Woody Woodpecker, the insane, animated avian menace originally voiced by Mel Blanc has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Let that sink in for a moment. A cartoon character has the kind of recognition that your parents won’t ever give you. And he’s about to have more. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the ancient icon is about to have new life in a new movie project from Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me, The Lorax) and Universal. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, the writers behind Blades of Glory, are in negotiations to create the story. Even though the character hasn’t been seen in film since a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, he’s been on television as late as 2002. Theoretically, there’s a cross-sectional audience for his wacky antics. But what kind of story can they build around him? My hope is that he has to team with Michael Jordan to play an interstellar game of basketball for the fate of humanity. This, of course, comes weeks after the Universal head admitted they made shitty movies. Just for fun, here’s my favorite of the old Woody Woodpecker cartoons, and yes, it’s solely for the fact that he opens a bottle off a dope’s giant buckteeth. What a maroon:

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we close out the 2011 season of the show with a long-form interview with Bill Marx about his father Harpo and the rest of the Marx Brothers. The musician and film scorer shares his memories of the most famous harp player this side of King David, a legend of comedy, and one hell of a great human being. Download This Episode

The fine folks over at JoBlo have the world’s first full trailer for Goon – the fighting movie that has some hockey in it. It stars Seann William Scott as a major fanatic who busts the face of a visiting fan during a game and is invited to try out for a local team. Of course, they don’t want him to play. They want him to bleed. Co-written by Jay Baruchel (who plays a cable access hockey show host) and Evan Goldberg, the film is directed by Michael Dowse (who also did Take Me Home Tonight and the wonderfully ridiculous Fubar movies). The trailer shows off Scott’s character being very quick to throw a punch but very slow with the comebacks. Prepare to watch idiocy slam your face into the glass:

Being a parent is no easy task – when your child acts out or does something wrong, it’s hard not to take it as a personal reflection on yourself. In Carnage, after a playground altercation turns violent, the parents of the two boys involved decide to come together to try and come to a reasonable agreement on how to rectify the situation. What starts out as a civil conversation between the two parties quickly devolves into an honest and bitterly funny examination of not only each others’ parenting skills, but their marriages and even themselves as people. Based on Yasmina Reza‘s play, God of Carnage, director Roman Polanski takes the story to the big screen with four powerhouse performers who make being trapped in an apartment an engaging look at human nature you want to run away from, but at the same time are unable to tear your eyes from. After Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan Cowan’s (Christoph Waltz) son hits Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael Longstreet’s (John C. Reilly) son in the face with a stick, the parents decide to try and settle things like adults, but how they each think that should happen differs from person to person and those differences are eventually revealed when the Cowan’s (despite repeated efforts) find themselves unable to simply leave the Longstreet’s apartment.

Why Watch? Funny and unexpected despite a few rough edges. The rough edges of this short come from needing a better camera (the visuals are there but the body ain’t willing), and by being made in 48 hours. An entry in the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project, it plays out a lot like a long-form joke you might tell at a messed up dinner party, and the final revelation of the punch line is thankfully nuanced. The writing is restrained, and constantly flowing. The concept is one that might make you throw up a little in your mouth while you’re laughing. But, hey, other cultures eat different things right? If it’s possible, this short is both subdued and hilarious at the same time. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time. Check out Albatross for yourself:

Why Watch? “Upon seeing the eye with one’s eyes, we deconstruct the fourth wall.” Ker-smack! Much like its fight against pretension, the title of this short film is simple, direct, and promises exactly what we get: a badass girl in aviators delivering knuckle sandwiches to film students saying incredibly dumb things. Yes, learning is a process where a lot of mistakes are made, but sometimes a stereotype is annoyingly accurate, and this is catharsis in movie form. What does it cost? Just 3 minutes of your time. Check out Film Students Getting Punched for yourself:

Watching the trailer for Wanderlust – the new movie directed by Wet Hot American Summer director David Wain – makes me want to watch every episode of The State all over again. In short, I wanna dip my balls in it. Starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston as rat-racers in New York who have to leave the race and find themselves learning the communal life, the trailer looks knock-down, drag-out hilarious. Some great gags from some truly disturbed/gifted comic minds are on display here. Check it out for yourself, and see how many State alumni you can spot:

