After the jump, I’ve got the trailer for GI Joe 2: Retaliation, starring The Rock and Channing Tatum, the hardest mumbling wigger in show business. If that weren’t enough, it also stars Bruce Willis and a chick who kind of looks like Michelle Rodriguez! The gang’s all here! Except for director Stephen Sommers! He was replaced on this installment by Jon M. Chu, director of Step Ups 2 Tha Streets and 3D, as well as Justin Bieber Never Say Never, which makes it likely this sequel will be even more danceable than the original! Let’s C-Walk to ground zero!

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I will never stop being amused by the night-vision monocle guy in the background

Bruce Willis is in negotiations to join the cast of the upcoming sequel to G.I. Joe. Willis would play General Joe Coulton in GI Joe 2: Retaliation, which is set to be directed by Jon M. Chu, previously of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and LXD: The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. …Wait, what? HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS WAS A SHOW???

Willis is in negotiations to play General Joe Colton, considered to be the founder of the Joe squad. The character never appeared in the original “Joe” cartoons, and he’ll make his live-action debut with the sequel.

Given Colton’s high rank, it’s likely that Willis’ role is lighter on the combat side and heavier on barking the orders that make the action happen. In fact, on the surface, the Colton role sounds pretty similar to the one occupied by Dennis Quaid in the first “G.I. Joe” movie. He played General Hawk, then commander of the team; there’s been no word on whether or not Quaid’s returning for a sequel. [MTV]

Well frankly, I think that’s just blah blah something something headdesk fartsnooze. (*donkey sound*)

Note: That is not Bruce Willis

Wes Anderson, whom I love, because I ride my bike around San Francisco hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop writing arch blog posts, has a new film going into production, but even the most virulent anti-hipster would have to concede that this sounds pretty awesome.  Focus Features has acquired the US distribution rights to Moonlight Kingdom, according to the latest press release (with plans to sell the international rights at Cannes), and get a load of this cast:

Set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, Moonrise Kingdom follows a young boy and girl falling in love. When they are moved to run away together, various factions of the town mobilize to search for them and the town is turned upside down – which might not be such a bad thing. Bruce Willis plays the town sheriff; two-time Academy Award nominee Edward Norton is cast as a camp leader; Academy Award nominee Bill Murray and Academy Award winner Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents; the cast also includes Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton and Jason Schwartzman. The young boy and girl are played by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward.

If there isn’t a slow-motion running away sequence set to a Rolling Stones song and title cards with big yellow text, I will choke myself with Wes Anderson’s ascot.  I’m interested to see how Bill Murray plays “concerned parent”, though.  The role would seem to rob Bill Murray of his most appealing quality, being pleasantly aloof and not giving a f*ck. When it comes to f*ck giving, Bill Murray is the stingiest.

Swingers: Brooklyn Heights

Today we’ve got an update on Moonrise Kingdom, the next project for yellow text-loving ascot enthusiast Wes Anderson and his cabal of quip-spewing indie rock glibsters.  Not surprisingly, it’s set to star Anderson BFFs Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, who, although he’s way too effeminate to be playing Jonathan Ames on Bored to Death, is the perfect muse for a dapper intellectual with a fondness for vintage suits.  Here’s the rest of the rundown:

The local Rhode Island casting agency LDI Casting has revealed that “Ed Norton, Frances McDormand and Jason Schwartzman will join Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray.”

The screenplay was written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (who also co-wrote The Darjeeling Limited).

[The film] is set in the 60s. Two young adults fall in love and run away. Leaders in their New England town are sticking the idea that they’ve disappeared and go in search of them. Norton will play a scout leader who brings his charges on a search. Willis is in talks to play the town sheriff who’s also looking, and who is having an affair with the missing girl’s mother, the role McDormand is in talks to play. Murray, a regular in Anderson films, will play the girl’s father, who has his own issues. [/Film]

Now that is a cast.  It’s like Valentine’s Day for non-idiots. Anyway, it’s always tempting to bash Wes Anderson for his Fauntleroy-esque looks and popularity among obnoxious hipsters, but the truth is that he’s made some amazing movies, including his last one (Fantastic Mr. Fox).  He’s always a brilliant production designer, but the X-factor seems to be the writing.  He’s credited on all his movies as co-writer with a rotating partner — Owen Wilson on Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums, Noah Baumbach on Life Aquatic and Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Roman Coppola on Darjeeling Limited.  I’m not thrilled that he went back to the writer of his worst movie, or that he’s doing his first period piece, since you know those two are going to spend 90% of their pre-production time picking out skinny ties.  But based on the cast, I’ve got my fingers crossed. Over the sleeve of my soy chai.

"To numbing our shame."

It was just the other week we saw the trailer for the film where 50 Cent plays a football player stricken with cancer, and already we’ve been blessed with another Fiddy vehicle, this time co-starring Bruce Willis and Ryan Phillippe, written and directed by stuntman Mike Gunther (STUNTMAN MIKE!).  As it turns out, there’s a good reason for so many 50 Cent movies coming out, that reason being that Fiddy made a 10-picture, $200 million dollar deal between Hedge Fund Film Partners and his production company, Cheetah Vision, which sounds like a strip club.  And so far, their movies look exactly like what you’d expect from a production company that sounds like a strip club.

This one’s called SetUp, and it’s basically a rip-off of The Town, but set in Detroit, which I guess is the idealized, blue-collar capital of ancestral towneyism for black people that Boston is for whitey.  All you really need to know about the plot is that in the banner picture, Willis offers Fiddy a toast, saying, “To crime.”

To crime indeed. Because this is a movie about crime, you see. This basically like if in Any Given Sunday, Jamie Foxx had reached his hand into the huddle and said, “Okay, guys, ‘Football’ on three, ready? One two three FOOTBALL!”  It’s a shame they don’t give out Oscars for being painfully on the nose.

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