Why Watch? Equally sharp and absurd, this short film from Stuart Blumberg features Marisa Tomei and Elodie Bouchez as a couple who are close to ending their marriage, David Wain as a high-fiving mediator, and a few ridiculous flashbacks. Each piece of their shared history that they fight over forces them to remember the full spectrum of their relationship while creating some very funny scenarios. Especially if you’re into Aubrey Plaza making “fox babies.” The dialogue is sly, and it’s often difficult to figure out whether a line is meant as an insult or flirtation, and the talent here delivers.  It’s also sleek with smart visuals and seductive — both while sharing the calm power of generosity and when sliding a loose dress slowly up the back of its star’s legs. This comedy is a long, slow pour of whiskey with a smooth finish. What Will It Cost? About 7 minutes. Skip Work. Watch More Short Films.

Yes, we’re going with “zom-com” and we’re sticking to it. While promoting the endlessly charming Safety Not Guaranteed overseas (seriously, I’ve watched it four times now, and it genuinely gets better, funnier, and sweeter with every watch), everyone’s favorite side-eye-throwing leading lady Aubrey Plaza revealed a new project – ad it sounds pretty perfect for Ms. Plaza and her comedic sensibilities. The Guardian reports (via Cinema Blend) that the actress is prepping set to star in Life After Beth,a “really fucked-up” zombie comedy penned by her own boyfriend Jeff Baena (who previously co-wrote I Heart Huckabees, so that should give you some insight into his taste). Baena will also direct the film, which will also star no less than John C. Reilly. And that’s just about all we know about the project as of now, though we can’t imagine what other details you’d need beyond its apparent tone and its solid stars. Plaza is currently filming A Many Splintered Thing and will next be seen in The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman and The To Do List.

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is Roman Coppola‘s first film in over ten years. His directorial debut, CQ, was received with a mixed response. It didn’t garner much love, but it’s a really fun movie which goes beyond the average “struggling director” stories. Since then, Coppola’s been keeping busy with his music video and commercial and his frequent collaborations with Wes Anderson. Now he’s finally returned to the director’s chair, with a movie which is exactly what we’d expect from the guy who co-wrote Moonrise Kingdom and The Darjeeling Limited. Apple launched the trailer today. Take a look:

What is Casting Couch? Proof that not everyone’s tracking Hurricane Sandy’s path on Twitter. Some are still out there casting movies. The big casting news over the weekend was all of the big names that were announced for George Clooney’s next project as a director, The Monuments Men. Deadline had the scoop that this period drama about a group of art historians and museum curators trying to recover important and historical works from the clutches of the Nazis is going to star names like Bill Murray, Daniel Craig, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville, and Bob Balaban. As far as I know none of these people can even speak German, but you’ve still got to look at that list and be impressed. You could cast this crew as an office full of telemarketers and everyone would still watch the movie, making them heroes during the dying days of the Nazi regime is just icing on the cake.

The high school reunion film genre has been so flooded with entries that it’s reached the point of being nothing short of played out, so any new entry needs to justify its existence by offering some kind of unique spin on the usual, or at least by featuring characters that transcend the normal archetypes. Writer-director Jamie Linden fails on both counts in his 10 Years and seems to think that the film’s all-star cast compensates for those deficiencies. It doesn’t. No matter how much you love Channing Tatum, Aubrey Plaza, Anthony Mackie, Chris Pratt, Ari Graynor, or any of the other notables who turn up here, there’s no getting around the simple, basic fact that Linden’s movie doesn’t tell a story. It merely brings to life the world’s least interesting reunion, featuring a swath of staggering dullards played by talented people.

