“This is wrong, Will.” Stunning commentary on the state of medical testing? Seething critique of prequel/rebooting a beloved sci-fi franchise? Straightforward reaction to the new title of the movie? It’s probably all of the above, but it’s also one of two lines Freida Pinto has in the first trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It looks like a throwback to Robin Cook-style science thrillers. A modern-day Frankenstein tale where the patched-together man comes in the form of hundreds of primates swinging in the tree tops of your neighborhood. Seriously, it feels like The Birds for a second, but much, much hairier. Check out the trailer for yourself:

Here’s a fun April Fool’s Day prank you can pull (that will be even more effective now that it’s not April Fool’s Day). Take this four-second-long clip that showcases an ape from Rise of the Planet of the Apes (and, yes, I know I called it a monkey in the headline, and I know they’re vastly different species), and tell your friend that it’s a real ape filmed in a zoo. I’d bet money that a solid amount of people would buy that it’s real. That solid amount will probably let loose some pant juices because of it. That’s how scary WETA is. Take a look at this CGI, and think in the back of your mind about the original films and the apes from Tim Burton’s go at it.

The fact that a major studio made Your Highness is both reassuring and baffling. The commercial appeal is there, obviously, but this isn’t your standard comedic fare. David Gordon Green’s 80s fantasy throwback is filled with crudeness and audacity. This is a film with a child molesting puppet; isn’t that such a thing of genius which defines ambition? I believe so. A film like Your Highness is, as stated before, reassuring because we’re witnessing such talents as Green and co-writer/star Danny McBride getting to further explore their divisive sensibilities in a rather sizable studio film. Danny McBride didn’t just set out to make a parody or a satire, but a genuine adventure film that, which he admits, isn’t for everyone. Your Highness is not the pot comedy one expects, but a road movie about lovable and immature idiots. McBride’s Thadeous is a moron in all senses of the word, except an actual self-aware moron. There’s a charm to his baboon-like nature. Your Highness is almost a coming of age story, but about a grown, pot-smoking, and crude man. Here’s what Danny McBride had to say about getting a comedy with a large scope, not making a spoof, crafting lovable idiots, and the difficulty of practical effects:

Let’s play a game. I’m going to tell a joke, you decide if it’s funny. Ready? Why did the chicken cross the road? Balls. If you chortled at that, then have I got a movie for you. It’s called Your Highness, and in addition to a once ambitious director and a cast filled with actors who really should know better it features a script that never met a punchline it couldn’t replace with a swear word or a drug reference. Why build complicated gags when you can just say ‘fuck?’ Why give depth to your characters when you can just have them wear a severed cock around their neck? All the dirty words and phallic props in the world aren’t going to ruin a movie, but using them in place of real comedy, actual jokes, and smart writing sure as hell isn’t going to help. A king has two sons of opposite worth who could only be related in Hollywood. Fabious (James Franco) is heroic, righteous, and fabulously coiffed while his brother Thadeous (Danny McBride) is foul-mouthed, portly, and socially retarded. One of Fabious’s many adventures nets him a fair maiden named Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel, speaking barely a line or two more than she spoke in Avatar) who he plans to marry. Their happy day is spoiled when the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux) kidnaps her with plans to use her virginal vagina as a dragon egg incubator. The two brother set off on a quest to rescue the maiden [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]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr spends a long day in the multiplex, checking out a variety of films from alcoholic romantic comedies to nature documentaries with elephants and orangutans. He drinks himself silly and hits on Greta Gerwig in Arthur, narrowly escapes being killed by ass-kicking teen assassin Hanna, narrowly escapes getting his arm bitten off by a tiger shark in Soul Surfer and peeps in on Natalie Portman undressing for a swim in Your Highness. Too bad she’s pregnant now, ‘cause Kevin just ain’t into that scene.

