With all our talk about the brilliant viral marketing campaigns for movies like Funny People and District 9, I figured it would only be fair to point out that sometimes viral marketing schemes can also crash and burn. Case in point: this weak attempt at creating online buzz for the movie I Love You, Beth Cooper.

You may recall that the title for the film comes from the main character’s decision to proclaim his love for a girl while delivering his valedictorian speech. Well apparently 20th Century Fox paid an 18-year-old girl $1800 to pull a similar stunt during the Alexander Hamilton High School graduation ceremony in Los Angeles. The idea is that this real and “unscripted” moment would be captured on video, uploaded to YouTube, and then go viral. But that’s not what happened.

The video didn’t catch on, and the movie pretty much bombed. Only now that the movie has almost disappeared from theatres has the viral ad started to get any attention online — unfortunately, it is not the kind of attention they were hoping for. Apparently school officials were none too pleased that their grad ceremony featured a paid ad by a major corporation. The girl’s boyfriend, however, was okay with it. It just goes to show that not all viral campaigns are created equal. Check out the lame video in question after the jump.

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After years of being hounded by fans and asked about a possible Seinfeld reunion, it appears that Larry David has finally decided to make it happen… but only within the fictional world of his show Curb Your Enthusiasm! With the seventh season of Curb currently in production and aiming for a September 20th premiere on HBO, Larry David recently revealed that the season will feature a continuing plot thread that involves Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards all playing themselves as the network organizes a Seinfeld reunion TV special.

“We’ll see writing, see aspects of the read-through, parts of rehearsal, see the show being filmed, and see it on TV… You won’t see the entire show. You’ll see parts of the show. You’ll get an idea of what happened (to the Seinfeld characters) 11 years later.”

I have to admit, this is a pretty ingenious way of doing the reunion without actually “selling out”, so to speak. It’s also a great idea to base a whole season on, much like how Season 4 revolved around Larry’s involvement in the Mel Brooks musical The Producers. It will be sure to raise interest in this season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (which could be the last one), and it will allow them to poke fun at the idea too. Just don’t think too hard about it, because when you realize that much of Seinfeld was based on Larry David’s own real-life experiences, this season could end up being a total meta-textual mindbender. What do you think, is the fictional Seinfeld reunion a brilliant idea or just a shameless cop out?

When I first heard that Bryce Dallas Howard was joining the cast of the third Twilight film, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, I didn’t give the story much more than a passing glance. I just assumed she would be playing a new character that is introduced in the film, and what with her being a hot, in-demand actress right now, it all seemed to make sense. But apparently there’s a bigger story going on here, and one that has caused a lot of outrage among the Twihards. It seems that Howard will be taking over the role of Victoria, who was played by Rachelle Lefevre in the first two films.

So why is Lefevre not returning? Well, the official reason is “scheduling conflicts”, but the truth is a little more complicated. Lefevre accepted a role in a small film called Barney’s Version, starring Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman, which required her to commit 10 days for shooting. It turns out those days conflicted with the three-month schedule for Eclipse, and Summit Entertainment decided that rather than try to accommodate her, they would simply replace her — with a bigger name actress. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt. I’m not entirely sure who’s in the wrong here, but it does look bad for Summit. The thing is, when you’re an up-and-coming actress, you don’t want to turn down roles, and with the rate that they are churning out Twilight movies, they aren’t leaving much time for the cast to do other projects. Then again, I’m sure they have no problem working around Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson’s schedules. What do you think, is this a total dick move or did Lefevre have it coming? Will the fans still be able to save her role?

Well here’s a pretty huge announcement that I don’t think many people saw coming. There has been talk of Ridley Scott returning to the Alien franchise for many, many years, but it always seemed like a bit of a pipe dream. Most recently, there were rumours that up-and-comer Carl Rinsch would be taking on an Alien prequel, with Ridley Scott on board as a producer. It seemed like the most logical step given that each previous Alien film has been handed off to a talented young director, but alas, it seems that Fox wasn’t so keep on the idea. Instead, Fox has finally won out and managed to convince their number one choice to step into the director’s chair after all: Ridley Scott!

Variety reports that Scott has indeed signed on to direct an Alien prequel, with Jon Spaihts (Passengers) writing the script. It’s looking like this may be Scott’s next film after Robin Hood, but that has yet to be confirmed. So what do you think, is this a good idea? I am guessing most people will be pretty excited to have Scott back at the helm, but there is a question of whether or not the aliens really need an origin story. All I know is it certainly can’t be worse than the Alien vs Predator films. Thoughts?

Judd Apatow’s Funny People is the big release this weekend, and one a lot of people have been waiting for, although it’s hard to predict just how well it’s going to do. Apatow’s name plus Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen should equal a box office hit, but they’ve got a long way to go if they’re hoping to catch The Hangover as the biggest comedy of the year. Also in wide release this weekend is the family adventure comedy Aliens in the Attic and the The Collector, a thriller from the writers of Saw IV, V and VI. Lots of great stuff in select theatres too, including the documentaries Not Quite Hollywood and The Cove, plus Chan-wook Park’s vampire flick Thirst, unfortunately none of these movies are opening in more than 5 theatres. What will you be checking out this weekend?