A movie about Aubrey Plaza giving out hand jobs, under any other name, would be just as sweet. So it’s with great anticipation that we’ve been awaiting Funny or Die vet Maggie Carey’s debut directorial effort The To Do List. The good news is, today that wait got a little bit easier, because not only has CBS Films released a red band trailer for the film, but they’ve also revealed that it will be this Valentine’s Day (February 14) when we finally get to take in this story of a virginal nerd who tries to systematically experience all the sex acts she missed out on in high school before entering college. So, based on this first teaser, does it look like The To Do List will live up to the lofty expectations that its premise creates? Maybe. Honestly, it looks a little low rent, like we’re looking at a trailer for a series of web short rather than a feature film, and while there are some amusing moments in this 90 seconds of clips, there aren’t really any of the big belly laughs that one would expect from a raunchy comedy.

The high school reunion comedy is a sub-genre that’s ripe with drama and conflict. You’ve got the lost loves, the old rivalries, the people who have improved their stations in life butting up against those who have been taken down a peg, the people who have refused to grow up interacting with those that have gotten completely lame, and probably a handful of other familiar tropes that always seem to pop up. But that means that the high school reunion comedy is also a sub-genre that’s ripe with cliché, because, let’s face it, every single movie that falls into it always covers these exact same things. What’s the secret of making a good one then, if there isn’t much room for being unique? Probably making sure that the familiar material is at least infused with wit, and getting a talented cast to deliver it. Just from the trailer for 10 Years, it’s clear that this movie has the latter part of that equation taken care of. Just look at the names in this cast: Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza, Oscar Isaac, Justin Long, Ron Livingston, Kate Mara, Ari Graynor, etc… Whether this movie feels a little familiar or not, with a cast like that there’s guaranteed to be something in there worth watching.

Editor’s note: With Safety Not Guaranteed beginning its limited release roll-out today, we thought to share our SXSW review again. This review was originally posted on March 14, 2012, and it’s much safer to read than anything you might find on Craigs List. The want ad is simple. A partner is needed to travel backward in time. It will be dangerous, it will be an adventure, and their safety will not be guaranteed. A magazine writer convinces his editor that there’s a goofy human interest story in the ad and gathers together two interns for a trip north to Seattle in the hopes of meeting the ad’s owner. What they discover is that not all time travel involves machines, portals or HG Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through modern day San Francisco. Sometimes all it needs are heads and hearts refusing to let go of the past. Director Colin Trevorrow‘s feature debut is just as likely to make you laugh out loud as it is to make you tear up in hopeful anticipation. The concept of time travel is the catalyst for a story that examines the idea of returning to an earlier time in our lives when things were better and our futures were still bright. Or at least, that’s how we remember things.

We haven’t reported much yet on The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, which is a shame, because it’s a promising sounding project. So, seeing as there’s a new bit of casting news regarding the film, let’s use that as an excuse to cover all the basics, shall we? The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman started off as a Black List script by a screenwriter named Matt Drake (Project X) that was eventually picked up by Voltage Pictures and given to Fredrik Bond to direct. A studio synopsis for the film explains it by saying, “Charlie Countryman was just a normal guy…until he fell in love with the one girl who will probably get him killed. When Charlie meets the absolutely irresistible Gabi she’s already been claimed by Nigel, an insanely violent crime boss with a gang of thugs at his disposal. Armed with little more than his wit and naïve charm, Charlie endures one bruising beat down after another to woo Gabi and keep her out of harm’s way. Finally his exploits of blind valor create such a mess that he’s left with only one way out; to save the girl of his dreams, must Charlie Countryman die?” These aren’t the truly exciting aspects of the film, however. The real appeal of this project is the cast that Bond has assembled. He’s got Shia LaBeouf in the title role, Evan Rachel Wood playing Gabi, Mads Mikklesen on board as the Nigel character, and names like Rupert Grint and Melissa Leo

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s just as movie-obsessed as you are, which is why it continues to give you all this fun and fancy content on a nightly basis. Every weeknight at 10p Central, 11p Eastern and 6a in Istanbul (which, depending on the season, is still during a dark time of day). We begin tonight with the most adorable promotional photo for a hardline sci-fi movie ever. Prometheus stars Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace aren’t doing service to the seriousness of Ridley Scott’s upcoming epic, but they sure are having fun.

