This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr recovers from his colossal failure in getting any of his votes in the Critic’s Choice Movie Awards to count (except for A Separation for best foreign film, but who didn’t think that would win?) by engaging in therapy via multiplex. Unfortunately, it’s January, and his only choices were Marky Mark and the Smuggling Bunch or Queen Latifah going mano-y-mano with the robot Dolly Parton. He opts for the action film, but he may have also fallen asleep during it. How soon until good movies are released again?

In a week where a trailer was released where apes take over the planet, I think that this trailer for the upcoming Will Ferrell comedy Casa de mi Padre is still the coolest, weirdest thing I’ve seen. In former SNL writer and Funny or Die contributor Matt Piedmont’s first film, you’ve got Will Ferrell playing a Mexican named Armando Alvarez and speaking only in Spanish, Nick Offerman in full Ron Swanson mustache asking people if they speak American, awesome dramatic actors like Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal trading ridiculous dialogue, and a hottie named Genesis Rodriguez two palming Will Ferrell’s bare ass. The film plays like a big budget telenovela, and while it is clearly a ridiculous comedy, it seems to get the telenovela feel right by taking itself terribly seriously. In Casa de mi Padre’s own mind, it is the awesomest movie that ever existed. The trailer goes as far as listing for you all of the awesome things it features, up to and including, guns, cigarettes, special effects, and slaps. I don’t know how you can argue with that.  Take a load off and give it a gander, you won’t be sorry.

The last few weeks have been emotionally exhausting and utterly surreal for me, and visiting with some of my favorite movies for advice has been a big help in moving forward. Of course this isn’t the same as talking with a good friend or crying into a whole box of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins (with sprinkles!), but sometimes the stories unfolding on screen just make you feel better in a way talking and eating just can’t. All my time watching movies has taught me if a heartbroken soul can get through it, head held high and sane, so can I. But where do we draw the line between real and too real when it comes to romance and sex in film? Sex complicates, but does it also have to destroy the lives involved? In Cruel Intentions, sex is used as a key element in an emotionally manipulative game between Kathryn and Sebastian, whereas in Y Tu Mama Tambien sex leaves best friends confused about their future, and in Blue Valentine sex brings upon the end of a relationship representing so many couples before and after. In each of these films, the act itself is both poignant and flawed, and no one walks away uninjured.

There are few things better in this life than realizing something ridiculous is real. It’s like the first time you found out chocolate chip pancakes weren’t some elaborate ruse invented by your parents to get you to the oatmeal-filled breakfast table. Come on. Seriously? It’s pancakes with chocolate in them? The cinematic chocolate chips in this case are falling where they may, and that happens to be in the big warm pancake of Will Ferrell’s Spanish-language comedy Casa de Mi Padre. Not only is the project real, it’s also got a hell of a cast lined up. Both Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are phenomenal talents – the kind of talents that would be challenged by something like this to great result. Bernal will play a friend of the Ferrell/Luna family with Luna filling in for John C. Reilly this go round as Ferrell’s brother. Before you ask, yes, theoretically they could end up naked in bed together again. Although it’s great that Ferrell has gotten some great help for the film, it won’t matter if he keeps thinking everything in the language means “Whale Vagina.” [Collider]

There’s something wrong with Abel. We know this moments into Diego Luna’s directorial debut, aptly titled Abel.