This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr makes big plans to publish a best-selling book that women across the nation will read in hoity-toity book clubs. Step one: Move to the deep south and get raised by an African American maid. While Kevin tries to figure out how to move past that step, he gets a job delivering pizzas and lives in constant fear he’ll be used in a bank heist. Then he cheats death by avoiding the Glee concert movie, but lives in even more constant fear that the flick will hunt him down and make him watch it.

30 Minutes or Less is a movie that takes risks. In a flat landscape of studio movies that seem mostly to be shoved into a formula that doesn’t quite work anymore, watching this film is like drinking an ice cold lemonade on a hot summer day that’s been spiked with stuff that would put hair on your chest. For all the laughs and gore of Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer seems to have taken this comedy about a pizza boy forced to rob a bank simply to further prove he can get away with anything he wants. And he gets away with it, because the movies he makes are damned funny. This is a film for adults that grabs its anatomy, goes about its business, and doesn’t care to cater to any particular sensibility. It’s because of that attitude that it all works so well. The direction, the actors, and the writing commit fully to the premise, and sells us on the bit by sheer willpower (and a healthy amount of adult language and situations).

I’m starting to feel a pretty strange connection to Louis Leterrier‘s upcoming heist movie Now You See Me. First he seemed to be practically reading my mind by casting all of my favorite actors in prominent roles. And now, just days after I randomly and nonsensically mentioned Morgan Freeman in an article reporting on Mark Ruffalo and Amanda Seyfried joining the cast, comes word that Leterrier is negotiating with Freeman to join the film as well. Hello? Louis? Are you in there? Can you hear my thoughts? Let’s run down the cast once more, and see where Freeman fits in. Jesse Eisenberg is set to play the leader of a group of magicians (now being referred to as “the Four Horsemen” in the Variety article) who use their powers of illusion to rob banks and then shower the audience at their magic shows with money. Mark Ruffalo will play the head F.B.I. dude intent on shutting their little crime ring down. Amanda Seyfried will be playing the technician that builds all of the magicians’ equipment. And Melanie Laurent is set to play a lead character who sits on the right side of the law.

Director Ruben Fleischer seems to have cashed in all his chips from Zombieland and made a small, dark, action comedy. Underneath its obvious commercial appeal, chances are taken with the humor of 30 Minutes or Less. Whether it be with Michael Pena‘s performance or being unafraid to have actual stakes, the film doesn’t always play it safe. One would think Fleischer would jump right away into the world of tent-pole filmmaking, but he decided to wisely follow-up his hit film with a project that’ll allow his sensibilities to show. Fleischer won’t be staying in the comedy world forever, though. With his next film, The Gangster Squad, the director will be tackling an epic L.A.-set gangster picture through a digital camera lens. The director was kind enough to make the time to talk while prepping The Untouchables-esque epic, where we discussed the darkness of 30 Minutes or Less, grounding comedies, and his love for digital filmmaking:

The Double has only just been announced, and already there’s a lot to like about this project. Directed by Richard Ayoade, starring Jesse Eisenberg, and adapted from a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, this is a project with a pretty strong pedigree. If you’ve never heard of Ayoade, he’s not only one of the stars of the BBC comedy series The IT Crowd, he’s also the director of the feature film Submarine, which got a limited release in the United States earlier this year and probably didn’t get seen by enough people. It was a quirky look at a coming of age young man, kind of in the vein of a Harold and Maude or a Rushmore. Fyodor Dostoyevsky is the challenging but rewarding Russian author whose work you’ve probably been assigned and hopefully didn’t avoid at some point in your academic career. This film will be adapted from his novella “The Double: A Petersburg Poem”, which is either a surreal story where its main character is followed around by an exact double of himself that tries to ruin his life, or a look at the schizophrenic breakdown of a man who is hallucinating that an exact double of himself is following him around and ruining his life. And Jesse Eisenberg, well hell, you know who he is. He will most likely be doing his usual, nervous and neurotic shtick for this film, but this time doubly so. Looks like it might be time to call up his old co-worker Armie

Louis Leterrier seems to be intent on pulling off the greatest magic trick of all time: getting all of my favorite young actors to appear in the same film. A movie about illusionists turned bank robbers playing a game of cat and mouse with the F.B.I. is interesting enough just as a pitch, but every new name he adds to the Now You See Me cast ends up making me more and more excited to see the end product. First he snagged Jesse Eisenberg to play the lead role. Eisenberg is an actor that started turning heads with The Squid and the Whale and then just kept turning in constantly solid work until finally achieving mainstream acclaim with his turn as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Any notion of him being the other Michael Cera has been long disproven. After getting a leading man, Leterrier needed an equally charming leading lady so he went after French actress Melanie Laurent. She, of course, is the feisty little philly who blew everyone (including important Nazi officials) away as Shoshanna in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. That’s quite a pair already.