• Funny People
• Aliens in the Attic
• The Collector
• Adam (limited)
• Thirst (limited)
• Not Quite Hollywood (limited)
• Flame & Citron (limited)
• The Cove (limited)
• Lorna’s Silence (limited)

I’ve been dying to see some actual footage of Wes Anderson’s upcoming stop motion animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, ever since the first batch of official photos turned up online. As mentioned previously, I thought it looked more CG than stop motion in the stills, but now that the first trailer has arrived, it leaves no question that this is 100% stop motion. In fact, I can see some people complaining that the animation looks too choppy and simplistic, but I get the feeling that this is being done on purpose. The only problem is that it may be hard to immerse yourself in a world where everything seems so stiff.

Either way, the interesting thing here is seeing how Wes Anderson’s style will play into an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book. It certainly looks like his obsessive attention to detail and quirky sense of humour is a strong part of the mix, and with a voice cast that includes many of his usual collaborators, he’s not branching out quite as far as some might have previously thought. I suppose this could be good or bad depending on your point of view, but personally I can’t wait to see the final product. Fantastic Mr. Fox hits theatres on November 13th. A lower quality version of the trailer is embedded after the jump; you can also watch it in HD over on Yahoo! now.

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It seems like everyone’s getting bit by the Bourne bug as of late, with numerous spy novels getting locked down and plenty of big names stepping to the plate. The latest A-list director to turn his attention to an espionage thriller this week is none other than Opie himself, Ron Howard. According to Variety, Howard has signed on to direct an adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s 1982 Cold War novel The Parsifal Mosaic.

The story centers on a CIA agent who finds out that his lover is actually a double agent for the KGB, and believes he has seen her being executed. David Self (Road to Perdition, Thirteen Days, The Wolf Man) will write the script, with usual Ron Howard partner Brian Grazer taking on the role of producer. While I love spy movies and I love the Bourne trilogy, something tells me that with Ron Howard at the helm, this will be nothing like the Bourne movies. It just seems like he’s looking for another movie to appeal to that older demographic that he was able to target so well with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. All I’m gonna say is that if they sign Tom Hanks for the lead role again, I’m out! Feel free to reflect on visionary nature of Ron Howard’s films in the comments below.

There were plenty of responses to last week’s Tim Burton poll, and in the end it was Ed Wood that just barely beat out Edward Scissorhands to take the top spot as his finest work to date. I can certainly understand how many would rank these two the highest, followed by Beetlejuice, although I do think Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is a little underrated here. And as much as I expected to see Mars Attacks down at the bottom, I was hoping a few more supporters might come out of the woodwork. Now for the all important question: how would Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake have fared in this poll?

1. Ed Wood — 19.9%
2. Edward Scissorhands — 18.1%
3. Beetlejuice — 14.2%
4. Big Fish — 13.7%
5. Batman — 13%
6. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure — 8.3%
7. Sleepy Hollow — 6.2%
8. Sweeney Todd — 2.8%
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — 1.8%
9. Mars Attacks! — 1.8%

I’ve been meaning to remedy my ignorance when it comes to the work of Roman Polanski. For some reason, I’ve never really gotten past his ‘hits’ and explored any of his earlier works like Knife in the Water or The Tenant. Thanks to the Criterion Collection’s recent blu ray release of ‘Repulsion’, Polanski is, in my eyes, no longer simply the old cop guy from Rush Hour 3.

I’m not even sure what Polanski is ‘known for’. Wait…let me ammend that. I do know what he’s known for. I’m not sure what Polanski is known for in regards to the themes and stylistic choices prevalant in his film work. I have read about such things, but I haven’t seen enough of his films to formulate my own opinion on what makes a Polanski film a Polanski film. However, I’m not a complete idiot. I have seen Rosemary’s Baby and it’s pretty clear that Repulsion is culled from the same brand of suspense driven surrealism. For starters, they even both have female leads! (An observation I made completely on my own, independent of any online research.) In Repulsion, the majestic Catherine Deneuve plays Carol; a quiet and repressed young beauty salon assistant that seems unusually shy and clearly has some issues with intimacy. Her constant day dreaming results in a number of unhappy snooty clients and simply makes her look like a total flake. When Carol’s sister decides to head out of town with her boyfriend, she’s left alone; a helpless French girl in London dealing with her building anxieties as the walls literally start to crack and cave in around her.

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Well it was just announced earlier this week that The Coen Brothers’ next film A Serious Man would be premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, and now the first trailer has arrived online. The Coens rarely seem to do two movies in a row that are similar since their interests and talents span a wide variety of genres. In this case, A Serious Man actually does feel a little bit like their last film Burn After Reading in that it’s something of a dark comedy. But from this trailer it’s still hard to fully grasp what exactly to expect from this film.

I like the fact that it’s a bit mysterious though, and I love how most of it is set to the soundtrack of the main character (played by Michael Stuhlbarg) having his head repeatedly slammed against a blackboard. Unlike Burn After Reading, there certainly aren’t many big names in this film (the only one I recognize off the bat is Richard Kind). The story is set in 1967. Larry Gopnik is a professor at a midwestern university and finds out that his wife is leaving him. After that, the rest of his life starts to fall apart as well. Check out the trailer after the jump or watch it in HD over at Apple.com. A Serious Man hits theatres on October 2nd.

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