The Spielster » Apatown

“She’s Out of My League” Trailer Brings the Baruchel

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:26:30 +0000

Yes, after seeing the trailer we can all yammer on and on about how similar this “out of my league” territory is and how we might be over it, but……. it has Jay Baruchel. In a starring role no less? How can you hate anything having to do with this adorable man? She’s Out of My League stars Baruchel as a TSA agent, who is beyond down on his luck with ladies and is destined to settle with his evil ex girlfriend. That is until luck intervenes and sends a beautiful and way out of his league airline passenger his way when he happens to find her lost iPhone (nice product placement) at a security check point. What follows is your typical boy pining for girl, girl pining for the safe choice romantic comedy, with the obligatory silly friends for him, sassy friends for her and the agro ex boyfriend who wants to get her back. The trailer makes this appear more American Pie than Knocked Up, but Im just so stoked Baruchel, whom I have loved since “Undeclared“, is getting closer and closer to leading man territory. And no this film was not written, directed or produced by Judd Apatow. It hits theaters in March of this year.

RAAAAAAAANDY to Receive His Own Full Length? YES PLEASE!

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:43:29 +0000

So word on the street is Aziz Ansari’s ridiculous character in Funny People Raaaaaaaandy could possibly get some more time on the big screen. Like a whole two hours more and I am in love with the idea. For about a month, we have been getting snippets of the ridiculous comic and his brand of comedy on FunnyorDie.com in preparation for Friday’s release of Funny People. While this began as supplemental material to flesh out a very minor character in the movie, it has turned into Raaaaaaaandy love all over the interweb and Apatow is looking to develop these small “documentaries” into a full length.

Apatow told JoBlo.com, “Randy isn’t in the movie anywhere near as much we wish he was. Something hilariously magical happened when Aziz showed up. So we all said, ‘What else can we do?’ Let’s just make a documentary! We just couldn’t stop writing for him. And now we’re talking about making the RANDY movie. We can’t get enough of Randy…”

What’s funny here is that really the Raaaaaaaandy character let’s all of those freshly successful comedians to poke fun of asshats like Dane Cook, who are notorious for their frat style of humor and love of stealing or “upgrading” other comedians jokes, without fully calling them out. Here’s to see more of both Raaaaaaaandy and Aziz Ansari on the big screen. Its about time Ansari got the love from the mainstream him and his wit so fully deserves. This is why I love Apatow, he sees a good thing and promotes the shit out of it. Now, if he would just start doing that for a few chick comedians, we will be all good.

Check out the third installment of the “documentary” series.

Raaaaaaaandy – Part 3 (Funny People) from Aziz Ansari

Raaaaaaaandy Brings More Viral Love to “Funny People”

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:22:36 +0000

Since we only have about two weeks until the release of “Funny People”, the latest big screen effort from Judd Apatow and his crew, I knew the good viral videos were about to be unleashed. We here at The Spielster have been covering the viral marketing efforts behind Apatow’s “Funny People” since April and have enjoyed every moment of it.

Last year, Apatow partnered with his friends Will Farrell and Adam McKay over at FunnyorDie.com for future viral and video content the director would be working on. And the relationship has been a success so far. Apatow’s latest film follows the life of a successful comedic actor George Simmons (Adam Sandler) and his path in life and career after a battle with cancer. In support of this, Apatown has been busy filling the interwebs with viral content, such as George Simmons’ website, “Yo Teach!” and now we are getting to meet Raaaaaaaandy, a hilariously raunchy comedian played by Aziz Ansari. Randy’s site, LaughYourDickOff, is a showcase of the type of comedy and behind the scenes tricks I can only imagine Aziz, Seth Rogen, Sandler and Apatow probably abhor in their comedy community, which makes it all the better. Aziz’s Raaaaaaaandy (yes there are 8 a’s in there) is a stereotypical douche-bro comedian whose penchant to make money off his audience at any cost looks reasonably similar to a handful of LA residents (cough cough Dane Cook cough). Here is a glimpse at what we can expect from the comedians who are filling out the “Funny People” cast.

Raaaaaaaandy – Part 1 (Funny People) from Aziz Ansari

In other “Funny People” news, The Playlist reported that the soundtrack, chock full of goodies, will be released the Tuesday before the film comes out. It’s of Scwartzman’s Coconut Records’ songs and singer songwriters from the 1970′s.

“Yo Teach!” is Just the Beginning of the Viral Marketing Monster Coming Our Way…..

admin — Fri, 29 May 2009 03:36:54 +0000

This is just the beginning of the viral marketing assault I am sure we are in store for from Universal to promote Judd Apatow’s latest film “Funny People”. Not sure where it can go from here, since Jason Schwartzman as a fake “Mr. Cooper” is about as genius as it can get, but I am thinking we will be seeing TONS of partnerships and comedy videos all leading up to the film’s release on July 31st. “Yo Teach!”, the fake NBC sitcom, that is so bad its this close to actually getting on the fall schedule, even has its own NBC style site, with clips and bios. I think this campaign will go above and beyond what was accomplished with the viral marketing campaigns we saw for “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. According to a few LA audience members, the stand up scenes shot for the movie were pulled from three hours of a stand up comedy night, which was FILLED with special guests, so its only a matter of time till that gets on YouTube. Even before this movie comes out, I am beyond stoked for the DVD because I believe this will be one extra features filled party.

