Posted on Friday, July 6th, 2012 by Angie Han
Thanks to Independence Day, it’s been a fairly slow week for film news — but it looks like the TV folks have been keeping themselves plenty busy over the past few days. After the jump:
- Danny McBride talks the surprise fourth season of Eastbound & Down
- A Fraggle Rock spin-off, The Doozers, will shoot in Canada this month
- Watch a teaser for Jerry Seinfeld‘s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
- Frank Darabont‘s L.A. Noir pics show Jon Bernthal and Simon Pegg
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Posted on Thursday, December 1st, 2011 by Angie Han
Today’s TV Bits offers a few things to look forward to in the not-too-distant future, including imperiled lawyers, asshole baseball players, pretty flight attendants, and a touch of dry British humor. After the jump:
- NBC drops two teasers for its legal thriller The Firm
- HBO announces premiere dates for Eastbound & Down and Life’s Too Short
- ABC confirms that Pan Am is not cancelled
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In Eastbound and Down, Kenny Powers has stood atop the worlds of baseball and pure assholery. (If that wasn’t a word, it is now.) His latest achievement is to land as king of the hill in the business of sports apparel. Kenny Powers is now the CEO of K-Swiss, and he’s going to destroy the world of product marketing and branding, the better to rebuild it in his own image. His approach to business is explained in a video after the break. It is laden with guest appearances, including Michael Bay. And, as anyone familiar with Eastbound and Down would likely assume, this is some NSFW shit. Read More »
Posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 by Angie Han
Saturday Night Live veteran Jason Sudeikis has been doing pretty well for himself as a movie star lately, with three separate big-screen projects in 2011 alone — Hall Pass, Horrible Bosses, and the upcoming A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy — but he hasn’t left the small screen behind quite yet. The actor has just signed on for a recurring role on the upcoming season of HBO’s baseball comedy Eastbound & Down as Shane, a new friend of former Major League pitcher Kenny Powers (Danny McBride).
The next season of Eastbound & Down will be the third and most likely final season of the series, and will premiere in early 2012. [Variety]
After the jump, Kristen Bell gains two new suitors, and Nip/Tuck star Julian McMahon takes on the finance industry.
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Fans of Pawnee, Indiana and Kenny Powers are going to want to pay attention. Gallery 1988 has premiered posters for NBC’s Parks and Recreation as well as HBO’s Eastbound and Down to go along with their upcoming presentations at PaleyFest 2011. For Parks and Recreations, Mike Mitchell (who did the famous I’m With Coco poster) pays homage to Casablanca while Derek Deal was inspired by 1985 Topps baseball cards for Eastbound and Down. Both posters will go on sale at their respective events this week and all leftovers will go on sale on Gallery1988.com. Check out the full images of each poster after the jump. Read More »
ABC’s Charlie’s Angels is finally going into production. It was first mentioned almost a year ago that the channel was looking to greenlight a pilot that would bring the series back to television, but it experienced a change in the development process that set it back until now. Originally, Josh Friedman (the creator of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) was developing the project, but now ABC has handed the show over to Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar.
The show is planned to shoot at the start of the new year in Miami. ABC is currently searching for actresses to play the ‘Angels’. Leonard Goldberg (one of the producers of the original show) and Drew Barrymore remain involved in the series as producers. [Deadline]
After the break, the fate of three TV shows hang in the balance. Read More »
Now that Danny McBride and Jody Hill ostensibly have the keys to the kingdom by way of their new production company, Rough House Pictures, the world of comedy better watch its stagnant ass. Hill is attached to direct, and McBride to star as a “beaten down, hardboiled private investigator,” in a new action-comedy called L.A.P.I. Their pal and fellow North Carolina School of the Arts alum, David Gordon Green, who co-founded the company with them last year, will co-produce.
What’s intriguing is that unlike their previous collaborations The Foot Fist Way, HBO’s Eastbound & Down, and Observe & Report, the idea and pitch for L.A.P.I. originates outside the crew’s creative circle, from screenwriter team Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan. The duo have two other buzzing projects in development: a comedy entitled Comic Con (one of two scripts by these guys on the 2009 Black List) and a remake of Brewster’s Millions. McBride and Hill are pretty damn selective about material, so I can’t wait to hear more and see what appealed to them. Read the official press release and additional /Film thoughts after the jump. Or just go celebrate in your backyard by waving around a machete and leaving uncool magical trails…
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With only two feature films and one TV show to his name, writer/director Jody Hill, is now synonymous with ignoring the boundaries and “genre rules” of modern comedy and creating anti-heroes that laughably burble with nihilistic rage, scary faux pas and hot-air egos. But there is also an internal depth to these macho doofuses played by Hill’s longtime pal and writing partner, Danny McBride, and comedy star Seth Rogen, to surpass the high art of a perfectly-timed and pronounced “fuck.”
Hill’s work on Observe & Report, The Foot Fist Way, and his cultural breakthrough, HBO‘s Eastbound & Down, contains more glass-darkly social commentary and life-lived expression than the work of any hotshot young novelist in recent memory. Rather than document the cold realities and indulgent pleasantries of another big city with bright lights, Hill is set on exploring the very place that so many creative-types vacate upon the arrival of their first Visa card or college acceptance letter: the American South. Moreover, as many middle-class and broke white American males face sobering, if inevitable, realizations and disillusions about the future, laughing at Hill’s moronic, unhinged versions as they champion outdated movie/sports star heroics atop small-town kingdoms is like homemade medicine. When it comes to countering the monotony of the average day-to-day? Eastbound is harder to beat still. The sight of Kenny Powers “dancing” in a middle school gym under the influence of eggrolls and ecstasy or ejecting a topless broad from his Jet Ski is priceless. Like cheetah-spotted gold or “a bulletproof tiger, dude.”
A native of North Carolina, Hill is the latest progeny of the North Carolina School of the Arts, alongside McBride and creative partner Ben Best, fellow EB&D director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express), and EB&D cinematographer Tim Orr. In the first part of my interview, we discuss the show in-depth, including some of the surprising and vile admissions and special features on the Season One DVD. We also talk about what it’s like to be a young director coming from, and staying in, the South, why so many comedians today are from there, and why the region was overdue for a proper comedic depiction.
Hunter Stephenson: Hey Jody, how are you?
Jody Hill: Hey Hunter. Good, good, good. Hey man, I wanted to say that I was sorry I wasn’t there when you visited down in Wilmington [Eastbound & Down set, 2008]. I remember the piece you wrote, and it sounded like a really good time. [laughs] Sucks I couldn’t there, man; I was editing my film (Observe & Report), and Warner Bros. wouldn’t let me go. When you have to do a director’s cut, they want to lock you up for 10 weeks. [laughs] Everybody said they had a blast…and I was editing.
Yeah. I expected to interview you there. And I didn’t know about the change, that David Green was now directing the majority of the episodes while you were in L.A. But it all worked out, he killed it. My first question: Legend has it that when you, Danny [McBride], and Ben [Best] first conceived of Kenny Powers you were sitting in a kiddie pool in North Carolina drinking beers. [laughs] Is that accurate?
Jody Hill: [laughs] Yeah, this was before we made Foot Fist Way or anything. We were trying to come up with ideas for shows. I was between jobs; I had been working this really shit reality show job, doing motion-control for Behind the Music and shit like that. [laughs] It was pretty lame. And so, yeah, we were in Charlotte, in the backyard of Ben Best’s house. And yeah, we were literally sitting in a kiddie pool with a case of beer. And Kenny was one of the ideas that, uh, we came up with. [laughs]
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