Interesting thing about the current picture we have of the cast: Hill, Dujardin, and Reiner are all known for their work in comedic productions. This is leading some analysts to speculate that perhaps Scorsese has something a bit more lighthearted in mind than the movie’s subject matter might suggest at first – it’s about “a wheeling and dealing New York stockbroker who sees his career and personal life fall into shambles thanks to sex, drugs and alcohol.” Uh, hilarious? (The Playlist)

Leave your caption in the comment section, and check back on March 20th to see if you’ve won. Good luck, and may god have mercy on us all.

And check out this video from the team that made The Sitter. I wish my babysitters looked like that.

Best Performance by an Inanimate Object

Nominees
The book from The Help
Jonah Hill in Moneyball
The pills that killed Gwyneth Paltrow in Country Strong
The ring in Green Lantern
Channing Tatum in The Eagle

Winner: As was the case for his Best Supporting Actor “worthy” role in Moneyball, there would be a public backlash for Jonah Hill’s nomination in this category. Movie going audiences will claim that, just because Hill was fat to the point of immobility in the film does not qualify him as an inanimate object. In the end, it will be a pointless argument, as the gold statue will be given to Channing Tatum for his portrayal of the chariot in The Eagle. The above photo will be snapped of Tatum during his acceptance speech, which will consist mainly of Chewbacca-esque grunts and quotes from Old School.

Best Actor in the Worst Movie a.k.a The Michael Madsen Award

Nominees
Natalie Portman in No Strings Attached
Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Rite
Tom Hanks in Larry Crowne
Aaron Eckhart in Battle: Los Angeles
Jim Carrey in Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Winner: In a shocking twist, the award will be deemed a tie between the entire cast of New Year’s Eve with the exception of Ashton Kutcher. Sarah Jessica Parker will accept the award on behalf of the cast, at which point the viewing audiences across the nation will erupt into fits of rage and confusion as to why the presenters just allowed Warhorse to waltz off with an undeserved Oscar.

Though he does sound like a pretty irresponsible care-giver, he’s not nearly as bad as the so-called authority figures on this list.

Buck Russell – Uncle Buck

The problem here is that he’s a total lout. He swears, drinks, smokes cigars, drives a death trap, and punches clowns in the face. Though he’s rough around the edges, Uncle Buck’s Buck Russell really does love his nieces and nephew. Having trouble with a teacher at school? He’ll tell her off so harshly it shatters her world. Need to eat a giant pancake? He’s your man. Got some notorious cherry popper trying to get into your pants? He’ll kidnap him and then give him brain damage by beaning him with golf balls. The dude deserved it for wearing that lame beret.

Chet Donnelly – Weird Science

There are probably better candidates for running the household in your absence than a crazed wannabe Marine. Chet Donnelly isn’t just gung-ho and stupid. He’s equally as sadistic. And this is a pretty gung-ho and stupid guy we’re talking about here. When left in charge, he bullies his younger brother, extorts money from him, and even holds a firearm to his head. Dude definitely deserved a set of elephant balls.

Mrs. Baylock – The Omen

You can’t accuse Mrs. Baylock of not caring about the boy she nannies for. If anything, she’s a little too into her job. A devout Satanist, Baylock is the perfect choice to watch over Damien, the son of Satan. These two get along like gangbusters. However, she loses points for killing Damien’s mom and attempting to kill his father. In a field like that, good references are key, so don’t kill your employers.

Cast: Jonah Hill, Ari Graynor, Sam Rockwell

Synopsis: A comedy about a college student on suspension who is coaxed into babysitting the kids next door, though he is fully unprepared for the wild night ahead of him.

Release Date: December 9, 2011

Silly haircuts? Check. Drug humor? Check. John Woo-style gun ballet? Check. Give the trailer a watch. I’m really looking forward to seeing more. The only part that made me sad was when Ice Cube acknowledged Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and the Twittersphere. Hopefully at some point in the movie he’ll wield an AK.

Aside from the casting news, Rogen has said he wants to paint a pretty “offensive” view of the apocalypse, with the only opportunity for celebrities to cameo in the film coming if they’re willing to play corpses of themselves.

Dead Steve Carell? I could get behind that.

Seth and Jay Vs. The Apocalypse begins filming in February, with Rogen and Evan Goldberg co-directing.

Cast: Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill

Synopsis: The story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.

