was amazing. Robert Caban, Kevin Harris, Durk Tyndall, Craig Barnett, Eric Frazier, and Brad manis did an incredible job with special effects. Everything looked so cool and really brought that whole apocalyptic feel to life. I also thought William Ladd Skinner did such a good job as art direction. The cannibal van, destroyed LA, and Franco's house all looked fantastic.

There were so many scenes that I loved from EmmaWatson robbing them, Michael Cera being a dick, everything about Craig Robinson, and the awkward relationship between Jay and Jonah. I will most definitely be watching this again soon and recommending it to just about everyone who hasn't seen it yet.

This Is the End

This Is the End just came out on DVD this week and has been selling off the shelves. When I first saw the trailer for this movie I expected the worst: just another poorly written comedy with a stacked cast all fighting for the spotlight. However, my thoughts changed when I saw that the critics voted it a "Must go" on fandango! I was in disbelief, since critics rarely vote for crude and raunchy humor. Once everyone started to talk about how funny it was I decided it was worth my money to go check out. In the end I was pleasantly surprised by the film, I enjoyed it and it made me laugh. The cast is full of great, and hilarious people playing as themselves. The main cast includes James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson. There are also countless more popular actors featured in the film. The apocalypse begins and the six main characters are forced to figure out how to survive the end of the world, and how to survive being stuck in the same house together. With only limited supplies, shenanigans ensue, and tensions rise. Once the group figures out it is the end of the world, they begin to figure out how they can possibly repent for all of their past sins in attempts of getting to the promised land of heaven. With laughs all the way through the movie, it finishes off with a heavenly performance of Everybody (Backstreet's Back) by the Backstreet Boys. If you are a fan of any of the main characters, I would definitely see this movie.

21 Jump Street

So this weekend I saw The Sitter- which was okay. It reminded me a lot a Superbad and just replaced Michael Cera's part with three kids. But anyways I was pretty interested in the trailers before the movie.

One was 21 Jump Street featuring a skinny, blonde Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. I'm super excited about this pairing cause it's so bizarre. And I'm thinking this is going to be better than The Sitter because Jonah is going to have someone funnier to play off of (because the kids in The Sitter were so-so) and Channing Tatum, while not as raunchy or as funny as Jonah at all has the potential to be really good at this. What's also exciting about this movie is that Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation plays the boss of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum and I have no doubt that he will do as good a job in this movie as he does in Parks and Rec every week. And I know really little about the original show 21 Jump Street with Johnny Depp but apparently this new movie strays far from the original show. And I also found out that the directors of this: Chris Miller and Phil Lord were producers on Awesometown (for any hardcore Lonely Island fans like myself) and thought that was pretty exciting.

The Sitter

Jonah Hill usually doesn't disappoint me and I'm hoping he doesn't in his new movie "The Sitter", coming out Dec 9th. In this movie Jonah plays a babysitter while remaining the lazy, crude, hilarious guy he plays in most of his movies. I'm looking forward to this a lot and I think the kids in this movie will bring as much humor to it as Jonah. It was directed by David Gordon Green who also directed Pineapple Express.

Also an interview with Jonah:

He talks about what makes this movie different from other baby sitter movies and such

Moneyball

A film that has been getting a lot of press lately is "Moneyball" starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The Film, based on the best-selling book by Michael Lewis, is about the sabermetric statistics revolution the devoured baseball in the late '90's and early 2000's. The movie centers around Billy Beane, Pitt's character, the much maligned general manager of the Oakland Athletics. The cash-strapped franchise was looking for ways to stay competitive without the financial resources of high-market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox. In turn, Beane and his staff revolutionized the way baseball statistics came to be interpreted. The film is an absolute must-see for any sports fan and will hopefully live up to the hype it has generated since the movie began pre-production more than two years ago.