Magnolia has picked up the reverse rom-com I Give It a Year.  The film stars Rafe Spall and Rose Byrne as a married couple who grow to realize that they’re not right for each other, and start being drawn to other people (Anna Faris and Simon Baker, respectively).  I caught the film at SXSW, and found it to be surprising funny and charming even though it deals with a relationship that’s falling apart.  The movie will be released via Magnolia’s “Ultra VOD” program, which means it will debut on VOD and then the VOD cost will be slightly reduced when the picture hits limited theatrical release.  VOD is probably the best distribution method for the film since it’s a little too slight and lacks the star power to be a serious wide release.

Hit the jump for the press release.  I Give It a Year is due out later this year and also stars Stephen Merchant, Olivia Colman, Jason Flemyng, and Minnie Driver.

Dan Mazer‘s I Give It a Year is the rom-com in reverse and two rom-coms in one.  Mazer takes the difficult task of showing a marriage fall apart, and turns it into a surprisingly funny and witty comedy that never feels cynical.  And it’s absolutely easy to be cynical when it comes to marriage because of the 50% divorce rate.  But like any good comic writer, Mazer finds the humor in an unlikely topic, and succeeds with sharp dialogue, talented actors, and wisely keeping the tone of the film the same as an average romantic comedy.

Sony Pictures has released the first trailer for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.  The plot revolves around Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) and Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) returning to Swallow Falls to clean up the mess created by the FLDSMDFR, only to find that food is now taking on the form of mutant beasts.  I laughed a lot during this trailer, but keep in mind that I love puns, so I crack up when the beasts are called “Mosquitoast” and “Shrimpanzees”.  The trailer also shows off the strange, offbeat humor that made the first film such a delight.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also features the voices of Andy Samberg, Benjamin Bratt, Terry Crews, and Neil Patrick Harris.  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 opens in 3D on September 27th.

In the acting business since the age of 10, Ellen Page (Inception) will make her directorial debut with Miss Stevens.  Written by Julia Hart (The Keeping Room), Miss Stevens will star Anna Faris (The House Bunny) in the title role.  The picture centers on the titular drama teacher whose life has hit a bit of a rough patch, but who rediscovers her self worth while chaperoning a group of high school students over a weekend trip to the state drama competition.  Hit the jump for more. 

The promising first trailer for the British romantic comedy I Give It a Year has been released online.  The film focuses on a mismatched couple as they struggle to survive their first year of marriage.  Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids) and Rafe Spall (Anonymous) star as the newlywed couple, while Simon Baker and Anna Faris appear in supporting roles as temptations for the duo.  The pic actually looks really funny, with strong turns from Byrne and Spall and some big laughs from Stephen Merchant.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and click here for images and a synopsis for the film.  Written and directed by Dan Mazer (Borat), the film also stars Minnie Driver, Jason Flemyng, Olivia Colman, and Jane Asher.  I Give It A Year opens in the UK on February 8, 2013. 

If you like your movie trailers short on plot, heavy on the ad-libbing and redder than a Romney state, then you’ll love this new red-band effort from Movie 43.  The Peter Farrelly ensemble comedy stars everyone you’ve ever heard of in Hollywood and even some you haven’t.  Movie 43 has released another red-band trailer previously, but the new one mostly focuses on a stream of improv from Jason Sudeikis who is admiring Kristen Bell’s crotch.

Starring Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Leslie Bibb, Kate Bosworth, Gerard Butler and everyone else, Movie 43 opens on January 25th, 2013.  Hit the jump to see the new red-band trailer.

Let’s all do the release date shuffle, courtesy of Sony!

• RoboCop, the Jose Padilha-directed remake starring Joel Kinnaman, has been bumped from its August 9th, 2013 spot to February 7th, 2014.
• Taking over the former RoboCop spot will be Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, starring Matt Damon.  The picture moves from March 1st, 2013 to August 9th, 2013. (Fun fact: Blomkamp’s District 9 was released that same week in 2009.)
• Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers will move up from its previous spot of February 7th, 2014 to September 27th, 2013.  The animated feature will land on roughly the same weekend as this year’s hit, Hotel Transylvania.
• Pixels, the Happy Madison production based on an 8-bit French short, is listed as “in development” and won’t make a 2014 release, though it was previously pegged for May 17, 2013.

Hit the jump for more on each of these pictures. 

I love Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and I have high expectations for the upcoming sequel, Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers.  Details on the film have been scarce, but now EW is reporting that the plot revolves around Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) and Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) returning to Swallow Falls to clean up the mess created by the FLDSMDFR only to find that food is now taking on the form of mutant beasts.  “Magically, every creature is a combination of a food item and an animal that results in just a cringeworthy pun,” says producer Kirk Bodyfelt.  As a fan of cringeworthy puns, this makes me even more excited for the flick.

Hit the jump for more.  Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers opens in 3D on February 7, 2014.

