If you’re reading this review, then I’m going to assume that you’re already familiar with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the talent behind shows like Tom Goes To The Mayor and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! With each iteration of entertainment they’ve produced, it seems like things get more off the wall and strange, and Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie is no different. It steps across every boundary you can imagine, and then some. The premise behind the film is that Tim and Eric have been given a billion dollars by the Schlaaang Corporation to make a movie, and the film opens with a screening of that film, which is only three minutes long and stars a Johnny Depp impostor (they thought they had hired the real Depp) as Diamond Jim and sporting a suit made entirely out of real diamonds.

It feels like Dan Aykroyd hasn’t been around for a while, but that’s only because I refused to see Yogi Bear, barely noticed him as the Vice President in War, Inc. and refused (again) to see  I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. So he hasn’t been retired or anything, but it’s sure felt like it. Nevertheless, he’ll be coming out of that non-retirement for Dog Fight, the political comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as two South Carolinians who have their sights on the presidency. According to Movie Hole, the Oscar nominated actor is on board, but the role isn’t specified. Hopefully this won’t further delay that certain, ghost-bustin’ sequel Aykroyd has been steadily working on. I’m speaking, of course, about My Stepmother is an Alien 2. The capable Jay Roach is directing a script from Chris Henchy (The Other Guys, and producer of many, many other movies) and Shawn Harwell (Eastbound and Down). Smash all that together, and it feels like reason for mild excitement.

Who knows Santa? I mean personally? I bet you don’t. I don’t either, but we’re talking about you right now. Buddy the Elf knows Santa. He makes sure to tell everyone he sees when he ventures to New York City to meet his real father. Another question. Who doesn’t like Elf? You can walk away now if you said, “I don’t”, because this Commentary Commentary is not for you. The Christmas season is upon us, and we felt it was time to hear what director Jon Favreau had to say about this ginormous Christmas gem. There are two commentary tracks on Elf – thanks, Infinifilm – but we’re rolling the dice on Favreau over the film’s star. As a wise man once said to me over Twitter, “Glean his insights so we don’t have to listen; let us hear the entertaining actor ourselves. So sit back with your eggnog or your mini candy cane or your Christmas fudge – I’m rocking all three as I write this, the first indication I should get myself to a dentist pronto – and delve into all the glorious bits of information we gathered while listening to the Elf commentary track. Oh, eggnog. No one understands me like you.

Last April, an amazing trailer hit the web that was subsequently taken down. While it lasted, it showed Will Ferrell playing a character named Armando Alvarez in a ridiculous Spanish-language film that looked a heck of a lot like one of those super-sexy and deadly dramatic Mexican telenovelas that you can catch on Telemundo during the day. It had comedic actors like Nick Offerman, dramatic actors like Gael Garcia Bernal, and a mocha-skinned (TM Ricky Martin) hottie named Genesis Rodriguez. It instantly became one of my most highly-anticipated films on the release date horizon, but after the trailer got jerked, I had not heard hide nor hair of it. That all changed today when I read a report from THR that Pantelion Films has announced that they have acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film, and will be putting it out in theaters on March 16, 2012. Pantelion CEO Paul Presburger said of their acquisition, “We cannot imagine a better vehicle than Casa de mi Padre to demonstrate how a Spanish language film can appeal to a broad mainstream audience. We are enthusiastic about joining forces with NALA Films on this project and feel that Will, Matt and Andrew have proven that if it’s funny, we all laugh in the same language.” These are, truly, deeply poetic and moving words from Mr. Presburger. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call my Mexican friend Eric.

A couple weeks ago it was reported that Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s production company Gary Sanchez had spent about a million dollars to pick up a spec script called He’s F***ing Perfect. Today it was reported by Deadline that actress Emma Stone is negotiating to be in said film, only they’re referring to the project as He’s Fuckin’ Perfect. I’m not sure which is actually the official title of this movie, but it doesn’t matter because there’s no fuckin’ way this thing is getting all the way through development and keeping either. More than likely it will be called something pseudo hip but still generic like He’s the Bomb or Friend Request, so there’s no point debating that issue. The thing to focus on is that Emma Stone would be perfect for this role. The story is about a girl who uses her advanced social media skills to dig up dirt on all of her friends’ loser boyfriends to convince them to dump them. A wrinkle comes when she finds that one of her friends is actually dating the perfect guy, so she uses those same social media skills to figure out what his perfect girl would be, and then become her. Essentially, she’s trying to break people up, and then steal her friend’s boyfriend. What a bitch. That’s not going to be a character that’s easy to like, no matter how funny writer Lauryn Kahn’s script is.

Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis has been trying his damnedest to make the transition from television to movies over the past year. So far, his efforts haven’t been a complete success though. Hall Pass wasn’t well liked by critics, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy came and went without anyone noticing, and Horrible Bosses, while solid enough, wasn’t any sort of big star-making performance for the actor. It might be coming down to the wire on whether or not Sudeikis is going to be able to successfully jump over to the film world, so now he’s doubling down his efforts and teaming up with some of the biggest guns in the comedy world. The next project he’s taking on is called Dog Fight. It’s a political comedy directed by veteran comedy director Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) and starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. Woah, those are some big names. If I was trying to make some headway in the world of film comedy, that’s probably exactly who I would be piggybacking my efforts off of. Written by Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy, Dog Fight is about a couple of rival politicians in a South Carolina congressional district. I would have to assume that Ferrell and Galifianakis are playing the two politicians, because a quick bit of fact checking hasn’t told me otherwise, so that leaves what role Sudeikis will be taking on something of a mystery. Hopefully it’s big enough to get him the attention he requires [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]

Today we get one of the rarest bits of news that you may ever come across in this game of being a movie buff - a project has been put in development that isn’t a remake of something that already exists, isn’t an adaptation of some sort of world famous property, but instead is just a funny script that someone wrote. The idea sounds crazy to me. I don’t think it’s going to work. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay disagree though, because their production company, Gary Sanchez Productions, along with Fox 2000, have decided to purchase a script by Lauryn Kahn called He’s F***ing Perfect for somewhere around a million bucks. Kahn is new at the screenwriting game, but she has worked as McKay’s assistant at Gary Sanchez for several years now, so she’s not new to the comedy game. Her script tells the story of an unlucky-in-love woman who uses her Google skills to research all of her friends’ boyfriends to make them look bad. If that doesn’t sound bitter enough, further complication comes as she tricks one of her friends into dumping a good guy, and then uses her experience as a Facebook stalker to turn herself into his perfect woman. What a jerk, but what fertile grounds for comedy. In a post-Bridesmaids world, where women behaving badly on the screen is all the rage, I would have to say that this is a good pick-up for Ferrell and McKay, who are rapidly positioning themselves as our comedy overlords. [THR]

Fear not worshippers at the house of Ferrell, the comic force of nature known to mortals as Will Ferrell once again be returning to big screen comedy after his lackluster series of guest stars on the past its prime TV series The Office. This guy is a big dang movie star and movies are where he belongs! This time Ferrell will be playing a hedge fund manager, one of those guys responsible for the recent financial crisis, whose life changes when he sees a vision of God. Whether this vision turns around his sleazy life in the classic Gordon Bombay tradition or just makes him go crazy in the classic Margery Kempe tradition is unclear, but the name of the film is Swear to God.

Way back in 2009 there was supposed to be a movie called Neighborhood Watch starring Will Ferrel and directed by Wedding Crashers’ David Dobkin, but talent clashed with studio to the point that it didn’t ever happen. Fox isn’t a studio to just lie down and die however. I guess somebody in charge must really like the project, because a whole new wave of talent has been tossed at the script. Things didn’t work out with Ferrell and Dobkin creatively, but recently Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have written a new draft of the script. You might have heard of them, they did stuff like Superbad and Pineapple Express. Oh yeah, and Rogen has acted in so many movies over the last five years that you’re probably sick of him. But don’t worry, Rogen isn’t the new guy rumored to star. Now that there’s a spiffy new version of the script written by top talent comedy mega-star Ben Stiller is being courted to star in the film. Oh. His character would be a city boy who ends up moving to the suburbs and joining the neighborhood watch. What might seem like a pretty boring gig proves to be nothing of the sort when he finds himself right in the middle of some sort of extraterrestrial cover-up. Sounds goofy, so it’s probably going to need a goofy guy to direct.

Episodes and seasons and weeks after its inspiration and its humor have peaked, I still continue to watch new episodes of The Office week in and week out. I don’t know why – I never do this with dramatic shows, only with comedies – but I tend to stick with comedy shows whose legacy I appreciate even if their time has passed, either out of respect, blind hope, or simply the desire to have some noise in the room while I take a break to eat a meal or fold laundry. While The Office certainly isn’t what it used to be, even before Steve Carell left, it’s still an inoffensive and enjoyable way to pass some time. I can’t deny that the affinity I developed for the show’s characters early on in the series has carried me through a lot of its creative droughts (in other words, I hardly watch it only for its comedy) even as more recent network sitcoms like Modern Family, Community, and (especially) Parks and Recreation have made me LOL significantly more often. But in the bizarre cameos leading up to a strange and dry seventh season finale, The Office seems to have encountered much greater problems than a rudimentary lack of inspiration typical for the (possibly cyclical) lifespan of a long-running television show. The Office seems to have rejected the defining characteristics that made it unique in the first place.

