If you don’t know of Steve Coogan from anywhere else, chances are you’ll at least know him as one of the stars of Michael Winterbottom’s BBC miniseries-turned-U.S. film release, The Trip. The scene from that one where he and Rob Brydon battle with dueling impressions of Michael Caine kind of went viral. Coogan has been a big name in the UK for quite a while, though, and largely because of his portrayal of Alan Partridge, a faux media personality who Coogan has portrayed in several different BBC series. Think of Partridge as being sort of like Garry Shandling performing as Larry Sanders but with quite a bit of the smugness of Ricky Gervais thrown in. He is British, after all. Well, it turns out the Partridge character has become so long-lived and beloved that the inevitable has happened: they’ve made an Alan Partridge movie. As a matter of fact, they’ve made an Alan Partridge movie called Alan Partridge is in Alpha Papa. How did they come up with such a ridiculous title? You’re in luck! The film’s new teaser trailer is about that very thing.

It may only be Monday, but our feel-bad trailer of the week has already arrived (and with a bullet). In Scott McGehee and David Siegel‘s What Maisie Knew, an already-messy divorce takes on an extra cast of awful, thanks to some apparently shifting romantic entanglements. Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan star as hip New Yorkers in the middle of a particularly ugly divorce and custody battle that threatens the well-being of their only daughter, an eerily adult Onata Aprile (as Maisie). Things get still worse when Coogan takes up with the nanny, Moore takes up with Alexander Skarsgard, and — oops! — said nanny and said Skarsgard just might take up with each other. See? Messy. If you’re not interested in being in a good mood, check out the first trailer for What Maisie Knew after the break.

Michael Winterbottom has made a lot of goddamn movies. Unlike most directors, though, he doesn’t really have a type of film that he sticks to or is known for. This lack of a label allows him to move effortlessly from comedy to drama, political to pornographic artistic, period to contemporary, and once and a while he’ll even dip his toes into the biographical. It’s that last category that his latest film, The Look of Love, resides… alongside strong elements of the dramatic, comedic, period and artistic, of course. Steve Coogan plays real-life multi-millionaire Paul Raymond, a man whose immense fortune came on the backs of nude women dancing in his clubs, posing in his magazines and playing in his bed. Starting in the near present with the death of his daughter, the film flashes back to his early days as proprietor of a classy gentleman’s club and traces his rise in wealth and fame alongside his descent into sleaze and immorality.

They were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off, but if you’ve seen The Trip, then you know how hilarious Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon can be simply hanging out together. Fortunately, we’ve got our hands on an exclusive deleted scene from the movie that’s short, sweet, and educational. If you’ve ever wondered the right way to enjoy a fine glass of wine, Coogan and Brydon are just the teachers for you. Even though they don’t look nearly drunk enough:

Our Idiot Brother floats by on the genial charms of Paul Rudd, an apparently nice guy in real life who’s playing just about the nicest, most pleasant guy in the world. That sounds like a recipe for ho-hum disaster, but Rudd happens to be ridiculously adept at selling you two bags of goods at once, imbuing that geniality with a fount of deep tangible feeling. Audiences accustomed to Judd Apatow-era Rudd might forget that he’s acted in Neil LaBute plays and films (before LaBute turned into a director-for-hire) and once played F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway in a Great Gatsby adaptation made for TV. The guy has dramatic chops, and he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can naturalistically flow them into a deceptively low-key framework. Here, Rudd stars as Ned — or Nedley, as mom calls him — a lovable, trusting hippie farmer who sells a cop some weed and winds up in jail. After his release, with nowhere to go, Ned moves in first with mom and then with his three high-strung sisters in succession.

The Trip was a Michael Winterbottom-directed independent comedy that recently opened in the US to pretty decent critical buzz. It featured comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as less than happy bedfellows traveling the countryside of northern England and eating at fancy restaurants. The story was that they were writing reviews for a magazine, but really the plot was just an excuse to get Coogan and Brydon together to riff on comedy bits, duel with Michael Caine impressions, and get on each other’s nerves. The results were rather humorous, and it’s looking like there is going to be a sequel. Or, at least, there will be a sequel to the BBC series. You see, The Trip actually started as a six part series on BBC2. In a kind of strange move, the six episodes were edited down to one feature length release for US theaters. In a Q&A at this week’s Latitude Festival, producer Andrew Eaton revealed that Winterbottom was going to send Coogan and Brydon on another trip, this time to Italy. This guarantees that the original fans of the series in the UK will be getting more odd couple action from the duo, and points to the fact that we might be getting another movie here in the US as well. If the content is there, and all you have to do is pay someone to make an alternate edit, why not give it another go in the US? Or maybe they’ll strike a deal to get the

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the movie blogosphere’s diversity action plan. Because too many movie blogs just regurgitate press releases, post POV videos of street luge or bring you the same 25 stories that everyone else already has. We take those 25 stories, smash them together, wipe away the blood and mix ‘em with the best links we can find in a nightly tradition known to its friends as Movie News After Dark… For those Hobbit fans who aren’t completely sold on Peter Jackson doing the thing in 3D, see the above picture. If Gandalf approves, how can the world disagree?

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr grades four new films: Get Him to the Greek, Splice, Marmaduke and Killers.

Without knowing anything else about The Other Guys other than seeing this trailer, you might very well think that it’s going to be just another dumb comedy. But there’s a reason why you should be optimistic about it…

A few weeks back, I reviewed Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian as part of This Week in Blu-ray. Since then, I’ve taken a second look at the film and found quite a few references to pop culture and other films. Could this movie be smarter than I initially thought possible? Perhaps…

We have been lazy this week, leading to a lack of a Saturday ‘Shouting Match.’ And we need to cover these Independent Spirit Awards at some point. So screw it, we’ll do them together, live.

The brilliant British actor took some time out from his hosting prep to talk to us about the world of indie film, his role at the Independent Spirit Awards, and a few details about his recurring role as a 3-inch tall figurine.

An adaptation of Craig Murray’s “Murder in Samarkand” with Michael Winterbottom at the helm and Steve Coogan in the starring role is sadly stalled indefinitely.

The equivalent of the wallflower you knew in high school that blossomed into a college beauty, here are eleven films that flew under the radar in 2008.

Forget the Best and the Worst of 2008. These are the actors, directors and producers that made the biggest impact on the world of film and how they might impact us in 2009.

USA Today has posted some first look photos from Night at the Museum 2, the family friendly follow-up to the hit 2006 film directed by Shawn Levy.

Paramount Pictures has officially released the documentary behind the movie Tropic Thunder, known as Rain of Madness, online for free on iTunes. It also includes a few surprises.

We had a chance recently to see the film and meet British comedian Steve Coogan at the AMC Theater near Navy Pier in Chicago to talk about Dana Marschz and comedy, in general.

I can’t think of a movie in recent history that has the same feel and attitude, or even remotely the same story. It’s creative and it’s unique. You don’t find that sort of thing at the movies nowadays.

Neil is grumpy this week, and Kevin takes full advantage of his weakness for the show.