Renzie Reviews: Jumper (2008)

I had a chance to catch Jumper on the plane, on my way to Los Angeles from Manila.

It was going to be at least 11 hours, so as soon as we hit cruising altitude, and we all settled in, I thought this would be a good time to check it out, since I missed it on its regular run when it hit theaters earlier this year.

The concept of Jumper seemed promising enough: Hayden Christiansen's character finds out that he could essentially teleport, or 'jump', from one place to another.

Seems like a neat power- instantaneously transporting yourself from place to place at a thought. Rather convenient, especially these days when gas prices are off the scale.

Rachel Bilson (yes- Summer, of "The O.C." fame) provides the obligatory romantic interest and eye-candy for the movie. And bad-ass Samuel L. Jackson's character is a paladin- like a modern-day witch-hunter, who tracks down and neutralizes jumpers (along with other paladins) whenever they pop up.

Let's keep my review of this movie spoiler-free: great premise- in fact, a potential for a really great story, but the execution has left me terribly unfulfilled. Mr. Christiansen's acting, was once again, disappointing and completely unmemorable.

You got great effects though, and the action sequences were fast-paced and entertaining, particularly when Jumpers square off against paladins, or against each other.

For me, the characters haven't been developed enough for me to really care about any of them. Do I root for Hayden's character- being the underdog in the whole story? Or do I cheer on Samuel L. Jackson and the paladins- even if the whole motivation for slaying jumpers seemed really flimsy for me?

In the end, I really didn't care much.

If you had a choice to rent the DVD, I'd say you're probably better off waiting for it to show on TV, or mooch it off for free, like borrowing it off a friend who actually bought the DVD.

Not a total waste of time, it did have some entertaining enough moments- but if you had a choice of other things to watch, you probably wouldn't want to put Jumper high up on your priority list.

Cheers, everyone.

A Quick Review on 2008 Summer Movies

As the TV season has come to a close, what with all your favorites shows airing their finales already, and networks announcing the upcoming fall lineup, you know it's definitely summer.

For some, the summer started as early as mid-March. But even now, the kids are on holiday, the ladies' shorts are just getting shorter, and yeah- summer movies are still pretty much in full swing.

Let's take a quick review at Summer Movies 2008: what we've had so far, and what's headed our way these next several weeks.

May 2008

Definitely the biggest movie this month was Marvel Entertainment's Iron Man. The Jon Favreau-directed live action adaptation of one of the biggest names in the Marvel Universe has paid off very nicely for everyone involved in the project. Indeed, Iron Man has the distinction of having the 10th biggest opening weekend of all time, and has (as of this writing) already made almost half a billion dollars in worldwide box-office receipts.

Due to the generally lukewarm response to the first Narnia film, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian didn't open as well as the first (about US$10 million short of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe's opening weekend of US$65.6 million), but is doing rather well. In fact, reviews from both the public and critics have been generally favorable, with the sales to prove it. With worldwide box-office receipts at US$113 million (as of this writing), and still climbing, Disney does have a reason to be happy.

The buzz is, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just might be another big summer cash cow. In its opening weekend, the latest movie in the Indiana Jones series of flicks had already made US$151 million, making it the second biggest Memorial Day weekend movie (right after Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End). As of this writing, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had already made over US$311 million worldwide.

Coming up this week is the highly anticipated Sex and the City movie. Heck, you can probably already call it the chick flick of the year. Let's see how it turns out this week.

Also out this month were the romance comedy Made of Honor, starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan, the British comedy Son of Rambow, Frontier(s) - the After Dark HorrorFest movie that had to be shown separately because of its NC-17 rating, and the surprisingly disappointing Speed Racer.

June 2008

Coming out this month: Adam Sandler's latest comedy You Don't Mess With The Zohan and the DreamWorks animated feature Kung Fu Panda starring Jack Black both open on June 6. June 13 sees the re-imagining of the Marvel Universe's The Incredible Hulk, as well as M.Night Shyamalan's latest thriller- The Happening.

Then we also have Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway teaming up for Get Smart and the latest Mike Myers project The Guru, coming out on June 20. Finally we have the Pixar/Walt Disney animated feature Wall-E, and the action-packed Wanted starring Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie coming out on the 27th.

Also interesting: the limited release foreign film Mongol by Sergei Bodrov. It's about a young Genghis Khan and his epic rise to power. Check out the trailer here.

July 2008

This month, we have the off-beat superhero movie Hancock starring Will Smith opening on the 4th of July, and then we have the Guillermo del Toro-directed Hellboy II: The Golden Army opening the week after that.

On July 18, we have Mamma Mia! (the Abba-themed movie starring Meryl Streep) and the Andy Samberg-created Space Chimps. But most importantly, out comes the highly anticipated sequel to Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight- which I personally hope turns out to be one of the best Batman movies ever.

Check out the trailers here, if you haven't yet, and read about the accompanying animated anthology direct-to-DVD project, Batman: Gotham Knight here.

Wrapping up an impressive summer movie lineup we're going to see Will Ferrell and John C. O'Reilly team up again in Step Brothers, and something for fans of Mulder and Scully- The X-Files: I Want To Believe. Personally, I haven't seen much of the X-Files, but now I have a month to scrounge around for old X-Files episodes and catch the first movie before this one comes out.

We'll come back in a few weeks to see how all these movies have done. I'd say it's a great lineup. And 2008's definitely a great year for summer movies.

Theatrical posters from Wikipedia.

Cheers, everyone!

Not Excited to Catch Prince Caspian

I've read The Chronicles of Narnia when I was 11 or 12, I think, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy soon after that. I enjoyed those books immensely- they gave me that appreciation for other medieval fantasy books, and Dungeons and Dragons and all that crap. Great geeky stuff I was soaking up on in high school and early college.

I gotta admit, I've been disappointed with Walden Media's 2005 big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Terribly disappointed. Pretty much for watering down everything to get that G-rating. The battles were neither epic nor gritty enough. And for the most part, I didn't care much for our four main characters- The Pevensies- when I totally loved them reading the book as a kid.

I get it that they cast relative unknowns for our main characters. Sure, Skandar Keynes (Edmund) and Georgie Henley (Lucy) were alright, but I found the performances of William Moseley (who played Peter) and Anna Popplewell (who played Susan) totally uninspired and completely forgettable.

So here they are again this summer with the second installment of The Chronicle of Narnia series: Prince Caspian. Again, great story. I've just re-read it several months back, and if you haven't had a chance to grab your own copy, perhaps it's about time you get your own.

Plot: It's been a year since the Pevensies came back from their first adventure. But they find themselves sucked back in to Narnia, and discover to their dismay that 1) over 1,000 years have passed since their last visit, and 2) Narnia is in ruins- the old ways have all been forgotten, and the Telmarines threaten everything that remains of the old, glorious kingdom the children left behind.

Prince Caspian is the last remaining descendant of the Narnian line, but is held in check by his ruthless despot of an uncle, Miraz. Only with the help of the Pevensies can he even hope to restore Narnia to its former glory.

You can check out this trailer we found on YouTube, posted by Luisfalvez:

Trailer looks alright, but given how the previous Chronicles of Narnia movie failed to engage me, I'm just lukewarm about the whole Prince Caspian affair. I'm sure it couldn't be as bad as Speed Racer (can it?), and I still hope this one turns out to be much better than its predecessor, but I ain't holdin' my breath.

Cheers, everyone.

Wanna Watch: Kung Fu Panda

Prepare for awesomeness! Jack Black is back, and this time he's kicking animated ass- in Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda.

We just caught the trailer a couple weeks back when we saw Iron Man. Yeah, we've been seeing the theatrical poster around, and being the Jack Black/Tenacious D fan that I am, I've heard about this project for a while. But after seeing the Kung Fu Panda trailer- my girlfriend and I decided that this was one movie we should not miss at all.

It's got Jack Black in it. What more do you need? Alright, here are a couple of trailers we found on YouTube. One was posted by Irmik44, and the other by Pinkdeathrose- both very funny. Check it:

Here's the plot as we know it: A great Shifu (Dustin Hoffman's character) has trained the five greatest warriors the world has ever known- the Furious Five.

Each one a martial arts master of a distinct style of kung-fu. We have the charming but deadly Master Viper (voiced by Lucy Liu), the level-headed Master Crane (voiced by David Cross of "Arrested Development"), the easygoing Master Monkey (voiced by Jacky Chan), the bold and strong Master Tiger (Angelina Jolie, in her second movie for the summer) and the quick yet hot-tempered Master Mantis (played by Seth Rogen, of Knocked Up and Superbad).

