For those of you have been anxiously awaiting its arrival on Funny or Die since last week’s preview, it’s finally here: a very special Drunk History Christmas, which features appearances by Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, and Jim Carrey, who does a surprisingly convincing Santa Claus (especially if you’re old enough to remember this). Considering that we had to memorize “The Night Before Christmas” in its entirety back in elementary school, we can totally empathize with comedian Allan McLeod’s valiant struggle with certain lines — especially when it comes to the nearly impossible task of naming all of the reindeer. If you prefer your classic poems delivered with more than a hint of slurring, and the creative addition of a few swear words, click through to get in the holiday spirit now. Read More »
Everybody loves a good holiday movie. When we wrote last week about the beginning of the season, and our favorite annual Christmas movies (Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life), our readers threw in their favorites: A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Bad Santa, Muppets Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, etc. But, lest we forget, every film of the season ain’t White Christmas; there are plenty of rotten holiday movies. (And, in fact, one of them is coming out tomorrow: steer clear of New Year’s Eve as though your life depends on it.) As many great Christmas movies as there are, it’s also a very tricky style to get right, requiring the proper mix of holiday cheer, sentiment, laughs, and warmth. It is pretty easy to screw that elixir up, and end up with something sickly sweet and utterly unwatchable. After the jump, we’ll gather up a few lumps of coal from our previous Christmas stockings.
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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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Granted, the man whose rise to fame had much to do with his ability to talk through his butt cheeks has never seemed like the sanest star in Hollywood, but his recent behavior is strange even by his standards. So, we have to ask: Is something going on with Jim Carrey?
Let’s look at the evidence. First, and undoubtedly most creepily, there was Carrey’s bizarre YouTube love letter to Emma Stone – which he later explained was both a “comedy routine” and “tru.” But since it wasn’t actually funny, the video seemed mostly to be a desperate and vaguely distasteful ploy for attention. Then, only a few weeks later, Carrey was in the news again for trying his hand as a graffiti artist, comparing himself to the likes of Banksy and Basquiat. Hell, he says he’ll even pay for the city to whitewash his art! And now, friends, we have video of Carrey covering Radiohead’s “Creep” — a song we imagine he wouldn’t mind singing to Stone — with his very own band at Arlene’s Grocery. The set also included the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”
So, what’s happening, Jim Carrey? Are all these isolated incidents a coincidence; do you just want everyone to look at you; are you trying to become the new, older James Franco; or do these weird videos and covers of angsty ’90s alt-rock hits mean that something is actually, like, going on that you need to talk about?
1. When the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum opens this morning at 10 am, it will be the first time since 2001 that the public will be able to enter the World Trade Center grounds. [via The Daily Beast]
2. Cyndi Lauper messed up the lyrics to the national anthem while performing at the US Open yesterday; funny enough, she had trouble with the same lines that Christina Aguilera did earlier this year. As she later explained on Twitter: “I got choked up in the middle remembering 9/11. I hope I didn’t mess up too bad. I wanted it to be comforting.” [via Guardian]
3. Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s film Faust won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Said jury head Darren Aronofsky, “There are some films that make you cry, there are some films that make you laugh, there are some films that change you forever after you see them; and this is one of them.” [via BBC]
4. Married couple Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are teaming up on a multi-camera comedy for NBC about a pair of dueling sisters; DeGeneres will executive produce the project, and it will star de Rossi. [via Deadline]
5. It’s official: The CW is about to close a deal for a script based on The Carrie Diaries, Candice Bushnell’s prequel to Sex and the City that explores Carrie Bradshaw’s high school years; if the pilot is picked up, the show could begin airing as early as next fall. [via EW]
Bonus Buzz: Jim Carrey Covers Radiohead’s “Creep”
Late last week, before everybody lost their damn minds over Irene, there was quite a bit of talk about a video made by Me, Myself, & Irene star Jim Carrey (which was the first time in years that a Carrey movie was getting much in the way of buzz, but I digress). In the homemade, handmade two-minute clip, Mr. Carrey stares intensely into the just-a-little-too-close lens and declares his love and desire for redheaded beauty Emma Stone. While acknowledging the age difference that shall keep them apart (he’s 49 years old to her 22), he takes the opportunity afforded by the Internet to tell her, and anyone else who cares to listen, “I would marry you, and we would have chubby little freckled-faced kids,” imagining the subsequent camping trips and Yahtzee games. But that’s not all! “And the sex…” Carey continues, stopping himself with a sigh and a momentary loss of focus believable enough to send just about any sensible 22-year-old scrambling for a restraining order.