When news broke that the upcoming James Franco doing battle with super-smart monkeys movie Rise of the Apes was being bumped up from a Thanksgiving release to a release on August 5th, it was a bittersweet moment for me. On the one hand it seemed like a fall movie being bumped up to a summer release meant the studio must see a lot of potential in it. On the other hand, with Rise of the Apes coming out on August 5th, I would now have to choose between seeing that or The Smurfs on that sweltering August weekend. You’ve heard of The Smurfs, right? The movie that had the most mind blowing trailer that we’ve ever seen? Well the good news is that Krom is not a cruel God, because he has seen to it that we shall have both our monkey fighting and our 80s nostalgia gone wrong. The cries of the people have been heard and Deadline Smurfville reports that The Smurfs has been bumped a week forward to July 29th. That’s just one day after my birthday, so I am going to choose to believe that Sony reads my news updates and has made this move as a present to me. All I can say is, thanks Sony, thanks a smurfing lot.

When I first read the title Rise of the Apes I was hoping that it was going to be a big budget prequel of one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 subjects of scrutiny 1987’s Time of the Apes. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a direct connection. Rise of the Apes is going to be one of those humans versus talking apes movies made famous by the legendary Planet of the Apes though. This one seems to be set on modern day Earth and it tells the story of a science experiment gone wrong. In this movie James Franco plays a geneticist that accidentally creates a race of super intelligent monkeys who revolt against their human overlords and try to take over our society. It just sounds like something James Franco would do. Freida Pinto is also set to star, and Andy Serkis will be playing some sort of monkey character. And toss in a little Brian Cox and John Lithgow for good measure. None of this is new news though. The big development when it comes to this monkey movie is that Fox is moving up its release date. Originally it was scheduled to come out on Thanksgiving, but now it will join the end of summer blockbuster hopefuls with an August 5th release. I imagine that we should take this as good news. Moving a film from the fall to the summer must mean that somebody at the studio has watched a cut of this thing [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]

The last year or so has seen James Franco stacking up as many projects as he can on top of one other, and many people have been waiting for the tower to fall. Well down it comes, and it’s landing on Noah Baumbach’s head. Franco was scheduled to star in the upcoming Baumbach project While We’re Young, but has now been pulled from the film due to commitments to Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful. It seems that one man can’t earn a PHD, host awards shows, appear in soap operas, star in big budget films, AND star in independent movies. He can only do four of the five. Oh, and direct a bunch of stuff on the side. He’s not Superman, people. Why does the Oz movie take precedence over Baumbach’s next naval gazer? Probably because it’s made by Disney. You don’t cross those people.

We do this every week. Because no one has time to read every great article we post here on Film School Rejects and be a productive member of society, the weekends provide us an excellent opportunity to get caught up on all the stuff that happened over the last seven days. This week we wrote a big helping of reviews, more than a few excellent, insightful editorials and as always, we were there when news broke to provide the necessary context (and snark). From Johnny Depp as a Hunter S. Thompson lizard to Oscar winners to solving your existential crisis with kids movies, this week that was had many twists and turns — all of which you’ll be glad you followed. So get set to get caught up with The Week That Was.

Ever feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place? Well, talk to Aron Ralston about that, or talk to James Franco who played Ralston in the film 127 Hours. Yeah, I know… It just might be in bad taste to propose a drinking game about a man who was dying of dehydration over the course of five days, but I’ve never been one to shy away from bad taste. So take a couple drinks to wash that bad taste out of your mouth as you watch 127 Hours on DVD or Blu-ray.

You might know Harmony Korine as the writer of Kids, which was a disturbingly frank and exploitive look at urban adolescence. Maybe you know him from his direction of Gummo, a disturbingly frank and exploitive look at poor, white culture in Middle America. Maybe you remember his Julien Donkey Boy, which had Werner Herzog spraying a kid with a hose for five minutes and doing Tai Chi while wearing a gas mask. Or maybe you would even recognize him as the weird little guy who asks Matt Damon if he wants any of his ass in Good Will Hunting. Regardless, Harmony Korine is someone who is constantly exploring the weird, always living on the edge of what society will accept; and now he’s hanging out with James Franco. Uh-oh. So what have these two been coming up with while spending time together? They’ve decided they want to make an art film about street fights that will include a real gang brawl. A New York Post source was quoted as saying, “They are looking to film two actual street gangs doing a fight scene. The twist is they want the two gangs to fight, using real knives. The production team is panicked that they’ll end up with blood, injuries and potentially dead bodies on set.” Somebody should probably separate these two before something bad happens. Or go the other way and have them work on something with Charlie Sheen and Nic Cage that will blow all of our minds.

