Guess what kids? We’re not getting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and stone-faced Bruce Willis saving the world or that awesome ninja sword fight on the side of a mountain in G.I. Joe: Retaliation until next year! Why? Because they’ve decided to post-convert the thing to 3D!  That’s always a good idea! Not.  I remember wondering why it wasn’t in 3D in the first place. I guess I shouldn’t have done it out loud. Apparently director Stephen Sommers heard me.

Well, quickly jumping in to fill the void left by a big loud explosion-filled action movie, is Seth McFarlane’s Ted, the foul-mouthed CGI teddy bear comedy know knew they wanted. Ted, which had been scheduled for July 13 will now be released on June 29.  It will give the comedy a head-start on the Independence Day movie-going orgy which gives it four days to make some do-re-mi before The Amazing Spider-Man trounces everything in its path on July 3.

Here’s a new Ted poster that Universal just dropped on us, but it has the wrong date on it (oops, there goes the promo budget), as well as some pics to celebrate the new release date. Ted stars Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and the voice of Seth McFarlane as Ted.

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I’m kidding! They’re actually on the set of the movie they’re shooting for Michael Bay called Pain and Gain. It does take place in Miami though.

We brought you the first look the other day, but today’s pics are a lot more fun. We get to see much more Dwayne Johnson for one, some Anthony Mackie for another. Mark Wahlberg continues to look constipated but it looks like someone dares to tickle The Rock’s rock hard abs. Meanwhile, Tony Shaloub hefts a bag of charcoal. (Whatever could that mean to the plot??  Gotta love set pics. They could make Star Wars look dull.)

Pain and Gain is based on a true story and has been described as a low budget (by Michael Bay standards) thriller. IMDB is calling it a drama, but I’m thinking it’s got to have some comedy in the mix, especially with the presence of Ken Jeong. Johnson and Wahlberg play a “pair of bodybuilders in Florida who get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.”  The film also stars Ed Harris, Rob Corddry and Tony Plana. Enjoy the pics!

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Michael Bay and Mark Wahlberg together at last.  Seriously…who asked for this? C’mon…fess up. I want names… 

Marky Mark, continuing to prove that The Fighter was a fluke and he doesn’t actually want to be a “serious” actor, films another muscle-bound bang bang shoot-em-up no brainer, directed by the King of Loud Noises, Michael Bay. Check out the photo above. What the hell is going on there??

Currently filming in Miami, Florida, Pain and Gain is based on a true story and has been described as a low budget thriller. (If you’re wondering what “low budget” means to Bay, at just over 20 million dollars, this is his lowest budgeted film since his feature film debut, 1995’s Bad Boys.)  IMDB is calling it a drama, but I’m thinking it’s got to have some comedy in the mix, especially with the presence of Ken Jeong. The film also stars Dwayne Johnson (which I’m thinking is a plus here). He and Wahlberg play a “pair of bodybuilders in Florida who get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.”

I really ought to reserve the snark until I’ve seen more. The supporting cast includes Ed Harris, Tony Shaloub, Anthony Mackie and Tony Pena. No release dates yet, but we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, enjoy the pics from the set!

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Photo credit: WENN

On Monday we showed you the red-band trailer for Seth McFarlane’s big screen feature debut, Ted with Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis.  Today we have the green-band version, the one approved for all audiences. While it’s still not funny, at least it’s less offensive. I am by no means a prude but the red-band version included scenes and dialogue that seemed to be crude just for the sake of it. And that’s not funny, it’s sophomoric.

As I said before, I wanted to like Ted for a number of reasons like the fact that it was both filmed in Boston, and I love seeing my city on the big-screen, and it stars one of Boston’s favorite sons, Mark Wahlberg.

The premise involves John who, as a ten year old, makes a Christmas miracle happen by bringing his one and only friend to life, his teddy bear. The two grow up together and John must then choose to stay with his girlfriend or keep his friendship with his crude and extremely inappropriate teddy bear, Ted.

Again, the joke isn’t that John is the only who can see him, it’s that he’s an obnoxious little sh*t, not the cuddly toy we tend to think of when we think of teddy bears. And because McFarlane voices Ted and is doing what he considers to be a “Boston accent” he sounds exactly like Peter Griffin (of McFarlane’s Family Guy). Wahlberg, for his part, may be what saves this movie, if it can be saved.  Acting opposite a CGI bear, he may be doing his best work.

Ted also stars Joel McHale, Giovanni Ribisi, Jessica Stroup and Patrick Warburton. It opens in the US (I expect a Boston premiere) on July 13 and 3^rd August in the UK.

