New posters have been released for The Rum Diary and New Year’s Eve.  The former is kind of cute and almost makes the film look like a light comic spin on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is appropriate considering that Hunter S. Thompson was the author of both novels.  As for the New Year’s Eve poster, it perfectly encapsulates the cynical, greedy reason for the movie’s existence.  The point isn’t to convey a plot, but to jam as many stars into the film as possible in the hopes that you’ll like one or two of them enough to see the movie.  However, the stars you like will most likely be in the film for probably less than ten minutes total.  If you think watching a star you like play a poorly defined character is worth a dollar a minute, then you like wasting money.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  The Rum Diary opens October 28th.  New Year’s Eve opens December 9th.

A new trailer for Garry Marshall’s star-studded New Year’s Eve has been released. This trailer isn’t much different from the first one in that it’s basically a montage of all the pretty celebrities and their separate stories set to pop music, though this new look does include inappropriate Abigail Breslin flashing. If you enjoyed Marshall’s Valentine’s Day, then you probably don’t need to be sold on the pseudo-sequel, and if the February-centered first film wasn’t your thing then this New Year’s Eve trailer is probably more than a little cringe-worthy. It looks like Seth Meyers may be the only saving grace for the brave boyfriends who are forced to soldier through this one.

The cast includes Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hilary Swank, Zac Efron, Sienna Miller, Lea Michele, Sofia Vergara, Abigail Breslin, Til Schweiger, Seth Meyers, Jon Bon Jovi, Josh Duhamel, and Carla Gugino. New Year’s Eve opens on December 9^th. Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

The first trailer for Garry Marshall’s New Year’s Eve has been released. The follow-up to Valentine’s Day stars every actor ever in the history of acting, whom I can only assume will appear for five minutes of screen time each. The trailer is basically a montage of all the actors making their New Year’s preparations and yearning for somebody to love. Nothing groundbreaking, but if you were a fan of Valentine’s Day it’s a safe bet that this movie is probably your kind of thing.

The cast includes Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hilary Swank, Zac Efron, Sienna Miller, Lea Michele, Sofia Vergara, Abigail Breslin, Til Schweiger, Seth Meyers, Jon Bon Jovi, Josh Duhamel, and Carla Gugino. New Year’s Eve opens on December 9^th. Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

When we saw the trailers for Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached, we all had the same basic reaction:  “Oh, boy, Natalie Portman in a sex comedy!”, a thought that was immediately followed by:  “Oh, no, Ashton Kutcher.”  Yes, over the past decade, Kutcher has found more success as a “personality”, camera salesman, and a reality TV producer than he seems to have found as an actor:  despite a few middle-of-the-road successes at the box office, his filmography has left film geeks cold.  Would No Strings Attached be the first film that breaks away from that sad truth?  Or would No Strings Attached be more Killers-level crap?  Read on for our full review after the jump to find out, folks….

It looks like the casting circus surrounding Two and a Half Men is finally over. Sources have confirmed to THR that Ashton Kutcher is putting the final touches on a deal to join the cast of the sitcom, filling the void left by Charlie Sheen after he decided acting sane was too much to ask of him for over $1 million per episode. The deal comes in the wake of Hugh Grant nearly joining the cast, only to pull out at the last minute over concerns about doing 20+ episodes of a TV series every year. No word on how Kutcher will be incorporated into the show, but one source lied that the storyline is “really funny.” I’m just baffled as to how this show is still a thing.

In what some might read as a sign of the impending apocalypse, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher are poised to team for the buddy comedy What Would Kenny Do?.  I am not among the prophets of doom, in part because the script by Chris Baldi (which made the 2008 Black List of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays) has a great hook: “A teenager meets a hologram claiming to be the adult version of himself; the hologram then helps guide the teen through high school.”  Bieber would play the teen, Kutcher the hologram.  Sony Pictures is currently looking a new writer to rewrite the script, so maybe it won’t sound quite so fresh at the end of the development process.  More after the break:

The 2011 Razzie Awards were announced last night, and voters mostly just want you to know how much they hated The Last Airbender and Sex and the City 2.  The Last Airbender took home Worst Picture, Worst 3D, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and helped earn Jackson Rathbone Worst Supporting Actor along with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  Meanwhile, the ladies of Sex and the City won both Worst Actress and Worst Screen Ensemble; the film itself was deemed Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

Josh Duhamel (Transformers: Dark of the Moon) has been added to the mega-ensemble cast that makes up director Garry Marshall’s forthcoming rom-com New Year’s Eve.  News of Duhamel’s casting came last night, courtesy of TheWrap, although no details were divulged about his role.  Considering the sheer number of actors already present in the film, it’s possible that Duhamel is just an extra and that literally every person in front of Marshall’s camera at any given moment will be a name actor of some caliber.  It’s not likely, but the other possibility is that the film will be a ten-hour epic only matched in scale by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I’ll let you decide which you think is more plausible.