An evil warlord- Tai Lung (played by Ian McShane, from "Deadwood" and The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising), a vengeful snow leopard who has escaped from his imprisonment. An old prophecy has revealed the Chosen One: Po (voiced by Jack Black), a lazy apprentice noodle-maker who's a huge fan of kung-fu, but has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of actual hand-to-hand combat.

Can Shifu and the Furious Five whip up Po into top fighting form in time to save ancient China from Tai Lung? I'm sure they can, but HOW they get there is a story definitely worth watching. That's the reason you'd want to hustle to cinemas on 06 June this year when it opens.

Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda is distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is directed by Mark Osborne (who's done a lot of work with Spongebob Squarepants and Weird Al) and John Stevenson (who's done storyboard work on Shrek 2 and Madagascar).

Pictures from AllMoviePhoto.com- they got great stuff: pics, stills and even wallpapers for your desktop. Also check out the official Kung Fu Panda website here for more fun stuff.

Cheers, everyone!

Speed Racer: Crash and Burn

Speed Racer may very well be this summer's biggest box-office disappointment.

According to Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily late last Friday, the Wachowski Brothers' project had only made a dismal US$6.1 million on its opening day, with film experts predicting an overall weekend take of US$20-25 million as kids bump the movie attendance up in matinee screenings.

Speed Racer debuted at #3 at the box office, with the Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas opening at #2, and Marvel Entertainment's Iron Man holding strong at #1 on its second week.

What Happens In Vegas opened last Friday with US$6.8 million, and is expected to make about US$20 million for the entire weekend. Iron Man has made US$15 million on Friday night alone, bringing the total movie earnings to almost US$180 million in the US alone.

Figures tracked from overseas also show disappointing figures; for all the hype, Speed Racer only debuted at #6 in the United Kingdom, and #9 in Germany. The film was expected to do better overseas, but there are no official figures from Warner Brothers just yet.

Reports say that Speed Racer had cost about US$180 million to make, and another estimated US$100 million to market. Meanwhile, What Happens in Vegas only cost some US$30 million to make.

Speed Racer stars Emile Hirsch (of Lords of Dogtown and The Girl Next Door), Matthew Fox (Jack Shepard of "Lost") and Cristina Ricci (of Monster, and more recently, Black Snake Moan), and is directed by brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski, same guys who gave us V for Vendetta and the Matrix trilogy.

Why Iron Man Works For Me

I'm a little bit concerned as far as comic book-to-movie adaptations go. I've read my fair share of comics when I was a kid, and even know enough to make me a borderline comic book geek.

While it's great to see my favorite comic book heroes get a big-screen treatment, it usually ends up disappointing for me to some extent, because the movie studios almost never get it completely right.

For example: in the X-Men trilogy- weren't Iceman and Angel supposed to be part of the original team, and therefore, shouldn't be kids but rather contemporaries of Cyclops, Jean Grey and The Beast? Wasn't Gwen Stacey supposed to be killed off in Spider-man? With the earlier Batman movies: why was Bane a mere henchman for Poison Ivy while he's a criminal mastermind in his own right (who broke Batman's back, btw), or why was the Bat-Jet equipped with guns? Don't get me started with Superman Returns.

So you can understand me when I tell you that while watching Iron Man, I was waiting for a disappointment to happen. I was genuinely surprised that I wasn't disappointed at all. In fact, Iron Man is probably one of the best-made superhero movies in a long while. I'll tell you why.

1. Iron Man stuck to the original comic book origins. Sure it was made contemporary (versus the Vietnam setting in the 60's), but the modern-day treatment totally worked, and is therefore easy to swallow. It's the concept that remains intact: inventor/industrialist Tony Stark gets caught up in a war, gets kidnapped, forced to make weapons but builds the Mark I Iron Man armor to escape. I'm glad they didn't screw that one up.

2. Robert Downey, Jr. is the perfect Tony Stark. You just gotta give props for Robert Downey, Jr.- the man is a fine actor, and he definitely did a good job bringing Tony Stark to life. True to comic character: arrogant, spoiled, just the right amount of smarminess and snark, but also intelligent and in control. The result: a truly entertaining portrayal, probably making Tony Stark more likeable than, say, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne.

To think I've moderately enjoyed Batman Begins. Robert Downey, Jr. totally raised the bar, as far as superhero alter-egos are concerned.

Does anybody remember the rumors several years ago that Tom Cruise was slated to play Tony Stark? Now, you can't even imagine him being played by anyone else. Bravo, Robert Downey, Jr. Bravo.

