If my high school years taught me anything, it’s that F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is about 215 pages long and not nearly as entertaining as Beavis & Butthead. Fortunately for today’s lazy AP English nerds, Gatsby is now a Baz Luhrmann film starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the titular man whom Thornton Melon once referred to as “great”.

DiCaprio’s Jay Gatsby re-woos Carey Mulligan’s Daisy Buchanan, while Tobey Maguire’s Nick Carraway and Isla Fisher’s Myrtle Wilson do whatever it is that they did in that book that you know you only read the Cliff’s Notes for, so quit acting like you’re excited to see it. Also, Gemma Ward has a small role in the film and I’m an admirer of some of her other work.

But now The Great Gatsby has a trailer and you can see just how Baz-Luhrmann-esque it all is, complete with a Jay Z soundtrack, because I hear he was huge in 1919.

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Deliciously feisty firecrotch Isla Fischer is set to star in Desperados, a film the LA Times is calling ‘a female Hangover.’  The LA Times must be idiots because this is blatantly a female Road Trip.  And there’s already a female Hangover, it’s called Bridesmaids.  Hey, Hollywood, how does your own tail taste?  Like snake sh*t, I bet.

Ellen Rapoport’s script, which landed on Hollywood’s esteemed Black List two years ago,  has the women heading to Mexico to set right a situation that had one of the women leaving a scathing message for a man she actually likes.

The comedy, about a trio of women on a quixotic mission, is moving forward at Universal (which, incidentally, is also behind “Bridesmaids”). Betty Thomas, the director of “Private Parts” and “Dr. Dolittle,” is set to be offered the director’s chair and is planning on accepting the job, according to  two people who were briefed on the project and were not authorized to speak about it publicly.  Isla Fisher was attached to “Desperados” last year, and the studio is currently seeking two other female leads. [LA Times]

To refresh your memory, here’s the plot of Road Trip, another Todd Phillips movie, from 2000:

Four friends take off on an 1800 mile road trip to retrieve an illicit tape mistakenly mailed to a girl friend.

And in turn, the synopsis of Overnight Delivery, a direct-to-video film from 1998 (on which Kevin Smith supposedly did an uncredited rewrite):

The main character Wyatt Trips, played by Paul Rudd, is a college student at Twin Cities College. He believes that his long-distance girlfriend, Kimberly Jasney, played by Christine Taylor, is not being faithful to him. As a result of this he goes to a strip club where he gets intoxicated and decides to send a letter to his girlfriend. With the letter he includes a picture of himself and a topless stripper. Trips soon discovers that his girlfriend was not, in fact, cheating on him, and that he has twenty-four hours to retrieve the package before it gets to his girlfriend. [Wikipedia]

First a video, then a picture, and now a phone message?  It’s like they keep re-using the same plot, but think they can trick us by going backwards with technology.  Five years from now it’s just going to be Willow Smith and Booboo Stewart chasing down a carrier pigeon.

"Really, a scythe? Pretentious ass."

This is the trailer for Burke & Hare, starring Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis (aka Gollum, my preciousses), an indie comedy from the UK that so far doesn’t have a US release date.  But who knows, maybe we can find a distributor here who’s not too busy watching Two & a Half men reruns and we can eventually see it. (Oh, I get it, Charlie Sheen wears bowling shirts!  Classic!)

Burke & Hare  is based on the true story of the body-snatchers William Burke (Pegg) and William Hare (Serkis). These two Irish entrepreneurs discover that a dead body can fetch a hefty price when the demands of the leading medical professors Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson) and Dr. Monroe (Tim Curry) reach beyond that of the local supply. Also stars Isla Fisher,  David Schofield, Allan Corduner, Bill Bailey, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Smiley and Christopher Lee. [ComingSoon]

It comes from director John Landis, who had an insane run of hits starting in the late 70s — Animal House, Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Three Amigos, and Coming to America, only to flame out in the 90s — Oscar, Beverly Hills Cop 3, Blues Brothers 2000.  According to IMDB, his last feature film was 1998′s Susan’s Plan, starring Billy Zane and Rob Schneider which I hadn’t heard of until today.  To be honest, I probably could’ve gone even longer.  This one looks like it has potential (and has an awesome cast), so here’s to hoping this is Landis’ return to form.  I can’t remember a comeback after a long crappy period ever happening with comedy, but maybe this can be the first.  Also, am I the only one who constantly misreads “Hugh Bonneville” as “Huge Bonerville”?  I think that’s Isla Fisher’s home town.

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Oh, Isla Fisher.  I’ve loved that spunky little firecrotch ever since I saw Wedding Crashers, and the crazy thing is, she can actually act.  She’s married to Sacha Baron Cohen and it seems like she’s a big enough star to find decent projects, but her last movie was Confessions of a Shopaholic with Jerry Bruckheimer.  But she’s got a new one on the way. From THR:

Universal Pictures has picked up “Desperados,” a comedy spec from Ellen Rapoport that will act as a potential starring vehicle for Isla Fisher.

The story is set in motion when a woman sends an indignant e-mail to her new beau, who’s gone silent after they have sex. When she discovers he’s comatose in a Mexican hospital, she races south of the border with her friends in tow to intercept the e-mail before he recovers. The project has been described as a female-oriented “Hangover.”

I don’t get it, do people who write about movies actually ever see movies?  That doesn’t sound anything like The Hangover.  But it sounds exactly like Road Trip, where Breckin Meyer has to get the sex tape he made with Amy Smart that he accidentally sent his girlfriend, and who hasn’t been there?  Remember that?  I feel like maybe part of the problem with Hollywood is that the trades are written for an audience that doesn’t remember anything before six months ago.  I also don’t have high hopes for projects that can be boiled down to five words or less (Road Trip with chicks!) unless those five words are “Megan Fox ass to ass.”  Also, how do you intercept an email?  Do you have to go inside the internet like Tron?  Maybe this will be good after all.

A day with not one but TWO Jerry Bruckheimer trailers?  What God did I please! This one’s the international trailer for Confessions of a Shopaholic, and while I think that little firecrotch Isla Fisher is sexy as hell (not to mention a pretty good actress), the only thing worse than this trashy, obnoxious ode to obnoxious trash is its timing.  Economy in the shitter?  Banks failing, credit drying up?  Gosh, I can’t think of a better environment to release a film about some rich twat who can’t stop buying shiny shoes.  My releases, meanwhile, are always perfectly timed.  (Just before the kid wakes up).