RoboCop and Nicole Holofcener have nothing in common… until now!

• The Wire breakout star Michael Kenneth Williams is in talks to join Joel Kinnaman, Hugh Laurie, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Jay Baruchel, Abbie Cornish, and Jackie Earle Haley in the Robocop remake.
• Holofcener cast Catherine Keener, Toni Collette, Ben Falcone, and Eve Hewson in supporting roles in her next movie.  Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and James Gandolfini star.

Hit the jump for details on both projects.

Up until the past 15 years or so, television series were firmly episodic.  Serialized TV (outside of mini-series) risked alienating viewers since it stopped anyone from coming in mid-season.  However, with the rise of DVDs, OnDemand, and digital downloads, serialized TV series have become firmly established.  Some shows still retain an episodic nature, but some series—particularly dramas—have been built around telling one long story over the course of an entire season.  Our new feature, Seasoned, will review a TV series by season rather than by episode.

Hit the jump for my review of the fifth season of The Wire.  Click on the corresponding links for my reviews of Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, and Season 4.

While others have celebrated The Wire‘s 10 year anniversary with, say, a fantastically in depth oral history of the show by its creator, production crew and stars (or you can just check out the Cliff Notes), Funny or Die has created a four-minute preview for a musical version of the series that includes such hits as “I Got the Shotgun, You Got the Briefcase.”

Scoffing at the amateurs involved in the production? Think again – Michael K. Williams (Omar), Andre Royo (Bubbles), Sonja Sohn (Kima Greggs) and, yes, Felicia “Snoop” Pearson (“this is some Cinderella bullshit”) all make appearances. After the jump see the video that “explores the realistic portrayal of the decay of America’s inner cities through the magic of song!”

Up until the past 15 years or so, television series were firmly episodic.  Serialized TV (outside of mini-series) risked alienating viewers since it stopped anyone from coming in mid-season.  However, with the rise of DVDs, OnDemand, and digital downloads, serialized TV series have become firmly established.  Some shows still retain an episodic nature, but some series—particularly dramas—have been built around telling one long story over the course of an entire season.  Our new feature, Seasoned, will review a TV series by season rather than by episode.

Hit the jump for my review of the fourth season of The Wire.  Click on the corresponding links for my reviews of Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3.

Up until the past 15 years or so, television series were firmly episodic.  Serialized TV (outside of mini-series) risked alienating viewers since it stopped anyone from coming in mid-season.  However, with the rise of DVDs, OnDemand, and digital downloads, serialized TV series have become firmly established.  Some shows still retain an episodic nature, but some series—particularly dramas—have been built around telling one long story over the course of an entire season.  Our new feature, Seasoned, will review a TV series by season rather than by episode.

Hit the jump for my review of the third season of The Wire; here are my reviews for season one and season two.

The other night, The Academy of Television and Science hosted an exclusive panel with the cast and creator of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Boardwalk recounts the rise of the duplicitous Nucky Thompson torn between the political upheaval and criminal birth of the Prohibition.  His rise is cast against the downfall of his surrogate son, Jimmy Darmondy, a War Veteran scarred by his time over there.  It is the tense interplay between the two characters that gave Boardwalk Empire much of its dramatic heft during its first two remarkable seasons – which is probably what made Season Two’s conclusion so… surprising.

During the panel, Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt discussed the controversial finale, costar Michael Shannon lamented always playing “the crazy person”, and creator Terence Winter previewed Season Three, among many other topics of conversation.  For highlights from the panel (which also included costars Kelly Macdonald, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Kenneth Williams, Vincent Piazza and Gretchen Mol) hit the jump.

Up until the past 15 years or so, television series were firmly episodic.  Serialized TV (outside of mini-series) risked alienating viewers since it stopped anyone from coming in mid-season.  However, with the rise of DVDs, OnDemand, and digital downloads, serialized TV series have become firmly established.  Some shows still retain an episodic nature, but some series—particularly dramas—have been built around telling one long story over the course of an entire season.  Our new feature, Seasoned, will review a TV series by season rather than by episode.

Hit the jump for my review of the second season of The Wire, and click here for my review of season one.

Up until the past 15 years or so, television series were firmly episodic.  Serialized TV (outside of mini-series) risked alienating viewers since it stopped anyone from coming in mid-season.  However, with the rise of DVDs, OnDemand, and digital downloads, serialized TV series have become firmly established.  Some shows still retain an episodic nature, but some series—particularly dramas—have been built around telling one long story over the course of an entire season.  Our new feature, Seasoned, will review a TV series by season rather than by episode.

And we couldn’t think of a better kick-off to this feature than HBO’s The Wire.  Hit the jump for my review of the groundbreaking drama’s first season.

