A new clip and featurette have debuted for writer/director Judd Apatow’s This Is 40. Starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann in a spin-off film for their characters in Knocked Up, This Is 40 centers on the real-life problems of a mid-life marriage. The clip highlights some funny pillow talk between Rudd and Mann, while the featurette reveals Jason Segel’s role in the picture. Also starring Albert Brooks, John Lithgow and Megan Fox, This Is 40 opens on December 21st.

We also have a new clip from writer/director Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly. Centering on Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer, this clip reveals a conversation between Pitt and James Gandolfini’s character, New York Mickey, aka Mickey Fix-It. Also starring Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn, Killing Them Softly opens November 30th. Hit the jump to check out the clips.

We’re continuing on with our weeklong preview of the upcoming 85th Academy Awards, and after running down both acting categories it’s time to take look at some of the other races.  Today we’ll be looking at the Best Animated Feature, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay categories in depth, and I’ll also make some way-too-early quick picks in the technical categories.  The fun begins after the jump.

A new featurette for writer/director/producer Judd Apatow’s upcoming comedy This Is 40 has been released.  The film picks up five years after the events of Apatow’s Knocked Up and centers on the relationship between the characters played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.  In this featurette, Apatow explains how he decided to bring those characters back for this “sort-of sequel,” and Mann and Rudd talk about the real-life problems facing their characters.  We also get to see quite a bit of new footage that showcases more of the film’s humor, but I’m really interested to see how Apatow balances the film’s dramatic elements.  He’s got two incredibly talented leads in Rudd and Mann, so here’s hoping the film nails that comedy/drama sweet spot.

Hit the jump to watch the featurette.  The film also stars Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Iris Apatow, Maude Apatow, Megan Fox, Jason Segel, Robert Smigel, and Charlyne Yi.  This Is 40 opens on December 21st.

Last night’s broadcast of the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards played host to a few new TV spots for some highly anticipated upcoming films, and now the new looks at Skyfall, This Is 40, and Seven Psychopaths have landed online.  Briefly:

• Skyfall – Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) takes the reins in this latest entry in the James Bond franchise.  The TV spot features a nice back-and-forth between Ralph Fiennes and Judi Dench followed by quick flashes of exciting new footage.  November 9th can’t get here fast enough.
• This Is 40 – The sort-of sequel to Knocked Up marks prolific producer Judd Apatow’s fourth directorial effort, and this new spot plays up the film’s connection to the Seth Rogen-fronted comedy.  The pic opens on December 21st.
• Seven Psychopaths – Director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) has assembled an insanely talented cast for this dark crime comedy, and the madness is on full display in these three new TV spots.  The film opens on October 12th.

Hit the jump to watch the TV spots.

The Judd Apatow comedy community may have given us a few uninspired movies like The Sitter, but every crappy project is worth it for the R-rated comedy revival lord Apatow provided. He serves as producer on Wanderlust and the film stars one of his many muses Paul Rudd, yet the movie isn’t really part of his collective. Nope it comes from David Wain, the strange and hilarious little man who was responsible for a variety weirdo cult successes like The State, Stella, Wet Hot American Summer, and The Ten. The filmmaker with a taste for winking anti-comedy probably could have spent his career on the fringes if the R-rated comedy trend hadn’t given him a shot at mainstream viewers with the surprisingly successful and cripplingly funny Role Models.

Now, Wain’s back with Wanderlust. Co-written with longtime collaborator Ken Marino, the film returns Wain to mainstream mode for a comedy that’s conventional enough on the surface to please moll-trolling cinemagoers, but with enough eccentric asides and supporting performances to please his more demanding and deeply strange fanbase.  Hit the jump for our review of Wanderlust on Blu-ray.

