Tag Archives: Bill Murray

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Trailer Gives Us A Look At Some Familiar Faces!

 Sony Pictures has just revealed a brand new trailer for Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a continuation of the original films. And yes, there are definitely some familiar faces that show up this time around.

Everything happens for a reason… In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, when a single mom and her two kids arrive in a small town, they begin to discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters and the secret legacy their grandfather left behind.

Check out the new trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife below:

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The French Dispatch Trailer: Wes Anderson Returns With An Ensemble Cast

Searchlight Pictures has unveiled the first official trailer for Wes Anderson’s latest film, titled The French Dispatch. The comedic drama follows a group of journalists at an American newspaper bureau set in a fictional 20th-century French city.

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The Dead Don’t Die First Trailer and Poster: Jarmusch’s Zombie Film Starring Adam Driver and Bill Murray

Focus Features has debuted the first official trailer and poster for the latest Jim Jarmusch film titled The Dead Don’t Die, a new zombie thriller from the acclaimed filmmaker. The film reunites Jarmusch with some of his biggest collaborators, including Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, and Bill Murray.

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The Jungle Book: New TV Spot & Cast Photos Showcase Amazing Visual Splendor

Walt Disney Pictures has released a new TV spot showing off the photo-realistic  elements of Jon Favreau’s live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic adventure tale The Jungle Book, as well as a series of images featuring the film’s cast  posing next to their CGI counterparts.

The minute-long spot also brings out the immensely realistic recreation of the jungle and it’s residents, showing us effects of the state-of-the-art technology used for the movie. It certainly delivers on spectacle and is a return for Favreau to tent-pole films since his departure into mid-budget filmmaking with Chef. Take a look at the new TV spot for yourself:

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New Ghostbusters Movie Chock Full Of Cameos

Ghostbusters fans have been on a roller coaster of emotions the last few years with rumors of a potential third film, and now the ride has reached a new level. Next year’s Ghostbusters reboot has fans cautiously optimistic, because it may be amazing. But what if it’s terrible?

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Amazon Jumps into the Original Programming Game: 8 New Shows

Actually Amazon has jumped into the deep end and are hoping one of their 14 pilots is able to learn how to swim, quickly. Amazon released the six children’s pilots and eight comedy pilots to all Prime customers. I’ve said it before, it’s hard not to be excited knowing that we are able to watch this potential shift in how the country and world consumes scripted media. Through venues not even conceived of in our parent’s time, we are able to connect with a content producer and they with the viewer in ways unimaginable to a generation removed. For a TV geek, this is an awesome time.

Due to my excitement, I set out to watch all the Amazon pilots. That plan quickly faltered as I started with a child’s cartoon that was not one that adult’s would find much enjoyment in at all, so the children’s pilots are out. On to the comedies! I went in without reading anything on these shows (outside of Zombieland) beforehand. I didn’t look up actors, or writers, and some of them I didn’t even know the title until I went to watch it. Enough talk, let’s see how everyone did.

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I can not tell you how much I wanted this to be like the Channel 4’s The IT Crowd. I had no real reason for thinking it would be outside of Betas being about computer folk and of course the 8-bit title sequence, but still, I was holding out hope. It isn’t. Betas is more like a smaller scale, somewhat cruder version of The Social Network. Instead of Mark Zuckerberg trying to get Facebook off the ground, you’ve got two guys, Trey (Troy Dinicol) and Nash (Karan Soni who was in one of Grizzly Bomb’s Top Movies of 2012, Safety Not Guaranteed) who are out to find funding for their new social networking app. They are surrounded by an office full of the socially awkward and the “should probably be in jail for some sex crime”.

They head out for a “meeting” with a potential investor and lo and behold…
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Ed Begley Jr.! I will watch almost anything with Begley in it so this made the pilot immediately gain points in my mind. While it started a bit slow for me, by the end I was invested and was wanting to see more so I hope they are able to get this one to series.

 Amazon

I’ll admit that I totally wrote this one off before I watched it. Just the premise of two mall workers who in their spare time are “humanity’s last line of defense against the supernatural” wasn’t doing it for me. Then I watched it and almost immediately changed my mind.

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It might have had something to do with the free corndogs.

