Showing posts with label Zach Galifianakis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zach Galifianakis. Show all posts

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Warner Bros. Trumpets The Hangover Part II's Success

Records Get Smashed on Opening Day of Todd Phillips’ “The Hangover Part II”

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ “The Hangover Part II” has already broken multiple records on only its first day in release, it was announced today by Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. Pictures President of Domestic Distribution.

Box offices around the country got a midnight wake-up call when the Todd Phillips-directed comedy took in $10.4 million, shattering the previous midnight-opening record for an R-rated film. The sum also more than doubled the record for a midnight opening of any 2011 film to date. With the widest opening of any R-rated film, “The Hangover Part II” went on to earn a total of $31.7 million on its opening day, setting a new opening day record for a comedy.

In making the announcement, Fellman stated, “From the tracking, we knew audiences couldn’t wait for another ‘Hangover,’ but these numbers are through the roof. Leave it to Todd Phillips to create a new must-see comedy that has people lining up at the box office and rolling in the aisles. Congratulations to him, the cast and all the other talents behind the film on making another unforgettable comedy.”

In “The Hangover Part II” Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. With the memory of Doug’s nearly disastrous bachelor party in Las Vegas still fresh—or at least well-documented—Stu is taking no chances. He has opted for a safe, subdued, pre-wedding trip brunch, with pancakes, coffee…and no alcohol. However, things don’t always go as planned. Two nights before the big day, at a fabulous resort in Thailand, Stu relents. One beer each. In sealed bottles. What could go wrong?

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bangkok can’t even be imagined.

“The Hangover Part II” is director Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his 2009 smash hit “The Hangover,” which became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time and also won the Golden Globe for Best Film – Comedy or Musical.

Reprising their roles, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha star in the film. The main cast also includes Ken Jeong and Jeffrey Tambor, who also return from the first film, and Mason Lee, Jamie Chung and Paul Giamatti, who join the ensemble.

The screenplay is by Craig Mazin & Scot Armstrong & Todd Phillips. Phillips also produced the film under his Green Hat Films banner, together with Dan Goldberg. Thomas Tull, Scott Budnick, Chris Bender and J.C. Spink are the executive producers, with David A. Siegel and Jeffrey Wetzel serving as co-producers.

“The Hangover Part II” is a presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with Legendary Pictures, and will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The film has been rated R for pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

"The Hangover Part II" Soundtrack Now on the Streets

"THE HANGOVER PART II" SOUNDTRACK SET FOR A MAY 24th RELEASE

FEATURING MUSIC FROM THE FILM, INCLUDING NEW SONGS FROM ED HELMS, DANZIG AND MORE

MAY 4, 2011 — BURBANK, CA - WaterTower Music is excited to announce the release of The Hangover Part II: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on May 24, 2011. The Soundtrack contains twelve songs from the film along with eight hilarious dialogue clips fans will be quoting for years to come. The much-anticipated feature "The Hangover Part II" opens nationwide on May 26, 2011.

Among the songs included on the album are Ed Helms' "Allentown," a new song in the spirit of his incredibly popular "Stu's Song" from the soundtrack of 2009's smash hit "The Hangover." Additional new music includes a song from Danzig, along with music from the Ska Rangers, who are featured in the film, Kanye West, Mark Lanegan, Deadmau5, Wolfmother, and more.

TRACK LISTING:
Danzig - "Black Hell"
DIALOGUE CLIP Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms - "You can't just skip out of the bachelor party"
Kanye West - "Stronger"
DIALOGUE CLIP Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper - "Stew's first marriage"
Billy Joel - "The Downeaster 'Alexa'"
DIALOGUE CLIP Ken Jeong, Bradley Cooper - "Holla, city of squaller"
Mark Lanegan - "The Beast In Me"
DIALOGUE CLIP Ed Helms - "What the f*** is going on!"
deadmau5 - "Sofi Needs A Ladder"
Ed Helms - "Allentown"
Curtis Mayfield - "Pusher Man"
DIALOGUE CLIP Sasha Barrese - "Seriously what is wrong with you three?"
Wolfmother - "Love Train"
DIALOGUE CLIP Aroon Seeboonruang, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis - "Farting medication"
Ska Rangers - "I Ran"
DIALOGUE CLIP Zach Galifianakis - "When a monkey nibbles"
Mike Tyson - "One Night In Bangkok"
DIALOGUE CLIP Ken Jeong - "Hold on gay boys"
Ska Rangers - "Just The Way You Are"
Jenny Lewis - "Bad Man's World"

