At this year’s Toronto Film Festival, I was able to speak with The Duplass Brothers (Cyrus) about their new comedy Jeff, Who Lives At Home. The film stars Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Judy Greer, Susan Sarandon and Rae Dawn Chong.  The story centers on Jeff (Segel), a stay-at-home son who loves M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs.  While out on an errand for his mother (Sarandon), he gets an epiphany about his destiny and decides to see where it takes him.  I caught a screening after doing the interview and thought it was great.

During the interview, the brothers talked about what it’s like to premiere at TIFF instead of Sundance, the connection between Jeff, Who Lives at Home and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, how much of the film was scripted versus improvised, editing, video games, karaoke, and they also talked about future projects like The Do-Deca-Pentathalon.  Hit the jump to watch.  Jeff, Who Lives at Home gets released March 2, 2012.

Last month, we found out Comedy Central and MTV Networks were putting together The Comedy Awards, a broadcast awards event to honor the best comedy films, actors, TV series, digital content and stand-up acts. The Comedy Awards will be taped on March 26th for a premiere on Sunday, April 10th which will be simultaneous broadcast on Comedy Central, Spike TV, TV Land, VH1 and Nick At Nite. Now the nominations for the awards’ debut have finally been revealed, and they mostly hit the nail on the head. There’s love for big comedies like The Other Guys and Get Him to the Greek, but lower profile films like Cyrus and Tiny Furniture get some love too. Check out the full list of nominees after the jump.

2010 was the year the mumblecore filmmakers and stars began to descend on Hollywood. Or at least it seems that way with the success of filmmakers like the Duplass brothers and Greta Gerwig. Both Gerwig and writer/director/actor Mark Duplass appeared in Greenberg, while Jay and Mark Duplass wrote and directed Cyrus for 20^th Century Fox and Scott Free productions. Perhaps Ridley and Tony Scott appreciated the brothers Duplass working together as a fellow set of brothers. Dunno. In Cyrus, John C. Reilly stars as a single man who at the bottom of his life when he meets Marisa Tomei’s character, an attractive woman who doesn’t seem to have anything wrong with her. At least it seems that way until Reilly meets Cyrus (Jonah Hill), her man-child son who lives at home and seems to be plotting for Tomei and Reilly’s relationship to end. My review of Cyrus on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

As we enter 2011, Quentin Tarantino has revealed his top ten films of 2010.  The list includes the usual suspects (Toy Story 3, The Social Network) along with some fun surprises like Tangled and, shall we say “peculiar” surprises like Robin Hood.  Tarantino didn’t provide any comment on his choices, but said of his number ten pick, Enter the Void,

“Hands down best credit scene of the year? Maybe best credit scene of the decade. One of the greatest in cinema history.”

Hit the jump for Tarantino’s list along with a look at the opening credits for Enter the Void.

Currently playing in limited release is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie centers on John (John C. Reilly), a film editor who’s down on his luck and still emotionally attached to his soon-to-be remarried ex-wife, Jamie (Catherine Keener).  John’s prospects take a turn when he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. However, when her 21 year-old son/housemate Cyrus (Jonah Hill) enters the picture, he becomes an unexpected saboteur of John’s attempts at Molly’s heart.

While you might think making a studio movie with Fox Searchlight might change who The Duplass Brothers are, they stayed indie by filming the movie in order and using a ton of improv.  What they ended up with was a touching, original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Anyway, I recently got to speak with the brothers and we talked about filming in order, the improv, using the RED camera, what might be on the DVD/Blu-ray, their next film Jeff Who Lives At Home, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to check it out:

Over the last few days I’ve posted video interviews with the cast of Cyrus (John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei) and in each one I’ve mentioned how well The Duplass Brothers moved into studio filmmaking.  Rather than try to make their movies in a new way, their kept their indie roots by filming Cyrus in order and having the cast do a ton of improvising.  What they ended up with was an original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  It’s definitely recommended.