I think Supanatural might be the best example of how Amazon’s method of farming pilots might be really beneficial to the writing world. There was a lot of uproar when the fledgling studio announced their feature script, crowd-sourcing plan and it (rightfully so) had many screenwriters leery of the prospect. However with the comedy pilots, it seems as if it’s opened a door to writers and actors who don’t have a long resume to get a chance to get on a project with promise. While Kristen Shaal voices two of the characters and has quite a bit of experience going into Supanatural, Jameeliah Garrett who voices Lucretia? This is her first credit.  Lily Sparks who is a writer on the show and voices Hezbah? First writing credit and only fourth actor credit. While this is certainly not the first time relative “unknowns” have lead roles, it happens infrequently enough that it makes you notice. As for Supanatural, definitely check it out, especially if you are a fan of shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

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Browsers is about a group of four interns as they start their new career at a Huffington Post style site called Gush. They are content farmers, hence the name.

Words can not express how badly I wanted this to be good. Words can also not express how not good it was. I’d love for it to continue because I am a musical theater nerd and after the crap-fest Glee has become and the crash and burn that Smash was, it’d be nice to have a musical show to watch that didn’t suck. Sadly, unless the quality of the songs (granted it would be difficult for anyone to write a song about Twitter) grows by leaps and bounds, not even Bebe Neuwirth can save this and that is saying a lot because that woman is a goddess.

Amazon

One of the top two of the eight, for sure. Alpha House is a political show with a different slant. See these three Congressmen all live in a house together and are looking for a fourth roommate. Of course they work together as well, all being Republicans trying to figure out what actions to take to best get re-elected, serve their constituents, further their careers… you know, Congress stuff. It was very good which isn’t surprising given the caliber of actors involved and being written by Gary Trudeau who writes the comic strip, Doonesbury, it’s certain to have smart and snappy dialogue.

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Alpha House was one that had a lot of buzz going for it before they aired, mainly due to Bill Murray’s involvement. Let me just say, his appearance is brief but hysterical. It might have been my favorite moment of the pilot. That’s not to say the rest of the cast isn’t good, because they are, it was just that you don’t expect to see Bill Murray crying while brushing his teeth and shaving.

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Going into Dark Minions, I thought it would be pretty decent. I’m a fan of stop-motion animation and even though the entire pilot wasn’t fully done in the stop-motion, I can understand that. It takes time and money to get it done and when you are working on a pilot that you don’t know will become a series, it’s probably not a good idea to spend a ton up front.
I think that was a wise decision because it just wasn’t that good. It wasn’t as bad as Browsers, but it wasn’t anything that I’d watch again. Just very middle of the road and not very innovative. I could say something like “that’s no big surprise given that it’s from writer’s of Big Bang Theory” but that would be mean.

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Dear hopeful TV writers everywhere, take this as a lesson: If you want to create a series from a movie that is a cult classic, it needs to be as good, if not better than the movie.

Zombieland: The Series did not follow this advice. When the best part of the pilot is the two minutes leading up to the title screen and the best characters have nothing to do with the rest of the story? This is not a good thing. By the time we reached the halfway point I was already over it. There’s only so many times you can repeat the same gag and have it be funny or entertaining. Perhaps the best person to capture my feelings on this one was this Amazon reviewer.

[quote]Once you get Woody Harrelson as Tallahassee, everyone else is just a cheap knock-off.

This guy is more like Talledega. –Mickey Mills, Amazon reviewer[/quote]

Thank you Mickey.

Amazon

Onion News Empire is not creator Will Graham’s first go round with a TV series based on the popular faux news site. This time however, instead of a news broadcast, he’s fashioned a show that is sort of an homage to Aaron Sorkin, even going so far as having one character ask another if he can “walk and talk”.

Amazon

The cast in Onion News Empire is quite good with Jeffrey Tambor playing the egotistical anchor, Chris Masterson the wide-eyed cub reporter, William Sadler is the grizzled news chief, and 30 Rock‘s Cheyenne Jackson is the up and coming anchor looking to dethrone Tambor. When you look at that group, it’s hard to believe they’d pull off anything less than great yet somehow they did. Much like Zombieland, I have a hard time seeing the “hook” of Onion News Empire lasting very long as there is a finite period of time that the audience is going to continue to say “oh yea, this is a satirical spin off a news story” and find it entertaining. Yes The Onion as a site is hugely successful and wildly popular, I don’t think the same can be said for Onion News Network.

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By far the best of all eight pilots is from the Denver based comedy trio of Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl and Ben Roy. They play three high school teachers who really have no business being teachers. With a comedy style much like that found on shows like Workaholics and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the trio makes being a really awful teacher extremely entertaining.

Amazon

As great as the three guys are, I have to say Rory Scovel as the hippie principal is easily my favorite character. Something about the hair and the cardigans along with the green tea, I’m a fan.

If you happen to watch Those Who Can’t and need more of these guys in your life, then head to YouTube and check out their webseries, The Grawlix.