A new trailer and images for director Judd Apatow‘s new film This Is 40 have been released.  The film follows Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann‘s characters from Knocked Up as they approach middle age.  The laughs aren’t as big here as they were in the first trailer, but I’m encouraged by the promise of a really sweet and candid story about family.  Rudd and Mann can walk the line between comedy and drama like few others, and Apatow has been trying to nail that James L. Brooks balance with his previous directorial features to varying degrees of success.  There’s a clear emotional throughline with This Is 40 that I think could be the key, and the pairing of Albert Brooks and Rudd as father and son is an inspired move that I’m eager to see play out.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer and see the images.  The film also stars Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Chris O’Dowd, Lena Dunham, Ryan Lee, Charlene Yi, Robert Smigel, Wyatt Russell, Melissa McCarthy and Jason Segel.  This Is 40 opens on December 21st.

At this weekend’s press day for the upcoming Disney XD animated series TRON: Uprising, debuting with a special preview on the Disney Channel on May 18^th, we got to participate in roundtable interviews with the cast, producers and director.  Set in the mythology of the TRON universe, the show takes place after the 1982 feature film and before the events in TRON: Legacy.  Produced in CG animation with a 2D aesthetic, the series follows the heroic journey of a new character named Beck (voiced by Elijah Wood), a young program who becomes the unlikely leader of a revolution inside the computer world of The Grid.

One of the actors who was there to talk about his role was Paul Reubens, who voices Pavel, General Tesler’s (voiced by Lance Henriksen) untrustworthy base commander, who will do whatever it takes to get ahead.  While we’ll post what he had to say about his involvement in the series closer to its June 7^th premiere on Disney XD, the conversation undoubtedly turned to the progress of the next Pee-Wee Herman film that he’s doing with Judd Apatow.  Reubens gave a quick update, including the fact that they just did a rewrite on it and will be meeting this coming week, with a plan to go into production, at any minute.  Check out what he had to say after the jump:

On the heels of the film’s first trailer being released, a new poster has popped up for This Is 40, writer-director Judd Apatow’s “sort-of sequel to Knocked Up.” After supporting roles in the first film, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann step into the spotlight this time around as Apatow explores the comically embattled couple’s aging relationship, and their attempts to escape the domestic hell illustrated on this poster. It features Mann looking on in exhausted disgust as an oblivious Rudd sits on the toilet not ten feet away, snuffing out any shred of mystique that was left in their relationship. A well-constructed visual gag that cannily expresses the film’s relatable premise.

Hit the jump to check it out. This Is 40 also stars Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Chris O’Dowd, Lena Dunham, Ryan Lee, Charlene Yi, and Wyatt Russell, with appearances by Jason Segel (reprising his role from Knocked Up) and Melissa McCarthy. It opens on December 21.  [Update: We've been informed that the poster was not approved for release and have been asked by the studio to take it down.  We'll have the official poster up once it's released]

Let’s hear it for the ladies! HBO’s freshman comedy series Veep, from In the Loop writer and director Armando Iannucci and starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Girls, written, directed by and starring Lena Dunham, have only aired a handful of episodes between them, but EW reports each of the series has just been renewed for a second season. Both hit completely different comedic styles and tones, but they have each found their own audiences and seem to have quality writing, directing and performances among them.

There’s been a lot of buzz round Girls (both good and bad as the female sex tries to figure out whether they love or hate the depiction of their particular demographic) and Veep, while not as divisive, certainly brings the laughs (read my review of the series premiere right here). HBO now has a strong slate for their female audiences again for the first time since Sex and the City, so that’s something to be happy about. Maybe people will stop complaining about all the nudity on Game of Thrones now?

Thought last weekend, when the comedy Think Like A Man took first place from the heavily-favored The Lucky One, was a surprise? Then check out this weekend’s estimates. Not only has Think Like A Man defied all expectations by holding the top spot for a second week; it did so by beating the heavily-favored rom-com The Five-Year Engagement from super-producer Judd Apatow. Could it be that post-racial America has finally arrived? Or is everyone just saving their money to see The Avengers? You be the judge.

