Here we have the trailer for Last Vegas, directed by Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure, Sorcerer’s Apprentice) and written by Adam Brooks (Bridget Jones Diary, Practical Magic) and Dan Fogelman (Crazy Stupid Love, Fred Claus), a creative dream team united by their love of collecting easy paychecks. Like all horrible paycheck movies, everything you need to know about it is in the title. Four old guys – Robert Deniro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline – are getting back together for one wild weekend in Vegas for Michael Douglas’s bachelor party, and to the actors’ credit, none of them seem to mind that Al Pacino and Christopher Walken already made this movie like three months ago. Like an uncredited sequel to Michael Haneke’s Amour, it’s an unflinching look at the ravages of Father Time, who’ll gradually take away everything you have, starting with the ability to recognize when a script is patronizing you.

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Fun “Cool Story, Bro” anecdote: I finally went to Las Vegas for the first time in my life, just a few months ago. It was horrible. I will probably never go back. If I want to get hammered and piss away my money at a casino, I’ll do it in New Orleans. But I say this not to poop on the city. No, I bring this up because Hollywood is full of lies, and every TV show and movie that is based around the idea that Vegas is a fun place is just wrong. It’s full of nasty, miserable people, who would shoot their own parents for one more chip. But at least my toilet at the Aria had a heated seat. Silver linings and whatnot.

So that brings us to the new promo still above, for the film Last Vegas, or as IMDB describes it:

Four best friends in their late-60′s decide to escape retirement and throw a Las Vegas bachelor party for the only one of them who has remained single.

First thing’s first: Nobody retires anymore. And if someone does retire, he probably did something that deserves our scorn. Sorry for being a pessimist, but it’s true. If I ever retire, it’s going to be because I sold organs on the black market. Actually, my dad is retired, but I’m convinced he’s CIA, so that’s a completely different story.

Now on to my main point: Do you know what would happen to four 60-something dudes who try to have a good time in Vegas? They’d probably be robbed and killed by a hooker and her pimp. But seriously, have you ever actually looked at a 60-something dude who is in Vegas? Anyone north of 50 in Vegas that is hanging out in a casino is trying desperately to escape a terrible life.

All that said, if you’re looking for a film about Viagra jokes that completely lies to you about Las Vegas and will probably have a tagline like “What happens in Vegas, greys in Vegas” then Last Vegas is the film for you.

Variety today reports that Kevin Kline has been added to the cast of Charlie Kaufman’s Frank or Francis, alongside Steve Carell, Jack Black, and Nic Cage. That’s great, because I’ve been waiting for Kevin Kline’s return to the comedic brilliance of A Fish Called Wanda since 1988. But, and perhaps more importantly, it gives us an opportunity to examine Kaufman’s latest, and what it’s about. The folks at ThePlaylist have had a chance to read the script, and holy Meryl Streep’s tits does it ever sound nutty.  Here’s the overview:

“Frank or Francis,” in our estimation, feels like a deliciously good and contemptuous (though self-aware) screed/send-up of the film industry, not only, the graffiti-with-punctuation bloggers, but the entire machine: fatuous filmmakers, vapid PR people, self-absorbed writers, blowhard actors, and last but not least it serves up a jiujitsu-like takedown on the ego-driven, vacuous meat-parade that is the Academy Awards. No stone is left unturned nor is there much of any kind of hero in the story as everyone is as equally moronic and narcissistic as the other. Still, as Kaufman denotes, it also says a lot of things about society, culture, human nature (and race) and human behavior—albeit some of it in his patently strange and sometimes baffling way.

Yay, jiu-jitsu and meat parades are my favorite things! Anyway, the main arc tells three parallel stories, of…

• Frank Arder (Steve Carell, presumably), a pretentious auteur whose film You, in which he plays all the characters, some in blackface, gets nominated for 29 Academy Awards.
• Francis (Jack Black), a “self-important, arrogant film blog commenter”, and…
• Alan Modell (Nic Cage), “a comedian with a faltering career who is known for his wildly popular, immensely moronic ‘Fat Dad’ roles.”

And then it gets even better (and waaay weirder) in some of the details. These might be spoilers, but you probably won’t understand them anyway (*covers soy chai with latest issue of The Atlantic*):

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