Playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker Neil LaBute‘s stories aren’t for the faint of heart. They can be grueling in their dark humor, awkwardness and characters who will go as far as they have to for their own gain. Some Girl(s), which LaBute scripted from his own stage play, recently made its premiere at SXSW and sits comfortably in the gut-punching world his fans have come to love. The lead of the film, the Man (Adam Brody), is a selfish, narcissistic writer who isn’t afraid of embarrassing others with his stories. According to LaBute, he himself isn’t that kind of man, and none of his personal life sneaks into his work. The writer and director of In the Company of Men, The Shape of Things, and others creates from his imagination, choosing not to pirate from his own life or others. When we see the protagonist of Some Girl(s) doing so, it makes for an annoyingly oblivious character, but as LaBute tells us, he never sets out to annoy the audience with his conniving. The writer of Some Girl(s) was kind enough to speak with us at great length about those uncomfortable stories he’s famous for, how The Wickerman isn’t based on his life, and more about his process:

Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell raised $2m through Kickstarter yesterday, and they did it in under 10 hours. As of this morning, their effort to score a budget for a Veronica Mars movie has secured their goal with about $500,000 and 29 days to spare. One guy, entrepreneur Steve Dengler, even gave $10,000 to the production to get a small speaking role in the film (and because he’s a big, big supporter of crowdfunding). What they did took a certain kind of courage. Maybe not greater courage than the more-standardized model of getting money from fans when they hand it over at the box office, but absolutely a different type of courage. After all, it’s one nerve-wracking thing to convince studio executives that your idea has an audience, but it’s another to prove it out on the limb without the amount of fan support you thought you had. Simply put, it’s likely we’d all be writing different pieces if Thomas and Bell’s Kickstarter campaign were still languishing at $6,000. Fortunately, fans have proven their overwhelming dedication to seeing Ms. Mars again by breaking records and ensuring that Thomas may actually get to include a big choreographed fight scene amid all the broody talking. With 29 more days to raise funds, who knows how high they might go. Now, all of this comes with a catch: Warners (because they’ve held onto the copyright) will be distributing and making money off a movie that fans are funding. Depending on the deal they have with

Three years ago, I wrote a piece about why Warners needed to make a Veronica Mars movie. They didn’t. But now you can. Rob Thomas, the cult show’s creator, has launched a $2m Kickstarter project to bring the plucky young private eye played by Kristen Bell to the big screen. In the twenty minutes since it went live, it’s earned $40,000. Not bad. Obviously this could be huge for Veronica Mars fans, but it’s also a potentially big moment for the Kickstarted generation of filmmakers and for culture in general. Granted, this particular project has a high profile, but that’s the point. With Netflix resurrecting Arrested Development, the tide turned away from the originating channel, and with this, it could go beyond television altogether through a direct fan appeal.  If this proves successful, scorned patrons from Firefly to Jericho could stop mailing angry letters to studios and start electronically sending their very real, very monetary support to bring back a show they love in whatever form the creator sees fit to deliver. If Thomas and company are able to make this happen, and to make it a box office success, won’t Warners (and everyone else) feel dumb. It’ll prove that the audience was there all along, and that for properties like this, maybe we don’t really need the middle man to deliver. Update: In my haste to get this posted, I failed to note that Warners will be the one distributing the film. Which makes sense as they, of course, own the copyright on it. That

Any fan of playwright/screenwrtier/filmmaker Neil LaBute‘s honest depictions of cringe-inducing narcissism will be pleased by Some Girl(s). LaBute’s last few films – The Wickerman, Death at a Funeral, and Lakeview Terrace – have shown him going outside his comfort zone with varying results. Some Girl(s), which LaBute scripted (but didn’t direct) from his play of the same name, marks the theatrical return of the LaBute we love. His greatest works often resemble a car crash in motion with the driver smiling through every ding, bone crush, and bump while the victims are left with serious pain. The driver here is simply credited as “Man” and played by Adam Brody. The victims are a few of Man’s ex-girlfriends, all of whom feature distinct personalities and past issues with him. There is the older woman (Emily Watson) he had an affair with, a young girl (Zoe Kazan) he took advantage of, the High School girlfriend (Jennifer Morrison), the tattooed Chicago girl (Mia Maestro) who made him feel cool and the final girl is played by Kristen Bell. He’s doing all this to right any wrongs before marrying his newest girl.

