Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer for the coming of age comedy/drama The Way, Way Back.  The film marks the directorial debut of The Descendants co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash and centers on a 14-year-old boy (Liam James) who spends his summer vacation bonding with the manager of a water park (Sam Rockwell) while staying with his mother (Toni Collette) and her overbearing boyfriend (Steve Carell).  The Adventureland-esque pic looks to be a nice little summer film with a healthy mix of comedy and drama, and there’s a refreshing lack of cynicism in this trailer.  Rockwell and Allison Janney are always swell, and the two are most definitely the comedic highlights here.  Matt caught the film at Sundance and was rather mixed in his review, but I find this debut trailer to be promising.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Zoe Levin, AnnaSophia Robb, and Amanda Peet.  The Way, Way Back opens on July 5th in limited release.

Columbia Pictures has released the first trailer for director Dennis Dugan’s comedy sequel Grown Ups 2.  I hate myself for saying this, but I actually got a few chuckles out of the trailer.  After you get past the deer piss, there are a couple of ridiculous cameos from Shaquille O’Neal and Andy Samberg that are nice throwbacks to the zany Adam Sandler movies of old.  There’s also a nice flip on the “hot girl car trouble” scene from the first film.  And believe it or not, this might be a role that Lautner was Taylor-made for (sorry).

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film stars also Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph, Nick Swardson and Patrick Schwarzenegger.  Grown Ups 2 opens on July 12th.

A new trailer and poster have been released for DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo.  The story follows a snail (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who dreams of being able to go fast, and gets his wish after a freak accident.  He then goes to pursue his dream of racing in the Indy 500.  The trailer looks cute, but I’m not sure if the movie has an antagonist.  I hope it’s salt.

Hit he jump to check out the trailer and poster.  The film also features the voices of Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luis Guzmán, Bill Hader, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Kurtwood Smith, Snoop Dogg, and Samuel L. Jackson.  Turbo opens in 3D on July 19th.

In their directorial debut, The Way, Way Back, writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash show they’re incredibly adept at humor.  They know how to tell a good joke, push the envelope without being mean-spirited, and find the right actors to deliver the comedy.  Unfortunately, a film has to put story and characters before comedy, and the film fails where it matters most.  Faxon and Rash put a painfully bland character at the center of their movie, and then try to convince us that anyone would help the uninteresting protagonist.  Surrounded by one-dimensional characters and a predictable plot, The Way, Way Back can tell a joke, but has difficulty doing anything else.

The first teaser trailer and poster for DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming racing movie Turbo have been released.  The story centers on a snail who, after miraculously attaining the power of super-speed, decides to fulfill his dream of racing in the Indy 500.  I got a kick out of the fact that The Chromatics’ “Tick of the Clock,” which was memorably used in last year’s decidedly violent Drive, opens this trailer, followed by another appropriately titled song from Cake.  This is very much a teaser trailer so we don’t see much by way of plot, but the brief bit of racing sequences look pretty impressive and Ryan Reynolds does a fine job with the snail’s comedy.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and click here to read Dave’s recap of the recent DreamWorks Animation presentation which included footage from Turbo.  The film also features the voices of Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luis Guzmán, Bill Hader, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Kurtwood Smith, Snoop Dogg, and Samuel L. Jackson.  Turbo opens in 3D on July 19, 2013.

A couple of interesting TV-related tidbits were announced today.  First up, good/strange news for Up All Night fans.  NBC has extended the comedy’s season two order to 16 episodes, but the network is switching the show’s format to multi-camera.  Per Deadline, when the Christina Applegate and Will Arnett-fronted show returns in the spring it will be with a live audience and laugh track in tow.  It’s an odd move halfway through the show’s second season, but it’s not unprecedented.  Happy Days was a single-camera series until it switched to three cameras in its third season.

Hit the jump for more, including news on a new series from ex-Community showrunner Dan Harmon.

Fresh off of winning the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Descendants, writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who plays the dean on NBC’s Community) have just begun production on their directorial debut.  Based off their original screenplay, The Way, Way Back centers on a teenage boy on summer vacation (Liam James) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a local water-park manager (Sam Rockwell) while coming to grips with some family issues.  The impressive cast includes Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney and Annasophia Robb, and now it appears that Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, and Amanda Peet are signing on as well.  Hit the jump for more.

While The Hunger Games and Bridesmaids picked up the most nominations for this year’s MTV Movie Awards, the Twilight fanbase continued to show they would vote online until their fingers bled.  At last night’s ceremony, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 took home “Movie of the Year” as well as Best Kiss for Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.  However, The Hunger Games and Bridesmaids didn’t go home empty-handed.  Melissa McCarthy won Best Comedic Performance for Bridesmaids (the cast also won “Best Gut-Wrenching Performance”), and The Hunger Games won golden popcorn buckets for Best Male Performance (Josh Hutcherson), Best Female Performance (Jennifer Lawrence), Best On-Screen Transformation (Elizabeth Banks), and Best Fight.

Hit the jump for a full list of winners, and click here to check out the footage from The Dark Knight Rises that played during the ceremony.

Adam Sandler has added fellow SNL co-star, Cheri Oteri (Liar Liar) and Happy Madison mainstay, Nick Swardson (Just Go With It) to the cast of Grown Ups 2.  Featuring the return of Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek and Maya Rudolph, Sandler’s first ever sequel will feature newcomers Taylor Lautner, Oliver Cooper and David Henrie as fraternity brothers who antagonize Sandler and Co. Dennis Dugan will also return to direct the sequel for Happy Madison and Sony.  Hit the jump for details on Oteri and Swardson’s characters.

Twilight’s Taylor Lautner has apparently outgrown vampires and is now interested in comedies.  Enter Adam Sandler’s first-ever sequel, Grown Ups 2.  Lautner is reportedly in negotiations to star opposite Sandler in a role that would allow him to go “toe-to-toe” with the veteran comedian.  Details are in short order at the moment, but reports specify this only as a “fun” role for Lautner, who is looking for another big movie to hang on to. Since The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 will be closing out the franchise when it hits theaters November 16th, and even with the lackluster box office response to Lautner’s Abduction, the young star might just strike gold in Grown Ups 2. The original film about a reunion of childhood friends grossed over $160 million domestically. Hit the jump for more on the sequel.

With writer-director Jennifer Westfeldt’s (Kissing Jessica Stein) Friends with Kids opening March 9, we’ve been provided with seven clips from the very funny comedy.  Boasting an incredible cast featuring Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox and Edward Burns, Friends With Kids centers on a pair of thirtysomething best friends (Scott and Westfeldt) who observe the toll that having kids has taken on the couples they know and resolve to bypass that stress by having a child and then date other people.

Right after the film premiered at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, I landed exclusive interviews with Megan Fox, Jon Hamm and Adam Scott.  Just click the links to read or listen to them.  Hit the jump to watch the clips.

DreamWorks Animation has assembled its ginormous ensemble voice cast for the snail-centered film Turbo. Ryan Reynolds is already onboard to voice the protagonist, an ordinary garden snail who obtains extraordinary speed through a freak accident and sets out to race in the Indianapolis 500. Now Heat Vision reports that (deep breath) Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Hader, Michael Pena, Luis Guzmán, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Kurtwood Smith, and Snoop Dogg are set to join the cast. David Soren is directing from a script he co-wrote with Robert Siegel (The Wrestler) and Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After).

I love the voice cast here but I’m not wild about the premise. Pixar already tried to do a movie set in the professional racing world twice to less than stellar results, and this new teaser image doesn’t exactly alleviate any of my concerns. It should be said that it’s still early in the animation process and this image doesn’t exactly reflect the finished film, but I certainly don’t think it’s a great start. Hit the jump to check out the image for yourself. Turbo is slated for July 19th, 2013.

We’re only a few short days away from the 84th Academy Awards, which means all that prognosticating and “fake controversy” business will finally come to an end on Monday morning. Until next year, that is. Nevertheless, a number of presenters have been announced over the past few weeks and we figured we’d bring you a full list of all the pretty celebrities scheduled to appear during Sunday night’s telecast. Zach Galifianakis, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Emma Stone, The Muppets and the leading ladies from Bridesmaids will (hopefully) be bringing the funny, and today the Academy announced that last year’s winners in the acting categories will return to present. I really, really liked the way the awards were given out a few years back with past winners speaking directly to each of the nominees, so I’m hoping Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, Natalie Portman, and Colin Firth will be doing something similar.

Hit the jump to read the full list of presenters and performers, and be sure to check back this weekend to see how yours truly and Matt Goldberg think the awards will stack up in our predictions feature. Billy Crystal hosts the 84th Academy Awards on Sunday, February 26th.

That’s right, folks. Despite the fact that Lindsay Lohan has nothing to promote and the troubled actress really doesn’t have much of a career beyond some risque photo-shoots showing up on the internet every couple weeks, the Freaky Friday and Mean Girls star is set to host Saturday Night Live on March 3rd with musical guest Jack White, making his debut as a solo artist outside of his work with The White Stripes and The Raconteurs.

NBC announced the news during a commercial break on this past weekend’s SNL with host Maya Rudolph, and while we’re not sure how the new episode with Lohan is going to turn out (or if people even care anymore), last weekend’s episode was an absolute laugh riot. Not only did it mark the return of SNL veteran Rudolph as host, but Justin Timberlake, Amy Poehler (on both Weekend Update and a Bronx Beat sketch), Bill O’Reilly and Kate Upton all made surprise appearances, and you can check out those and a few of our favorites sketches from the show after the jump.

A red band trailer for the comedy Friends with Kids has gone online. Written and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt, the story centers on two best friends (Westfeldt and Adam Scott) who decide to have a baby together without being in a relationship. The cast is fantastic (Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Edward Burns, Megan Fox, and Chris O’Dowd), and I’m excited to see Scott take on his first leading role. This trailer delves more deeply into the plot and, as it’s red band, there are a few more off-color jokes (who doesn’t like masturbation humor?). The jokes work, and I really like the chemistry between Scott and Westfedlt. I’m looking forward to checking the full film out. You can read Matt’s review here.

Hit the jump to watch the red band trailer. Friends with Kids opens March 9th.