Dear Mr. Franco, Before I say anything else, I just want to say, at the risk of sounding like a brown-nosing blogger writing a hypothetical letter to a movie star who most definitely will not read it, that I actually do appreciate what you’re trying to do. Many people would start a post like this heavy on the snark and in total dismissal of a star’s decision to construct their career as performance art. But I don’t. I think it’s kind of interesting. Kind of. We know you’re talented. And we know you like to explore a variety of avenues of expression. It’s not just that you’re actor, but an actor who can play Aron Ralston and Alan Ginsberg, convincingly, in the same year. It’s not just that you’re a filmmaker, but the filmmaker that made Saturday Night, which is more enjoyable than anything SNL has produced in years. It’s not just that you’re pursuing a PhD, but…well, I’m actually not familiar with your scholarship, but I’m sure you’ll publish something someday. Anyway, this is to say I’m writing from the perspective of a reluctant fan. But after Sunday night, you and everybody that respects you deserves a damn break.

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?

This article is part of our Oscar Week Series, where you will find breakdowns and predictions for all of the major categories. If you want to separate the actors who are just good from the ones who are truly great, the best way to do it is to look at the winners of the Best Actor Oscar. Without exception the greats are the ones who win the award, and the ones who don’t are proven to just not be elite level actors. It’s science. Or, probably, none of that is true at all. The fact is: there are a lot of reasons someone might be nominated for an Academy Award and someone else might not be. And there are even more reasons why one of those nominees goes on to win and the others don’t. Quality of performance is not necessarily the end-all be-all. But the Best Actor award is probably one of the Oscars that has best retained its credibility over the decades. There aren’t a lot of stinker performances that have been wrongly praised muddying up the list. To have your name appear alongside greats like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, and Sir Nicolas Cage is still seen as being a rare honor. So what does the field look like this year? With my guess highlighted in red, the nominees are…

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?

If you’re like me, then you’re a Wizard of Oz fan. A big one. The kind that buys symphony tickets to see an orchestra perform the music live while the film plays on the big screen. That whole world is so utterly fantastical and fascinating, so the prospect of so many new Oz-related projects (that have nothing to do with prison) is pretty incredible. Sam Raimi’s own little corner in the county and the land of Oz, titled Oz The Great and Powerful, just got a little bit more interesting as Mila Kunis signed on to play the Wicked Witch of the West. That piece of the puzzle also finally secured James Franco in the leading role. Sorry to disappoint anyone who read the headline and though, “She-Hulk! Finally!” According to Vulture, there’s an intriguing back story to all of it, specifically related to Kunis turning down a leading role in Akira in order to do this one (and Warners offering the iconic role of Kaneda to, seriously, of all people, Brad Pitt). How can they go wrong here? They have two great actors (one of whom we just learned was a great actor), and with any luck, Raimi’s take on the story of the land before Dorthy will be just as colorful as Baum’s novels. Kunis was such a raw, malevolent force in Black Swan, so it’ll be pretty cool to see her transform into the character delivered with such salt by Margaret Hamilton back in 1939. Bring out [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]

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?

James Franco already seemed to be apologizing for this year’s Academy Awards telecast in a sit down with Vanity Fair’s The Screening Room. When asked about how he and co-host Anne Hathaway came about getting the hosting position Franco explained, “They know we’re not Billy Crystal or Chris Rock. They’re not asking us because they’re expecting that. The show is going to be designed for what we can do.” So if what guys like Billy Crystal and Chris Rock can do is fill up the show with comedy and musical numbers, what is that thing that Franco and Hathaway can do? Will Franco spend most of the ceremony with his arm trapped under a statue while Hathaway romps around on stage in her underwear? If so, I don’t see what the concern is. This is clearly going to be the greatest Oscars ever. But even if it goes in the exact opposite direction, Franco doesn’t seem concerned. He goes on to say, “If it’s the worst Oscars ever, who cares? It’s like; it’s fine. It’s like one night. It doesn’t matter. If I host the worst Oscar show in the history of the Oscars, like, why do I care?” It seems that Franco has studied at the Ricky Gervais school of awards show hosting. Will 2011 go down as the year that everyone stopped buying in to the pomp and circumstance of Hollywood awards shows? Has the egoism of the whole undertaking finally become so much that it’s eating away [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]

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?

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?