There is one thing that becomes quite clear, quite quickly when Lay The Favorite begins: not everyone should do voice over work. Rebecca Hall (who plays Beth Raymer) sadly falls into that category and her baby voice stays with her throughout the entire film. Lay The Favorite tells Beth’s story as she tries to figure out her purpose in life at a job that will be stimulating and make her good money (don’t we all, Beth). The best place to pursue such a dream? Las Vegas, of course! Beth packs up her life (and dog Otis) and heads West with stars in her eyes. Ready and willing to do anything, Beth quickly makes friends with Holly (Laura Prepon) who turns her on to a job with Dink Heimowtiz (Bruce Willis) who runs a legal (at least in Vegas) gambling company (Dink Inc.) that bets on anything and everything, but mainly sporting events. Dink’s world is exactly the type of excitement and stimulation Beth was hoping for and despite her baby talk, daddy issues (no matter what she says) and constant hair chewing, Dink takes a shine to her and agrees to bring her on.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr gets set for another weekend of weddings with Kristen Wiig and her posse. Sadly, he discovers that he doesn’t have a vagina and decides to move on. Next, he takes a trip to an alternate world where priests kick ass and kill vampires. Once he realizes he is woefully out of place next to sultry Maggie Q in a ninja priest outfit, he comes home to find his possessions kicked to the curb with Will Ferrell in the middle of the whole mess.

As a first-time filmmaker’s adaptation of a serious-themed source, with a comic star as its lead, the odds were stacked against Everything Must Go. Yet writer-director Dan Rush’s cinematic debut is a rare successful feature-length short story adaptation. Rather than fortifying Raymond Carver’s Why Don’t You Dance? with false dramatic notes or thin conceptual embellishments, Rush builds on its compelling premise. With a likable Will Ferrell as its lead and a suburban street setting imbued with great allegorical significance, the film offers an incisive personal spin on these tumultuous economic times. After losing his job and falling off the wagon, a depressed Nick Halsey (Ferrell) returns to his upper middle class Arizona home to find his wife has left him. Not only has she absconded from their marriage, she’s changed the locks and dumped his belongings, all of them, on the front lawn.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr is stuck in an elevator reviewing movies, but he realizes that being in there with the Devil isn’t nearly as bad when you’re also stuck in there with faux-slut Emma Stone. To pass the time, he robs a few banks in The Town of Boston with Ben Affleck and embroiders a scarlet Easy A on his chest. Sigh… if only he had worn a shirt when he did that…

One of the best films of 2007 was Gone Baby Gone, a mystery/drama set in a Boston neighborhood that focused on a detective couple tasked with finding the truth behind a little girl’s disappearance. It’s a fantastic movie in almost every way from the story to the acting, from the direction to the way it challenges the viewer to think about the costs of our convictions. Occasionally lost amongst the praise is the fact that the film is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck. Fans cheered his new found success behind the camera, detractors begrudgingly credited everyone but Affleck, and the majority of the movie-going public ignored it all together. (Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet go rent it now.) Three years later Affleck has returned to the director’s chair with The Town. He’s also returned to the crime-ridden streets of Boston in this tale of a group of friends who moonlight as bank robbers. It’s not the weighty and complex success Gone Baby Gone was, in fact it’s fairly generic and basic in its structure, but Affleck and friends still manage to deliver one of the most exciting and satisfying thrillers to hit screens this year.

After his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone knocked us on our collective rear-ends, Ben Affleck had us believing that we could let go of all of the things he’s done as an actor that could be labeled as less than good. Or more to the point, all of those terrible roles he’s taken. The talented guy who co-wrote Good Will Hunting was back in the world of telling well-crafted stories. It gave me hope for his next film, The Town, even before they started announcing an awesome cast that included Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm and Blake Lively, among others. But now — with this first trailer — I can’t avoid being excited about this film. I first caught the trailer in front of my Inception press screening. And 30-minutes into Christopher Nolan’s film, I couldn’t stop thinking about The Town. Now that’s a lasting impression. I like this director Ben Affleck far better than his actor doppleganger. See for yourself after the jump, where I’ve positioned both the official synopsis and the trailer.

Another day comes, and another opportunity for us to lay down some of the day’s hot news stories is upon is. But instead, we begin your Thursday with The B-Roll. Or as we like to say, “And now, for something completely different.”

Gossip Girl star Blake Lively is getting herself into some real drama. This time, it won’t be of the high society variety, it will be as part of the ensemble cast of director Ben Affleck’s The Town.

Mad Men uber-star Jon Hamm, also known as Don Draper, has signed on to star alongside Rebecca Hall in Ben Affleck’s upcoming directorial work The Town.

If there is one thing that should be abundantly clear at this point, it is that this is an election year.

While the action takes place almost exclusively in Spain, the script is still a highlight of neurotic New Yorkers who babble on about nothing and everything. This is the essence of Woody Allen.

There’s a lot to like about Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and none of it has to do with Scarlett and Penelope making out (which is a brief moment).

Oddly enough, the film’s new movie poster is also in the mood to get down in a “let’s have a very European threesome” sort of way.

Good looking, Spanish, and a hell of an actor, this dude has it all. And you would think that there is nothing that could top what he has already accomplished. Not so fast, friendo.