David Cross Movies

The Bluth family of Orange County, CA, once again forces the media critics to come up with new variations on the word "dysfunction" as the cult-favorite sitcom Arrested Development launches its second season. For those who came in late, straight-arrow Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is still trying to keep his family and the family business from disintegrating after his entrepreneur father is thrown in jail on a fraud charge. Well, anyway, he was in jail until he broke out with the help of lookalike convict Oscar (also Jeffrey Tambor) at the end of season one. Now that George Sr. is on the run, the authorities target poor Michael for prosecution in their efforts to bring Bluth Inc. to justice -- and thus Michael's older brother, Gob, an habitually unemployed (and woefully) inept magician, becomes head of the family, managing to convince the company's board of directors that he actually has some business sense! In other developments, Michael's kid brother, Buster (Tony Hale), takes a break from his indolence by romancing Lupe (B.W. Gonzalez), a girl he'd met at a charity drive, and by joining the U.S. Army -- conveniently losing a hand in a freak accident just before he is to be sent to Iraq.

Meanwhile, bumbling detective Gene Parmesan (Martin Mull) gets lost somewhere south of the border while searching for the elusive George Sr.; Oscar, the man who'd traded places with George Sr. to effect his escape, may also end up replacing George Sr. in bed with his the elder Bluth's wife, Lucille (Jessica Walter); and Michael's 14-year-old son, George Michael, takes a surrealistic journey into "Charlie Brown" territory when he's dumped by his girlfriend. Plus, Michael's doctor-cum-actor brother-in-law Tobias (David Cross) edges further out of the closet when he adopts the drag alter ego of "Mr. Featherbottom." Also, this is the season when we meet George Sr.'s hated business rival Stan Sitwell (Ed Begley Jr.), whose daughter Sally (Christine Taylor) was once (and may still be) Michael's childhood sweetheart. Other guest performers include Martin Short as the paraplegic, monumentally annoying Uncle Jack Dorso, an old family friend who offers to help the Bluths regain their stock majority in their own company -- at a price; and blind lawyer/congenital liar Maggie Lizer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who shows up pregnant, leading Michael to believe that he's going to be a father again; and Ben Stiller as Gob's magician mentor Tony Wonder, whose most famous illusion was being baked in a loaf of bread -- and who, like everyone else on the show, has an ulterior motive for lending the Bluths a helping hand. The last episode of the season finds George Sr. still on the lam; Tobias linking up with his father-in-law's blackmailing, self-deprecating former secretary Kitty (Patricia Velasquez); and George Michael entering into a relationship with the devoutly Christian Ann Veal (Mae Whitman), despite her total revulsion for his family and everything they stand for. As in season one, Arrested Development earned several Emmy nominations for its second season, winning the prize for Outstanding Writing. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second feature from director Michel Gondry (Human Nature) finds the filmmaker reteaming with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman for this off-the-wall romantic comedy. Jim Carrey stars as Joel Barish, a man who is informed that his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their relationship erased from her brain via an experimental procedure performed by Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). Not to be outdone, Joel decides to have the same procedure done to himself. As Mierzwiak's bumbling underlings Stan (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick (Elijah Wood) perform the operation on Joel -- over the course of an evening, in his apartment -- Joel struggles in his own mind to save the memories of Clementine from being deleted. Kirsten Dunst, David Cross, and Jane Adams also star. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

