Ever since Jack Black punted Will Ferrell’s dog off a bridge in Anchorman, tensions have remained high between the two comedic veterans.  Not really.  But they haven’t had an opportunity to work together since then.  That’s all about to change with New Line’s Tag Brothers, a comedy pitch based on a real life occurrence.  A Wall Street Journal article chronicled the shenanigans of a Spokane, Washington group  of friends whose long-running game of tag soon became the subject of national attention.  Now in their 40s, they devote every February to a game of tag that stretches across the country.  Hit the jump for more.

The nominations for the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards have been announced, and Oscar hopefuls Silver Linings Playbook and Moonrise Kingdom lead the pack.  Both films picked up nominations for Best Feature, Director, and Screenplay with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper landing acting noms for SLP and Bruce Willis garnering a swell Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work in Moonrise Kingdom.  Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie, and Keep the Lights On round out the Best Feature nominees, while The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Safety Not Guaranteed were singled out for the Best First Feature award.  Also, Matthew McConaughey pulled double nominations for his stellar work in this year’s Magic Mike and Killer Joe, landing a Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor nod, respectively.  Notably shut out of the race entirely was Leos Carax‘s critically-lauded Holy Motors.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations.  The winners of the 2013 Spirit Awards will be announced on Saturday, February 23, 2013.

Let’s take a look at some recent casting news, shall we?

• It looks like Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) will be joining Matthew McConaughey (Magic Mike) in The Dallas Buyer’s Club, a drama about the AIDS epidemic directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.).
• Ron Perlman (Hellboy) will join Savage Mutts, a criminal action thriller written and directed by Nika Agiashvili (Tbilisi, My City).
• Word has it that Jack Black and director Richard Linklater, who previously collaborated on School of Rock and the 2012 indie Bernie, will reunite for a bowling movie that may have been inspired by colorful PBA champion, Pete Weber.
• Finally, the ensemble cast of August: Osage County has added Julianne Nicholson (Kinsey) as well.  The film currently stars Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Ewan McGregor and Dermot Mulroney.

Hit the jump for more on each casting note.

Director Richard Linklater returned to screens earlier this year with the dark comedy Bernie, and in celebration of the film’s release on Blu-ray/DVD today, we’ve been provided with a few goodies to giveaway to some lucky fans.  Jack Black stars in this true story about an assistant funeral director of a small Texas town who woos and then murders a cantankerous, affluent widow.  We have three posters for the film, each signed by Linklater, Black, and Shirley MacLaine, that will go to three lucky readers.

Hit the jump to find out how you can win.

Rumors flew earlier in the week that Charlie Kaufman‘s (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) ambitious project Frank or Francis might, sadly, never come together at all – though Kaufman’s reps are not ready to say any more than it has merely been postponed. The project is a “musical satire” about Hollywood and the internet, and has Steve Carell, Jack Black, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Kline and Elizabeth Banks all set to star, though questions about it ever coming to fruition have been numerous of late.

Kaufman has been busy with quite a few other projects (including writing his first novel, writing and directing an HBO series staring Catherine Keener, and adapting the YA novel Chaos Walking: The Knife Of Never Letting Go, so it’s not difficult to fathom that Frank or Francis may have unfortunately dropped from the top of his priority list. For more on the troubled project and what some of the film’s stars have said about its prospects, hit the jump.

Though the two just starred together in Richard Linklater’s Bernie, Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine are already planning a reunion of sorts.  It was announced today (via ScreenDaily) that Black and MacLaine will star in the comedy Wild Oats alongside Jacki Weaver and Alan Arkin.  The caper follows two fugitives who are forced to outwit a trio of conmen and the law, with Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink) onboard to direct from a script by Gary Kanew and Claudia Myers.

The cast is impressive, but Deutch’s recent filmography (My Best Friend’s Girl, The Whole Ten Yards) isn’t exactly up to par with his earlier material.  Production on Wild Oats is set to get underway in mid-July, but Black is also attached to star in Charlie Kaufman’s incredibly promising Frank or Francis.  That film has a solid cast, but producers are still firming up financing before production can begin.

Opening this weekend, in limited release, is director Richard Linklater’s (Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Before Sunrise) new film Bernie.  The dark comedy is based on a true story and stars Jack Black as an assistant funeral director of a small Texas town who wooed and then murdered a cantankerous, affluent widow.  Black is surrounded by a terrific supporting cast that includes Shirley MacLaine as said widow and Matthew McConaughey as the one person in town who suspects Bernie of wrongdoing.  While I’ve been less than impressed with Black’s recent film choices, I thought his work in Bernie was incredible and it’ll remind you that when he has the right material, he’s a great actor.  For more on the film, here’s seven clips.

Last week I got to sit down with Black and MaClaine.   They talked about their favorite movies, were they shocked to learn the story was based on actual events, what changed while filming, and more.  Hit the jump to watch.