To date, the New Year’s Eve cast includes Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Halle Berry, Jessical Biel, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hilary Swank, Zac Efron, Sienna Miller, Lea Michelle, Sofia Vergara, Abigail Breslin, Germany’s own Til Schweiger, Seth Meyes, Jon Bon Jovi, and…Josh Duhamel.  The film opens later this year on December 9th.

No Strings Attached is the blandest of romantic comedies and only attempts to give itself an edge through a half-assed attempt at raunchy humor and salty language.  It sets up situational comedy that would feel stale in a 1980s sitcom and populates these unfunny scenarios with people who feel designed to serve the purpose of a bit rather than actual human beings who stumbled into a comedic situation.  The only truly funny thing about No Strings Attached is how proud it is of its reversal of gender roles, which would be a feat worth applauding if the film had come out in the 1950s.  Devoid of chemistry and humor, No Strings Attached is a romantic comedy that lacks both romance and comedy.

Opening this weekend is director Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached. Starring Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Cary Elwes and Kevin Kline, the comedy is about “a guy and girl who try to keep their relationship strictly physical, but it’s not long before they learn that they want something more.”  While you might think it’s Portman’s character that wants the relationship, it’s actually Kutcher’s.

Anyway, Paramount recently held a press conference with Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, director Ivan Reitman and screenwriter Liz Meriwether.  They talked about working together, doing improv, do they really think friendship can survive sex without feelings, what is it really like to film sex scenes, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to either read a transcript or listen to the audio:

Sienna Miller has joined the ensemble romantic comedy New Year’s Eve.  According to The Playlist, the actress has agreed to join a ludicrously star-studded cast that features (take a deep breath): Robert De Niro, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Biel, Halle Berry, Zac Efron, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Hilary Swank, just to name a few.

New Year’s Eve is being directed by Garry Marshall, who also helmed the strikingly similar Valentine’s Day only a year ago.  Katherine Fugate also returns to pen the film which isn’t so much a sequel as it is a perfectly-timed box office jackpot.  As for Miller, details of her role are currently unknown.  Given the star power she is surrounded with, here’s to hoping she can get a word in edgewise.  New Year’s Eve is scheduled to begin shooting in New York in the near future and will hit theaters later this year on December 9th.

If the new year struck you with desire for a romantic comedy about friends with benefits — and you’re over 17 — you have two to choose from in 2011: No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits.  No Strings Attached stars Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman and has the jump on Friends with a January 21st release date.  But the Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis-led Friends With Benefits introduced itself with a red band trailer that effectively announced: “Don’t fill up too fast.  I’ll be ready on July 22nd.”

Not to be outdone, Paramount has followed up on the all-ages trailer released in November with a raunchy red band trailer for No Strings Attached, which you can watch after the break.

The theme of tonight’s posters: “complicated romantic relationships.”  On the lighter side of the spectrum, we have Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher smiling postcoitus for the romantic comedy No Strings Attached.  On the heavier side — the “This is so unnerving no one under 17 can see this” side — we have the washed out heads of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Wiliams weighed down by the angst of Blue Valentine.  Hit the jump to see both posters in full.

Even before Garry Marshall’s ensemble rom-com Valentine’s Day raked in over $200 million at box offices around the world, Warner Bros. and New Line had already made plans to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the director and screenwriter Katherine Fugate.  Now, with a December 2011 release date looming, the romance anthology is attempting to amass another huge cast for its sophomore effort.  Reports surfacing today claim that talents such as Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank, and Ashton Kutcher are currently zeroing in on lead roles for the project.

According to THR, De Niro would play a “bitter, dying man in a hospital” while Pfeiffer is circling an executive secretary insistent on keeping those pesky resolutions.   As for Swank, she would portray a producer on a Times Square’s “New Year’s Eve” television extravaganza, with Kutcher eyeing the ultra-versatile role of the “guy who hates New Year’s Eve.”  In case you missed Valentine’s Day earlier this year, New Year’s Eve will follow a near identical plot structure in which several story lines, all set against the backdrop of a big city, eventually intersect in an effort to recreate something that resembles romance.  Glee‘s Lea Michele and Abigail Breslin have already joined the film, which is currently looking at shooting in New York this December.  There is no word yet on whether or not Jamie Foxx and/or George Lopez will be brought back to reprise their roles as the only male ethnic minorities to live in either New York or Los Angeles.

Earlier today, Paramount revealed the first image of Ivan Reitman’s upcoming romantic-comedy, No Strings Attached. Now, only a few hours later, Paramount has released the first trailer for the film.  The film stars Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman as two friends who decide to begin a “no strings attached” (hence the title) sexual relationship.  You can probably guess all of the film’s beats and how it will end by watching the trailer, but I’m sure that the same people who have turned up for all of Kutcher’s past romantic comedies will be showing up for this one as well.  No Strings Attached opens on January 21, 2011 and also co-stars Cary Elwes, Greta Gerwig, Ludacris, Kevin Kline, and Olivia Thirlby.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer.