Josh Hutcherson: From Spidey to Dane Cook

Wow, how bad must that audition have been? Josh Hutcherson, who about a week before the role of Peter Parker went to Andrew Garfield was rumored to be the clear front-runner, now finds himself out of Spider-Man and in a movie...with Dane Cook. Poor kid. Not only won't it be funny; it also won't be seen.

The movie is Detention, about "a group of teenagers during their senior year of high school as they battle a serial killer." Oh, Scream 4? No? Just a coincidence, then? I don't care what Dane Cook will playing. He's a hack and not even a decent actor. Go away. Don't give up hope, though. The horror-comedy will be directed by the Joseph Kahn, the same guy who made Torque back in ought-four. You remember Torque, right? Of course not. I didn't, and I even saw the damn thing. Now that I'm reminded of it, however, it's notable for one thing: The lovely Monet Mazur had a supporting role and at one point she's wearing a Rolling Stones logo t-shirt. Her dad came up with the Stones' famous tongue logo.

Click to read more ...

Nobody Cares: Dane Cook Wants to Play The Riddler

I dunno, I guess maybe MTV asked its readers who they thought should play the Riddler if - IF - that's the villain in the third Christopher Nolan Batman movie, and on the heels of that, Dane Cook does my least favorite thing in the world: He offers his services for a coveted role during the course of an interview.

"I love the new Dark Knight series and Batman Begins," Cook told MTV. "If they brought back The Riddler—a new Riddler the way they did with The Joker—that would be bad-ass. I would do that." Well that's good, because I'm sure the reason the third movie hasn't moved forward yet is because Nolan wanted to hold out for the star of Good Luck Chuck and My Best Friend's Girl.

Click to read more ...

Our Bad Luck: Alba Hints at 'Good Luck Chuck 2'

Three or four years ago, if you said the phrase "Jessica Alba Twitters," your friends would probably volunteer themselves to do that for her. But now, of course, we know it means something else entirely. Alba is Twittering, and it's really unfortunate news.

Latino Review first reported on the awful, awful update and in fact, it's so bad, I can't write the words myself. I'll just copy and paste her Tweet:

"I have good news Before I go, this is for the good luck chuck fans :) Just recieved word that Good luck 2 may Get the greenlight!"

Ignoring her indiscriminate use of capital letters, does Alba really think there are a lot of Good Luck Chuck fans out there? But the bigger question might be why in the hell Alba herself would want to be involved in another Dane Cook movie. Baby food must be really expensive...

Click to read more ...

Box Office - 'Lakeview Terrace' Wins Easily

In case you're wondering, 59-year-old Samuel L. Jackson is not the oldest actor to have a number one movie. Though he's a little older than Ron Perlman, Hellboy II opened at number one just two months ago, but The Bucket List had two guys in their 70s - Nicholson and Freeman - and it was number one less than ten months ago. So, it wasn't a record or anything. At least not on that count. It was, however, the biggest debut ever for director Neil LaBute, who scored his first number one opening. Over the three days, Lakeview Terrace earned $15.6 million, according to Box Office Mojo. It was not as strong a frame as we had last weekend; The four new releases were staggered throughout the top ten, and last week's first-place finisher, Burn After Reading had a strong enough carryover to land in second place with just over $11 million. Dane Cook continued to his trend of not performing well enough to be a movie star. If you combine the box office of his first two comedies with the opening weekend for My Best Friend's Girl, the total is only $72 million, and that's with notable female leads in each film. My Best Friend's Girl did manage a third-place landing, but the movie will no doubt fizzle out within a couple of weeks. Still, Cook probably wouldn't want to trade places with Ricky Gervais. The well-reviewed Ghost Town didn't make much of an impression on audiences, generating only $5 million in ticket sales. The Top Five: 1 - Lakeview Terrace ($15.6 million)
2 - Burn After Reading ($11.3 million)
3 - My Best Friend's Girl ($8.3 million)
4 - Igor ($8 million)
5 - Righteous Kill ($7.7 million)

Movie Review - 'My Best Friend's Girl'

My Best Friend's Girl

Starring Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, and Jason Biggs
Directed by Howard Deutch
Rated R

If you were making a movie named after a hit song, how many times would you have that hit song played in the 90 minutes you have my attention? Opening credits, maybe once when it fits in context? I counted four uses of The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" in My Best Friend's Girl, and I may have missed one or two. Worse, it plays over the closing credits...twice! But of course, by that time, My Best Friend's Girl has already done its most significant damage. Like a lot of romantic comedies, the setup makes precious little sense. The things you see would never really happen. But because it's actually a male-oriented rom-com (like Wedding Crashers), there's a lot more dirty sex talk. Tank (Dane Cook) is "an emotional terrorist," the guy other guys hire when their girlfriends dump them to show the girls they've made a huge mistake. Cook takes the girls out on the worst dates of their lives, tries to get in their pants, and sends them running back to the safety and comfort of their exes. Tank, apparently, makes a comfortable living. But something happens when his roommate and best friend Dustin (Jason Biggs) hires Tank to run his scheme on Alexis (Kate Hudson), who is not Dustin's ex-girlfriend but rather the one rebuking his advances. The something that happens, as you might expect, is the advancement of the screenplay. Tank finds himself falling for Alexis, which ruins everything for everyone. Including, it should be noted, the audience. This is the closest Dane Cook has come to realizing his standup persona in a film, and I'll leave it for you to judge whether or not that's a good thing. He riffs in a way that is patently scripted, yet none of the lines are anything special. There are two real oddities in My Best Friend's Girl. The first is how completely wasted Kate Hudson is. It's almost as if she's not there, with the thrust of the action being the relationship between Tank and Dustin. The second and most jarring curiosity is the sad cameo by Alec Baldwin, playing Tank's father. Baldwin is usually a spot-on comic actor, but man does he strike out here. He's just flailing around throwing out lewd dialogue and it just goes nowhere. My Best Friend's Girl would be fine for an undercooked, dirty rom-com, but it's just so obnoxious. Being unfunny is one thing, but actively grating on people's nerves is another. Unlike Wedding Crashers, which had fresh dialogue and two fun characters (plus a sense of direction), this movie has two characters you couldn't care less about and dialogue that sounds like it came with the romantic comedy template as part of a screenwriting software package. It's a shame Kate Hudson sees herself as limited to these completely resistible romantic comedies. She's more beautiful on film than in photographs, really has a great, fun quality like her mother, and is smart enough to do deeper work. I don't expect much from Dane Cook; he's playing with what's left of the house money. But Hudson should get out while she still can.