Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler film Bounty Hunter has signed Christine Baranski (Mamma Mia!) to play Aniston’s mother in the 
comedy.
Hunter is in production with Andy Tennant (Hitch) directing.
The other day, if it means anything, People Magazine framed some pictures of Butler and Aniston driving around in a convertible together.
Sarah Thorp wrote the script that follows a bounty hunter hired to retrieve his ex-wife (Aniston), who has skipped bail.
With the casting of Baranski, it appears the movie is rounding out quite nicely into a mainstream hit comedy.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Momma always told me my sinful ways would catch up with me one day.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is that day. Because this is the day I subject myself to the massive cloud of vapid misery known as He’s Just Not That Into You.
This movie really doesn’t have a plot, at least not a plot that I can tell. In fact, it’s almost like it’s speaking some other language that I only understand one word in three of. It’s all about relationships, essentially. Relationships, and the various “rules” that are attached to them that are apparently only attached by the most tenuous of threads. And these threads only occasionally exist.
Seriously—a conversation between three girlfriends will suddenly escalate into them going home and breaking up with their boyfriends for little or no clear reason. I’m watching this, and all I see is a bunch of vapid, empty-headed twenty- and thirty-somethings who are trying desperately to get their lives together but seem to be inured to some kind of metaphysical sludge that forbids them from making honest connections with other people.
I will admit that, for the most part, I wound up agreeing with virtually everything the guys said about themselves and the way they operate. Your phone number is our top prize. We’ll settle for an email address. The only thing we’re concerned about is contacting you too soon and looking desperate. We don’t care about giving you our number because we’ll screen your call.
And while this actually represents a pretty solid primer about the interactions of men and women, the biggest question is, how does this work as a movie? The biggest question is also the biggest problem, because frankly, it doesn’t. It’s a complete failure as a movie. There’s no narrative, there’s no real conflict or rising action–it’s basically just a series of short films about an assortment of vacuous halfwits and their relationships to each other. I couldn’t care less about any of these people, and after spending TWO SOLID HOURS with them, I barely know then, almost don’t want to know them. They’re all empty suits, null ciphers, preprogrammed automatons that have all the emotional connectivity of rocks. I found myself caring more about characters that had maybe five, ten lines than any of the mains.
Maybe this just isn’t my cup of tea, but I’ve seen romantic comedies before that had actual storylines. And they’re vastly better than this drivel.
It’s hard to determine a recommendation on this one…it’s hard to watch. It’s downright PAINFUL to watch, frankly. It’s boring and it’s poorly realized. The characters are empty suits and there’s nothing even resembling a reason to care about any of them. There are nearly no laughs, almost no thrills, nothing. But what there is, is a lot of information. I can see the appeal here for some folks, indeed, for a lot of folks.
If you’re deeply, DEEPLY, into drama and romantic comedy, then you’ll definitely be into He’s Just Not That Into You. But if you don’t fit into one of those slots, well, then you’re not that into this. You may actually want to consider giving it one rental anyway just for the sake of the information involved. As a movie, this is a wreck. As a library, this may be helpful.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Next week, a new romantic comedy is set to hit the screens with Jennifer Aniston leading the cast. The move is “Management”, a romantic comedy that chronicles a chance meeting between Mike Cranshaw (Steve Zahn) and Sue Claussen (Jennifer Aniston).
When Sue checks into the roadside motel owned by Mike’s parents in Arizona, what starts with a bottle of wine “compliments of management” soon evolves into a multi-layered, cross-country journey of two people looking for a sense of purpose. Mike, an aimless dreamer, bets it all on a trip to Sue’s workplace in Maryland – only to find that she has no place for him in her carefully ordered life.
Buttoned down and obsessed with making a difference in the world, Sue goes back to her yogurt mogul ex-boyfriend Jango (Woody Harrelson), who promises her a chance to head his charity operations. But having found something worth fighting for, Mike pits his hopes against Sue’s practicality, and the two embark on a twisted, bumpy, freeing journey to discover that their place in the world just might be together.
(Source) ComingSoon.net
Popularity: unranked [?]
You know, when I first heard about Marley and Me, I was ready to put on the barbed wire boxing gloves and go hunt up some hapless Hollywood slimeball and teach him the meaning of the term “shameless cash grab”. How desperate was Hollywood, I thought, reading about Marley for the first time, that they were going to put up two hours of cute dog?
And then, when it emerged on video mere days ago, I grit my teeth and held on tight, knowing that I’d have to talk about this. And the miserable bastards…they made it GOOD.
Marley and Me is the story of a pair of recently married writers from southwest lower Michigan (an area I know all too well–I went to college at Western Michigan University, and the Kalamazoo Gazette was one of John Grogan’s first jobs), John and Jenny Grogan. John wants to delay Jenny’s “master plan”, a plan that involves babies and roof replacements and who all knows what else, so at the advice of his ladies man friend Sebastian, John gets a dog for Jenny. And this is where their new life with Marley begins.