A while back I first heard that Louis Leterrier’s next project was going to be a heist movie about magicians who robbed banks. It was an interesting enough concept to pique my interest, but I still had a bad taste left in my mouth after Clash of the Titans. I guess enough time must have passed, because hearing about the project again, I don’t find much of that ill will still remaining. I think I’m kind of looking forward to this next movie. It just might be a new day for Leterrier and me. Or maybe I’m just happy that the new news about the film is that Melanie Laurent is in negotiations to play the female lead. I do so crush on that little pixie-like lady. You know who she is, right? The girl from Inglorious Basterds and Beginners? Yeah, she’s fun. Jake Gyllenhaal was also pondering the idea of joining the cast for a while, but seems to have passed for one reason or another. But that doesn’t break my heart much, because Jesse Eisenberg is still set to star. After his recent string of awesome films I’d say that I’ve developed a little bit of a man-crush on the Eisenberg, so if Leterrier manages to score Laurent he will be 2 for 2 with me. Eisenberg, Laurent, in a movie about the FBI tracking down bank robber magicians? Yeah, I’m down with that. Clash of the Titans who? [Variety]

Even though Woody Allen’s latest film Midnight in Paris is still doing gangbusters in theaters, it’s time to start talking about his next project. I mean, the guy does one of these things a year, there’s no time to sit back and soak up any success. His next film, The Bop Decameron, sees him continuing his tour of Europe by filming in Rome. Makes sense, seeing as ever since he stopped filming in New York City we’ve already gotten movies from him set in England, Spain, and France. Why wouldn’t Italy be next on the itinerary? The films location isn’t the thing worth talking about though. What’s really newsworthy is that earlier today Allen made a show of announcing the official cast. His first announcement was that he himself would be returning to acting for this one, something we haven’t seen him do for half a decade, since 2006’s Scoop. The rest of the casting news is that The Bop Decameron will star, alphabetically, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, and Ellen Page. There are just too many actors I love, especially young actors, in that list to even begin dissecting why this is an awesome cast. I’ll just say I’m gushing at the thought of hearing Eisenberg deliver Woody dialogue and leave it at that. In addition to these names, Allen also says that the film will co-star Antonio Albanese, Fabio Armiliata, Alessandra Mastronardi, Ornella Muti, Flavio Parenti, Alison Pill, Riccardo Scamarcio and

The last time I reported on Noah Baumbach’s next project, While We’re Young, it was with the unfortunate news that James Franco and Cate Blanchett had been forced to drop out of the film. At the time I held out hopes that Baumbach might be able to easily replace the actors with Jesse Eisenberg and Greta Gerwig, and it’s looking like at least half of my hopes and dreams are probably going to come true. While We’re Young is about a couple in their forties who are feeling alienated by their normal set of friends because they haven’t had any children, so they befriend a younger couple who kind of teaches them to rekindle their youth. Now that I know more about the plot of the film, having Gerwig replace Blanchett’s character wouldn’t make much sense age wise, but they seem to have found a different, equally awesome choice to fill her role that does work.

In 2003 a man walked into a bank in Erie, PA with a bomb strapped to his chest. He claimed he was being forced to wear the explosive device and that if he didn’t succeed in robbing the bank his captors would detonate it. The police caught up with him in nearby parking lot, handcuffed him, and waited around (at a safe distance) for the bomb squad to arrive. They waited too long. As the man pleaded with police as to why no one was coming to remove the bomb it exploded, blew a hole through his chest, and killed him instantly. Sounds like ripe material for a comedy to me! 30 Minutes Or Less is the new film from Zombieland director, Ruben Fleischer, and while it isn’t actually based on the real life incident it has potential to be a very dark comedy indeed. Jesse Eisenberg plays a pizza delivery driver who has a bomb forcibly attached to his body and is then instructed to rob a bank. Aziz Ansari plays his best friend who tries to help him through this fairly difficult situation, and Danny McBride and Nick Swardson play the diabolical masterminds behind the plan. Check out the trailer and share your thoughts below.

What is Movie News After Dark? When it was first being written tonight, it was going to be a very silly column. Then some serious (and seriously awesome) links were found and you were saved from a fate far more ridiculous than usual. We’ll save that for another time. In this moment, on this night, Movie News After Dark presents you with all kinds of interesting things, words and doo-dads. But most of all, there will be fun. Aziz Ansari and Jesse Eisenberg are just around the building, ready to do something that will undoubtedly lead to hilarity in Ruben Fleischer’s 30 Minutes or Less, the film that will combine pizza delivery with the plot concept of Speed. Doesn’t that just make you urgently hungry? This new look is part of a slew of Entertainment Weekly magazine clippings found over at The Playlist.