What a difference 12 months makes. On this weekend in 2011, summer started early when the surprise blockbuster Fast Five sped past $86 million on its debut run. And this year? Out of four new wide releases on Friday, not one could challenge last weekend’s number one comedy Think Like A Man. Hell, none of them could beat last weekend’s number two movie The Lucky One, for that matter. Best effort came from the Judd Apatow-produced The Five-Year Engagement, which debuted with an estimated $3.5 million from 2,936 locations or about half of what was expected. Sony’s animated Pirates! Band of Misfits made it into the top five with $2.8 million (and could climb higher if family audiences turn out on Saturday); but both Lionsgate’s Safe and Relativity’s The Raven had to settle for ‘also-ran’ status with $2.6 and $2.5 million, respectively. Overall, it looks like a pretty lifeless weekend, which only means that we’ll have much more hyperbole to work with when The Avengers – which is already breaking records overseas – hits next Friday.

The first trailer for Judd Apatow’s fourth directorial effort, This Is 40, has gone online.  The film is a semi-spinoff of Apatow’s Knocked Up, as it follows the lives of the characters played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.  The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a new classic, I was a big fan of Knocked Up, and while Funny People certainly had its issues, I enjoyed it for the most part.  That said, this trailer for This Is 40 shows huge promise.  We already know that Rudd and Mann have impeccable chemistry, but I love the idea of Apatow tackling the issues of aging and mid-adulthood through his dramedic eye.  We get a look at a couple of the bit parts from Jason Segel and Melissa McCarthy (to great comedic effect) and the end showcases Rudd’s penchant for spot-on delivery.  It’s safe to say that in a very crowded holiday release schedule, This Is 40 just jumped up towards the top of my most anticipated list.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Chris O’Dowd, Lena Dunham, Ryan Lee, Charlene Yi, and Wyatt Russell.  This Is 40 opens on December 21st.

The Cult of Judd Apatow needs to learn that sometimes you have to cut a scene even if it’s funny.  The refusal to learn this lesson has resulted in movies where every scene will get some laughs, but the pacing falls into a rut.  The 40-Year-Old Virgin managed to escape this fate, but writer-director Nicholas Stoller has repeatedly fallen prey to the belief that he can sacrifice pacing for a few more jokes.  It happened in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it happened in Get Him to the Greek, and it happens in his new film, The Five-Year Engagement.  Apatow has produced all of Stoller’s films and never thrown up a stop sign.  The Five-Year Engagement may be Stoller’s biggest offender to date as the wonderful performances and great humor are constantly at war with a narrative that struggles to move forward even when it’s jumping ahead in time.

Steve is currently wandering the halls of CinemaCon in Las Vegas, and while the convention doesn’t officially get underway until Monday, he’s snapping pics of all the cool promo posters, banners, and standees that he can find.  CinemaCon is, for the uninitiated, a convention put on for all the major theater owners in order to get a look at what the studios have to offer for the rest of the year; essentially, it’s Comic-Con for theater owners.  Steve managed to find the first promo poster for Judd Apatow’s fourth directorial effort, This is 40.  While it’s very much a simple poster used to make theater owners aware that the movie is on its way, I think the tagline, “The Sort-Of Sequel to Knocked Up” is pretty great.  The film centers on Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s characters from Apatow’s unplanned pregnancy-centered 2008 comedy.

Hit the jump to check out the promo poster, and be sure to check back over the next few days for more from CinemaCon 2012.

UPDATE: Found a This is 40 promo standee.  The image has been added after the jump.

The comedy The Five-Year Engagement, from co-writer/director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek) and producer Judd Apatow takes a look at romance in a very real, funny and often awkward way.  When engaged couple Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) keep postponing their wedding, two people who once dreamed of the perfect day just keep spiraling further apart.  Meanwhile, Tom’s best friend Alex (Chris Pratt) spontaneously marries Violet’s quirky sister, Suzie (Alison Brie), and they have two kids, all before Tom and Violet even set a wedding date and the two begin to wonder if their relationship is even right.  For more on the film, here’s the new red-band trailer, 5 clips, and 24 images.

At the film’s press day, Nicholas Stoller and Judd Apatow talked about how hard it is to make a final cut for a film when you have so much great material, what aspects of their personal life they brought to the relationships in the film, how the Elmo and Cookie Monster fight between Alison Brie and Emily Blunt came about, and maintaining pacing for a two-hour comedy.  Check out what they had to say after the jump: