Triple threat Josh Radnor‘s first feature, happythankyoumoreplease, debuted at Sundance in 2010, hitting big with the crowds and ultimately winning the Audience Award. The film was written and directed by Radnor, who also starred in it as a disaffected twentysomething struggling to make meaningful connections with others in big, bad New York City. Radnor’s latest outing, Liberal Arts, is written and directed by Radnor, and stars the multi-hyphenate as– well, you probably know the rest. But while happythankyoumoreplease was perhaps too much of a classic first feature – complete with twee touches and too much coincidence and not enough of the sort of things that happen in the real world – Liberal Arts sees Radnor and his craft maturing wonderfully, which is startlingly in-line with the aims of the actual film.

In The Paperboy, Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey play reporters from Miami hired to prove the innocence of a death row inmate (John Cusack). The woman who hires them is the highly sexual Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) who has fallen in love with the inmate despite never meeting him. She’s convinced he should be free, and that they should be married. The movie is based on the novel by Pete Dexter (who wrote the screenplay), and it’s being directed by Precious helmer Lee Daniels. With one Oscar-nominated film under his belt, it will be interesting to see if he shoots for a second. It will also be interesting to see if they keep the harrowing ending to the novel, because if they do, things are about to get a lot darker. A new poster for the film is making the rounds, and it’s the kind of artwork that makes most poster artists seem lazy (as if they need help). It’s a fantastic throwback style with a little too much eye-liner. Check it out for yourself:

Here’s something sort of bizarre – director Garry Marshall and writer Katherine Fugate‘s latest star-crammed desecration of random, non-religious holidays is not monumentally or irremediably terrible. It is also not good, but it’s certainly better than its predecessor, the rancid Valentine’s Day (though that’s not saying much). New Year’s Eve is not so much a film as a gimmick – tons of stars! lots of plots! all kind of connected! just one day! – and such a gimmick can yield some unexpectedly positive results just as often as it can ending up being simply terrible entertainment not worthy of being called cinema. New Year’s Eve is not so much a film as a two-hour piece of wish fulfillment for the sort of people who read US Weekly on, well, a weekly basis. Unlike Valentine’s Day, its very existence is not offensive, but it’s bloated and kind of boring and really, just really, tremendously unnecessary.

It was the summer of 2009 when the filmmakers behind Horton Hears A Who! announced they would be making green eggs and ham of Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax.” Since then we’ve gotten updates on casting – with Zac Efron playing the young man and Danny DeVito voicing the title tree-hugger – and even some imagery. Today, EW has even more pictures, and two of them reveal The Once-ler (the crotchety pair of arms that tells young Efron about the lush, beautiful world of the past that was destroyed by his greed). Check them out for yourself:

The horror…the horror… The best part about this poster for New Year’s Eve is either that it features all of the names and pictures of the actors, but not in the same order, or that the catchphrase “Let The Countdown Begin” lets us know that it’s a Doomsday Movie. Garry Marshall, who should be ashamed of himself for directing Valentine’s Day, proves once and for all that he owes some serious men down at the race track by stepping up to direct this sequel which seeks to squeeze even less screen time out for even more famous faces. Also, Homeless Hector Elizondo is kind of cruel considering they made everyone else look halfway decent (except for Ashton Kutcher who clearly didn’t show up for a photo shoot and forced the marketing department to find a paparazzi shot of him smiling). Enough with the words! Check it out for yourself, and feel free to largify it by clicking (if you dare):

If the multiple storylines, loose connections, and a total lack of chemistry of Valentine’s Day was simply not enough for you, director Garry Marshall has yet another holiday-themed film for the masses – twice the storylines! twice the loose connections! twice the total lack of chemistry! Wait, that math isn’t right. Even less chemistry! Everyone, meet New Year’s Eve. Like last year’s chillingly empty Valentine’s Day, Marshall’s latest film tracks a group of romantically challenged love losers across the course of one holiday. Will they find love? Will I hiss in the theater again? When is he making Flag Day? New Year’s Eve moves the action to New York City, though it inexplicably features two stars of VD (Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Biel) who appear to be playing totally different roles than in the previous film. If that hints at some sort of alternate universe, well, that’s still not very interesting to me. The really strange part about this trailer is the sense it gives off that all of its many stars were thrown into a blender, set to “frappe,” and poured out onto the pages of the script. How else can we possibly account for a film that pairs up Katherine Heigl with Jon Bon Jovi, Michelle Pfeiffer with Zac Efron, Lea Michele with Ashton Kutcher, or Jessica Biel with Seth Meyers? And that’s only about a quarter of the cast, everyone else flew by so quickly that my own mother could be in this film, and I wouldn’t [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]

Looks like there’s going to be a new R-rated movie about frat houses and the hijinx inherent in the ridiculous notion of a bunch of 19-year-old dudes living together in one big building. Here’s how the story has developed so far. First, a couple of guys named Andrew Cohen and Brendan O’Brien wrote a script for the movie. It’s about a regular-guy family man whose house is unfortunately located directly next to a local college’s alpha male fraternity house. This, of course, leads to him coming into conflict with the young, party happy frat boys, and presumably some tale of living, loving, and learning results. After putting pen to paper, the writing duo then pitched the project to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, those guys behind Superbad and Pineapple Express and whatnot. They liked it and attached Rogen himself to star as the family man of the film and High School Musical’s Zac Efron as the head frat guy.

Over the last few years Ramin Bahrani has slowly become one of my favorite working filmmakers, and just with the release of three features. I thought his 2005 effort Man Push Cart was an interesting story that showed a lot of style and managed to accomplish quite a bit while still taking a minimal approach to filmmaking; but it didn’t quite connect with me on a deeper level. In his second feature, when Bahrani took his unique form of small, anti-cinematic character study and pointed it at the young Alejandro in 2007’s Chop Shop, I found myself to be deeply affected by the characters introduced and the naturalist way that Bahrani is able to build emotion and intrigue by doing very little, and create beautiful imagery without being in the least bit showy. 2008’s Goodbye Solo was even better, a filmgoing experience that I found to be truly sublime. So what the heck is this micro budget indie filmmaker doing casting Zac Efron and Dennis Quaid in his next movie? Up to this point everything he has done has employed mostly unknowns, so seeing these two Hollywood names get attached to something he’s doing comes as a pretty big shock. Quaid I can kind of accept. If Bahrani is dipping his toe into the waters of making studio films, then Quaid is a performer who I can see him going after. Despite the fact that he makes a lot of crap, like The Day After Tomorrow, Legion, and G.I. Joe, [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]

We reported last October that Danny DeVito would be suiting up to voice The Lorax in what has the chance to be the first 3D adaptation of a beloved children’s character that doesn’t creep everyone on the planet out. Now, the rest of the cast is filling out (according to a remarkably well-punctuated press release) with Ed Helms voicing the Once-ler who needs to cut down the forest to make an amazing product everyone needs; Zac Efron voicing Ted, the young man who befriends the Lorax; and Taylor Swift voicing Audrey, the girl of Ted’s dreams. Betty White and comedian Rob Riggle are also rounding out what looks like a solid cast. This flick could turn out being really fun with the names involved. So fun that Rob Hunter even got a Lorax tattoo in anticipation of the release. Just ask him.

The Akira remake news train is going to keep plowing forward – so far speeding over Zac Efron, the potential audience and now veteran actor Morgan Freeman. Freeman is rumored to be circling around the role of the Colonel – a vital component in the story. He’s the closest thing to a father figure the plot has, and he does experiments on a young man that result in turning him into a giant globular monster. Warning: if you don’t like hearing negative things about Morgan Freeman, do not read on.

The ups and downs of getting a new version of Akira to the big screen have felt a lot like a rollercoaster (pardon the cliche), and like any rollercoaster, here’s the part where we all throw up at the end. First it was Leonardo DiCaprio taking the lead role as Kaneda, and that died on the vine. Then we learned that the Hughes Brothers would be directing, it would be PG-13, and that the Hughes Brothers wouldn’t be involved in a pre-planned sequel. Now, it looks like the live-action version of the cult 1988 anime classic might be packed with Zac. Efron has been offered the lead role according to Bloody Disgusting, and there’s just no way to spin this positively. The whole project seems like a crew attempting to cash in instead of treating the source material with any love or relevance. Efron might have the role inside of him, but it hasn’t come out on screen so far, and his acting is usually bland. Does he have it in him to stop a young girl from getting raped? Or to stop fake-tanning long enough to live in the seedy, drug-infested world that this demands?

It was inevitable that Zac Efron would eventually be sucked into the sappy world of the writer that continues to churn out schmaltzy crap while believing he’s the next great writer of Greek Tragedies. If there’s another actor out there better suited for the next Nicolas Sparks movie, I don’t know him. Which is probably a reason he should fire his publicist. Efron has signed on for The Lucky One where he’ll play – wait for it – a Marine who has been deployed thrice to Iraq and has lived through every tour, he believes, because of the good luck brought to him by a photograph of a woman he doesn’t know. Because it’s sweet, and not creepy, he tracks the woman down when he gets home.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr is all giddy because he’s been invited to a “Dinner for Winners” (though no one has the heart to tell him it’s really a Dinner for Schmucks). He also puts on his 3D glasses to take a gander at some furry spies in Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Finally, he squeals with excitement about the new Zefron film, but then weeps uncontrollably because Universal didn’t screen it in advance for him.

If you see the name “Efron” and think “Swedish thriller,” you might just have a future as a Warners exec.

According to Variety, Craig Brewer (of Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan acclaim) will be jumping on to direct and rewrite Paramount’s Footloose remake. Brewer will start casting immediately for a summer shooting start.

Richard Linklater returns to the big screen with an entertaining backstage period piece that’s pretty insubstantial, save for Christian McKay’s remarkable performance as Orson Welles.

Freestyle Releasing has unveiled the final domestic trailer for Richard Linklater’s upcoming drama Me and Orson Welles, which stars Zac Efron and Christian McKay.

Will the remake of Footloose also be a giant lead up to a music video? Will Kenny Loggins be informed?

Ricky Gervais is still chubby but now is animated, J.J. Abrams discusses lens flares, Elizabeth Banks hits on Zac Efron, The Goonies, Michael Bay’s penis size. This is your very special humpday Early Edition!

Well, the box office numbers are in and it’s not that big a surprise for a lot of people this weekend as that Zac Efron movie 17 Again finished on top of the charts with $24 million, basically what was expected.