An Ol’ Dirty Bastard biopic is on the way courtesy of The Wire star Michael K. Williams. Per a press release sent to Deadline, Williams will play the late hip-hop artist (real name Russell Jones) in Dirty White Boy. Joaquin Baca-Asay is making his feature directorial debut from an original screenplay by Brent Hoff (Rockville CA). Baca-Asay previously served as the cinematographer on films like Super Troopers and We Own the Night, but Dirty White Boy will be his first time directing a feature film. The film is told from the point of view of 22-year-old VH1 intern Jarred Weisfeld who eventually became a manager/agent. Dirty White Boy follows Weisfeld’s misadventures with the rapper until the artist’s death from an accidental overdose in 2004, and the tone is said to be in the vein of Risky Business and 8 Mile. Hit the jump for more, including a sample of some of ODB’s work.

In this, the first official Saturday of fall for countries in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m happy to report that temperatures in the Midwest are down to a brisk 60 degrees Fahrenheit. As someone who can’t be in the sun/heat for more than fifteen minutes without experiencing incapacitating sunburns, this is a welcomed change to be sure. On a separate note, readers of the site may have noticed that my productivity has decreased in the last week. In a bittersweet piece of news, I’ve taken on full-time employment in the wide world of telecommunications thus explaining my absence. Nevertheless, I’m going to do my level best to keep the “Top 5″ coming each and every weekend for as long as I can. As for today…

…In this week’s installment, you can find the new, nearly four-minute trailer for David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Community interviews with Chevy Chase, Donald Glover, Danny Pudi, Gillian Jacobs and more, Killer Elite interviews with Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Yvonne Strahovski and director Gary McKendry, the first trailer for Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar and an ultra-important PSA teaching parents how to talk with their kids about Star Wars. Hit the jump for a brief recap and link to each.

With NBC’s Community returning with new episodes tonight, it’s time for the last interview from my recent set visit.  If you’ve been reading the site the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen our video interviews with Joel McHale with Alison Brie, Danny Pudi with Yvette Nicole Brown, and Donald Glover with Gillian Jacobs.  For our final on set interview, I’ve got Chevy Chase with Michael K. Williams (who is playing a new professor).

During the interview they talked about how Williams got cast on the show, how do they prepare as the script is constantly being tweaked on set, Chase talks about where we last left off with Pierce last season and whether or not he will redeem himself this season, and why he took the job on Community after being in semi-retirement.  In addition, Williams talks about transitioning from TV to film after The Wire, Chase talks about the Vacation and Fletch reboots, and he also talks about wanting to host Saturday Night Live again.  Hit the jump to watch and make sure to tune into Community tonight!

Earlier today I was lucky enough to be able to visit the set of one of my favorite shows on any channel: NBC’s Community.  I got to visit the set in anticipation of the season two DVD, which hits stores September 6^th, and season three, which premieres on Thursday September 22^nd at 8/7c.  While I’ll have a lot of video interviews with the entire cast very soon, I spoke with Chevy Chase about the upcoming Vacation reboot and a new Fletch movie and wanted to bring you what he said as soon as possible.

A reboot of the Vacation franchise is currently in development at Warner Bros., and when I spoke with producer David Dobkin last month, he said that the new film would tell son Rusty’s story and have him encountering the same hijinks that his father did. Dobkin played coy about Chase making an appearance in the film, but Chase’s answer today about a Vacation reboot came as a bit of a shock.  He said he’s written a different script for a new Vacation film with co-star Beverly D’Angelo.  He said:

“I’ve written an idea that would be basically like a “Swiss Family Griswold.” There’s a cruise, there’s a fire on the ship, we think the whole ship’s on fire and we jump—it’s just a little fire—and we end up on an island where we meet Randy somewhere who’s been left there from an old Survivor series.”

Hit the jump for more.

Post-No Country for Old Men, was there any chance they wouldn’t adapt Cormac McCarthy’s Oprah-approved best-seller The Road? Well, they did, and The Weinstein Company produced it, and if you had read the book, you’d know why this was a tough sell, and eventually flopped (on top of being released by the struggling Weinstein Company). The story of a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) trudging through a post-apocalyptic wasteland as they fend off cannibals and encounter strange people (including cameos by Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, and Michael K. Williams) as they cling to staying alive and keeping their souls, The Road is a heavy experience. My review of The Road on Blu-ray after the jump.

Along with visiting Shutter Island, where we will all finally get to go Feb. 19, Martin Scorsese has directed the pilot for the upcoming HBO show Boardwalk Empire, and you get the sense from the first teaser trailer that he’s right at home again on the seedy turf of the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

The series, which will be written at least in part by The Sopranos veteran Terrence Winter, chronicles the rise of the New Jersey city in the 1920s, and features a cast that should give Scorsese and the other directors plenty of talent to work with. Steve Buscemi stars as Nucky Thompson, a character based on Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the boss of the Republican political machine that ruled the realm. Gretchen Mol will play a showgirl involved with Nucky, and The Wire fans should note that Omar himself, Michael K. Williams, is in the cast too (and, we’d have to imagine, will show himself as man not to be fucked with.)

Hit the jump to see the teaser trailer, and let us know if you think this looks like something worthy of Scorsese’s – and your – time.  Boardwalk Empire premieres on HBO this fall.