As Arrested Development leaps into its first season, hard-working Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is on the brink of starting a new life in Arizona with son George Michael (Michael Cera) when he is dragged kicking and screaming back to California, there to take charge of his family's business when his light-fingered father, George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), is jailed for fraud and the company's assets frozen. Though he had fondly assumed he'd seen the last of his vituperrious mother, Lucille (Jessica Walter), and his lazy, self-indulgent siblings, he was forced to hunker down and teach them how to behave (and spend!) more responsibly. As Michael's airheaded would-be-activist twin sister, Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), her sexually confused ex-doctor hubby, Tobias (David Cross), and their out-of-control daughter, Maeby (Alia Shawkat), move in with Michael, older brother Gob (Will Arnett), a spectacularly unsuccessful and untalented magician, must face the prospect of actually getting a real job, while the "baby" of the family, Michael's feckless kid brother, Buster (Tony Hale), remains sequestered in his mommy's Balboa Bay condo. Michael's well-ordered world doesn't take very long to unravel; by the second episode, his darling son George Michael has set fire to the Bluths' frozen-banana stand in Newport Beach, and has developed a borderline-incestuous crush on cousin Maeby. A few weeks later, Lucille Bluth's neurotic social rival Lucille Austero (Liza Minnelli) has entered into an affair with the much, much, much younger Buster, an act that will eventually move Buster's mom to spitefully adopt a Korean orphan named Annyong (Justin Lee). Meanwhile, Michael finds it next to impossible to break up the doomed romance between brother Gob and his girlfriend, Marta (Patricia Velasquez), and to fire such millstones around the Bluths' necks as hopelessly inept family lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler) and blackmailing company secretary Kitty Sanchez (Judy Greer).

Among the supporting actors entering into the lunacy are Rocky co-star Carl Weathers, who makes the first of several self-deprecating appearances as himself in the episode wherein George Michael is forced to hire a public relations service to gain entrance to a private school; Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton as the warden in the prison where George Sr. is wasting away, so to speak; Seinfeld veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the sight-challenged attorney Maggie Lizer, who plays up to Michael while trying to dig up more damaging dirt on his family's business practices; and series regular David Cross' longtime Mr. Show cohort Bob Odenkirk as a marriage counselor who tries to patch up the differences between Lindsay and Tobias (chief among them the fact that the "never-nude" Tobias will not undress in front of his spouse); and Amy Poehler, real-life wife of regular Will Arnett, as the "where the hell did she come from?" new wife of the gormless Gob. The season finale finds George Sr. staging a heart attack for the purpose of busting out jail, Maeby finally tumbling to George Michael's unspoken love for her, an unintentionally gay-themed book written years ago by Tobias embarrassingly hitting the best-seller charts, and the rivalry between Buster and Annyong coming to a head -- and threatening to bust both of their heads. Although season one of Arrested Development posted lukewarm ratings, the series earned a renewal from the Fox network largely on the strength of its five surprise Emmy Award wins (Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing, and Outstanding Writing). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

American independent filmmaker Lawrence Blume makes his feature debut with the absurd dark comedy Martin & Orloff, starring a lot of the folks from the Upright Citizens Brigade. Martin Flam (Ian Roberts) designs mascot costumes for a corporate chain of Chinese restaurants. After a failed suicide attempt, he goes to see the incompetent therapist Dr. Eric Orloff (Matt Walsh). Under the guise of conducting therapy sessions, the quack doctor then drags Martin on a series of seemingly random adventures about town. Dr. Orloff then recruits a gang of oddballs and malcontents (played by Katie Roberts, Sal Graziano, David Cross, and H. Jon Benjamin) to help Martin face his fears. The film also includes cameos from comedians Janeane Garofalo, Tina Fey, Andy Richter, and Amy Poehler. Martin & Orloff was screened at the 2002 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

