Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer for the coming of age comedy/drama The Way, Way Back.  The film marks the directorial debut of The Descendants co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash and centers on a 14-year-old boy (Liam James) who spends his summer vacation bonding with the manager of a water park (Sam Rockwell) while staying with his mother (Toni Collette) and her overbearing boyfriend (Steve Carell).  The Adventureland-esque pic looks to be a nice little summer film with a healthy mix of comedy and drama, and there’s a refreshing lack of cynicism in this trailer.  Rockwell and Allison Janney are always swell, and the two are most definitely the comedic highlights here.  Matt caught the film at Sundance and was rather mixed in his review, but I find this debut trailer to be promising.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Zoe Levin, AnnaSophia Robb, and Amanda Peet.  The Way, Way Back opens on July 5th in limited release.

In their directorial debut, The Way, Way Back, writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash show they’re incredibly adept at humor.  They know how to tell a good joke, push the envelope without being mean-spirited, and find the right actors to deliver the comedy.  Unfortunately, a film has to put story and characters before comedy, and the film fails where it matters most.  Faxon and Rash put a painfully bland character at the center of their movie, and then try to convince us that anyone would help the uninteresting protagonist.  Surrounded by one-dimensional characters and a predictable plot, The Way, Way Back can tell a joke, but has difficulty doing anything else.

Want to get a jump on two new sitcoms coming to television this fall?  You can check out the full pilots for Fox’s The Mindy Project and Ben and Kate.  Mindy Kaling (The Office) stars in her own creation as an OB/GYN who is stuck somewhere between her ideal  relationship (based solely on romantic comedies) and her actual liaisons, which never end quite the way she hopes.  Ben and Kate, from Dana Fox (Childrens Hospital), centers on the off-kilter relationship between a bachelor brother (Nat Faxon) and his single-mom sister (Dakota Johnson).  Both shows will premiere on Fox the night of September 25th, but you can check out the full pilots after the jump.

Fresh off of winning the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Descendants, writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who plays the dean on NBC’s Community) have just begun production on their directorial debut.  Based off their original screenplay, The Way, Way Back centers on a teenage boy on summer vacation (Liam James) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a local water-park manager (Sam Rockwell) while coming to grips with some family issues.  The impressive cast includes Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney and Annasophia Robb, and now it appears that Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, and Amanda Peet are signing on as well.  Hit the jump for more.

A couple of heavy hitters in casting news today.  Here are the headlines at a glance:

• John Cusack may join Elijah Wood in the indie thriller, Grand Piano.
• Jude Law will star in the title role of Richard Shepard’s Dom Hemingway.
• Liam James joins Steve Carell and Toni Collette in indie drama, The Way, Way Back.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

There’s a reunion of sorts happening for Steve Carell and Toni Collette, who last starred together in 2006 Oscar-winner, Little Miss Sunshine.  Carell and Collette will join Jim Rash (Community) and Nat Faxon’s (Bad Teacher) directorial debut, The Way, Way Back.  Their script landed on 2010′s Black List, and after earning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay of their effort for The Descendents, I’m sure we can look forward to much more from the duo.  The Way, Way Back is an indie drama about a dysfunctional family, but that’s where the similarities to Little Miss Sunshine seem to stop.  The plot centers on a teenage boy on summer vacation who is coming to grips with his emotionally-distant mother and his cheating step-father.  The parental roles will be played by Collette and Carell, while the film also stars Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney and Annasophia Robb. Hit the jump for more.

The Babymakers is a film I would have made when I was thirteen, and that is not a compliment.  Jay Chandrasekhar‘s comedy occasionally appeals to one’s guilty pleasure adolescent side, but it lacks the sophistication to bring out big laughs from its constant stream of semen jokes.  The film does get some hilarity out of some of the cum gags, but a comedy cannot subsist on jizz jokes alone, and when it’s not spraying its wad all over predictable pay-offs, The Babymakers moves into creepy, exploitative territory with lead actress Olivia Munn.  Paul Schneider gets to shine in a lead performance and the supporting cast gets in some great moments, but they’re not enough to overcome the obvious jokes, a weak script, and even weaker pacing.

Fresh off their Oscar win for The Descendants in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash have sold an original action-comedy pitch to Indian Paintbrush.  Variety reports that Kristen Wiig—a nominee herself in the Best Original Screenplay section with Bridesmaids—is attached to star.  Details are scarce, but that is already a very talented roster if the deals come together.  Faxon, Rash, and Wiig are all graduates of the Los Angeles improv troupe The Groundlings, so the comedic rapport should come naturally.  But I am curious to hear more about this “action” element.

We are surely in the midst of a Faxon/Rash breakout.  The duo will shoot their directorial debut The Way, Way Back this summer with Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney.  Rash will continue appearing on Community once it returns on March 15, and as long as it can cling to the airwaves.  Additionally, The Live Feed reports Faxon has just signed on to the Fox pilot Ned Fox Is My Manny.  He plays a brother who moves in with his sister (Abby Elliot), a single mother, to help her raise her baby.

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards have finally been unveiled. Many of the categories have fallen in line just as most have predicted (I fared alright with my predictions, but not great), with Hugo scoring 11 nods, followed closely by The Artist with 10. The biggest surprises are War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting in for Best Picture, the exclusion of The Adventures of Tintin from Best Animated Feature, and The Tree of Life nabbing Best Picture and Best Director nods (hooray!). On the snub side of things, despite landing the most precursor critics awards of any other actor in the race thus far, Albert Brooks was denied a Best Supporting Actor nod for his stellar work in Drive (boo). Additionally, Tilda Swinton was overlooked for giving the best performance of the year in We Need to Talk About Kevin, and AMPAS has no love for Michael Fassbender‘s haunting work in Shame.

There’s still plenty to be happy about, as Gary Oldman has his first ever Oscar Nomination (yes, that’s right) and Melissa McCarthy is a Best Supporting Actress nominee. Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees. The 84th Academy Awards will be presented by Billy Crystal on February 26th.

As I’ve been covering awards season pretty extensively here on the site over the past few months, I figured it would be appropriate to (foolishly) try to predict the upcoming Oscar nominations. It’s been a fairly tame year, as a few frontrunners were singled out early in the race and have held their ground throughout the grueling awards season. We haven’t been without a few surprises, as Steven Spielberg’s War Horse took a massive tumble following snubs from most of the major guilds, and David Fincher has surged back into the race bringing his adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with him.

Though there are plenty of safe bets when it comes to the 2012 Oscar nominations, there are still a few wildcards and tricky categories. I’ve put on my prognosticating cap (those interested can purchase one of these nifty hats at your local Target) and compiled a list of who and what I think will make the cut. Hit the jump to see how I think the nods will stack up when they’re announced on January 24th.

Following the Allen Gregory panel (recap is here) that featured a 10-minute clip of the new Fox pilot, I got the opportunity to participate in a round table discussion with the producers and cast of the show. The footage gave solid confirmation that the collaboration between Jonah Hill (Superbad, Get Him to the Greek), French Stewart, (Third Rock from the Sun) Nat Faxon (Beerfest) and some seriously comedy-savvy producers is a winning combination. I love the retro animation style they went with, and some of the material is definitely going to push the boundaries of PC Television in ways we haven’t yet witnessed. Watching the footage made the interview even more exciting because it was apparent that they have something special on their hands. In two surprisingly intimate group interviews, I sat down with David A. Goodman (Family Guy), Jarrad Paul (Yes Man), Andrew Mogel (Yes Man), French Stewart (Richard, Allen’s father), Jonah Hill (Allen Gregory DeLongpre), and Nat Faxon (Jeremy, Richard’s life partner). The show follows Allen Gregory, a spoiled but adorable 7 year-old who is being raised by his father Richard and Jeremy, Richard’s neglected life-partner.

All the writers and actors were clearly excited about the project and answered everything with a level of refreshingly genuine enthusiasm. Hit the jump for more.

While I enjoy poking fun at most actors who never seem to slow down and it feels like I’m announcing a new project for them every week, I never mind it when that actor is George Clooney.  Even when I’m not crazy about the film, like “The Good German” or “Intolerable Cruelty”, I still think he’s great in it.  You’ll find that there’s no escaping Clooney for the rest of 2009 since he has three movies coming out over the next two months.  But since he’s great in “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and “Up in the Air”, I don’t think you’ll mind (I have yet to see “Fantastic Mr. Fox” but I don’t think his voice work is going to let me down).

Even though Clooney is currently in Italy shooting Anton Corbijn’s spy-thriller “The American”, he’s already in talks to star in Alexander Payne’s first film in five years, “The Descendants”.  Hit the jump for details and no respite from Clooney.