Why Watch? A clown stands over the body of his dead father and sticks out his giant foam hand to accept a tissue from a doctor. With that, the laughter and the tears of this truly outstanding short film begin. Ralph Winston (Keir O’Donnell, the manically gay younger brother from Wedding Crashers) has never cried. Not once in his entire life. Now, with his father gone, he becomes resolute that he’ll produce his first tears somehow before the funeral. A surprisingly bright, dark comedy, it’s almost impossible to differentiate between the humor and the tragedy here. It’s a mark of the layered writing skill and presentation of a humane story featuring a man who can’t do something everyone else can (but who’s very good at something most aren’t). Writer/director Bradley Jackson has proven himself to be a nuanced, insightful young filmmaker who should be given lots of money and a feature film project immediately. This movie is a genuine triumph that’s hilarious and heartfelt. What does it cost? Just 23 minutes of your time. Check out The Man Who Never Cried for yourself:

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, Associate Editor Kate Erbland drops by to play Best/Worst and talk Found Fauxtage Films. Plus, we speak with author Ray Morton to get the whole story of why The Beatles made A Hard Day’s Night and we get a special announcement directly from Vimeo that will sound like sunshine to weary independent filmmakers. That is, the filmmakers who want to save some money. Download This Episode

If you’re interested in every major plot beat in the forthcoming 21 Jump Street movie, this trailer’s for you. Based on the non-comedy television show that launched Johnny Depp, the comedy film stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as a mismatched pair of cops who join an undercover division that infiltrates a high school to crack down on a new drug. No word on whether Huggy Bear makes an appearance. The three-minute red band trailer definitely has its share of jokes. Here’s hoping they aren’t the only ones:

How do you score beach partying high school girls (played by 25-year-olds)? Pretend to love everything Twilight. These and other important life lessons are brought to us all by the new trailer for American Reunion. I was as surprised as anyone to see that their teaser trailer was, no joke, actually funny. It had a sense of humor and nostalgia about what made the comedy work, and proved that it could work even though we were all way past the awkward adolescence. At least numerical. The first full (bro-centric) trailer offers a look at getting the band back together, and it’s honestly kind of nice to see (most) everyone back in their old element. Writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg have clearly instilled some life into an otherwise empty cash grab, but there’s also something hauntingly desperate about going back to the well that’s mirrored by going back to your high school cafetorium to drink bad punch and get jiggy with people of the past.

They were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off, but if you’ve seen The Trip, then you know how hilarious Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon can be simply hanging out together. Fortunately, we’ve got our hands on an exclusive deleted scene from the movie that’s short, sweet, and educational. If you’ve ever wondered the right way to enjoy a fine glass of wine, Coogan and Brydon are just the teachers for you. Even though they don’t look nearly drunk enough:

Masterpieces tend to be weighty. They tend to aggravate and enthrall both during the runtime and once the credits have rolled. They tend to have a heft that makes them difficult to carry even though they demand to live in your gut for months or years afterward. On that front, and on many others, Michael defies the rules and expectations by being a shockingly breezy masterwork. Make that a shockingly breezy masterwork about a pedophile with a young boy locked in his basement. Writer/director Markus Schleinzer has created a film that shoves all of the horrifying elements into your imagination without ever delivering the goods visually. It’s an incredible feat that makes its mark from the opening scene where our villain returns his dumpy self to his dumpy home and visits the cub scout he keeps locked away. They eat dinner, they watch a little television, and the scene cuts to a shot so suggestive post-act that it makes everything far, far too clear for comfort. This is the primary technique of the rougher segments of the movie, and it works with a stark skill that streamlines the nightmare. Michael Fuith commands the screen as Michael – a middle aged nobody who is remarkable in his plainness. He keeps quiet at work even though he excels at what he does. He is neat and tidy around the house. He regularly molests a 10-year-old house prisoner. All part of the ho-hum tedium of Michael’s life. However, the young boy, Wolfgang (David [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Why Watch? We’ve all been there, and we’ve all made that promise, but probably none of us has done it in song. This musical interlude is brought to you by over-consumption. The team over at Half Day Today has made yet another hilarious video that could well be one song in a much larger musical. Plus, the video that comes after it in the Youtube rotation is called “Daddy Has A Penis?” which somehow scores it double points. Telling a story through song is difficult, but they pull it off alongside fun camera work and engaging (far too familiar) characters. What does it cost? Just 4 minutes of your time. Check out the trailer for Never Drinking Again for yourself:

It’s time to crank up the Ol’ Dirty Bastard, imbibe in your favorite – LEGAL – activity, and start the baby making. In this week’s Commentary Commentary, we’re hitting up one of the best comedies of the past 10 years, Knocked Up. Aside from being one of the dozen films that have made Judd Apatow a vigintillionaire, apart from being the film that landed Seth Rogen on the A-list, the movie is just damned funny. Heart-warming, of course. What would an Apatow movie be without heart? Well, it would probably be You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, but we’re not even going to mention that abomination here. Just ignore that previous utterance of the title. Anyway, back to Knocked Up, Apatow has amassed a solid line-up for his commentary track. Rogen and co-star Bill Hader are on board to deliver their own stories and insight into the making of the film. Something tells me the commenting under the influence didn’t stop with last week’s movie. That Rogen sure likes to partake. He’s always stoned. And funny. Mostly funny. But one might have a hand in the other. So here’s what we learned from the commentary track to Knocked Up. Cue the ODB!

The appeal of Manborg is that it’s multi-colored stupidity thrown against the screen with a frantically low budget, brain-damaged characters, and a bit of the old ultra-violence. It’s all so damned dumb, that it has to be given credit for achieving the kind of terrible that belongs at midnight on Adult Swim. A soldier (Matthew Kennedy) cheeses his way through death on the battlefield but is brought back with a few robot parts installed. He then joins a group of futuristic gladiators battling against demons led by The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie).

Jonathan Levine‘s 50/50 bares many similarities to a Hal Ashby film. Many writers/directors have attempted to emulate the Harold and Maude director’s style, capturing both the tragedies and odd humor of life, and most of the time they all come off as lazy homage. Like a bad film student trying to ape a filmmaker he or she loves, it’s embarrassing and clumsy. However, writer Will Reiser, co-star/producer Seth Rogen, and director Jonathan Levine managed to make a film inspired by the legend, and yet make their own personal and heartfelt story. A part of that heart comes from the honesty that the filmmakers captured. 50/50 had to jump over some big tonal obstacles, which, as our own review points out, it did so without a hitch. Here’s what Will Reiser and Seth Rogen had to say in our brief chat about Hal Ashby, real life not working on the page, and finding Jonathan Levine:

By all accounts, a movie dealing with assisted suicide has no business being as funny as Kill Me Please. Somehow, director Olias Barco has crafted a side-splitting exploration of people wanting to end their own life. Black and white, Belgian, and yet it defies all expectations to be instantly accessible and shockingly hilarious. At a large facility in the forest, Doctor Krueger (Aurélien Recoing) helps people at the end of their rope. His main goal is to stop them from drinking the poison he applies with dignity, but he isn’t always successful. As a new group of paying customers moves into the building, and the nearby townsfolk plan to carry torches against the place, the good doctor struggles to keep the people who want to die from being killed.

There’s an old maxim that states that everyone in show business is fake. The traditional interpretation of that is that everyone in Hollywood is ready to be kind to your face, but stab you in the back and probably piss on the wound. That may be an exaggeration, but in the case of these 6 comedians, though, they really are fake. As in literally fake. Their public personae are carefully crafted, and you only occasionally see the real person behind it. Most of the time it’s just an extension of the person’s actual personality, but some of them are completely and totally fictitious people. For example, Bono is an experimental attention-seeking robot. Or take Neil Patrick Harris, who is actually a shaved ferret. You had no idea, right? Here are six comedians that almost never break the fourth wall to reveal their true selves.

We weren’t really sure if last week’s Commentary Commentary was gross enough for the lot of you. So a poll was taken – it pretty much consisted of Brian Salisbury and myself – and it was decided the ante needed to be upped this week. Especially in honor of Fantastic Fest, we felt it was time to really turn on the gore and mindlessly fun commentary tracks. So we’re heading back with the South Park boys to Cannibal! The Musical, Trey Parker‘s first feature film which was subsequently picked up by Lloyd Kaufman and the fine (?) people at Troma Entertainment. What we got shocked and amazed even our gore-filled hearts and minds. A grotesque but absolutely hilarious look at the real-life trial of Alferd Packer, a 19th Century prospector who was accused of cannibalism in Colorado. The film isn’t the most accurate depiction of the events, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t entertaining. Equally entertaining is this commentary track featuring cast, crew, and ample amounts of consumed alcohol, something most commentary tracks are lacking in. Here’s what we found out. Note: it isn’t much.