Anyway, at the press junket I was also able to speak with Jonah Hill and we talked about making Cyrus, Steven Spielberg, how have the last few weeks been as I just spoke to him for Get Him to the Greek, and Hill reminisces about being in The 40-Year Old Virgin with Catherine Keener and how that one scene changed his life.  It’s a great interview.  Hit the jump to check it out:

Currently playing in limited release and expanding into more theaters this week is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie centers on John (John C. Reilly), a film editor who’s down on his luck and still emotionally attached to his soon-to-be remarried ex-wife, Jamie (Catherine Keener).  John’s prospects take a turn when he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. However, when her 21 year-old son/housemate Cyrus (Jonah Hill) enters the picture, he becomes an unexpected saboteur of John’s attempts at Molly’s heart.  While you might think making a studio movie might somehow change who The Duplass Brothers are, they stuck to their indie roots and delivered a touching, original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Yesterday I posted my video interview with John C. Reilly, and tonight I’ve got Marisa Tomei. During the interview we talked about making Cyrus, what it was like to film the movie in order, and what it was like to do so much improv.  We also talked about working with Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly and a lot more.  Hit the jump to check it out:

Currently playing in limited release and expanding into more theaters this week is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie centers on John (John C. Reilly), a film editor who’s down on his luck and still emotionally attached to his soon-to-be remarried ex-wife, Jamie (Catherine Keener).  John’s prospects take a turn when he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. However, when her 21 year-old son/housemate Cyrus (Jonah Hill) enters the picture, he becomes an unexpected saboteur of John’s attempts at Molly’s heart.

While you might think going down the studio road might somehow change who The Duplass Brothers are, they stuck to their indie tricks.  The way they did that was to film the movie in order and to improvise much of the dialogue. What they ended up with was a touching, original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Anyway, I recently got to talk with John C. Reilly about how he got involved in the project and what it was like to work for the Duplass Brothers.  I also asked him about his future projects like Cedar Rapids and We Need to Talk About Kevin, as well as what will it take to get him paired up again with Will Ferrell.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say:

Jay and Mark Duplass’ steady professional climb just hit another peak.  Their first two features, The Puffy Chair and Baghead, won enough critical praise and independent film fans to get a green light for their first studio feature, Cyrus.  The aforementioned peak comes this weekend as the film kicks off its national rollout in New York.  It is a fitting sign of their upward mobility then, that Cyrus’ executive producers are a pair of blockbuster sibling filmmakers; Ridley and Tony Scott (Gladiator and Top Gun, respectively).

The Duplasses tracked their career path for Collider during a busy breakfast-time interview at New York’s Gramercy Park Hotel.  Hit the jump for the full audio and transcript, including their transition to life with a film studio, the guilty pleasure of having a Google alert for yourself and why Jonah Hill was like their mascot, onset.

Dramedies about love triangles are somewhat commonplace.  Dramedies about an unconventional love triangle with stalker-like behavior attached to one of the three characters is much more rare.  That smaller sub-genre becomes almost non-existent when the perpetrator is also the son of one of the other two involved.  Cyrus, which begins a national rollout today in New York and Los Angeles, pulls it off, due in large part to its stars: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill.  The latest film from writers/co-directors Jay and Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair and Baghead) follows John (Reilly), a man in dire straits whose life turns around when he meets his dream woman Molly (Tomei) at a party.  Her son Cyrus (Jonah Hill) stains the picture with a severe failure to launch syndrome, compounded by Oedipal overtones.

Reilly and Tomei recently did a press day in New York and we got to attend.  Hit the jump for the full audio of each roundtable interview, along with highlights, including: Reilly on whether masturbation got him to say yes to Cyrus, both on what it was like to improvise their way through a film, Reilly on Paul Thomas Anderson and whether he’ll be in PTA’s new film and why Tomei thinks Jonah Hill makes his real-life mother proud.