3. Well-paced Iron Man action. When you watch a movie about a superhero, you definitely want to see a lot of your title character, and how he totally kicks ass.

Wasn't the formula fairly simple? Give the audience some action every 20 minutes, or lose 'em. That was the problem of movies like Ang Lee's Incredible Hulk, or that Ghost Rider movie with Nicholas Cage in it.

Here, you see a good serving of Iron Man: how Tony Stark uses him to break free from his captors, and how we see the Mark III armor go vigilante over the Middle East. Even the whole process of Stark designing and testing the armor was a real treat.

And it's pretty clear too. You have a clear picture of what weapons he's using, or how he's beating up (or getting creamed by) Stane's Iron Monger. No shaky, unnecessary fast-paced editing needed here. That's some good action captured on screen.

4. No forced romance angle. This is usually where Hollywood movies fail miserably: writing in the romance elements. The X-Men Trilogy came up short with the Scott Summers-Jean Grey-Wolverine love triangle. Katie Holmes was totally unnecessary as Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins. As for the Fantastic Four, was there ever a Sue Storm-Doctor Doom relationship to begin with?

You don't have that forced romance written in the Iron Man script. Gwyneth Paltrow makes an amazing Pepper Potts. Heck, I never gave Ms. Potts a second glance until the movie. Just like Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow had taken the character to a completely different level.

In fact, I was cringing when there were signs of the whole romance element setting in, midway into the movie. And then, it all plays out alright- no cheesy dialogs, no terrible after-taste, and most importantly, everybody sticks to their roles in the end.

For that, you have to give the writers credit. The execution of a well-written script totally shows in Iron Man.

5. Great Supporting Actors. Specifically for me? A bald, bearded Jeff Bridges- he makes an amazing Obadiah Stane. I love the way he's father-like yet schmoozy when it comes to the Stark-Stane dynamic. Sure, he was more ruthless and menacing in the comic book, but Stane was re-written well to suit the movie's plot: he comes at you with smiles and pats on the back, when he's actually pursuing his own agenda- now that's menacing of a different sort.

I'm sure we'll see Terence Howard's character as Rhodey shine some more in the next Iron Man movie. And then you have a surprise appearance by Samuel L. Jackson? Something's cooking, and you know it's gonna be good.

6. Easter Eggs for all the Fanboys. I love it when these movie adaptations intentionally hide little messages and hints. Particularly when they hint at something in coming sequels, or make reference to odd bits of trivia and information.

Iron Movie has a good amount of it: use of the theme from the old 60's cartoon, a cameo by Stan Lee- like he usually does in every Marvel movie, and a hint of what the next Iron Man movie holds for us.

The Bottom Line:

Iron Man has accomplished what no superhero movie has done in a while: set the standards for a truly entertaining piece of film. All the elements have come together so well: plot, storyline, characters, actors- everything was brilliant and memorable. Jon Favreau did an excellent job running the show.

I can only hope that Marvel keeps this up: the re-imagined Incredible Hulk will be out in a few months, and Wolverine will be out next summer. Can The Dark Knight outdo itself this time, and at least come up to par with Iron Man? I truly hope so.

Photos from ScreenRant.com and Wikipedia. Read "Everything You Need To Know About Iron Man", a special feature also on Renzie on Movies. You can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

Cheers, everyone.

The Latest Dark Knight Trailer

Just thought you'd like to check out the new Dark Knight trailer here, which came out just this week, and shared by Xxjalaldevilxx on YouTube. Enjoy.

I've also put the other two trailers here, this one was played right before the I Am Legend screenings. Shared by wmdeez on YouTube.

And here's the very first teaser that came out, shared by aprupp, also on YouTube.

Looking forward to catching The Dark Knight on the big screen this summer. The sequel to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005) comes out in late July, this one based on the storyline of Batman: The Long Halloween- which you should grab a copy of, if you haven't yet.

Cheers, everyone!

Wanna Watch: The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan is at it again with another thriller to blow your minds. This one's called The Happening- a movie he wrote, co-produced and directed.

I don't know much beyond the trailer- which I got from iTunes. Supposedly, the world is hit by some global environment crisis. Exactly what kind, we don't know just yet- only that there's some strange things going on.

The movie mentions "honeybees disappearing". Honeybees disappearing is a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)- you can read about it here on Wikipedia. Supposedly, two reasons that could be causing CCD is electromagnetic radiation, and climate change.

How this all ties in with the movie, I have no idea- if it does tie in at all. In any case, you can see it here for yourself. Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet.