Here’s how it is (and how I suspect it’s going to be) – we love Colin Treverrow‘s Safety Not Guaranteed ’round these parts, and we think you might love it, too. The film debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and while I was not as effusive in my praise for it as Rob Hunter was when it played at SXSW last month, I have not been able to stop thinking about it, and do agree with Rob’s assessment that it’s warm, witty, and wonderful. Hell, we even threw this time travel love story into our Best Movies of SXSW 2012 list, and Hunter and I gabbed about it on Reject Radio. See? Love. Based on a true story (read: based on a want ad placed in a paper), the film follows Jake Johnson‘s cocky journalist who drags two interns (Aubrey Plaza and Karan Soni) into the search for a man who has placed an ad looking for someone to travel through time with him. Again. Because he’s done it before – though he can’t guarantee, you know, safety. What they find is Mark Duplass, a man who already more than a little off, with his time travel beliefs not doing him too many favors. But more than just the discovery of Duplass’s Kenneth, the group discovers, wait for it, much more about themselves. No, really. At the heart of that is an unexpected and consistently charming romance between Plaza and Duplass that should melt even the darkest of hearts.

It is hard enough to be a single father, but when you are trying to juggle those responsibilities along with pursuing your dream of being an actor, things are made all the more complicated. The End of Love opens with Mark (Mark Webber) and his son, Isaac (played by Webber’s real-life son), waking up. The camera focuses in on Isaac and sets up the focus of the film on the little boy in the first few frames. As Mark and Isaac start their day, the absence of a mother (or a partner) in Mark’s life becomes clear, with Mark having to take Isaac with him on a big audition. While the casting director seems understanding about Isaac’s presence in the room, the actress Mark is reading against, Amanda Seyfried (playing herself), seems less than pleased and it quickly becomes clear that Mark’s dreams of becoming an actor may be over. Losing roles no longer just means Mark may not get a good part, it means he is losing money to support himself and Isaac. Although Mark lives with two roommates (who seem more than understanding about living with a two-year-old), he is not pulling his weight in rent, which sends Mark asking one of his friends (yet another “cameo” by Jason Ritter) for help.

A man places an ad in a local paper looking for a partner to go on a journey with him – but this particular man is not looking to make a love connection, he is in need of a companion to travel through time with him. He’s done it once before, but you’ll have to bring to your own weapons because, as he tells it, “safety not guaranteed.” From this seed of an idea, director Colin Trevorrow and screenwriter Derek Connolly have crafted Safety Not Guaranteed, a low-fi romance that benefits both from charismatic performances and the intriguing background that the time travel element provides. The film is loosely based on a true story – an ad did appear in a Seattle paper, exactly as it appears in the film, but Connolly and Trevorrow have taken their film in a different direction – stuff mentioned in the ad (payment, that it’s been done before) never comes up after its first read, and no one ever says anything else about it. Instead, the film focuses on a trio of intrepid reporters (really just one mild douchebags and two interns who don’t have a choice in the matter) who decide to craft a piece about the man who has placed the ad. A fluff piece, something silly. Of course, they find much more than they bargained for once their investigation commence.

After getting fired from his awful hit TV show Two and a Half Men Charlie Sheen had a very public meltdown that took public meltdowns to a new level by even including a public meltdown world tour. Though Sheen’s stage show was largely met with panning and boos, it still sold a lot of tickets. This country loves it when public figures fall off their pedestal. But we also love a good comeback story, and it seems like we’ve already reached that point in the Sheen narrative. These celebrity rise and fall stories are getting shorter and shorter every time they happen. I blame VH1’s Behind the Music for hammering the formula into everyone’s heads. Someone goes nuts from addiction and we can just go on auto-pilot in our response.