Marley, meanwhile, is a comic figure in his own right, almost an elemental force of nature that tears things apart and chews things and EATS things outright. He is a huge dog, fully a hundred pounds of yellow Labrador retriever, and probably possessing some kind of strange mental disorder.
From there, we go forward with the life of the family, warts and all. Perhaps the worst part about Marley and Me is that it really IS just two hours of cute dog…but what they did, the insidious thing that they did, was that they inserted those two hours of cute dog into the lives of a young couple. And they made that insertion so seamless and yet so catastrophic that it was both hilarious and poignant all at the same time. I won’t dare spoiler by telling you all the things the dog got into, all the trouble, all the mayhem, all the surprises…but there are so very many of them that it’s sheer lunacy.
He is, quite possibly, the world’s worst dog. But perhaps because of this—or maybe just in spite of this, he becomes a beloved family pet. Time makes this kind of thing possible, I guess; after all…it takes something to take a dog that once ate an entire answering machine and turn him into a beloved family pet. That kind of thing doesn’t just happen.
I hate using words like poignant, by the way—they’re so badly overused by second-rate columnists who want to add drama to their work—but sometimes, “tender” and “heartrending” just don’t cut it. It’s the reality of the whole thing, the way they show everything….how this dog is part of an overall mosaic of a life that lasts nearly fifteen years. Marley is proven to be nothing so much as a trooper: a fearsome watchdog, a loyal friend, a happy, vibrant dog that makes a lot of messes and does a lot of damage, but never out of any malicious intent. He’s just a dog that doesn’t know his own strength…and he lived, every day.
They even got me a little teary-eyed toward the end there—and it’s scarcely spoilering to tell you there WILL be an end. It’s not so much about the end, though, as what came before it. It’s cheesy melodrama of the worst possible type, but it will be effective. This is a low blow. We’re having our emotions manipulated. Our heartstrings are being plucked like a Rachmaninoff concerto. Say what you will, because it’s all true. It’s all true, but no less effective.
It is, for all intents and purposes, a life standing before us–the life of a dog, for what it’s worth. It shouldn’t have had that kind of significance, and yet, it did.
Despite itself…or maybe BECAUSE of itself…it did.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman are set to star together in the fertility-themed comedy The Baster.
According to Variety, Will Speck and Josh Gordon, who previously teamed for the comedy Blades of Glory, will helm The Baster from a screenplay by Allan Loeb who wrote 21. The film is based on Jeffrey Eugenides’ short story “Baster,” which was first published in The New Yorker.
The Baster focuses on a neurotic and insecure man (Bateman) who discovers his best friend (A
niston) wants to have a child through artificial insemination. He cleverly replaces her donor’s semen with his own and is then forced to live with the secret that he is the child’s real father.
The film will start shooting in the spring.
Popularity: unranked [?]
An all-star ensemble cast including Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connelly, Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long headline the romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You.
The film premiered this week in LA and is based on the bestselling book of the same name, which was written by former “Sex and the City” writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo.
The story is about modern day relationships and how men and women often misconstrue the intentions of the opposite sex.
He’s Just Not That Into You is directed by Ken Kwapis (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and produced by Flower Films (50 First Dates, Charlie’s Angels).
Popularity: 1% [?]
Whoever worked out the casting of Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler for the upcoming Columbia project about a bounty hunter who is hired to retrieve his ex-wife, who skipped bail, is one smart producer.
Right now, I can’t think of any better comedic casting. If you watch the trailers for The Ugly Truth and Marley & Me, which stars Butler and Aniston, respectively, you will be inclined to agree with me that these two actors will create a laughable harmony – if such flair is possible in the script and direction.
Hitch director Andy Tennant is set to direct the comedy.
The studio is hoping for a May start date.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Not much to the trailer, perhaps another one will be out soon.
Popularity: 1% [?]
The top-earning actress today, according to Forbes annual report over the past year, is Cameron Diaz, who earned around 50 million dollars. This is how she did it folks: It’s one word “Shrek.” However, she starred in a comedy, What Happens in Vegas, and My Sister’s Keeper, based on the best-seller of the same name. She’s involved with the fourth Shrek.
The next rich actress on the list is Keira Knightley, who brought in 32 million dollars from starring roles in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Atonement.
Next, is television and movie star Jennifer Aniston, who drummed up enough to earned 27 million dollars with starring roles in the family comedy Marley & Me and the dating ensemble He’s Just Not That Into You. Plus, her extracurricular activities boosted the money by payments from the syndication of “Friends” and endorsement contracts for Glaceau’s Smartwater and Heineken.
Tying for the fourth place are Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow. Both collected around 25 million dollars during the year. The rest of the actresses on the top ten tier were Jodie Foster, Sarah Jessica Parker, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Angelina Jolie.
Popularity: 1% [?]