Release Date: September 23, 2011

What would you guys chat with Hill about? Personally, I would pretend to be held hostage and claim that Hill’s number was the only one my broken phone could reach like in Cellular. Then we could talk about Cellular and how implausibly bad it is, which would lead me to admit that this has all been a ruse. I’m not really being held hostage. Then I’d ask him if he likes any of the girls at school. It’s about this time that his reps make him hang up. (Vulture)

This is the first role for Hill since he stepped into Captain America‘s Superhumanizer and set it to reverse. (THR)

Certainly, the well-worn pairing of Stiller and Vaughn could use a little spice, but is Hill the right guy for the job? Hill is hilarious in his own right, but the cast and familiar premise could use a bit more than just “a funny guy;” it could use a decent dose of something different. In Moneyball, Superbad, and the upcoming The Sitter, we’ve seen Hill tackle different personas, but he’ll need to really stretch to bust the audience out of the familiar Stiller/Vaughn funk.

Neighborhood Watch will follow two suburban dads (guess who) as they stumble upon an extraterrestrial threat from which they must save their community. Huh. Might want to bring in Christopher Walken, Zach Galifianakis, and a Quentin Tarantino cameo just to be safe.

In the red-band trailer, Hill plays his normal goofy self, only this time he is responsible for the lives of small children, which is actually more sad than funny if you think about it. Nah. It’s still more funny.

The Sitter boasts a pretty awesome cast featuring Sam Rockwell, JB Smoove, and Method Man, but it would appear that Hill is the star of the show. Will his good intentions keep him out of trouble? Apparently not.

NOTE: For some reason, there is a little bumper preceding the trailer that’s pretty funny and shows a Jonah Hill that’s lost about 100 pounds. You won’t miss it, but it’s worth calling out.

The trailer does an abrupt heel-turn, going from slapstick to Friday Night Lights-style inspiration. So when you watch this trailer, start by giggling incessantly, but by the end, you’ll have a thousand-yard stare and a solitary tear running down your face. At least I did.

PCU

David Spade and Jeremy Piven in PCU

Jeremy Piven destroys anything that comes into view with a sarcastic wit that is timeless and perfect for a college movie. Teamed up with a larger Jon Favreau, Piven gives lessons in college etiquette along with an enlightened and useful view of classes to take as a freshman that are the Rosetta Stone of education. PCU takes no hostages among the various factions at their school, demystifying the higher education experience with an almost religious fervor. Roll around in the genius of this movie until you stink of old sheets and older pizza crusts. Pay particular attention to Piven’s advice about overcoming the lack of a car.

Road Trip

Tom Green with a snake in Road Trip

Surpassing adolescence as the premier rite of passage into adulthood is the cross-country car trip with your buds. Road Trip tosses together an unlikely group of friends and acquaintances and sends them across America to take care of a certain mistakenly sent package to one of their girlfriends. An amusing college movie that shows off a deep love for the buddy travel genre, Road Trip bookends the journey with the universally dreaded end of term finals—the heart of the movie is the companions realizing they need to be freed from from thei high school past in order to experience the present.

Old School

Will Ferrell partying in Old School

A soul check of a movie because if you’re not dying of laughter by the time a certain flying tackle into a fountain that takes place, then there’s a probably a good chance you spent your childhood torturing small animals. The college frat gets a remodel when a bunch of guys well past their prime decide they can start up their own—and it steam rolls into the land of belly laughs and snorts from there. The inability to let go of their early twenties is the main center of focus here, but it’ buried under a surface of the classic bonding of miscreants and weirdoes who form the same bonds that a typical fraternity would produce. Will Ferrell is on point in Old School with Vince Vaughn flanking him as they combine into a Voltron of awesomeness making this a college movie you can watch again and again.

Accepted

Justin Long and Jonah Hill in Accepted

Ingenious in its concept about a fake college acceptance letter that snowballs into the need to actually build a fake university to perpetuate the lie, Accepted makes your adolescent fears of not getting in anywhere a reality and then pushes it off a cliff. Timeless is the fear of rejection and the necessity is the mother of invention and all that jazz. Seeing Lewis Black play a dean and eventual professor alone is worth seeing, not to mention you’ll garner some valuable insight into the sheep-like pursuit of higher education. Whaddaya know, you might just learn something.

Back to School

Rodney Dangerfield throwing a football in Back To School

Back to School doesn’t even bother saying hello before it tears into the sanctity of college with wild abandon. Rodney Dangerfield is at his peak as a father who feels out of touch with his son and chooses to attend school with him so they can share the experience. The problem being that Dangerfield plays a rich businessman and therefore knows how money makes the world go round and applies it to his classes and his free time. Quips and one-liners bounce off the scenery with enough slapstick to satisfy any type of comedy lover. Without any need for a moral anchor, this film strives to deliver as much laughter as possible while carrying along a story that’s built on a foundation of the love between a dad and his son.