So yes, it seems that Mr. Carrey has himself a bit of a celebrity crush. (He subsequently embraced the “I’m totes kidding… unless that does it for you” school of post-embarrassment explanation on his Twitter feed: “Yes, my msg to Emma Stone was a comedy routine and the funniest part is that everything i said is tru.”) On one hand: creepy, totally totally creepy. On the other hand: it’s tough to find a straight, red-blooded American male these days who doesn’t have a little something going for Emma Stone. Since her breakthrough last year in Easy A (playing a character that is instant crush-bait: a brassy, funny girl with a refreshingly candid outlook on sex and no idea how hot she is), countless men—young and old—have pronounced their affection for her, albeit not usually with as many people listening as Carrey. ‘Tis the price of fame. After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at our celebrity crushes — and yours.
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This week, we saw the trailer for The Woman in Black, the project that is to be Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter film. Though we have faith in Radcliffe as an actor, we’re not sure that this film will be the one that launches him into dramatic films, per se — maybe it’s just us, but all we can see in this video is Harry Potter dressed up as a lawyer running from Voldemort — but you never know. Either way, the trailer got us thinking about films that have launched the dramatic careers of actors who previously primarily starred in family or kids’ films. This kind of list relies on largely subjective data, and therefore is definitely an arguable one, so let us know what you think of our picks in the comments.
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When asked if he was planning to push the envelope as the host of tonight’s Golden Globe Awards, Ricky Gervais told Natalie Morales, “It depends on how drunk I am — I’ve got a few things that I might do. It depends how cruel I feel.” From the way things turned out, we’re guessing that he had a lot to drink over the next hour or so — quite possibly via an intravenous drip. Click through for 10 of the best zingers of the night, and be sure to add any that we missed in the comments.
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Today at Flavorpill, we were incredibly sad to hear that Captain Beefheart has died at the age of 69. We found out that Jim Carrey will host the first Saturday Night Live of 2011. We came across the year’s most baffling top albums infographic. We discovered that watching Fox News actually makes you dumber. We concurred with Garfield’s non-take on Lasagnagate. We read a sentence from Gwyneth Paltrow’s forthcoming cookbook. We were depressed by the practicality in these kids’ letters to Santa. We saw what happens when Christmas decorations go too far. We loved this slideshow of photos of a pre-Dude Jeff Bridges. We crushed even harder on Kathleen Hanna after we heard her tell the story behind “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” And finally, we wished that we lived in London, where Elisabeth Moss and Keira Knightley are starring in a West End revival of The Children’s Hour.
1. According to the NY Post, Jim Carrey is renting studio space from Julian Schnabel. Says a source: “Jim is working on a large abstract canvas. His work is actually quite good.”
2. NBC may be moving 30 Rock to a 10pm time slot to make way for the return of Parks and Recreation and a new comedy, Perfect Couples. [via EW]
3. “My whole goal is to reintroduce magic to hip hop. We watched this wizard do his thing. Y’all supported him. And he’s an official Roc Nation signee.” Jay-Z on signing Jay Electronica to Roc Nation
4. Michael Jackson’s first official posthumous single — “Hold My Hand” — is here. A different version of the song leaked back in 2008, but this one is supposedly a lot better. [via Vulture]
5. Watch the five most ridiculous moments from last night’s premiere of Sarah Palin’s Alaska — including its unfortunate theme song. [via Gawker.tv]
Bonus link: Download the New Girl Talk Album, All Day