The Happening is due out on June 13 this year- and yes, that's a Friday the 13th. The Happening stars Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo.

Check out the official movie website here.

Cheers, everyone!

Iron Man: Everything You Need To Know, Part 2.

This is the second part of our continuing series on "Everything You Need To Know About Iron Man". If you haven't read Part 1 yet, you can check it out here.

More About Iron Man in the Comics

In September 1963, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby thought it might be a good idea to feature multiple Marvel heroes in one comic- so they put together The Mighty Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Ant Man, The Wasp together with Iron Man in what is now known as the very first publication of The Avengers.

As a founding member of The Avengers, Iron Man is involved with dealing with foes no single superhero can withstand. But in his own comic series, he has to deal with anything from Communist threats (with villains like The Black Widow, Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man), threats to his company, Stark Industries (with villains like Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger and Justin Hammer), and more recently, threats to National Security.

In the comics, Stark has been portrayed as an arrogant billionaire playboy more than a level-headed businessman. He's also had to deal with issues like alcoholism on top of his deteriorating health.

He seems to be managing well, however- Stark Enterprises (which had gone through several name changes in the comic book series- Stark Industries, Stark International, Stark Innovations, Stark Solutions and just before this one, Stark/Fujikawa) has always been the leader in cutting-edge technologies, not just weapon systems- in fact, Stark constantly supplies governments and organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers and even the X-Men with the latest in armaments and gear.

For the longest time, however, and only until recently, the cover for Iron Man was that he was Tony Stark's bodyguard and corporate mascot. Occasionally, James Rhodes would don the Iron Man armor when both Stark and Iron Man would have to make an appearance together.

In a storyline from the 90's, Rhodes would see more time as Iron Man, and later wear a more heavily-armed version of the armor known as War Machine. He'd even go as far as running Stark's company while Tony takes time out due to his deteriorating health.

After some drama between him and Stark, Rhodey eventually goes solo, taking the power suit with him. In time, he and Stark would reconcile, and their friendship continues- with Stark as Iron Man, and Rhodey doing his own thing as War Machine.

When the Marvel Universe did a darker, grittier, modernized re-imagining of The Avengers in a totally separate comic book title, The Ultimates, Tony Stark was re-written as having a brain tumor, instead of having bits of shrapnel threatening to tear his heart apart.

Also, his identity as Iron Man is publicly known- one of the reasons why General Nick Fury asked him to join The Ultimates (or the re-written Avengers) in the first place: to give the superhero team some much-needed publicity and likability.

What Now For Iron Man?

I walked out of the cinema extremely satisfied. Not only was Iron Man a kick-ass movie, the clip they showed right after the credits looks very promising- not only are we expecting to see Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, but the producers let it slip that for the sequel, we might see The Avengers as well.

According to FirstShowing.net,

The buzz and performance of Iron Man so far has convinced Marvel to already start work on the sequel.

It seems that we might actually see the second Iron Man movie by April or May 2010. You can read the rest of the article here.

Cheers, everyone!

Iron Man: Everything You Need To Know, Part 1.

No doubt about it, it's one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year. Iron Man is Marvel Entertainment's latest blockbuster offering. The movie has enjoyed a stupendous amount of buzz, and fans only hope that Iron Man lives up to the hype.

I've seen the Iron Man earlier today. And it was awesome. Oh, and don't forget to stick around until after the end credits- a lot of people left the theater without seeing the kick-ass Samuel L. Jackson epilogue.

In any case, just like any good motion picture, it had spurred a lot of post-movie discussions. So I've been asked several questions about it- usually along the lines of: "Was that how it really happened in the comics?"

I must confess, I am no comic book geek, but I do know enough about Iron Man (I am a RPG geek though, and we did play a lot of Marvel Superheroes back in high school and college). So for everyone who needs a little brushing up on Marvel's Golden Avenger, here we go:

Iron Man the Marvel Comic

The idea of Iron Man first came about in 1963, and it was the brainchild of Stan Lee, together with Jack Kirby, along with writers Larry Leiber and Don Heck. It was Stan Lee who fleshed out the Tony Stark character, apparently drawing inspiration from Howard Hughes- a real-life multi-billionaire, inventor, adventurer and ladies' man.

Iron Man didn't have his own comic at first; his first appearance was on Tales of Suspense #39- a sci-fi and supernatural anthology title.