But it has one, anyway.

According to 24 Frames:

The film, which is set up as an independent project with the company RCR Pictures, follows two party-happy mercenaries who decide to take on a more serious case involving a terrorist, only to find their mission complicated when they discover one of them is related to the target. The film has been described by two people familiar with it as a new spin on “Letha Weapon,” with a bit more of an emphasis on the action than on the comedy.

I’m very interested to see Jonah Hill’s action and drama chops in Moneyball and 21 Jump Street, and Wahlberg has proven himself in almost every genre except anime, so this could work pretty well. The film is written by Max Landis, son of John, but no director has been selected yet.

On a final note, the film is being financed by Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, which is both awesome and hilarious at the same time. Why? This is why.

The film looks like it has all the makings of a sports underdog story. There is laughter, tears, guys being chummy, chairs being thrown, and a slow-motion home run hit. Pitt handles all of these things well, except the homer. He leaves that to the guys with less attractive features.

So it’s not dumb luck that the film is named after the both famous and infamous music site. Jonah Hill would play the stuck up blogger with the $100 hair cut, the goddamn American Spirits, stupid, ironic “Go Metric” t-shirt.

Ahem.

I’m sorry. My rage got away from there. I just can’t stand hipsters.

What’s up with the recent string of films that place Hill amidst the music industry? We’ve got Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where he played an aspiring musician trying to get signed, Get Him to the Greek, in which he played an agent, and now this. Jared Leto is not going to be happy about this at all.

Dakota Johnson, the hot girl who didn’t realize she slept with the Napster guy in The Social Network, has been cast in three movies:

- She’s currently filming Goats, which is directed by Christopher Neil and stars David Duchovny. It’s about a teen from Tuscon who leaves home to go to an East Coast prep school. Johnson will play: some character.

- From there, Johnson will act in Five Year Engagement, which is directed by Nicholas Stoller, produced by Judd Apatow and stars Jason Segel. It’s about a newlywed couple who go through ups and downs. Johnson will play: one of the characters in the movie.

- Finally, Johnson will join the cast of 21 Jump Street, which is directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and stars Jonah Hill. It’s about young-looking cops who go undercover as teens, in a remake of the 80s TV drama. Johnson will play: a girl rock star who gets recruited by Secret NASA to fight aliens. Okay, ya got me. She’s playing some other kind of character entirely. (Variety)

Johnny Depp got his start on the Fox series in the 1980′s before trading it all in for pirate roles and French acid. Speculation was that he would appear in Jonah Hill‘s film in some role but it was alway up in the air whether the star would find a way to fit it into his schedule. Now it’s official.

There are no details on just what his cameo will entail, but I assume it features Depp alone at a stop light when Peter DeLuise approaches asking for a hand-out. Depp then carefully locks his door and just stares forward. Turn green, damn you! Turn!! (Coming Soon)

But seriously, one role, Dave? Pfft. Is that the best you can do? And you’re not even directing yourself. You’d better be hard at work on some kind of avant garde art installation or something. And don’t say ‘Looking a little bit like James Franco‘, because that’s a cop-out. (Deadline)

Riggle joins 21 Jump Street, what’s sure to be a faithfully dramatic movie version of the old Johnny Depp TV show, where undercover cops pose as teenagers in high school. He’ll play the main villain in a cast that includes Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum and Ice Cube. 21 Jump Street will be directed by the same guys who brought us Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, Phil Lord and Chris Miller. So again, anticipate some Oscar-worthy drama here.

Columbia Pictures is distributing. (Variety)

No stranger to animated voice work, Forte joins Fox’s Jonah Hill created comedy “Allen Gregory.” The series revolves around a brilliant child (Hill) who’s going to school with regular, non-brilliant children for the first time. Oh my. Forte will pick up a bunch of smaller roles. Hopefully one of those roles will be the part of teenage Abraham Lincoln, and the show will become about teenage Abraham Lincoln, eventually morphing into the second season of “Clone High.”

Forte will also star in the indie film Run and Jump alongside Maxine Peake and Brian F. O’Byrne. The drama, helmed by Steph Green, which I thought was “Seth Green” for a minute and was like, “what…?,” is set to film in Ireland this May. Hopefully, they’ll appreciate a good ghost sex joke between takes. (Collider)

The actor/writer is in talks to helm The Kitchen Sink for Sony Pictures, the studio from whom he co-wrote and co-stars in 21 Jump Street. Kitchen Sink centers around high school aged zombie, vampire and human who team up to fight aliens invading their hometown. Think The Breakfast Club meets all those mash-up novels publishers are churning out. In fact, writer Oren Uziel - whose screenplay was blacklisted – got the title from the idea that everything, including the kitchen sink, was in this film. Still no word yet then on how pirates, robots and leprechauns are worked in.