Everyone has those moments when they question where their life is going, but hitting the pause button can end up doing more damage than good. When The Lifeguard‘s Leigh (Kristen Bell), a reporter for the Associated Press, covers a story about a tiger who had been kept in a cramped Manhattan apartment, Leigh’s overly emotional reaction to the scratch marks on the windowsill make it clear Leigh is struggling with her own anxieties about being trapped in a life she did not see for herself. Without a second thought, Leigh hops on a train and returns to her parent’s home in Connecticut, the lush landscape a stark difference to the harsh New York metropolis she is looking to escape.

What is Casting Couch? It’s the movie news column that’s easing into Christmas with a cup of coffee and some casting reports. Let’s take this one step at a time. Marvel Studios is on such a roll now that any movie they make that ties directly into their upcoming Avengers 2 is going to be a big deal—even if it’s based off of a comic book that nobody’s ever heard of like Guardians of the Galaxy. So, the competition among young actors to get cast as the Guardians’ leader, Star-Lord, is pretty fierce. According to Variety, that competition has been narrowed down to two guys. The trade reports that Jim Sturgess is the sole survivor of the original crop of five actors the studio screen tested for the role, and Zachary Levi impressed so much playing the smaller role of Fandral in Thor 2, that Marvel is looking to give him a larger role in their universe by maybe making him the half-human, half-alien leader of this ragtag crew. Who would you find more believable commanding a gun-toting space-raccoon?

Seeing as Wreck-It Ralph was Disney Animation’s most well-received movie in quite a while, the studio has wasted no time in getting one of its main creative talents to work on a new project. Today they announced in a press release [via ComingSoon] that Ralph co-writer Jennifer Lee is not only going to be handling some writing duties on their upcoming animated feature, Frozen, but that she will also be serving as co-director alongside studio vet Chris Buck (Tarzan, Surf’s Up). Frozen is an adventure tale about a magical kingdom that’s suffering under a spell that keeps it trapped in a perpetual winter. Its main characters are a brave young girl named Anna, a burly mountain man named Kristoff, and a reindeer sidekick named Sven. The main thrust of the film’s narrative is said to be this trio’s journey to find the Snow Queen and find a way to reverse her spell, which of course leads to them encountering treacherous mountain passes, all sorts of magical whatsits, mystical trolls, comical snowmen, and who knows how many other examples of weirdness along the way. Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Kristen Bell and Enchanted’s Idina Menzel are already on board to supply voices.

Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard) has something of a troubled past. For starters, his real name isn’t even Charlie Bronson, that’s the one he chose after he was put into witness protection for ratting out the bank robbers he was working for as a getaway driver. All of that unpleasantness is behind him now though, as he’s built a nice, quiet life in a nice, quiet town, and he has a girlfriend that he’s very much in love with (Kristen Bell). Problem is, his girlfriend doesn’t know about his past, and she’s just gotten a new job that’s going to force Mr. Bronson to move back to the town where his ex-partners (led by a dreadlocked Bradley Cooper) are waiting to kill him. Wacky situations, fast-driving, and a dangerous game of cat and mouse that also involves his witness protection officer (Tom Arnold) and his girlfriend’s crazy ex (Michael Rosenbaum) ensue. The best thing about Hit & Run is how likable the performances are. But the strongest of them aren’t coming from the actors who you may expect. Shepard and Bell get most of the film’s focus, and they’re largely enjoyable as the protagonists, but they’re playing the most boring characters who appear. True, they’re dealing with career stuff, clingy ex-boyfriends, and attempted murders that all act as big stumbling blocks in their path to potential happiness, but they’re never all that vexed by anything that they’re going through. They’re too thoroughly the perfect guy and the perfect girl to be

If you’ve ever wanted to see Kristen Bell get it on with a teen delinquent, have we got a project for you. Deadline Denver reports that Bell will star in Liz W. Garcia‘s The Lifeguard, which centers on “a reporter on the verge of 30 who abandons her life in New York City, returns home to get her high school job as a lifeguard, and starts a dangerous relationship with a 16-year-old delinquent.” Oh, yeah! The Lifeguard sounds a bit like the soon-to-be-released Hello I Must Be Going, but considering how often audiences are subjected to films about older men going through quarter- and mid-life crises that involve a relationship with a younger lady, seeing the story flipped to be female-centric is a nice change. The film will also star Mamie Gummer, Martin Starr, Alex Shaffer, Joshua Harto, and Amy Madigan. While none of their roles have been specified, that’s a pretty solid supporting cast, so The Lifeguard already sounds significantly more swim-y than sink-y. We’ll also hazard a guess that perhaps Shaffer (Win Win) will play the delinquent teen, as he’s the youngest cast member named here, and while he’s nineteen years old, he has a young enough face for the role.

