I feel like the producers of Beastly, a modern-day Beauty and the Beast based on the young adult novel by Alex Finn, are missing an opportunity to secure the thirtysomething females by not showing Parenthood‘s Peter Krause in the trailer (embedded after the jump). I’m sure his role is small. He’s the father who banishes his son Kyle (star Alex Pettyfer) to Brooklyn after a goth classmate (Mary-Kate Olsen) turns him as ugly on the outside as he in on the inside and gives him one year to find someone (Vanessa Hudgens) who loves him anyway. But add in his presence with Neil Patrick Harris’ — as Kyle’s dry-witted blind tutor — and the older ladies will have a real reason to risk being annoyed by teens texting during a movie. READ FULL STORY »

Image Credit: Sam EmersonThe trailer for Get Low, which stars Robert Duvall as a recluse who comes out of 40 years of seclusion to ask a funeral home owner (Bill Murray) to plan him a living funeral, gets even more interesting when you find out it’s loosely based on a true story. I didn’t know about the real Felix “Bush” Breazeale until I read the Sony Picture Classics production notes:

“Born into a prominent Southern family, he was nevertheless renown for his wild and offbeat ways. For years, Felix famously dwelled completely alone, refusing all company save for his beloved mule, in the deep, deep woods. Then, suddenly, Felix decided that, before he died, he’d like to know in advance what people were going to say about him after he was gone. Thus was born his wild idea for a ‘living funeral,’ which would soon command national attention. To draw a crowd to this highly irregular memorial, Felix sold lottery tickets offering his valuable plot of land as the prize; and the ploy worked. In the end, it was said that as many as 12,000 ‘mourners’ from at least 14 different states showed up on June 26, 1938 — including a Life Magazine photographer and major newspaper reporters — to pay their respects to Felix…as he watched it all transpire.” For the film, writers Chris Provenzano (Mad Men) and C. Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond) imagined Felix’s motivation, the secret he had to share, as well as Murray’s character and a widow (Sissy Spacek) whose “undisclosed past with Felix leads to shocking revelations of an unsolved murder.”

It looks like a fun time for Duvall and Murray (a mustache!), but honestly, I’m most look forward to seeing Gerald McRaney, who plays the local reverend. He’s one of those actors you may not think about, but when you see him, you’re like, I love him! Am I right? READ FULL STORY »