1. Members of India’s Sikh community are outraged following a joke that Jay Leno made about Mitt Romney’s summer home; it turns out the building in the photo accompanying the bit was the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion. A formal complaint had been lodged with the State Department in Washington. [via AP]

2. Ben Stiller is working with Jonathan Safran Foer on a new comedy for HBO called All Talk; the show, which focuses on a Jewish family in Washington, DC, will reportedly be “politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually and sexually irreverent.” Alan Alda is in talks to star opposite Stiller, who is also planning to direct and executive produce the project. [via THR]

3. NBC just ordered up 10 new pilots (eight of them comedies), news that we find rather overwhelming so early in the morning. Luckily, Vulture has broken it all down for us.

4. The principal cast of The Book of Mormon — including recent Tony winner Nikki M. James — has extended their contracts through February 2013. If you haven’t seen this Broadway musical yet, consider this your cue to finally finagle some tickets to the perpetually sold-out show. [via EW]

5. Carnival Films, the UK film company behind Downton Abbey, are unhappy that PBS has launched a range of jewelery based on two of the show’s characters, Lady Mary Crawley and her sister, Lady Sybil. Apparently, these unauthorized products are a “must have for all ladies of quality.” [via The Guardian]

Bonus Buzz: 12 Cats And Dogs Wearing Top Hats

1. We had no idea President Obama had such a lovely singing voice. Here’s a clip of him serenading the crowd with some Al Green at a fundraiser held last night at the Apollo Theater.

2. In the wake of yesterday’s Megaupload shutdown, Anonymous attacked several government and entertainment industry websites, including the homepages for the FBI and the Department of Justice, as well as the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, BMI.com, and Universal Music. [via EW]

3. Need more proof that Bridesmaids 2 isn’t happening anytime soon? Kristen Wiig is in talks to star opposite of Ben Stiller in his forthcoming remake of the 1947 comedy classic, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And that’s just one of the many projects that she’s currently tied to; there’s also a Sean Penn movie and an Errol Morris drama. [via Slashfilm]

4. “I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me. While I have some doubts as to the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances.” — Salman Rushdie has decided to cancel his upcoming appearance at Asia’s largest literature festival.

5. Apparently Game of Thrones author George RR Martin has a livejournal where he writes some interesting things about the show and his dealings with Hollywood. [via Gawker]

Bonus Buzz: The Many D’ohs Of Homer Simpson

Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. We’ve got a whopping eleven trailers for you this week, offering everything from animation to big-budget studio comedy to Sundance hopefuls; check ‘em out after the jump.

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This week Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel The Rum Diary opens across the country. Based on an early novel by the good doctor of gonzo journalism, the role of Thompson’s stand-in, journalist “Paul Kemp,” is being played by Johnny Depp — who has, with this film, pretty much planted is flag for good on the island of “cinematic portrayals of Hunter S. Thompson.” After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at Depp’s ongoing onscreen personification of the late Thompson, and nine more actors who became the cinematic avatars for distinctive writers and filmmakers.

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Nestled among this week’s new theatrical releases is The Big Year, a rather syrupy looking Bucket List riff co-starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson. Let’s be clear: we have not yet seen it. But we’re not holding out much hope for a movie that puts those three guys together and cannot find one single laugh to put in a trailer.

How could you combine three men as (granted, not always reliably) funny as these and not come up with a laugh riot? Quite easily, turns out. The recent cinema is all but littered with pictures that teamed up established comedic talents and thus sounded like sure-fire crowd pleasers, but which ended up tickling the funny bones of neither critics nor moviegoers. After the jump, we’ll run down ten comic combinations that misfired.

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MTV.com is premiering Ben Stiller’s Fake Trailer Project, which determines whether phony trailers can be made into hit movies. After all, the original trailers for Hobo With a Shotgun and Machete were bogus, but they both ended up being made into actual big-screen releases. With this in mind, we decided to pick a few of our own favorite fakes. Some are online classics while others are relatively new, but we think they all seriously deserve to be made into feature-length films.

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There are an abundance of reasons to put “see Moneyball” on your weekend to-do list: First film since Capote from director Bennett Miller; Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillan adapting a Michael Lewis book; Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, and Chris Pratt (aka Andy Dwyer) in supporting roles; the baby blues of one William Bradley Pitt. And then there is our old friend Jonah Hill, who has taken the opportunity here to make the leap we’ve come to expect from any comedic performer of note: the transition to “serious acting.”

Now from the looks of the trailer, it doesn’t appear that Hill is exactly doing Hamlet — Moneyball is a fast, witty, seriocomic drama, allowing Hill some comedic opportunities within a larger and more serious context. That is one way to go; there are others. After the jump, join us for a look at the strategies that Hill’s predecessors adopted in making their move towards drama, and how they fared.

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Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. This week, we’ve got ten to show you
— everything from new Soderbergh and Clooney movies to, yes, a film adaptation of a board game. Check ‘em all out after the jump.

Read More »

We’ve seen some pretty exceptional films lately – Black Swan, The King’s Speech, The Kids Are All Right – but in all our moviegoing, we’ve noticed that something seems missing. Though we love smart dramas and intellectual thrillers, what we’ve been craving is a good old moustachioed villain. You know, like in the good old days, when you always knew who the bad guy was based on his facial hair. Accordingly, we’ve gathered 10 of the most sinister movie moustaches to hold us over until the next archetypal villain hits the big screen. Now, this isn’t a list of the most evil villains in movie history by any means – just a list of the most villainous moustaches. Which, of course, is the most important part. Click through to see our ten favorites, and be sure to add your own picks in the comments!

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1. Despite initial reports that he’d have to spend another night in jail due to a “miscalculation,” Lil Wayne is officially free from Rikers Island. [via MTV]
2. HBO has greenlighted Documental, a half-hour comedy pilot that’s basically a Tropic Thunder reunion. Justin Theroux will write, direct, and produce; Steve Coogan will costar and produce; and Ben Stiller will produce as well. [via Deadline]
3. Courtney Love closely monitors her Wikipedia page: “I just want what awards I got… who I [bleeped] — on the record — or who said nice things about [bleeping] me. And how many hits I’ve had. And that’s it.” [via NYP]
4. According to scientists, Ozzy Osbourne has several genetic mutations that may explain how he’s lived so hard for so long. His take: “Given the swimming pools of booze I’ve guzzled over the years — not to mention all the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol, you name it — there is really no plausible medical reason why I should be alive.” [via NYDN]
5. News Corp. says that if MySpace doesn’t stop losing money soon, it will be shut down. They paid about $327 million for the social networking site back in 2005; it lost a whopping $156 million last quarter alone. [via USA Today]

Bonus link: Woman Must Pay $1.5 Million for Illegally Downloaded Songs