June 2008 News Archive (Page 16)

Those not sick of Adam Sandler's schtick must be looking forward to You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Others? Not so much.

To get a reading of the movie itself, though, take a look at what various critics had to say about it...

- Zohan is, against all odds, Sandler's funniest effort in close to a decade. Not exactly a monumental feat given the junk he's recently made a mint foisting on the American public, but still... - Slant Magazine

- A genial, hit-and-miss return to the ridiculous for Adam Sandler... -- Hollywood Reporter

- In Zohan, Sandler, his co-writers and director Dennis Dugan keep tossing away jokes and throwing away significance... -- New York Press

- For all its perceived shock value, all the concern that a comedy about conflict in the Middle East would offend just about everyone imaginable, You Don't Mess With the Zohan is really rather conventional and familiar... -- Associated Press

According to Variety, Matt Damon will star alongside Morgan Freeman in The Human Factor, the Clint Eastwood-directed movie about the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

The Good Will Hunting star will portray rugby South African team captain Francois Pienaar, who along with former South African president Nelson Mandela (Freeman) created an event that gave the country's whites and blacks a common cause to rally around as the country healed from years of apartheid.

Shooting on The Human Factor is scheduled to start in early 2009.

Don't worry, we're not gonna mess with the Zohan.

But we are gonna post the following photo montage of this Adam Sandler comedy. We're hoping he doesn't mind.

Click on the following thumbnails now for larger versions of each picture. The movie opens on June 8.

Mark Wahlberg must be feeling some good vibrations today. The rapper-turned-actor is 37 years old.

After leaving The Funky Bunch behind, Wahlberg has established himself as a serious presence on the big screen. The Massachusetts-native has been nominated for an Oscar and is starring in this summer's The Happening.

Here are other movies on the actor's resume:

• The Departed
• I Heart Huckabees
• Boogie Nights

As rumors of Anchorman 2 persist, at least one actor from the hilarious original says he'd reprise his role in a San Diego minute.

"I've heard some inklings as to what Adam McKay has in mind for a sequel, and it's really funny," Steve Carel said. "But I couldn't say anything more than that."

How excited would you be to see Brick Tamland again in Anchorman 2?!?

The actor added that he "can't wait to find out" what Channel Four News weatherman Brick Tamland is up to these days, also saying that he loves his co-stars from that film almost as much as he loves lamp.

"Everybody's a friend," he said of David Koechner, Paul Rudd and others. "That is one of the most fun things I ever did. I laughed until I cried, every day on that movie."

Carell can next be seen in Get Smart, which opens on June 20.

Sequels are often criticized because they do nothing but set up the plot for the third film in a given franchise. Need proof?

See Back to the Future, The Matrix, and Pirates of the Caribbean. In all, the last thing said on screen during the second film was a cliffhanging new plot point. It's an unfair way to force audiences to wait a year and shell out more money to see the resolution of, essentially, two movies at once.

However, Transformers director Michael Bay told MTV News that Transformers 2 would be entirely self-contained.

"You know how those sequels they do the second one so you go see the third one? [Transformers 2] is it," he said, indicating that the sequel would be its own story. "First one was just introducing, setting up stuff, so we can go a lot farther. Let's just say [this] is not a lame sequel."

Reports have stated that that upwards of 20 robots will do battle in the blockbuster sequel. For Bay, though, it's not the number of robots present, but how they'll be more fully and individually realized that has him excited.

"The robots are going to surprise a lot of people because we go with a lot of different levels," he said.

Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins director McG updated his blog earlier today.

The film maker shared insight on what fans can expect in the movie, while also addresses the spoilers concerning the ending that have been circulating around the Web.

Here are some of the more interesting nuggets McG shared in his blog:

• "This movie takes place several years after Judgment Day, but prior to 2029.

Just like it took a long time to get an HD plasma screen in our world, it took Skynet a lot of research and development to get to the T-800, and this movie explores that 'space between.' We have all been fascinated with the world after Judgment Day. Here it is."

• "In this film, there are Hydrobots that patrol the water, Transports that move human prisoners around, Harvesters that collect human beings as lab rats for Skynet and Aerostats that survey all that is going on with the resistance the world over."

• "Oh yeah, don't get too uptight about the prospect of the film being PG-13. We have entertained the idea of a PG-13 rating largely because Batman Begins, in my opinion, was made compromise-free. So we'll see. The movie comes first and it will be protected at all times…"

The rumors of Robert Downey Jr. portraying Playboy founder Hugh Hefner are becoming more and more substantial.

Director Brett Ratner recently told Entertainment Weekly that he really wants the actor in the role; he says he's met with and wants the Iron Man star to portray Hugh Hefner in Ratner's planned biopic, tentatively titled Playboy.

"Robert Downey Jr. agreed to do it based on the script," the director said. "We're gonna hand him the script very shortly. He loves the character and the role and we've been meeting with him on it. So, if he wants to do it, we're excited to have him."

Ratner added: "We wanted him before Iron Man, so we were ahead of the curve."

Despite some critics of the decision, Sony is moving forward with what may be the most unlikely superhero movie yet: The Green Hornet... starring Seth Rogen.

The Knocked Up actor will portray Britt Reid, a bored playboy who inherits his father's crusading newspaper and spends his nights fighting crime with his sidekick, Kato.

Rogen is also writing the film's script, alongside Evan Goldberg (they co-wrote Superbad together); The Green Hornet is due in theaters on June 25, 2010.

Liv Tyler plays Betsy Ross in this summer's The Incredible Hulk. She recently spoke to SuperHeroHype about the film.

The actress didn't have a lot to reveal about what to expect from the relationship between her character and Ed Norton's Bruce Banner - but she did watch Ang Lee's The Hulk in order to check out how Jennifer Connelly played the Betsy Ross.

But that's not to say that the new movie will be too similar its predecessor.

"There's nothing similar about the story or even really the characters in a lot of ways," Tyler said. "I mostly went back and watched the television show, which was one of my favorite things my mom and I used to watch all the time.

I would say that the essence of that image of the lone figure of [David] Bruce Banner walking down the street alone with his little backpack hitchhiking, the misunderstood hero having to move onto another town was more of the overall feeling for the film but the story is completely different."

The Incredible Hulk opens on June 13.