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I really wanted to like this red-band trailer for Ted, Seth McFarlane’s live-action directorial debut. I’m a fan of McFarlane’s work as the creator and most prolific voice artist for television’s Family Guy, although I admit, I stopped watching a long time ago, as well as his latest incarnation as a singer of jazzy standards and big-band era ballads.

I also wanted to like it because it was both filmed in Boston, and I love seeing my city on the big-screen and it stars one of Boston’s favorite sons, Mark Wahlberg.

John makes a Christmas miracle happen by bringing his one and only friend to life, his teddy bear. The two grow up together and John must then choose to stay with his girlfriend or keep his friendship with his crude and extremely inappropriate teddy bear, Ted.

I wanted to like it, but  I just didn’t.  What seemed like a cute love story in the first minute of the trailer took a drastic turn for the worse with the appearance of Ted, the CGI bear voiced by McFarlane. I guess I thought part of the joke would be that only Wahlberg’s character saw the teddy bear from his childhood come to life, kind of like Jimmy Stewart and his rabbit, Harvey. But not so. Everyone sees him, and apparently everyone accepts him. The joke is that he’s an obnoxious little sh*t, not the cuddly toy we tend to think of when we think of teddy bears.

Watch the trailer and see for yourself.

So? Is it just me? Maybe this is right up your comedy alley. I just expected more from McFarlane’s first feature, than a bunch of frat-house level jokes strung together. This trailer may have debuted at Funny or Die, but it’s not funny.

Ted, costarring Mila Kunis, Giovanni Ribisi, Patrick Warburton, Joel McHale and Jessica Stroup, comes to theaters July 13 in the US and 3^rd August in the UK.

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Here’s a first poster for a film we haven’t heard a peep about since TIFF last September (where it received mixed reviews). Hick, directed by Derek Martini , stars Blake Lively, Chloe Grace Moretz and Eddie Redmayne. Two of those names have gotten a lot of ink lately for their acting (and not publicly canoodling with Ryan Reynolds). Redmayne was of course in Oscar nominated My Week with Marilyn and Moretz is just everywhere. The latest is that she has been offered the lead in yet another remake of Stephen King’s Carrie. (Note to CGM: Please don’t do it!) While some may see this as a good move because an appearance in a King based film has done so much for others careers in the past (Spacek, Bates, Freeman etc etc) –this is a remake of a classic, something that was tried to disasterous effect ten years ago.)

“When 13-year-old Luli gets fed up with her mother’s love of high drama and men who drink too much, she leaves Nebraska and takes to the road, going west to follow her dreams of stardom. Along the way she meets Eddie, a drifter with an attitude, and a troubled woman named Glenda. With the help of these new friends and the strength of her dreams, Luli protects herself from the unpredictable people she meets in her new life.”

Hick will get a limited US theatrical release on May 11 and hit VOD the same day.

Ted is the feature film directorial debut from Family Guy mastermind Seth McFarlane. It stars Mark Wahlberg as a man whose childhood teddy bear comes to life. It  also stars Mila Kunis and was filmed here in Boston last summer. That poster makes it look like some high-brow stuff, huh?

A story centered on a man and his teddy bear, who comes to life as the result of a childhood wish.

Director McFarlane voices Ted and the stellar cast also includes Giovanni Ribisi, Patrick Warburton, Joel McHale and Jessica Stroup. Ted comes to theaters July 13 in the US and 3^rd August in the UK.

Last week we showed you a first trailer for David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis with Robert Pattinson and it looks as bizarre, violent, drug and sex fueled as anything the gonzo director has ever done, let alone anything anyone’s seen Pattinson in. This first poster gives us a brooding Pattinson as billionaire Eric Packer.

Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart.

Pattinson needed to take  a walk on the wild side in order to shake the shadow of Edward Cullen. (He had a lot of Belle Epoch sex with a lot of women in Bel Ami, but even that was nearly safe for the Twi-hards. Cosmopolis most certainly is not.)

Cosmopolis will be released in the US and the UK sometime after its probable appearance at Cannes.  France has a firm date of May 23.

Last but not least, we have a new poster (out of Russia) for mind-bending love story Upside Down with Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst.

“Adam is a seemingly ordinary guy in a very extraordinary universe. He lives humbly trying to make ends meet, but his romantic spirit holds on to the memory of a girl he met once upon a time from another world, an inverted affluent world with its own gravity, directly above but beyond reach… a girl named Eve. Their childhood flirtation becomes an impossible love. But when he catches a glimpse of grown-up Eve on television, nothing will get in the way of getting her back… Not even the law or science!”

