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Why Michael Is the Best ‘Arrested Development’ Character

By Jason Bailey on

Arrested Development fans are busy counting down the hours until Season 4 premieres this Sunday at midnight on Netflix, and here at Flavorwire, we’re no different. So, we’re passing the time by declaring this Arrested Development Week, all leading up to a Recap-a-thon on Sunday, when our own Jason Bailey will review the whole season, episode by episode. This piece is the part of a series of contributors’ essays in support of their favorite Bluth. Click here to follow our coverage.

It’s not easy to be the lone voice of sanity amongst a gaggle of crazy people. In many ways, the role of Michael Bluth, the steady and reliable anchor of the madcap Bluth family, is the most thankless of Arrested Development; it’s the straight man, and nobody likes to play the straight man. But thanks to the show’s smart writing and Jason Bateman’s sly playing, the character of Michael is quite the opposite: he is, in fact, the best and most important character on the show. … Read More

Television

Flavorwire Exclusive: The Ultimate Ann Veal “Her?” Supercut

By Jason Bailey on

Arrested Development fans are busy counting down the hours until Season 4 premieres this Sunday at midnight on Netflix, and here at Flavorwire, we’re no different. So, we’re passing the time by declaring this Arrested Development Week, all leading up to a Recap-a-thon on Sunday, when our own Jason Bailey will review the whole season, episode by episode. Click here to follow our coverage.

In Arrested Development‘s Season 1 finale, “Let ‘Em Eat Cake,” a flat-voiced young woman approaches George Michael Bluth at the banana stand. This was the first appearance of Ann Veal, played in that episode by Alessandra Torresani and through the rest of the run by Mae Whitman (series creator Mitch Hurwitz said he’d toyed with the idea of having a different actress play Ann in each episode, to emphasize how unmemorable she was). She would become George Michael’s greatest love, and Michael’s greatest enemy — when he could remember her. And with that, we present a brief but thorough look at the history of Ann and the Bluths — all the “Who?”s, all the “Her?”s, all the “Egg”s, and all the insults. … Read More

Film

Does Jason Bateman’s Career Need an Intervention?

By Alexander Huls on

We’d like to say we started to wonder whether Jason Bateman might be making questionable career choices the moment a CGI-rendered baby orifice projectile pooped in his mouth. But we’d be lying. We’ve been wondering for a while. It’s just hard to accept that with wee brained comedies like Horrible Bosses, Couples Retreat, The Change-Up and The Switch, the charming Arrested Development actor we love may be well on his way to becoming the next Kristen Bell, Gerard Butler, or pre-2011 Matthew McCounaghey — actors who we really want to like, but perpetually test our affections with the awful movies they make. We stick around because we hope some day we’ll see their talent matched by worthy material again, but we all have our limits. If reviews of Bateman’s most recent film Identity Theft are any indication, breaking points could be drawing nearer. … Read More

Film

Watch Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman in the Trailer for ‘Identity Thief’

By Judy Berman on

It’s not like us to get so excited about broad Hollywood comedies, but check out Identity Thief: Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy co-star as a yuppie with an androgynous name and the big-haired Florida woman who steals his identity and maxes out his credit card. After reporting the theft and missing his court date, Bateman decides to hunt down McCarthy on his own. Hilarity — including some amusingly unlikely action sequences — ensues. Aside from the joy of seeing two of our favorite comic actors play off each other, Identity Thief boasts the directing talents of Seth Gordon, who brought us not only last year’s surprisingly decent Horrible Bosses but also the wonderful video game documentary The King of Kong. The movie hits theaters February 8th. … Read More

Film

Flavorpill’s Guide to Movies You Need to Stream This Week

By Jason Bailey on

Welcome to Flavorpill’s streaming movie guide, in which we help you sift through the scores of movies streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and other services to find the best of the recently available, freshly relevant, or soon to expire. This week, we’ve got the likes of Matt Damon, Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Alec Baldwin, Mila Kunis, Jason Bateman, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Jane Lynch, Paul Rudd, Kristen Stewart, Jessica Alba, and Jesse Eisenberg; check them all out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

Film

This Week in Trailers: Meryl, Medea, "Mansome" and More!

By Jason Bailey on

Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week’s new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. We’ve got seven new ones for you this week — including a couple of titles from that festival, plus new stuff from Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Robert Pattinson, and Tyler Perry. Check ‘em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments. … Read More

Film

Video Essay: "Encore — More Famous Faces in their Film Debuts"

By Jason Bailey on

We had no idea everyone was so interested in seeing the first film appearances of your favorite stars when we posted our video essay “And Introducing…” a month ago, but the damn thing up and went viral, so as with anything movie-related that does well, there has to be a sequel. After the jump, you’ll find 30-plus more famous faces in their first feature films, all in just about three minutes. Enjoy! … Read More

Film

10 Entirely Unwelcome Movie Sequels

By Jason Bailey on

As you’ve surely noticed from the lines of ecstatic moviegoers camped out on the sidewalks of your local cineplex (/sarcasm), Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is out tomorrow. Try to contain your excitement. Yes, in their infinite wisdom, Hollywood has spent $75 million to grind out a sequel to Ghost Rider, a film that nobody liked and nobody wanted to see more of. So why on earth does Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance exist? Ah, here we go: because beloved or no, the first film grossed $115 million, and while that may be a meager profit on a reported $110 million budget (seriously? SERIOUSLY?), it pretty much doubled that gross overseas. As they say, it’s show business, kids, and if there are that many ticket buyers who’ll pony up once to see Nicolas Cage flambé motorcycling around for justice, maybe they’ll do so twice. (Not to worry, though: the sequel is directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who did Crank and, um, Crank 2. And, oh dear, Jonah Hex. Enjoy, moviegoers!)

GR:SOV (as the kids are calling it) is just the latest in Hollywood’s long, long, long history of churning out utterly inexplicable sequels. Look, let’s be clear, we’re not cinema snobs, railing against sequels on general principle: movies from Godfather II to Aliens to The Dark Knight to Harry Potter 3-7.5 have proven that you can follow up a film with equal (or even advancing) returns. But there has to be a compelling reason for it to exist: a story worth returning to, say, or even a general positive opinion of the initial outing. After the jump, we’ll take a look at a few occasions where we got a sequel, whether we wanted one or not. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds In Our Office

By Caroline Stanley on

Today at Flavorpill, we wondered why Daniel Craig is giving Rooney Mara a piggyback ride on the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly (seriously, we only imagine Lisbeth Salander being OK with that scenario if it was reversed). We thought that having the Muppets host the Oscars was a great idea… Read More

Film

10 Disappointing Movie Comedy Teams

By Jason Bailey on

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. … Read More