If you haven’t been reading along, I’ve been gushing about Ruben Fleischer’s upcoming crime drama The Gangster Squad for quite a while. Story details about the cops and gangsters flick about real life gangster Mickey Cohen can be found in my first article about the movie, where it was announced that Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and Ryan Gosling had all been cast in key roles. Penn is in the starring role as Cohen, and Brolin and Gosling are two of the members of the titular gangster squad that is put together to take him down. After hearing that, I didn’t think that life could get much better, but then it did. The second Gangster Squad related bomb that Fleischer dropped on me was that man about town Bryan Cranston would also be joining the cast as a rough and tumble member of the LAPD by way of Texas. Suddenly the original Triumvirate of Awesome that was the Gangster Squad cast became the Cornerstones of Awesome instead. And now that the film has such a solid foundation to build a metaphorical house on, it’s time to start picking out pretty curtains and stuff by filling out the cast further. The big news of the day from Deadline Monowi is that grizzled, crazy actor Nick Nolte has also been cast. He will play Bill Parker, the incorruptible chief of police who takes it upon himself to form this so-called gangster squad. That sounds like a big role. Seeing as Nolte’s upcoming movie [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 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).

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:

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.

It was looking like Sean Penn might not be able to star in the upcoming organized crime film Gangster Squad after he entered negotiations to star alongside Christian Bale in The Last Photograph, but Variety is reporting that Penn is still in the running, and actually very close to signing. And now that Penn is almost on board, things are looking good for Josh Brolin to join the cast as well. Gangster Squad is the story of the LAPD’s battle against famed gangster Mickey Cohen and other mafia men trying to make the jump from East to West coast back in the 40s and 50s. The script is based off of a L.A. Times article written on the subject by Paul Lieberman. Penn is negotiating for the role of Cohen, and the previously rumored Ryan Gosling and newly rumored Josh Brolin would be a pair of police tasked with bringing him down. The original article was adapted for the screen by Will Beall, who is a former police officer turned novelist, and Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer will direct. I think everything that I mentioned in this article is awesome, so hopefully when you put them all together the results will be a movie that is super awesome. At the very least I can’t wait to watch Gosling and Penn trying to flamboyantly out act each other while Brolin is all squinty and minimal in the background.

No one knows what it is, so you have to judge whether or not it’s a good idea based on who’s involved.

Despite being rumored for every interesting project under the sun — including a potential directing job on Mission: Impossible IV — Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer seems to have found his next project.

After his success with Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer has been on the minds of many a movie fan. He’s on the geek radar, if you will. And with that comes constant surveillance over his next project. And while we don’t know what it is yet, we can see that his options look good.

I am not usually one for covering events. My niche is film review and that is really all that I have ever been asked to deliver. But when SXSW put together a panel discussion on horror films not only did I know that my attendance was a moral imperative, but I swallowed my reservations and accepted the task of covering it.

One of the things that I like most about this year’s overall South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival line-up is the diversity. And if there’s one thing you’ll see in this year’s panel and shorts lineups, it is just that. Diversity.

Kevin Carr takes a look at this week’s movie releases, including Zombieland, Whip It and Capitalism: A Love Story.

There is a reason Fantastic Fest is one of the greatest film festivals on the planet. This week , during a screening of Zombieland, I was reminded of that unbridled, nearly intangible awesomeness that keeps me coming back year after year.

A quick look at what every zombie movie needs, lovingly captured in photograph form from the set of Zombieland. Before you ask, yes, baseball bats are involved.