No firm dates are known as yet, just a vague “2012”. I’m predicting a TIFF appearance for this one, by which time it will have been in the can for two and a half years.

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Atlantic City, 1920. When alcohol was outlawed, outlaws became kings

My DVR is working in hyperdrive on Sunday nights these days. Sad to say, I'm glad that Boardwalk Empire (not to mention Homeland) has already had its Season 2 finale so that's one less thing I have to worry about catching. (I realize this is one of the "better" problems one could have), what with Downton Abbey, Hell on Wheels, House of Lies and The Firm, it still takes a lot of strategic planning and the organizational skills of an air-traffic controller to get everything recorded. ("Let's see, I can record two, then I can go into the other room and watch a third, maybe if I record the second showing of this one…") In any case, all of this is another reason that I'm glad that Boardwalk Empire's first season will now be available on dvd and blu-ray, beginning tomorrow, January 10 so that I can watch at my leisure and to my heart's content. It's also a good reason for those who've missed this amazing HBO series, to catch up.

HBO's Boardwalk Empire begins in 1920 in Atlantic City New Jersey, when that city was just beginning its reign as the Eastern Seaboard's premiere tourist destination, and just as Prohibition has been enacted, changing the face of AC forever. The ban on booze leads to the creation of a new breed of criminal, the bootlegger. It also made a lot of people rich and gave rise to organized crime and its kingpins who engaged in bloody turf wars that continued well into the latter part of the 20th century, even after Prohibition was repealed, eventually giving way to drugs and drug dealers.  The show was created by Terence Winter (of The Sopranos) and coproduced by director Martin Scorsese (who actually directed the amazing pilot episode) and Mark Wahlberg. It revolves around Atlantic City treasurer Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (Steve Buscemi who has found the role of a lifetime and is brilliant in it, deserving of every bit of the praise he's received), who has his fingers in just about every pie in the county. When the 19th Amendment is passed, he publicly decries the evils of drink but is of course getting rich by smuggling and bootlegging "demon rum" etc.  Jimmy (Michael Pitt), a war veteran, acts as his right-hand man, while zealous, perhaps even mad, Government Agent Van Alden (a scene-stealing Michael Shannon) and refined mobster Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) represent significant threats to his enterprise. Nucky's aided in his endeavors by his brother Eli (Shea Whigham), the sheriff and distributor Chalky (Michael K. Williams). Nucky has little regard for law and order, his soft side emerges in his dealings with an Irish immigrant and widow, Margaret (the luminous Kelly Macdonald). As Nucky puts it, "I try to be good. I really do."

We're never really sure just what the nature of Nucky's relationship to Jimmy is: mentor, father-figure, employer, or to Jimmy's (very young) mother Gillian (Gretchen Moll who is only six years older than Michael Pitt). When Nucky sends Jimmy away, he ends up in Chicago where he joins forces with a not-yet-top-guy Al Capone (Stephen Graham) and disfigured vet Richard Harrow (Jack Huston), abandoning his son, common-law wife Angela (Aleksa Palladino).

Inspired by Nelson Johnson's book, Boardwalk Empire combines both real and fictional characters (Think Deadwood) and there are liberties taken with historical facts, but it doesn't claim to be gospel. It also stars Paz de la Huerta and Dabney Coleman as 'The Commodore'.

Special Features

Baltasar Kormákur's action adventure thriller Contraband starring Mark Walhberg and Kate Beckinsale is getting  a big push. I’ve seen more tv spots for this film so far than I have for some of the big holiday releases. Frankly, despite its January (US) release date, this looks like a solid action thriller. It's a remake of an Icelandic film called Reykjavik-Rotterdam. While I didn't see the original, the trailer for this one makes it look like it kicks all kinds of ass.  

The synopsis: A security guard with financial troubles considers a return to his smuggling ways when an associate offers a potentially lucrative opportunity. 

We know that that's not even half the story though.  It's another one of those tales where like Michael Corleone said in Godfather 3, "just when I think I'm out…they PULL me back in", only this time it's family man Mark Wahlberg who gets sucked back into 'the life' thanks to his ne'er do well brother. Kate and the kids are in all sorts of danger. Ooooo.

In the clip below, the excellent Giovanni Ribisi, is doing his slimeball best to intimidate our Marky Mark, after first appearing to kiss his ass. “You’re a tourist. This ain’t your world anymore man! You’re a tourist…you can’t trade on status you don’t have!”

Contraband also stars the equally excellent Ben Foster, J. K. Simmons, Lukas Haas, Caleb Landry Jones, Diego Luna and Marky Mark's older brother, Robert Walhberg. Contraband opens January 13 in the US and 16 March in the UK.

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