Movie: The Boys & Girls Guide to Getting Down

Photo courtesy of Kosmic Films

The Heizakeit Institute presents a scientific study of the hipster lifestyle, in the form of an official guide to getting down and dirty on a Friday night in the City of Angels. Part satire, part narrative and part self-described “how-to guide,” The Boys & Girls Guide to Getting Down is KIDS for a new generation of moviegoers who were raised on Wes Anderson films. And if you’re too busy taking psychotropic drugs and consuming copious amounts of alcohol to catch it on the big screen in March, no worries; The Guide to Getting Down will be out on DVD in May. Expect the media to be buzzing about this highly entertaining indie flick, thanks in large part to a brilliantly creative press kit that comes complete with a Ziplock bag filled with a variety of unsavory items.

WWW.BOYSANDGIRLSGUIDE.COM

 

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN YRB MAGAZINE. COPYRIGHT © 2007)

Movie: The Hills Have Eyes 2

Photo by Eric Lee, courtesy of Fox Atomic

From A Nightmare on Elm Street to the Scream trilogy, everyone knows that when Wes Craven makes a picture, it’s going to be scary. This March, the master of all things nightmarish follows up the first installment of The Hills Have Eyes (2006) with this sequel, which he co-produced and co-wrote with his son, Jonathan. In Hills 2, a group of young, inexperienced National Guardsmen travel to a desert research outpost to deliver supplies to some government scientists, only to discover that the facility has been eerily abandoned. What begins as a seemingly routine rescue mission turns into a terrifying game of cat and mouse, as the troops are hunted by the cannibalistic mutants that occupy the hills. The premise may seem less appealing than that of the first film, in which we saw the Carter family picked off, one by one, but if you’re looking to be frightened you won’t be disappointed. The Hills Have Eyes 2 drops on March 23.
WWW.FOXATOMIC.COM (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN YRB MAGAZINE COPYRIGHT © 2007)

Interview: Dax Shepard

Photo by Chris Fortuna for YRB Magazine

“I feel like the Jude Law of comedy this fall. Prepare to get Daxed-out,” says actor Dax Shepard, who stars in three movies this year – Employee of the Month, Idiocracy and Let’s Go To Prison – all released between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

Dax is perhaps best known for his role as a field agent on the first season of MTV’s celebrity prank series, Punk’d, but how does a dude with a degree in Anthropology from UCLA wind up getting paid to make Justin Timberlake cry on national television? Continue reading

Movie: Borat

Fans of HBO’s Da Ali G Show have waited more than two years for some new material from the brilliant mind of Sacha Baron Cohen. And this November, audiences around the country are lining up to see the new full-length feature film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

The movie has everything you’d expect from Cohen’s mustachioed alter ego, the brutally un-PC Borat Sagdiyev. From beginning to end, Borat is filled with casual allusions to incest and rape, embarrassing interviews with unsuspecting politicians (including right-wing nut job Alan Keyes – or as Borat describes him, “a real chocolate face”), unenlightened remarks about women, homosexuals, and of course, Jews (though in real life, Cohen himself is a practicing Jew). While the film does drag at times – even Borat loses some of his mystique after an hour-and-a-half – on the whole, Cohen manages to pull it off. Continue reading

Interview: Nick Cannon

Photo by Robert Chamorro for YRB Magazine

He arrives at Universal Motown’s artists lounge rocking dark denim, a gray hoodie and a N.Y. Yankee’s hat and jacket – never mind that he’s from the Left Coast. Ever the dignified baller, he doesn’t seem to be a man of excess. Today, at least, he wears only two pieces of bling – an iced out watch and a relatively modest gold chain – and it’s all he needs. He is, after all, Nick Cannon, and at just 25-years-old, he has already conquered the worlds of stand-up comedy, television, film, music and even fashion, after he “kinda’ just purchased” the PNB clothing line. It’s enough to make even the most ambitious among us feel like slackers. It seems that anything you can do, Nick Cannon can do better, and he probably already has. Continue reading