In a recent addition of Movie News After Dark the honorable Neil Miller let us all know about a new Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell comedy called Turkey Bowl that suspiciously sounded like an already existing indie film called, well… Turkey Bowl. In an interview with Inside Movies producer Adam McKay dished out some more details about the impending project. Firstly, the film was originally conceived as a vehicle for Wahlberg to reteam with Alec Baldwin and rekindle some of that meathead chemistry that they had going on in The Departed. It wasn’t until later that Ferrell heard about the project and it also became a reteaming of he and Wahlberg. Baldwin will play the Kennedy-family-obsessed patriarch of a clan of misfits who organizes a touch football game every Thanksgiving with the snooty family from across the park. His dream is to one day take the rich folk down and recreate his own little version of the Kennedy dynasty. Ferrell is going to be the father of the opposing family, one in which all of the children are going on to do successful things. Wahlberg is playing Baldwin’s eldest son, the one who gets tasked with putting back together his family of addicts and cons and finally getting one over on the folk from across the way. It’s Baldwin’s last wish after he goes down from a heart attack. Oh, and Rob Riggle will play a ringer who has been ejected from the family due to gayness, but who must [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]

Talk turned to the modern cult comedy favorite Step Brothers when John C. Reilly recently spoke to MTV cameras over in Cannes. In the interview Reilly confirms that there is indeed work being done on a rap album written and performed by he and Ferrell’s fictional characters Brennan Huff and Dale Doback. Reilly says, “We have not recorded the album yet, but we’ve begun to write it … Hopefully we’re going to come [back to Cannes] and premiere the record on a boat, on a yacht.” While the idea of French people having to bear witness to Reilly and Ferrell performing “Boats and Hoes” live is pretty dang hysterical, I don’t know if we really need an entire album of ironic rap songs released outside of the context of any film work. Will anybody really take the time to listen to this? And has anybody asked Weird Al for his approval?

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly column dedicated to things happening in the world of entertainment. It’s also deathly afraid of Kevin Bacon. It would like to reassess it’s number of degrees and somehow increase from its usual 2 to at least 8. That way Mr. Bacon and his X-Men character can’t clamp its nether regions in the contraption above. At least we think that’s what that thing is. We begin our night with X-Men: First Class and a massive dump of images over at Gamma Squad. From high-res shots of the meticulously crafted costumes to high-res shots of cool CGI mutants to a high-res shot of whatever the hell Kevin Bacon is doing in the photo above. I almost don’t want to know. But I do, because this movie continues to look better and better with every little marketing bit.

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.

In a week where a trailer was released where apes take over the planet, I think that this trailer for the upcoming Will Ferrell comedy Casa de mi Padre is still the coolest, weirdest thing I’ve seen. In former SNL writer and Funny or Die contributor Matt Piedmont’s first film, you’ve got Will Ferrell playing a Mexican named Armando Alvarez and speaking only in Spanish, Nick Offerman in full Ron Swanson mustache asking people if they speak American, awesome dramatic actors like Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal trading ridiculous dialogue, and a hottie named Genesis Rodriguez two palming Will Ferrell’s bare ass. The film plays like a big budget telenovela, and while it is clearly a ridiculous comedy, it seems to get the telenovela feel right by taking itself terribly seriously. In Casa de mi Padre’s own mind, it is the awesomest movie that ever existed. The trailer goes as far as listing for you all of the awesome things it features, up to and including, guns, cigarettes, special effects, and slaps. I don’t know how you can argue with that.  Take a load off and give it a gander, you won’t be sorry.

Alcoholic. Out of work. Tossed out by his wife. These are not the kinds of things that begin a wacky adventure, but Will Ferrell looks to be digging into his Stranger Than Fiction light drama past to deliver his performance for Everything Must Go. In it, he plays a man with all three aforementioned qualities in addition to his new station in life: living on his front lawn in a state of prolonged yard sale. It’s unclear just how dire everything will turn, but it’s likely he won’t be praying to newborn, baby Jesus to get him out of this mess. Check it out for yourself:

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are a couple of goofy weirdos known best for their insane Adult Swim show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. Also, they’ve done quite a few memorable bits for Funny or Die. Their humor is absurdist, their show is short, low budget, and very hand crafted; and they’re one of those things that either you find funny or you just don’t. Personally, I enjoy a lot of what they do, and a lot of other people must too, because somebody has given them a bunch of money to make a feature. Check out the cast: Zach Galifianakis, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Robert Loggia, Jeff Goldblum, Will Forte, and William Atherton. Yes, that’s right, THE Robert Loggia; the guy from the orange juice commercial. Either this cast is making you roll your eyes in disgust right now, or it’s making you jump for joy. If you’re sick of watching these guys goof around you should probably stop reading. Just move on to something else. But if you’re like me and you love most of these stupid jerks, continue on to read some quotes from Eric.

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?

A few months ago I mentioned that, to me, all computer-animated films are measured against the insanely high standard that Pixar Animation Studios has set for the entire medium.  You’d think another studio making something at least close to comparable would be a good thing, but I submit otherwise. Enter Dreamworks, and their latest animated offering, Megamind. Megamind is the story of, well — Megamind (Will Ferrel), a perpetually plotting evil, alien genius who arrived on earth as an infant and is raised in the way of being a baddie. His foil is the ever perfect, always ahead of the game nemesis, Metro Man (Brad Pitt) – the hero of Metro City.