Alia Shawkat
- 2008
With prom right around the corner, a young man not only has to worry about finding a date, but is forced to wrestle with the crumbling marriage of his parents (William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines) in this Plum Pictures comedy from writer/director Brian Hecker (Family Attraction). ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William H. Macy, Cheryl Hines, (more)
When the spirit of Christmas compels a small-town New Englander to decorate his home with enough lights to make it visible from space, much more is set to be decked than just the halls in this holiday comedy featuring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick as two warring neighbors determined to outdo each other in creating the best lighting display on the planet. Christmas is without question the most wonderful time of the year for Cloverdale, MA optometrist Steve Finch (Broderick). Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Steve's wife, Kelly (Kristin Davis), and the pair's two children, Madison (Alia Shawkat) and Carter (Dylan Blue). Despite Steve's annual holiday zeal, the rest of the Carters have grown to resent the seemingly endless family rituals leading up the Winterfest carnival over which their terminally cheerful patriarch presides. Though it seems that nothing in the world could dampen the spirits of the local "King of Christmas," Steve soon finds his royal status challenged when used-car salesman Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) moves in next door and covers his house with enough festive lights to make it visible from the deepest crater of the moon. His Yuletide thunder effectively stolen, Steve resorts to desperate measures in regaining his crown when Buddy's lavish decorations make him a local celebrity, his wife strikes up a warm friendship with the neighbor's outspoken better half, Tia (Kristin Chenoweth), and even the kids seem to warm to the car salesman's air-headed twin daughters, Ashley and Emily (Sabrina and Kelly Aldridge). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick, (more)
A man hoping to make his way back to the big time starts by heading back to middle school in this comedy. Roy McCormick (Martin Lawrence) is one of the most successful coaches in college basketball, but he's just as famous for his hair-trigger temper as he is for molding winning teams. When an outburst of anger during a game escalates into an embarrassing public indecent, McCormick loses his job and is banned from college sports. Looking for a way to rehabilitate his image, McCormick takes a job coaching the basketball team at the middle school he used to attend, only to discover his players are a handful of misfits and losers with no skill on the court. Can McCormick mold the kids into a winning team -- and make himself into a better man along the way? Rebound also stars Wendy R. Robinson, Breckin Meyer, Horatio Sanz, Megan Mullally, and Patrick Warburton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Lawrence, Wendy Raquel Robinson, (more)
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, All Movie Guide
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, (more)
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, All Movie Guide
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, (more)