We’ve been provided with seven clips from director Richard Linklater’s (Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Before Sunrise) new film Bernie to share with our readers.  The dark comedy is based on a true story and stars Jack Black as an assistant funeral director of a small Texas town who wooed and then murdered a cantankerous, affluent widow.  Black is surrounded by a terrific supporting cast that includes Shirley MacLaine as said widow and Matthew McConaughey as the one person in town who suspects Bernie of wrongdoing.  While I’ve been less than impressed with Black’s recent film choices, I thought his work in Bernie was incredible and it’ll remind you that when he has the right material, he’s a great actor.

Hit the jump to check out the clips.  The film opens on April 27th.

It’s always a fun treat when a now-famous actor pops up in a small role in an older movie you haven’t re-watched in a while.  We previously posted a “Before They Were Famous” supercut, but now someone has edited together a montage of actors in their very first feature film roles. While you’re most likely aware of the majority of these appearances, I’m willing to bet you’ll find at least a few surprises in this video.  I had no idea Jon Hamm was in Clint Eastwood’s “old guys can be astronauts too” movie Space Cowboys, but I now feel compelled to move the pic to the top of my Netflix queue.

Watch Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen, Emma Thompson, Zach Braff and many more make their feature debut after the jump.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen anything from Jack Black and Kyle Gass’ greatest rock band of all time, Tenacious D, but the dry spell has now come to an end. The duo has released a video chronicling their return and teasing their new album, Rize of the Fenix. The video begins with an Extra special covering the demise of Tenacious D following the box office failure of Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, then brings on a slew of celebrity cameos (Val Kilmer! Dave Grohl! Josh Groban?) that help bring the band back to its former glory. It’s pretty funny and definitely worth your time, especially for the Val Kilmer awesomeness.

Hit the jump to watch the video. The band’s new album, Rize of the Fenix, will be released on May 15th.

The first trailer for director Richard Linklater’s (Dazed and Confused) new dark comedy Bernie has gone online. Based on a true story, the film stars Jack Black as an assistant funeral director of a small Texas town who wooed and then murdered a cantankerous, affluent widow. I’m a big fan of Linklater’s work, and while I was wary of Bernie after getting a look at the first poster, I really like this trailer. It’s strange, it’s weird, and it’s really funny. Matthew McConaughey is in fine form here as the one person in town who suspects that Bernie is in the wrong, and Shirley MacLaine looks to be wonderfully crabby as the victim of Bernie’s crime. I like the almost documentary-like style that Linklater uses to tell the story (not found footage), and I can’t wait to see more.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. Bernie opens April 27th.

In the wake of SOPA/PIPA legislation and the resulting fallout, we thought we’d bring you a celebrity anti-piracy PSA today. If you haven’t heard about SOPA/PIPA before, they’re bills from the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate respectively that seek to prevent copyright infringement on websites (you can read more about them here). Although they are intended to protect artists, musicians, etc from unlawful distribution of their material, many have protested certain specifics in the legislation that could potentially limit freedom of speech and impinge on individual rights. Protesters were more than just sign-wavers as websites like Google, Wikipedia and popular comics site, The Oatmeal, all blacked-out their pages in response to the pending legislation. Things got even uglier after that, but it’s lucky for everyone that Jack Black is here to smooth everything over. Hit the jump to check out his anti-piracy PSA.

Fox 2000 has released the first trailer for the competitive birding comedy The Big Year.  Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson star as three men who try to outdo each other during a year-long competition to spot the rarest birds in North America.  Martin, Black and Wilson can all be incredibly funny given the right material, but nothing in this trailer made me laugh. Given the story, it’s possible that the film is more of a dramedy, but one would think there would be at least some laughs to be had given the excellent cast. I’m hoping that they’re holding back the goods, so I’ll reserve judgement until we see more.

Rosamund Pike, Jim Parsons, Joel McHale, JoBeth Williams, Brian Dennehy, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Anderson, and Tim Blake Nelson also star.  David Frankel (Marley & Me) directed the adaptation of the Mark Obmascik book. The Big Year opens October 14th.  Watch the trailer after the jump.

New images have gone online for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, the bird-watching comedy The Big Year, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Hit the jump to check out all the images along with synopses and brief descriptions for each film.

Thank the Maker for YouTube. With the advent of the video-on-demand digital age, no longer is that TV movie role that Actor X did when he was 11-years-old lost forever, and now someone’s put together a compilation of 25 “before they were famous” first roles for our viewing pleasure. Did you know that Daniel Craig was in A Kid in King Arthur’s Court? How about Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Roseanne or Jake Gyllenhaal in City Slickers? No need to hit up Netflix, some choice scenes are now all in one place.

Hit the jump to watch the montage, which includes 25 sometimes painful scenes featuring Jim Carrey, Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Ryan Gosling, Keanu Reeves, Nicole Kidman, Seth Rogen, Jake Gyllenhaal, Harrison Ford and more.