What do you think of this idea?

“Paper Heart” Trailer Makes Me Fall Further In Love With Charlene Yi….

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:56:36 +0000

Charlene Yi, best known for stealing screen time in the Apatow film “Knocked Up”, is one of my favorite up and coming comedians. And after seeing the trailer for her new movie “Paper Heart”, I can’t help but think you will all fall in love with her like I have. The movie, which is part unscripted comedy and part documentary, is focused on Yi’s non belief in true love and a trip all over North America to figure out if it actually exists. It was “co written” by the director Nicholas Jasenovec and received a Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

This refreshing approach on romantic comedy costars Michael Cera, Jake Johnson (playing Jasenovec), Martin Starr and countless other comedian friends, who all help Yi in her quest for actual true love and its definition to many. Its also filled with interviews of regular folks and cute kids, who describe their own love stories, leading to some of the more adorable scenes in the film. Yi and Cera, who are a couple in real life, seem adorably awkward while having their growing relationship filmed for the movie and this brings even another sense of realness to the film.

Now check out the trailer and support this very funny female comedian. The film opens in select cities on August 7th and nationwide on the 14th. Hopefully, I can get some time to sit down and discuss with Charlene what she gained out of the film and where she sees herself next.

“Funny People” : Will it be another hit for Apatown?

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:02:09 +0000

From the trailer, I already know I will love this movie. “Funny People” will be a bit more serious than previous efforts from Judd Apatow and is based on what happens to a successful comedian, played by Adam Sandler, is faced with his own mortality and the mistakes he has made in his life. Seth Rogen costars, as an up and coming comedian that Sandler’s Georg takes under his wing and immediately finds a kinship with. The cast is rounded out by Leslie Mann, as the one who got away from George, Eric Bana, Mann’s husband and Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman, as Ira’s (Seth Rogen) close pals. Schwartzman is also credited with the music for the film, which is quite exciting for me, who is a huge fan of his band, Coconut Records. There is also a handful of cameos from various celebrity comedians, like Andy Dick, Sarah Silverman, Norm MacDonald and more.

The movie, which touches upon what we do once we are aware of what we become, will go far deeper than the standard Apatown fare. It will also have Sandler return to a more serious, poignant type of comedy. But don’t let the tone fool you, this will still bring the standard laughs anticipated for a Judd project. In the spirit of funny, Apatow and Fox Searchlight, in partnership with MySpace.com, offered a contest for a walk in role for the film last year, which was going to be given to a fan who could capture why they needed to be on the set through a myspace comment. Unfortunately, my ass didn’t win, even though I quoted “Undeclared” and Sandler’s appearance on the ill fated college comedy series by Apatow. Anyways, I am incredibly excited about this film, since it feels like forever since an actual Apatow movie came out and I for one am excited to finally see Leslie Mann as the lead female in a movie, since she is near perfection on screen.

What do you think? Will you find “Funny People” funny?

Will We “Party Down” or “Sit Down, Shut Up”?

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:12:33 +0000

Hopefully this teaser for Fox’s “Sit Down, Shut Up”, a new series from Mitch Hurwitz, can calm down us “Arrested Development” fans. The animated comedy, starring the vocal stylings of Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Henry Winkler, Will Forte, Kenan Thompson and Cheri Oteri, is about a haphazard teaching staff at a local high school. The show premieres on April 19th on Fox and hopefully they will treat it a bit better than “Arrested Development”, but this is Fox so I won’t hold my breath.
In other highly anticipated comedy show news, Starz’s “Party Down” is turning out to be a reason to sign up for the cable channel again. “Party Down” is the brainchild of “Veronica Mars”’ creator Rob Thomas and focuses on the lives of six party caterers, who would rather be doing anything else in Los Angeles. The show stars Ken Marino, as Ron Donald, the leader of the dysfunctional crew, with support from Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan , Jane Lynch, Ryan Hansen and my eternal favorite Martin Starr. The show is premiering next Friday at 10:30 PM, which is not the best time slot for a comedy show on a nearly unwatched cable network starring supporting characters from “The State” and Apatown, but I hope it ends up pulling through. What do you think from the trailer below?

“Adventureland” Gets the Red Band Trailer Tribute

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:55:08 +0000

The Red Band trailer for “Adventureland” premiered earlier this week and its picking up some steam. I have been super stoked to check out this film mainly because of the presence of Martin Starr in the cast. “Adventureland”, which takes place in 1987, tells the tale of James Brennan, played by Jesse Eisenberg, and his post college quest for money to explore Europe. After college, Brennan finds out that his parents can no longer subsidize the upcoming trip and has to take a job a local amusement park. The comedy focuses on the comedy that can be made while your life changes course and the new people you meet along the way. Rounding out the cast is Martin Starr, my favorite from Apatown, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, the beautiful Ryan Reynolds and my pick for an upcoming mega star – Kristen Stewart. While the movie was directed by Greg Mottola, who brought us the raunchy teen comedy “Superbad” last year, early reviews are saying its much more hear warming than raunchy teen vehicle. The trailer only confirms this and I cannot wait to see it when it hits theaters nationwide on March 27th.