It’s been a few months since we’ve heard anything about the upcoming Aubrey Plaza starring comedy The Hand Job. The film, written and will be directed by Maggie Carey, is about a virginal and studious high school girl (Plaza) who decides that before she goes away to college she needs to run down a checklist of sexual acts she has yet to accomplish. Joining Plaza in all of the fun are some big comedic names like Alia Shawkat, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Donald Glover. Needless to say, everyone who hears about this project is pretty enthused. But what’s up with the production lately? Two things, actually. First, somebody has finally seemed to recognize the fact that they’re not actually going to get away with widely releasing a film called The Hand Job, so the title has now been downgraded to the much lamer and more generic The To Do List. The change is disappointing, but inevitable. The second bit of news is less depressing. Clark Gregg and Rachel Bilson have been added to an already bursting cast. Gregg is best known for playing SHIELD Agent Coulson in Marvel’s recent string of super hero movies. Bilson is best known for being the girl that I have a pathetic, schoolboy crush on. Both of their presences are very welcome, as far as I’m concerned, and I leave this article looking even more forward to eventually checking out this film. Even if it does now sound like it should be a crappy

The comedy talent for The Handjob is swelling with Alia Shawkat, Mae Whitman, Donald Glover, Connie Britton, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Johnny Simmons. The film is being written and directed by Bill Hader’s comedian wife Maggie Carey. That’s not to say that he has a drama wife, too. It’s meant to show that she’s also professionally funny. The modifier placement is just weird. Regardless, Hader expounded on the plot to The Playlist recently, saying “It’s about her playing an type-A, studious girl who graduates high school and hasn’t done anything with a guy. The summer before college she decides that she has to find out how to do everything in order to be properly prepared, so she makes a very serious bullet list of everything, like… hand-job, titty-fuck, blow-job, fingering, and just kinda checks one off every time she does it. She’s being the aggressor and is very straight-forward about it, like ‘Okay, so I’m going to give you a hand-job now.’ And the guys are very taken aback about it, especially her straight-laced friends.” Sold.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

Aubrey Plaza is someone on the rise, but she’s also someone that’s been turning out solid work for a few years now. She’s done plenty of excellent short films and is also pretty well known for her stand-up. With Parks and Recreation and Funny People, she’s starting to get more attention. Being a scene-stealer in the fantastic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will also surely help shed a bit more light. In the wonderful Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Plaza plays Julie Powers. Some will see her as a bitch, but she isn’t. She treats Scott like crap, and deservedly so. At the beginning of the film, Scott couldn’t be more selfish and Julie is one of the few that calls him out. Julie Powers is definitely similar to some of Plaza’s other roles when it comes to playing someone that couldn’t be more annoyed and expressive about it, but it’s different. Plaza acknowledges that she’s currently known for a specific type of character – a character that she couldn’t be more different from in real life – and she’s fine with that. Plaza is great at doing it and she always brings a different twist to it each time around. The sympathetic and outspoken Julie Powers is no different.

As I mentioned to my beloved followers on Twitter late last week, I exited my own screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World convinced that director Edgar Wright’s style was perfectly matched with my own tastes. Wright’s films — everything from his work on Spaced to Shaun of the Dead to my very favorite buddy cop comedy Hot Fuzz — have all the right pieces to play perfectly to my own moviegoing disposition. His films have undeniable energy. This is oft referred to by people who don’t know any better as his ability to “play to the ADD generation,” but is more in line with Hitchcock’s knack for suspense. It’s just always there. Wright’s films are brisk and consistent because he doesn’t allow much room for downtime. The jokes are meticulously strung together to create not beats, but a constant stream of style and tone. I adore this in his films. I also love the way he casts the things. So to say that Scott Pilgrim — based on a series of books filled with wry observations about culture as I’ve experienced it in my 26 years on the planet — is built for someone like me is an understatement. To me, it’s the perfect marriage of filmmaking style (Wright) and razor-sharp writing without the loss of character depth (comic creator Bryan Lee O’Malley). This may be the case for many of you. But what does it offer to the rest — the millions of folks not familiar with the

Our man on the scene Kevin Kelly reports in with his Funny People junket report, including interviews with Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and more.