I’m imagining Hill having an awkward argument with one of the actors, then they make up and have a longish hug, but somebody else walks in – sees the hug – and wonders if they’re gay. What a delightful misunderstanding. (Deadline)

Mr. Cube is in talks to be part of 21 Jump Street, based on the old Johnny Depp show that made him a dreamy teen idol, much to his emo-embarrassment. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs) want him to play the precinct captain, cast alongside Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. I kinda wish they’d ask him to play one of the undercove high school officers, cause he’s 41 and that would be very, very ridiculous.

In addition, Ice Cube is shopping around a movie he wrote, and would like to direct / star in. Will he also run craft services on Chrome and Paint, a gritty drama about South LA’s custom car culture? Probably not, but it’d be funny if Ice Cube didn’t trust anyone else to make potato salad, so he made it himself. Who would stop him? Hell, I wouldn’t even mess with the family friendly Ice Cube. (Deadline)

“I promise you, it will be the most insane ride that you will ever go on,” Tatum said at the press junket for his latest film, The Eagle. “It’s the most ridiculous script I’ve ever read in my entire life.”

Then of course Hill always likes to improvise, so who knows what’ll be in the movie after they’re done. “We’re going to go crazy on this movie and I hope that I can just keep up with the kid,” Tatum said.

Everyone is still gunning for a Johnny Depp cameo, none more so than Tatum himself. Depp has said he’s willing, so it’s only a matter of scheduling him in between Pirates and Tim Burton movies. Tatum knows the scene Depp would appear in.

“If and when it does happen, it’ll be crazy, as true to form and as brilliant as he is. It’ll be true to form to him for sure. We have an idea but it’ll be a surprise, I’ll tell you that.”

“Now I can finally make that show I’ve always wanted to make about high school kids singing and dancing in some sort of a ‘singing-club’ type program at their school. Wait…what? There already is a show like that on FOX? What? It’s like the most popular show ever? Uh oh… I wanted to create JHF so I and all of the talented writers I know could write funny and interesting television shows that we’d love to see: Allen Gregory being the first, and hopefully many more to follow I am a lucky guy to get to do what I do for a living, and hope to help create that opportunity for talented young writers and performers.”

Let’s hope this means there’s a new era of quirky, naturalistic comedy coming to the airwaves soon, and that JHF takes off in a big way. And by that I mean, let’s hope this guy gives all mid to late twenty something Jewish comedy writers a big fat sack of money. *Cough Cough* Like me.

(Deadline)

The studio’s Planet of the Apes origin story, Rise of the Apes, is moving from June 24th to November 23rd. That makes sense, because Thanksgiving reminds us about how we took over this land from the Native Americans, so it makes karmic sense that we’d see a movie about apes taking over the world from us. Shame us with a big screen analogy, Fox!

Meanwhile, Fox must have a lot of faith in the Jim Carrey comedy Mr. Popper’s Penguins. They’re moving it from August 12th (the Baltic Avenue of summer movie spots) to June 17th (pure Boardwalk, baby). Let’s hope Carry’s penguins don’t… slip up!

Do you get that joke? It’s a joke about penguins being slippery.

Other notable mentions from Fox’s new calendar:

- The Sitter, a new “R”-rated Jonah Hill comedy, gets bumped from July 15th to August 5th. (Ouch.)

- What’s Your Number?, a new “R”-rated Anna Faris comedy, got moved from April 29th to September 30th. (Meee-ouch!)

- The Big Year, starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson as bird-watchers, officially has my attention starting Oct. 15th. (Deadline)

Rogen and Goldberg gave insights into the plot of Sausage Party, their foray into hard R-rated animation.

“It’s a movie about sausages in a supermarket that need to get back to their aisle before the fourth of July,” says Rogen.

Goldberg adds, “Their whole goal is to get purchased. And they get lost and they need to get back to their aisle before the Fourth of July starts.”

Despite having Monsters Vs. Aliens and Shrek Forever After director Conrad Vernon and Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne involved, they’re having trouble getting the project off the ground. The problem they’re encountering is the same one that David Fincher is having with The Goon. There’s just not a strong enough audience for non G-rated animated films. That, and Jonah Hill has already blown through the production budget “researching” different sausages. Yeah right, Jonah. “Research.” (via Screenrant and CinemaBlend)