Interestingly enough, he started out with the clunky dull grey armor. By the next issue, his armor was now golden, and then another redesign happened by issue #48- this time with the more familiar red-and-gold body armor.

He finally had his own comic in May 1968 with The Invincible Iron Man #1.

Origins of Iron Man

Unlike many of the superheroes at the time, Tony Stark wasn't bombarded with radiation. Instead, he's a natural when it comes to machines, supposedly a boy genius of sorts. Plus he's independently wealthy, having inherited his father's multi-billion dollar company, upon his parents' untimely and accidental death (they died in a car crash).

The circumstances regarding the creation of Iron Man has been generally the same: Stark, as head of Stark Industries, goes off to check out the American war effort (in Vietnam in the original 1963 story, and then in Afghanistan in the 90's, and finally in the Middle East in the 2008 movie). He gets injured in an explosion, and the enemy captures him, ordering him to design weapons for them.

His injuries are pretty bad though, with shrapnel bits threatening to tear up his heart. A fellow prisoner (Yin Sen) constructs a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from moving, thereby saving Stark's life. They then design a suit of powered armor in an effort to escape their captors. Stark uses the armor to escape, but Yin Sen dies in the attempt. So Stark uses the Mark I armor to blow up the enemy encampment, and flies off to rejoin the US forces, where he meets pilot James "Rhodey" Rhodes along the way.

The Iron Man Armor

Tony Stark has a workshop full of power suits, variants of the original Iron Man Armor as he constantly upgrades them, or creates one to fulfill a particular mission.

By default though, the Iron Man Armor gives Tony Stark protection against physical attack (i.e. most small arms fire) and energy attacks (via a force field), enhanced strength, the power of flight, life support, and an array of sensors and high-tech weaponry.

His main weapons are his repulsor rays (coming from his gloves), and the chestplate-mounted unibeam (which was originally just a spotlight, but in time has become a light-based weapon).

If you want more information on all the Iron Man armors, you can read up on Wikipedia here.

We continue our discussions on our favorite armored superhero with "Everything You Need To Know About Iron Man, Part 2", which you can read all about right here.

Cheers, everyone!

Wanna Watch: Step Brothers

We last saw Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly together on the big screen in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. That was two years ago, and it was one hell of a funny movie.

In July this year, we'll be treated to a Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly reunion, in a movie called Step Brothers. Two spoiled guys, Brennan (Will) and Dale (John) find out they'll be stepbrothers after their single parents get hitched. You know what, just check out the trailer right here:

Adam Mckay directs- the same dude who also directed Talladega Nights and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Will Ferrell is working on the modern-day adaptation of the 1970's TV show The Land of the Lost, which should be due out in 2009.

Cheers, everyone!

Wanna Watch: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Summer's coming up, which means there are a whole lot blockbusters all lined up so we can all troop to the cinemas for movie kick-assery.

Sure I'd love to catch all the big ones- Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2, Indiana Jones- but here's one I wouldn't want to miss at all: Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Two reasons for watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall: 1) It's got Judd Apatow and his crew, and 2) Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame. And that's really all the reason you need to watch. Check out the trailer here.

Anyway, if you still need a synopsis, here's one we got from meltdownpt on YouTube.

Struggling musician Peter Bretter (Jason Segel, Knocked Up, How I Met Your Mother) has spent six years idolizing his girlfriend, television star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars). He's the guy left holding her purse in paparazzi photos and accidentally omitted from acceptance award speeches.

But his world is rocked when she dumps him and Peter finds himself alone. After an unsuccessful bout of womanizing and an on-the-job nervous breakdown, he sees that not having Sarah may just ruin his life. To clear his head, Peter takes an impulsive trip to Oahu, where he is confronted by his worst nightmare: his ex and her tragically hip new British-rocker boyfriend, Aldous (Russell Brand), are sharing his hotel.

But as he torments himself with the reality of Sarah's new life, he finds relief in a flirtation with Rachel (Mila Kunis), a beautiful resort employee whose laid-back approach tempts him to rejoin the world. He also finds relief in several hundred embarrassing, fruity cocktails.

For anyone who has ever had their heart ripped out and cut into a billion pieces comes a hilarious, heartfelt look at relationships—featuring Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader and Jack McBrayer. Part romantic comedy, part disaster film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the world's first romantic disaster comedy.

There you have it. Check out the official Forgetting Sarah Marshall website here- it's got a whole lot of fun stuff, including downloadables and exclusive content.

Cheers, everyone!