In "The Hangover Part II," Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu's wedding. With the memory of Doug's nearly disastrous bachelor party in Las Vegas still fresh—or at least well-documented—Stu is taking no chances. He has opted for a safe, subdued, pre-wedding trip brunch, with pancakes, coffee...and no alcohol. However, things don't always go as planned.

Two nights before the big day, at a fabulous resort in Thailand, Stu relents. One beer each. In sealed bottles. What could go wrong?

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bangkok can't even be imagined.

"The Hangover Part II" was directed by Todd Phillips from a screenplay he co-wrote with Craig Mazin & Scot Armstrong. Phillips also produced the film under his Green Hat Films banner, together with Dan Goldberg. Thomas Tull, Scott Budnick, Chris Bender and J.C. Spink are the executive producers, with David A. Siegel and Jeffrey Wetzel serving as co-producers. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Mason Lee, Jamie Chung, Jeffrey Tambor and Paul Giamatti.

"The Hangover Part II" is a presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with Legendary Pictures, and will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The film has been rated R by the MPAA for pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images.

http://www.hangoverpart2.com/

The Hangover, Part II: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack


Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Review: "Due Date" is Good Product

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 28 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Due Date (2010)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R language, drug use and sexual content
DIRECTOR: Todd Phillips
WRITERS: Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, Adam Sztykiel, and Todd Phillips; from a story by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland
PRODUCERS: Daniel Goldberg and Todd Phillips
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lawrence Sher
EDITOR: Debra Neil-Fisher
COMPOSER: Christophe Beck

COMEDY

Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx, Juliette Lewis, Danny McBride, and RZA

Due Date is a comedy and road movie from Todd Phillips, the director of The Hangover. It is the story of a high-strung father-to-be forced to hitch a ride with an oddball wannabe actor if he wants to make it to the birth of his first child on time. While it isn’t nearly as funny or as outrageous as The Hangover, Due Date is entertaining and offers some pretty hysterical moments of its own.

Architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is on his way home from Atlanta to Los Angeles when he has an unpleasant encounter with another flyer, aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis), who is also going to L.A. Peter and Ethan’s meeting ends up with Peter being placed on the No Fly List. Desperate to get home for the impending birth of his child, Peter is forced to accept Ethan’s offer to hitch a ride with him and his dog, Sonny, cross-country. Thus begins a road trip to hell – the most agonizing, frustrating, terrifying, and physically painful journey of Peter’s life.

Due Date reminded me of another comedy road movie featuring a mismatched pair, Plains, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), the surprisingly poignant film starring Steve Martin and the late John Candy and directed by the late John Hughes. Due Date does have oddly touching moments, but the film really doesn’t deliver on the talents of the people involved, especially Downey, Galifianakis, and director Todd Phillips. It is a mixed bag. Sometimes, it is an action movie; other times, it is a raunchy comedy, and a few times, the film throws out some emotional moments. Due Date is funny, but for the most part, it just feels like big time Hollywood product. It entertains, delivering with the same reliability of an unspectacular Big Mac. Due Date is just average.