Stop me if you’ve heard this all before. In the world of big screen animation, there’s Pixar and there’s everybody else. There’s something special about those Toy tale telling animators from Emeryville, something that indicates up front that each of their films has the potential to be a deeply emotional experience for an audience of any age. This review is not about one of those kinds of movies, nor is it about Pixar. It’s about Blue Sky Studios and their new film Rio. But it’s important to note the difference that Pixar films have up front, because the desire to compare and contrast is unavoidable. And it’s that emotional element that could be the only differentiator between this, Blue Sky’s best effort to date, and the industry’s gold standard.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in a fabulous blue feather outfit and takes a trip to Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. There, he runs into a couple blue macaws trying to escape exotic bird smuggles, but he’s too busy getting his freak on to help out. Later, he comes back to the states to visit the quaint town of Woodsboro, only this time he’s traded in his fabulous blue feather outfit for a long, black cloak and a “ghost face” mask. After making some calls to random twentysomething girls who are supposed to be teenagers and asking them what their favorite scary movies are, he spent a night in the hospital from a stab wound to the face. Oh, the humanity!

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?

Jesse Eisenberg wasn’t on Facebook when he took the job to star as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, so he spent a few weeks under an alias trying to understand the experience that the man behind his role created for millions upon millions of users. With his performance, it seems to have paid off. Luke Mullen sits down with the star to talk about playing a sympathetic villain/hero, to drop a few Terminator references and to better understand how someone manages to fit all of Aaron Sorkin’s words into their mouth.

The Social Network is nothing new, but that’s kind of the point. Its structure creates a story of uniquely American ingenuity, individualism, and capital that we’ve seen often, one that follows beat-for-beat the formula of young, ambitious, humble beginnings to meteoric rise toward contested success to the people that really mattered being inevitably pushed out of the way. It is in The Social Network’s belonging to that subgenre which draws apt comparison to films like Citizen Kane, Sweet Smell of Success, or There Will Be Blood – not qualitative comparisons, mind you (the very title of Citizen Kane has become an inescapable and meaningless form of hyperbole in that regard), but comparable in terms of basic narrative structure and genre play. Such narratives are perhaps more common in films depicting less legitimate business practices – gangster films – which also catalog the rise in stature but fall in character of an outcast who uses the system for their own advantage. From starry-eyed associations with questionable made men (Timberlake’s Sean Parker and the debaucheries of success associated with him) to the inevitable “hit” on one’s kin in the best interest of the business (Zuckerberg and Parker firing Eduardo Saverin), The Social Network is something of a Goodfellas for geeks. Why is it that the first major studio film about the phenomenon of social networking feels like such a familiar movie? Why does it resort to well-honed, expertly crafted but familiar cinematic territory instead of pioneering unexplored terrain analogous to the phenomenon

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr strikes out against… well, pretty much everyone reviewing movies by taking issue with The Social Network. Sue him if you don’t agree, or friend him at Facebook.com/FatGuysattheMovies. But while he cringes under the weight of Jesse Eisenberg’s smug Michael Cera impression, he also rejoices in October being officially here and all the horror movies the month of Halloween promises to bring. Up first, he cowers in a dark theater to the likes of Let Me In and Case 39.

Be it good or bad, The Social Network has certainly caused some extreme reactions. It was met with almost universal skepticism when it was first announced and has now seen nearly universal praise leading up to its release in theaters. Initially referred to as “the Facebook movie” in a way clearly meant to belittle it, audiences at early screenings across the country have discovered that description simply isn’t accurate. Is the movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the inception of Facebook? Of course it is.  But to say that this is a detriment to the film’s potential is just plain wrong. The Social Network follows the story of Mark Zuckerberg, a young computer genius attending Harvard University. After breaking up with his girlfriend and some drunken blogging, Mark decides to create a site to rank the sex appeal of Harvard co-eds. He uses his exemplary computer knowledge to download pictures from the online photo catalog’s that each house or dorm at Harvard has for students to get to know one another.  He compiles the photos into a website which he dubs facemash.com similar to hotornot.com where visitors are presented with two pictures and asked to click on the one who they find sexier. The site crashes Harvard’s computer network in a matter of hours, garnering tens of thousands of htis and drawing the ire of the administration. This leads to Mark developing a new website which he calls The Facebook. Eventually changed to just Facebook with the help of Napster-founder Sean