The action-comedy is theoretically one of the best movie genres ever, because it lets you laugh and watch stuff explode at the same time. The danger with them is, if the comedy gets too silly, the action scenarios don’t hit with any weight, and if the action sequences get too intense, it’s hard to find any humor in the life and death stuff happening on the screen. You have to skirt the line just right and maintain the perfect tone in order to make an action-comedy successful, and I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, but the new trailer for Hit and Run makes it look like writer/co-director Dax Shepard has hit the nail on the head. Hit and Run is the story of an ex-wheelman in the witness protection program (played by Shepard) who has left his wicked ways behind him and found himself in the incredibly fortunate situation of shacking up with Kristen Bell. Everything in his new life is just peachy – until his former cohorts find out where he is and start hitting people in the noses with golf clubs and demanding untold sums of money. Lots of chase scenes and yelling ensue.

Just on the heels of the announcement that Kristen Bell had signed on to be the first of Adam Brody’s many ex-girlfriends in Some Girls, THR has a report that a whole bevy of additional actresses have come out of the woodwork to fill out the ranks of Brody’s former flames. You see, Some Girls is an adaptation of a Neil LaBute play about a young writer who is looking to take stock of his past romantic entanglements and gain closure with each of his exes before he moves forward in his life and marries his current fiancée. Bell is said to be playing a character named Bobbi, a whip-smart little lady who Brody’s character walked away from without so much as a word. And with this new casting announcement, it’s looking like the Jennifer Getzinger-directed film version of this story will be including four other girls that have a bone to pick with the reflective protagonist as well. The biggest name of the bunch is Emily Watson, who will be playing a married woman named Lindsay who Brody’s character had an affair with. Watson has had a whole bunch of great roles before this, but she’s probably best known for her Oscar nominated performances in Breaking the Waves and Hilary and Jackie. To say that she adds some pedigree to this production would be something of an understatement.

A couple months ago it was reported that The OC’s Adam Brody was attached to star in an adaptation of a Neil LaBute play called Some Girls. To be helmed by Mad Men and Flight of the Conchords director Jennifer Getzinger, and shot from a screenplay by LaBute himself, Some Girls is one of those naval-gazing relationship stories about a character taking stock of their romantic history. In this case, said character is a writer who feels like he has to get closure with his ex-girlfriends before he can enter into a marriage with his current fiancée. That means flying all across the country to track these girls down and get a little of the old face-to-face. And, for this movie, it means a need to cast a gaggle of young actresses. So far, Getzinger and company seem to be off to a good start. THR reports that the first female member of the Some Girls cast has been signed, and it’s none other than Veronica Mars’ Kristen Bell. Reportedly, Bell will be playing a character named Bobbi, a super-smart girl that Brody’s character walked out on years earlier without a word. Predictably, she doesn’t have a very high opinion of him these days.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr heads out to the drab English countryside to settle a woman’s estate only to find the place haunted. Fortunately, Kevin had already crawled down a mysterious hole and gained super powers, so he’s able to fend off the evil spirits. For a fleeting moment, he considers using his new powers for good, like to save a family of gray whales trapped under the ice in Barrow, Alaska. However, his fear of the 30 Days of Night vampires keep him at home. He then decides to use his new powers to read the subtitles of The Hidden Face so he can enjoy the copious amounts of pretty Colombian breasts.

We are told early on in Big Miracle that “everybody loves whales!” It’s both an excuse and a rallying cry and, had Ken Kwapis‘ film stuck with its first moniker, it would have also been the title of his latest film. Someone apparently had the foresight to slay that terrible name, but it’s still managed to worm its way into the finished feature, where it’s pronounced earnestly, practically begging for its audience to nod and say, “yep, it’s true – just everybody loves whales.” Strangely enough, it’s that tossed-aside title that sums up Big Miracle quite neatly – earnest, insane, and conducive to crowd participation and (positive) involvement.