5 of 10
B-

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

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Friday, November 5, 2010

Review: "The Hangover" is Simply Fantastic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 4 (of 2009) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Hangover (2009)
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – R for pervasive language, sexual content including nudity, and some drug material
DIRECTOR: Todd Phillips
WRITERS: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
PRODUCERS: Daniel Goldberg and Todd Phillips
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lawrence Sher
EDITOR: Debra Neil-Fisher
Golden Globe winner

COMEDY/MYSTERY

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Mike Epps, Sasha Barrese, Jeffrey Tambor, Ken Jeong, Rachel Harris, Mike Tyson, Jernard Burks, Rob Riggle, and Cleo King

It may be a cliché in movies and television series to send characters to Las Vegas for a bit of hedonism. Now, it is also a city where families can have fun and where businessmen can get down to business. Still, Las Vegas has long been the go-to place for many pleasure-seeking men.

The new film, The Hangover, from director Todd Phillips (Old School), takes a quartet of middleclass guys to Vegas for a bachelor party. While their plan for an evening of nightmarish debauchery eventually becomes a waking nightmare, their distress and torment are comedy gold for movie audiences.

Two days before his wedding to his bride-to-be, Tracy Garner (Sasha Barrese), Doug Billings (Justin Bartha) and three pals leave Los Angeles and drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party that will be so crazy (they hope) they’ll never forget it. Doug’s friends are Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper), a good-looking, junior high school teacher, who puts on that married life is killing him. Dentist Stu Price (Ed Helms) is an uptight dweeb, who is made all the more anxious by his controlling girlfriend, Melissa (Rachel Harris). Melissa treats Stu like a slave, and he has to lie to her about the Vegas trip. Finally, there’s Tracy’s deranged brother, Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis); pudgy, bearded, and dumber than a bag of hammers, Alan may be as dangerous as he is clueless.

After offering a toast to their diabolical plans on the roof of their Caesar’s Palace, the guys head out for an evening of ritualized Vegas fun (gambling, drinking, whoring, etc.). But the next morning, Phil, Stu, and Alan wake up and discover they can’t remember the events of the previous evening. For unknown reasons, they now share their Caesar’s Palace suite with a tiger (in the bathroom) and a six-month-old baby (in the closet). And they can’t find Doug. With no memories of what transpired and only a day before the wedding, the three hung-over men must retrace their hazy steps, follow a handful of clues, and sift through all their bad decisions in order to find Doug and get him back to L.A. in time for his wedding.

In The Hangover, the surprises are everything, and those surprises are the strange people with which our heroes interacted, the shocking places they’ve been, and the outrageous things they’ve done. Some of those specific surprises involve Mike Tyson, a Vegas wedding chapel, and flamboyantly gay Asian gangster (Ken Jeong), and delightful performances given by Heather Graham and Mike Epps in small roles. That’s to say nothing about the riot that is the end-credit montage.

A lot of the fun in this movie is recognizing that the boys, especially Phil, Stu, and Alan, are types as much as they are characters, and that while each often acts as we would expect him to, it’s when they do something out of character that The Hangover hits a high point. Still, it would have been good to have richer character interplay, but there’s isn’t much time for soul searching when all a scene requires is that the character put his face in a hooker’s lap. It’s satisfying that Cooper, Helms, and Galifianakis are so good at making these character types at least seem like great characters.

The fun in this movie is getting the surprises, and The Hangover is all about shocking the viewer. Considering that one expects shocking things to happen when four ordinary guys go to Vegas for a bachelor party, the genius of The Hangover is that it finds a way to make the predictable always unpredictable.

8 of 10
A

Friday, June 19, 2009

NOTES:
2010 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Screenplay – Original” (Jon Lucas and Scott Moore)

2010 Golden Globes: 1 win: “Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy”

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Zach Galifianakis and Jennifer Lawrence to Be Honored at Hollywood Film Festival

Press release:

Hollywood Fest to Honor Zach Galifianakis and Jennifer Lawrence at the Hollywood Awards Gala

Hollywood, CA, October 12, 2010. The 14th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards, presented by Starz, are pleased to announce that the star of "Due Date" Zach Galifianakis will receive the "Hollywood Comedy Actor Award" and actress Jennifer Lawrence will be recognized with the "New Hollywood Award," at the Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony.