Opening this weekend, in limited release, is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie stars John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener and Marisa Tomei.  While the Duplass brothers have made a number of indie films, this is their first studio movie.  While you might think getting financing from Fox Searchlight might somehow change who they are and what kinds of movies they make, they brought all their indie tricks along for the ride.  The way they did that was to film the movie in order, and they also did a ton of improv on set.  In fact, while they (of course) got takes that stuck to the script, they did take after take of improv to try and make everything seem real.  What they ended up with was a original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Anyway, if you’d like to check out some of Cyrus now, we’ve been given 5 clips from the film.  I’ve also provided the full synopsis after the jump.  Again, Cyrus opens this weekend in limited release.  It expands into more areas in July.

There are plenty of films to be excited about at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, but sadly they’ll probably be overshadowed by one.  The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will make its world debut at the festival on June 24th, six days before the film’s release date.  However, the screening is invitation-only.  How do you get an invitation? I have no idea.  Maybe if you sign a contract saying your shrieking won’t rise above a certain decibel level.

As for the other films that aren’t invitation-only, there’s also the Sundance hit The Kids Are Alright, the closing night film Despicable Me, the Duplass Brother’s Cyrus, Neil Marshall’s Centurion, the education documentary Waiting for Superman, and Golden Lion-winner Lebanon.

Hit the jump to check out the full line-up.  The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival will from June 17 – 27.

Not all of the great film festivals are outside of the U.S.  Even if you can’t book a ticket to Cannes or Berlin, you should be able to afford a flight out to Austin, Texas for SXSW, which is a festival for not only movies, but music and video games as well.  Like the years before, the line-up for the 2010 SXSW Film Festival is the goods.  Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass will open up the fest and then there will be other great-looking films throughout including The Duplass Brothers’ Cyrus, SNL’s hard-R adaptation of MacGruber, Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass, and Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways, just to name a few.  If you’re going to this year’s SXSW, let me know so I can steal your identity and go in your place.

The 2010 SXSW Film Festival will run from March 12-20.  Check out the full list of films after the jump.

Box Office Mojo has some release date changes/announcements and we wanted to let you know about so you can be upset at a delay or pleased at the haste.  First up, The Eagle of the Ninth, the sword-and-sandals flick starring Channing Tatum, has landed a specific release date of September 24th.  It had previously been scheduled for “September 2009″.

Meanwhile, Fox is moving the family film Diary of a Wimpy Kid out of the April 2nd battlefield (when Clash of the Titans, Repo Men, and Why Did I get Married Too are scheduled to debut) and moving it to March 19th where it will square off against the rom-com The Bounty Hunter (starring Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston), the rock biopic The Runaways (starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning; click here to read Steve’s Sundance review of the film), and the medieval action flick Season of the Witch (starring Nicolas Cage, Nicolas Cage’s hairpiece, and Ron Perlman).

Finally, The Duplass Brothers’ Cyrus, starring John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, and Jonah Hill, will hit theaters on July 9th where it will face Nimrod Antal’s Predators and the animated comedy Despicable Me.

Cooper’s Town Productions, topped by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Emily Ziff, is developing a handful of projects, including The Well, set to star veterans Guy Pearce and Mary-Louise Parker, and the Hoffman-starrer Mr. Crumpacker and the Man From the Letter, according to Variety. The announcement was made during Hoffman and Ziff’s time promoting Jack Goes Boating at Sundance.

The Well, a psychological thriller, will be the debut for writer and director Tim Guinee. He is best known for appearing in a ridiculous amount of television series for a few episodes and a number of feature films, including the Sundance film Cyrus. The film “revolves around a well-to-do Manhattan couple whose obsessive pursuit of salvation ultimately leads to destruction.”

For the full descriptions of the comedy Mr. Crumpacker, an untitled film based on racial tensions in sports in the 1960s, and a movie about a husband and father in Brooklyn that builds a farm out of his urban backyard, hit the jump.