The Dictator trailer: Sacha Baron Cohen
‘The Dictator’ Red-Band Trailer: Funny?
Earlier this year, Jean Dujardin and his fellow The Players producers reportedly had a September 2001 comic moment cut from their film so as not to in any way jeopardize Dujardin’s chances of winning an Oscar. Apparently, The Dictator‘s Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t worried about missing out on any potential Oscar nominations for his film, as can be attested by The Dictator‘s red-band trailer.
In the latest The Dictator trailer, we get to witness a 9/11 joke at the end, as an American couple hear Baron Cohen, who plays a Arab dictator, talking with a fellow Arabic-speaking traveler. All the horrified US couple can understand is “911” (referring to a Porsche) and “boom!”
Just as unfunny are John C. Reilly as a right-wing American bigot (“I hate ay-rabs … The blacks, the Jews, those tree-hugging queers in Ay-vatar”), Baron Cohen’s scenes as the all-powerful Arab dictator-turned-New York grocery-store worker, and a baby delivery in which Baron Cohen’s grocery-store clerk keeps sticking his finger up the soon-to-be mother’s wrong hole.
The Dictator has numerous similarities with Borat, but unlike Baron Cohen’s 2006 sleeper hit, his latest movie – if the trailer is any indication – looks fully (or at least mostly) scripted. Also note the Midnight Cowboy moment.
Directed by Larry Charles, The Dictator also features Oscar winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), The House Bunny‘s Anna Faris, B.J. Novak, Kevin Corrigan, and Transformers’ Megan Fox playing herself. The Dictator opens in the US on May 16.
Sacha Baron Cohen / The Dictator photo: Melinda Sue Gordon / Paramount Pictures.
Taylor Lautner to star in the action thriller Tracers, to be directed by Daniel Benmayor, and produced by Temple Hill Entertainment’s Mary Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, two of the producers of the five Twilight movies, all featuring Lautner: Twilight (2008), New Moon (2009), Eclipse (2010), Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), and the upcoming Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012).
FilmNation Entertainment will peddle Tracers’ international rights at the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday. As per Deadline.com, Tracers “buzz has begun spreading on the film and there is bidding among a number of territories international buyers.” Whether that’s fact or just more buzz remains to be seen.
Also as per Deadline, in the New York City-set Tracers Lautner will play Cam, a bike messenger who owes money (or something else?) to organized crime. Whether while fleeing the gangsters or just by being a klutz, Cam crashes his bike into “a sexy stranger.” Seduction and “the thrill of the world of parkour” follow. (For those who don’t know: parkour is defined on Wikipedia as “a physical discipline which focuses on efficient movement around obstacles.”)
Daniel Benmayor’s previous directorial credits are a couple of actioners: Bruc, the Huntsman, starring Juan José Ballesta in the title role, and Paintball. Among Wyck Godfrey’s non-Twilight producing credits are Eragon; Will Smith’s I, Robot; and When a Stranger Calls, with Camilla Belle.
Taylor Lautner, who turned 20 last February, has had only one non-Twilight starring vehicle, the action thriller Abduction, which was massacred by North American critics and went on to gross a paltry $28.08 million in the U.S. and Canada, and a passable (for a $35 million-budgeted movie) $54 million internationally.
Lautner is currently attached to the Adam Sandler comedy sequel Grown Ups 2. There have also been reports / rumors that he was gearing up to work with Gus Van Sant on an indie project based on a New Yorker article, the sci-fier Incarceron, and a Michael Bay flick.
All rumors aside, Taylor Lautner’s next movie is Breaking Dawn – Part 2, which opens November 16. Lautner returns as Jacob Black, opposite Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan-Cullen and Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen. Also in the film’s cast: Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Nikki Reed, Dakota Fanning, Michael Sheen, Booboo Stewart, and Billy Burke.
Jim Parsons: Gay Drama ‘The Normal Heart’ & ‘Harvey’
Jim Parsons gay? Well, as per the New York Times, yes, the Big Bang Theory actor “is gay and in a 10-year relationship.” No more details are given out. No explanations as to why the Times made a point of outing Parsons, who says nothing about his private life or sexual orientation during an interview focusing on a Broadway revival of Harvey in which Parsons stars in the old James Stewart movie role of the, huh, eccentric bachelor whose pal is a big rabbit (Harvey) that only he can see.
In addition to his stage work, the Houston-born, 39-year-old Parsons has been seen in movies and on television since 2002. His TV breakthrough was, of course, The Big Bang Theory, which has earned him two Emmys and a Golden Globe.
On the big screen, Jim Parsons hasn’t made much of a mark yet, as he has almost invariably been cast in minor supporting roles. This year, he could be seen in Ernesto Foronda and Silas Howard’s Sunset Stories, which was screened at Austin’s SXSW Film Festival.
Next in line for Parsons is the long-gestating film version of Larry Kramer’s AIDS drama The Normal Heart, which, at different times, was to have been directed by the likes of Academy Award winner John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) and Yentl / Prince of Tides’ Barbra Streisand.
Scheduled to come out in 2014, The Normal Heart movie will be directed by Ryan Murphy (Glee / American Horror Story / Nip/Tuck). Jim Parsons will reprise his stage role of Tommy Boatwright, a gay activist fighting against social apathy during the early days of the AIDS crisis in the United States. Also in the film’s cast: Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, and Alec Baldwin. [More on The Normal Heart movie.]