Back when he was getting his start torturing celebrities on the Ashton Kutcher produced MTV prank show Punk’d it would have been hard to predict that comedian Dax Shepard would get to where he is today. He’s gone from wearing silly fake mustaches and telling Justin Bieber that his dad died to starring in big Hollywood movies, getting engaged to the criminally hot Kristen Bell, and now even making features of his own. Deadline Milford is reporting that Outrun, a movie that Shepard wrote and directed himself, has been acquired for domestic release by Open Road Pictures. This isn’t just a little project that Shepard made in his backyard either, this is a big comedy with an ensemble cast. Shepard himself stars as an ex-getaway driver who must break out of jail to drive his girlfriend to L.A. so that she can get the job of her dreams, Kristen Bell is playing the girlfriend, Tom Arnold is playing a federal agent on their tail, Bradley Cooper is playing the leader of the gang Shepard used to be a part of, and somehow names like Beau Bridges, Kristin Chenoweth and David Koechner are all involved as well.

What if there were a shirt that would drive women around you into an uncontrollable sexual stupor? That’s the central conceit behind Chick Magnet, and of course the second big question is how to explain to her why you want to keep your shirt on during sex. The trailer for the low budget sex comedy definitely shows its limitations, but there’s at least a little bit to chuckle at here and a heart that will inevitably be involved (since one of the characters wants to use the shirt to get his crappy ex-wife back). Plus, somehow the production tricked Tracy Morgan, Kristen Bell and Rosario Dawson into making appearances as themselves. For those keeping score, an unknown writer/director and writer/producer (named Ryan R. Williams and Jeff Venables) created a movie where every woman wants to sex them up, and they somehow convinced Bell and Dawson to be two of those women. So, yeah, check it out:

While talking about screenwriting methods with Marti Noxon on Reject Radio, she mentioned that by sticking to a few internal rules, she’d been able to make a solid name for herself and get to a point in her career where she could hop behind the director’s chair. Maybe we should all write those rules down. It doesn’t have financing yet, but Noxon revealed that she had secured Susan Sarandon, Topher Grace and Kristen Bell for a “family comedy with a fantasy element” called Box City. She wouldn’t go into details – which is understandable considering the film is still in the gestation process, but she did mention that all the major roles were taken by the actors she envisioned while writing the script. Sarandon is a legend, although her choices in the past ten years have ranged from small-scale brilliance to larger failures (despite elevating even the worst of the bunch). Grace and Bell are both young talents that still have a lot more to offer. At any rate, it’s nice to see Bell’s name attached to something that’s not an airhead’s romantic comedy. Plus, she’s a great match for Noxon’s style of witty banter (honed after many a season on Buffy). Hopefully this will find its financing so that we have something to look forward to while the Veronica Mars movie that won’t ever happen continues not to happen. Without more information, it’s tough to know how excited to get here, but the cast is a strong one, and

Earlier this evening, we posted up a second trailer for Scream 4, which hits theaters the very same day that your taxes are due. Scary. Now, we’ve gotten our hands on 5 new images that show off the cast a bit better, especially those that haven’t seen much screen time in the trailers so far: namely Kristen Bell, Anna Paquin, the new high school crew, and Alison Brie. Plus, there are some stabby good shots of Neve Campbell too. Check them out for yourself:

This trailer made me incredibly hungry for ice cream for some reason. It’s also pretty damned good. Even though Scream 4 is one of the most anticipated movies of the year, it’s also on the shakiest ground. A return to glory or another flop, it stands to polarize unless it gets every single detail right. As far as the trailer goes, the meta attitude is back, there are now two characters willing to explain the rules of the new horror genre, the kills are going to be bigger, and Kristen Bell is going to be creepy and blonde. In short, it’s a winner.

Burlesque tells the unique, riveting tale of a small-town girl with big dreams, who hops off a bus in Hollywood and ascends to stardom. Centered on a burlesque themed nightclub, in which our protagonist finds a mentor and faces off with a rival as she claws her way to the top, the movie breaks bold new cinematic ground and will surely live on in the hearts and minds of all those who see it.