So there you have it – a look at all eight Amazon comedy pilots. The really cool thing that Amazon is doing, is much like everything else on their site, you can review the pilots and they are actually encouraging people to do so. They are saying that they will take these ratings into account but I’m a cynic and have a hard time believing that, but good on them if they do follow through with that.

All that’s left for you to do is head on over to Amazon, sign into your Prime account (if you don’t have one, you should, especially if you order anything with any regularity from them) and check out the shows. Then you can come back and tell me how right I am in my assessment or where I can stick it. Enjoy!

Ghostbusters 3: Rumors Still Floating About Bill Murray Being on Board…

Fanshare.com is reporting that Bill Murray is now back on board for Ghostbusters 3 after years of saying he was not. Harold Ramis spoke to SuperOfficialNews.com and said:

[quote] “It was kind of crazy. Just out of nowhere, I get a phone call from Bill at almost three in the morning… and he simply said, ‘Yeah, Ok, I’m in!'[/quote]

Co-Writer Paul Horner has also said this

[quote]“Word through the grapevine was that Murray enjoyed reading our script that was passed along to him a few months ago. As for if he was going to be a part of it, well that was the million-dollar question. The writers, the cast, the fans… Everyone is truly excited for this to have finally all come together.”[/quote]

ghostbusters 3 bill is back

So how does everyone feel about this? I just wish they would make their mind up to be honest. It would be amazing news that Bill might want to be back in the grays and strap on his photon pack one more time. I just don’t know if I actually believe this or not. How many times have we seen articles like this since the Ghostbuster 3 news was announced? Two? Three? 458? I have lost count. Call me a pessimist, but I will truly believe it when I actually see set shots.

Bill is a bit of a cheeky chap when it comes to committing to this and the great news is that he actually approves of the script so at least you would think he will be happy doing it. Now what us Ghostbuster‘s fans want to know is has this script got the magic form the first film? It has been a long time since Ghostbusters 2 came out and even longer since the first one. Can the team get it together, can they make us believe that busting makes us feel good. I certainly hope so, and this is a step in the right direction for sure.

For anyone wondering if  Bill can still fire up the pack, just rewatch the classic scene from Zombieland or at the 2010 Scream awards and watch Bill at work….

Countdown to Halloween #29: Stay Puft & Vigo

As a child, I was obsessed with Ghostbusters. I remember as a 4 year old when my parents got me the Ghostbusters VHS for Christmas and I watched that constantly. I owned all the toys, the firehouse, the slime, Ecto-1 and even the Proton Pack. I wanted to be a ghostbuster. I wanted to be the asian member of the squad. I felt that role had yet to be filled so I set my hopes and dreams on that. I declared this much to my mother: I want to be a ghostbuster for Halloween. And with that, Mama Tansuche set out to make sure her youngest was the best damn ghostbuster on the block. Granted, my mom took some liberties with the costume. There was no brown jumpsuit (apparently that meant I would probably get hit by a car while trick-or-treating) and in its place was a jean jacket with a giant logo that she made and sewn on that back with my name (because apparently we lived in Canada and had a surplus of denim). Yeah, it was awesome and I got so much candy that year because of my awesome homemade outfit. Because of all that, the thing I most associate with Halloween are the Ghostbusters movies and because of that, I jumped at the chance to writeup this section of the Countdown, featuring not 1, but 2 of the villains from the movies. We had a tie when we took a poll amongst the writers with these two characters so we decided to combine both in order to deliver the awesomeness.

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“God Bless America”- My Favorite Movie Without Even Seeing It

God Bless America stars Mad Men actor Joel Murray (brother of hilarious Bill Murray) as Frank, a terminally ill man who is fed up with the awful American douche bags. His accomplice (because he can’t get rid of all the Kardashians and Jersy Shore cast members by himself) is a 16-year-old girl named Roxy.

Check out the trailers and a clip…

Trailer #1:

Trailer #2:

Random Clip:

So far, by looking at the trailers and the clip, this movie is long overdue. In the world of reality TV shows, distracted and disrespectful adults, and everyone’s blind sense of entitlement, America needs justice. I cannot tell you how many times I have been in the middle of a face-to-face conversation with a friend, and they pick up their phone to answer a text message. I have been brought to physical illness by shows like “16 & Pregnant” and “My Super Sweet 16”. I cannot wait to see this movie.

God Bless America, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait [Ed. – Yeah, we didn’t know he was still alive either] will be playing in theaters May 31. See it. And if you don’t like what he is doing in the movie, that means you are one of the jerks he would be killing.