Niki N. Phaser

               MacGruber, the action comedy based on one of Will Forte’s SNL characters, will be out this spring. Considering that the movie is written by Forte himself, as well as his Saturday Night Live collaborators, we can expect at least one source of good laughs this coming spring. He is joined by some of his colleagues from the famous live show, like Kristen Wiig as the female lead, or Maya Rudolph. The cast is completed by some ’stars-for-flavour’, like Val Kilmer as the bad guy, Ryan Phillippe, Powers Boothe and a string of cameos by well known wrestlers — it’s a comedy, so it’s allowed.

             MacGruber continues an impressive tradition of films based on SNL sketches, like Wayne’s World, A Night at the Roxbury, The Ladies Man, you name it. If you’re not familiar with the character, you should just know that he’s a parody of MacGyver, just that he doesn’t save the day. Ever. Here’s the trailer, hopefully they haven’t used up all the good stuff in it:

TRAILER

Cameron Crowe’s teen classic, Say Anything… is turning 20 this year (to continue our string of anniversaries). To mark the occasion, the film is being (re)released on Blu-Ray and DVD, of course and we all know that it’s not Cameron’s style to offer us something without any bonuses. This new edition will come with all the extra material you would want and some of it, available for the first time. For those of you who are not familiar with the movie (do you still exist?) it will be a good chance to get acquainted with the quintessential teen romantic comedy of the 80’s. For those of us who are already hooked on lines like “Bitches, man!” or “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen”, this will be an opportunity to go even deeper in the genesis of this feel-good classic, that even inspired the name of the band Say Anything, as well as creating some of the most circulated clichés in the world of romantic comedy — the boombox pose is a pop icon, no doubt about it. But, then again, Cameron Crowe’s movies were always sources of pop culture iconography, whether is visual or just verbal. And to paraphrase (again) the film’s tagline, “To know Cameron Crowe is to love Cameron Crowe’s movies”.

Say Anything… TRAILER

John Hughes died yesterday, August 6, of a heart attack. He was 59. For those of you who are not paying attention during movie’s opening titles, you should know that Hughes wrote, produced or/and directed the best teen movies of the 80’s, to which you can add some other great stuff in the 90’s (you know that deep inside you crave to see Home Alone once more). He pretty muched shaped the teen comedy genre and created the matrix on which teen comedies are built and which indie filmmakers resent. It was the mind of John Hughes that spawned such teen classics like The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink (he wanted a different ending), 16 Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and what have you. You can almost bet that half of the comedies which marked your childhood are John Hughes products. Some of these movies, like The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink, are full-on masterpieces, managing to deal with more serious issues regarding teen life, without becoming Larry Clark. It’s fun for the whole family, but food for though for each member individually. John Hughes, we will never forget about you.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB TRAILER PRETTY IN PINK TRAILER HOME ALONE TRAILER