Three bits of casting additions to finish your week off.  Here they are in brief:

• Kristen Schaal (30 Rock) will lend her voice to an animated character in Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers, along with original  returning cast members Anna Faris, Bill Hader and Andy Samberg.
• Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf) will join Shawn Levy’s The Internship alongside Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
• Ron Livingston (Office Space) is set to star in writer/director Jenee LaMarque’s The Pretty One.

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

Anyone can be offensive.  The skill comes with trying to get people to laugh at it.  Sacha Baron Cohen, the mind behind the semi-scripted comedies Borat and Bruno, has shown a great skill at getting audiences to laugh at light comic fodder like incest, rape, anti-Semitism, screaming dickholes, and carrying bags of shit to the dinner table.  He also tends to throw in a little social criticism for some spice.  The Dictator marks his first feature-length, fully-scripted film, and while the blade may be a bit more polished, the edge remains razor-sharp.  Despite a slapdash plot and a cop-out ending, The Dictator is brilliantly irreverent, juvenile, cartoonish, and it will have you laughing, feeling guilty about laughing, and then laughing even harder.

A new red-band trailer for the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy The Dictator has gone online.  The clip is basically structured similarly to the other trailers, but it includes alternate takes and different jokes.  I was a big fan of Borat and admired the ballsiness of Bruno, but I’m starting to feel like The Dictator may be a bit one-note.  This is the first Cohen comedy that’s set up as a true narrative feature instead of a mockumentary, so it’ll be interesting to see how this outlandish character fares throughout a true story arc.  I liked the opening scene of the film so hopefully I’m wrong, but I’m not entirely convinced that I won’t tire of the character after 30 minutes of the film.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  We’ve also included an embed of a sketch from this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live in which Cohen appeared in character as said Dictator holding the actor’s Hugo director Martin Scorsese hostage.  The Dictator opens on May 16th.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator has released a few images of Megan Fox and Anna Faris to drum up interest for their May 16th release date.  Having been buried under coverage of some sort of blockbuster superhero movie, The Dictator will have to pull a few more tricks out of his sleeve to grab headlines.  We’ve already seen the trailer, the opening of the film, a poster for General Aladeen’s (Cohen) visit to New York and the spilling of Kim Jong-Il’s ashes on the red carpet. The Dictator also boasts a solid supporting cast with John C. Reilly, Sir Ben Kingsley, B.J. Novak and J.B. Smoove. But, pictures of Megan Fox and Anna Faris certainly don’t hurt.  Hit the jump to check them out along with a few other actors from The Dictator.

The first clip from the new Sacha Baron Cohen comedy The Dictator has gone online.  While I was a big fan of the extended trailer that revealed much more of the plot for the film, this clip didn’t really do it for me.  Cohen is shown learning the ropes as an employee at Anna Faris’ shop, but their exchange is kind of predictable a little too “winky” for my taste; it’s as if Cohen is saying, “Get it? I’m misogynistic!”  I’m willing to give the flick the benefit of the doubt because Cohen is generally spot on, so I hope this isn’t indicative of the humor we’ll find throughout the entire film.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars John C. Reilly and Ben Kingsley.  The Dictator opens on May 16th.

A new French trailer for the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy The Dictator has gone online, and it reveals what looks to be the crux of the plot for the film. Though I’m fairly certain this plot twist will be unveiled in the next domestic trailer, I’ll keep things spoiler free here on the front page just in case. I’ll simply say that the twist shows huge comedic promise and I can’t wait to see where Cohen takes the rest of the film.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The film also stars Ben Kingsley, Anna Faris, John C. Reilly and Megan Fox. The Dictator opens on May 11th. [Update: As expected, this was exactly the same as the new domestic trailer. It appears we're now getting an idea of the expanded plot and what to expect from the actual film. We've updated the article with the US version of the trailer, which is the same as the French one save for the subtitles.]

Two very funny actresses have been added to the cast of the romantic comedy I Give It a Year. Variety reports that Bridesmaids star Rose Bryne and Anna Faris will star alongside Simon Baker and Rafe Spall in the pic, written and directed by Dan Mazer. The story centers on a mismatched couple as they struggle to survive their first year of marriage. Spall and Bryne will play that central couple, while Faris and Baker are set as “strong supporting characters.” While the logline may seem a bit monotonous, Mazer previously worked as a writer-director on Da Ali G Show and is a credited writer on both Borat and Bruno, so I think I Give It a Year will probably be a bit more R-rated than most romantic comedies.

I’m glad to see that Byrne will be given a chance to shine as the comedic lead this time around. She certainly proved her dramatic chops on the TV series Damages and had a dastardly great role in last year’s Bridesmaids, but it was her work in Get Him to the Greek that first hipped me to her comedic talents. She’ll next be seen on the dramatic side of things in Derek Cianfrance’s crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines alongside Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling. Faris next stars in the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy The Dictator.