This sequel to a box-office sleeper hit that spoofed teen slasher flicks takes its cues from haunted house and possession films, particularly The Haunting (1999) and The Exorcist (1973). Although many of the first film's main characters were homicide victims, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Anna Faris return anyway to "re-possess" their roles for this follow-up in which four students are invited by their professor (Tim Curry) to his haunted mansion, Hell House, for a weekend sleep-deprivation study. Providing the sleep deprivation, however, is a series of murderous, supernatural goings-on. Scary Movie 2 co-stars Tori Spelling, Andy Richter, Christopher Masterson, Kathleen Robertson, James Woods, Chris Elliott, and Natasha Lyonne. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In this independent comedy, a man finds stolen treasure cannot change his bad luck. A luckless barber (Steve Zahn), despondent over his life's downhill slide, is considering suicide when he comes across a stash of rare and valuable coins. But the coins turn out to be stolen, and before long, an increasing number of strange people are after him, the coins, and each other, including hired thief Avnet (Jeff Goldblum). The barber's confusion isn't helped when he finds himself falling for Sgt. Meredith Kolko (Salma Hayek), a centerfold-turned-police detective who is investigating the theft. The film's supporting cast includes Orlando Jones, Michael Rapaport, David Hyde Pierce, and Claudia Schiffer. Shot under the title Shiny New Enemies, Chain of Fools is the first feature directed by Pontus Löwenhielm and Patrick Von Krusenstjerna, members of the Swedish filmmaking collective Traktor, best known for their innovative television commercials, including the Miller Beer "Presented By Dick" campaign. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Joe Dante directed this satirical action-comedy about talking tech toys accidentally juiced-up with military microchips. After the defense industry firm Globotech takes over a small toy company, Heartland Play Systems' CEO Gil Mars (Denis Leary) gives the green light to develop a new line of action figures, requesting an upgrade to more realistic figures from Heartland toy designers Larry Benson (Jay Mohr) and fumbling Irwin Wayfair (David Cross). Mars wants toys that act like the ones in TV commercials. The results are fierce fighting figures, the Commando Elite, programmed to seek out and destroy the kindly alien-like Gorgonites. In an effort to make the toys as natural as possible, Benson inserts Globotech's most powerful military computer chips. Meanwhile, in quiet Winslow Corners, Ohio, toy-store owner Stuart Abernathy (Kevin Dunn) and his 15-year-old son Alan (Gregory Smith) are stuck in a failing business, so when Heartland truckdriver Joe (Dick Miller) stops by with the Commando and Gorgonite toys, Alan is convinced they will be hot sellers, commenting, "Maybe this store will finally make a little money." With blistering blows to their blister packs, the Commandos burst out, receive orders from their leader Chip Hazard (voice of Tommy Lee Jones) and ready for an all-out assault on the Gorgonites. When the Gorgonite leader Archer (voice of Frank Langella) begins communicating with Alan, it causes the Commandos to perceive humans as another enemy, simply by their association with the "Gorgonite scum," so an attack on the Abernathy house begins. Unfortunately, the Gorgonites can offer only limited assistance, since they have been programmed to lose. The film combines animatronics, puppetry, and computer animation. The Commando Elite voices include surviving actors from Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen (1967), while the Gorgonite voices reunited several This Is Spinal Tap (1983) cast members. A dedication to Phil Hartman (the voice of Phil Fimple) after the closing credits features a brief Hartman outtake. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

For his fifth effort as a feature-film director, one-time cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld brought his cartoonish visual style and darkly humorous sensibilities to this adaptation of, appropriately enough, a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi comic book. Will Smith stars as James Darrel Edwards, a New York City cop with an athletic physique and a flippant, anti-authoritarian attitude toward law enforcement. After chasing down a mysterious perpetrator one night who turns out to be an alien, James is recruited by "K" (Tommy Lee Jones), a veteran of a clandestine government agency secretly policing the comings and goings of aliens on planet Earth. Nicknamed the "men in black" for their nondescript uniform of black suit, shoes, tie, and sunglasses, the agents are assigned to recover a bauble that's been stolen by an intergalactic terrorist (Vincent D'Onofrio). It seems the item is none other than the galaxy itself, and its theft has plunged humanity into the center of what's shaping up to become an interstellar war, unless K and his new wisecracking partner, now renamed "J," can stop the bad guy. On their side but somewhat in the dark is a pretty, unflappable city medical examiner (Linda Fiorentino) who has been zapped one too many times by K's ingenious memory-sapping device. Men in Black was a box office smash, inspiring an animated children's television series and a hit soundtrack album that featured a performance by star (and rapper) Smith. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

David Cross (Mr. Show, Arrested Development) guest stars as Earl, the weird new tie-counter clerk at Winfred-Louder. Alerted to Ed's bizarre behavior, Drew (Drew Carey) is embarrassed to discover that he hadn't noticed Earl's admission on his job application that he'd once been confined to a home for the criminally insane. Forced to fire Earl, Drew is advised that his life is now in danger, but in typically insouciant fashion he doesn't bother to do anything about it until it's almost too late. Meanwhile, Mimi carries a torch for Antonio Banderas (who does NOT appear in this episode, as far as we can determine). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi