Here’s the trailer for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, adapted from the the Paul Torday novel by Slumdog/127 Hours screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and directed by Chocolat/Cider House Rules director Lasse Halstrom, starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. On the surface, it’s a film about a Yemeni entrepreneur with a crazy idea to attract tourism, but AT ITS CORE™, it’s a story about having the courage to swim against the current (GET IT? LIKE SALMON.)

Is it just me, or does every film these days sound like a human interest story on local TV? SALMON FISHING in the YEMEN! HORSE survives WAR! MAN buys ZOO! INJURED DOLPHIN inspires SOLDIERS! I’m telling you, whoever figures out how to adapt Squirrel on Waterskis is going to be balls deep in cash money. (*shoos dog away from dead owner’s grave, goes back to hugging lion*)

"Don't play tight, baby, you know Thursday is sex-in-blackface night."

Nick Stoller previously directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek (both of which I thought were actually pretty funny), and now he’s back with his big chubby muse, Jason Segel, in The Five Year Engagement. Segel gets engaged to his lady, Emily Blunt (am I the only one who constantly gets her confused with Olivia Wilde**?), and through a wacky series of mishaps, their marriage gets delayed for, like, ever. The sassy sidekicks are Chris Pratt and Alison Brie, respectively. Frankly, I don’t know if that’s enough conflict. I feel like marrying your fiancee is a lot like graduating from college. You know you have to get it over with at some point, but there’s really no reason to hurry because the next stage of your life is just going to suck.
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Here we have the latest trailer for Gulliver’s Travels, starring Jack Black, Emily Blunt, and Jason Segel, in 3D.  There’s a lot you could say about a movie that turns Jonathan Swift’s 18th century satire of politics and religion into a fish-out-of-water comedy starring Jack Black as “a little guy with big dreams,” but probably nothing so succinct and definitive as “Jack Black gets wedgied by a robot.”

As far as I’m concerned, Jack Black Gets Wedgied by a Robot is the new title.

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This is the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau, the directing debut of Bourne Ultimatum and (woof) Ocean’s Twelve screenwriter George Nolfi, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.  We find out Damon is running for Senate, and when he first meets free spirit Emily Blunt on a bus (a Senate candidate? really?), it seems like a normal romantic comedy.  But it’s based on a Philip K. Dick story so you know that’s not true.  Then they bang, but when Damon wakes up in her bed, Terrance Stamp and John Slattery are standing over him looking all Mad Men, to tell him that they “monitor the entire world”, and he’s just f*cked up. Next thing you know, they stop time like Zack Morris to clean the schmutz of some bald guy’s skull, and they tell Damon he can’t bang Emily Blunt anymore or else he’ll never be a Senator and she’ll never become a famous ballerina.

Of course, Matt Damon doesn’t like that idea, because Emily Blunt is super hot, and he wants to get banged again.  And for that, he must unravel the fabric of the entire universe.  “All I have are the choices that I make, and I choose her,” he says.  So then it’s all a big conflict between a chaotic, dangerous world where free will exists, and a world that’s comfortable, but where free will is only an illusion.  Pretty heavy stuff.  But hey, wasn’t this a Baywatch episode?

Hot on the heels of Mickey Rourke’s reported signing to Iron Man 2, Scarlett Johansson has been announced as Black Widow, the role from which Emily Blunt withdrew due to scheduling.  Marvel’s offer to Johansson is being described as a “lowball.”  Meanwhile, my offer to Johansson is being described as “obscene and perplexing.”

Unlike Mickey’s money, the deal for her is “just the opposite, a terrible deal made by CAA,” one of my insiders says. “It’s as bad as any deal that I’ve heard. It’s lowball money. And it ties her to countless movies, including that ensemble The Avengers, which is what makes this brutal for a lot of actors.” [NikkiFinke]

But the deal also means she won’t have to go out looking for new roles or auditions, and I get the impression that Scarlett Johansson is really lazy. I don’t know why.  She just has that oh I’m so tired, I shouldn’t even be awake voice.  Also, in an ironic twist, “Emily Blunt” was her nickname in high school.  True story.