The announcement was made by Carlos de Abreu, Founder of the Hollywood Awards Gala.

Previously announced honorees for this year's Hollywood Awards Gala include: Sean Penn for the "Humanitarian Award"; Sylvester Stallone for the "Career Achievement Award"; Annette Bening for the "Actress Award"; Robert Duvall for the "Actor Award"; Helena Bonham Carter for the "Supporting Actress Award"; Sam Rockwell for the "Supporting Actor Award"; Andrew Garfield for the "Breakthrough Actor Award"; Mia Wasikowska for the "Breakthrough Actress Award"; Morgan Freeman and Lorie McCreary for the "Innovator Award"; Danny Boyle and Chris Colson for the "Producer Award"; Tom Hooper for the "Director Award"; Aaron Sorkin for the "Screenwriter Award"; Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story 3" and director Lee Unkrich for the "Animation Award"; Hans Zimmer for "Film Composer Award"; Wally Pfister for "Cinematographer Award"; Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall for the "Editor Award"; Paramount Pictures' "Iron Man 2" and visual effects supervisors Ben Snow and Janek Sirrs for the "Visual Effects Award"; and Robert Stromberg for "Production Designer Award."


ABOUT ZACH GALIFIANAKIS
Zach Galifianakis will soon be seen in Todd Phillips' "Due Date," co-starring Robert Downey Jr. He moved to New York City after failing his last college course by one point at North Carolina State University. He got his start performing his brand of humor in the back of a hamburger joint in Times Square, graduating to doing stand-up at night in clubs and coffee houses in the city. While working as a busboy, he got his first acting job on the NBC sitcom "Boston Common."

Galifianakis' breakout role came in Todd Phillips' blockbuster hit "The Hangover," the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. He will reunite with Phillips and castmates Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha in "Hangover 2," slated for a 2011 release.

He also stars in "It's Kind of a Funny Story," which premiered at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. Recently, he also co-starred with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in Jay Roach's comedy "Dinner for Schmucks." Galifianakis' additional film credits include the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hit "G-Force"; the indie feature "Youth in Revolt," with Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta; a cameo in Jason Reitman's Oscar®-nominated film "Up in the Air"; "What Happens in Vegas," with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher; and the critically acclaimed true-life drama "Into the Wild," from director Sean Penn.

ABOUT JENNIFER LAWRENCE
A natural talent with a striking presence and undeniable energy, Jennifer Lawrence is one of Hollywood's most promising young actresses. She was most recently seen in Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone" for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Seattle International Film Festival and The Blue Angel Award for Best Female Performance at the Bratislava Film Festival for her role.

Lawrence will next be seen in "The Beaver," directed by Jodie Foster who also stars, and alongside Mel Gibson and Anton Yelchin. She is currently in production on Matthew Vaughn's "X-Men: First Class" starring as Mystique, and recently wrapped production on Drake Doremus' "Like Crazy" and Mark Tonderai's "House at the End of the Street." Lawrence starred in Guillermo Arriaga's directorial debut "The Burning Plain," which premiered at the 65th Venice Film Festival where she won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actress or Actor.

She also starred in Lori Petty's "Poker House" for which she was awarded the prize of 'Outstanding Performance in the Narrative Competition' at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival.

The festival and awards will mark their return on October 20 for a week long series of screenings, competitions and awards. The Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony will take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on October 25, 2010.

The festival and awards presenter is Starz Entertainment, LLC, a premium movie service provider operating in the United States. It offers 16 movie channels including the flagship Starz® and Encore® brands with approximately 15.8 million and 28.2 million subscribers respectively. Starz Entertainment airs more than 1,000 movies per month across its pay TV channels and offers advanced services including Starz HD, Starz On Demand and VongoSM. Starz Entertainment (www.starz.com) is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation that is attributed to Liberty Capital Group.

Festival Contact:
1.310.288.1882
festival@hollywoodawards.com
Hollywood Film Festival®
433 N. Camden Drive, Suite 600
Beverly Hills, CA 90210