There are more and more lovably despicable characters on TV these days. William H. Macy retains one of those slots for his character on Showtime’s Shameless, while the honor also goes to Danny McBride’s Kenny Powers on HBO’s Eastbound and Down.

While we got plenty of his poor language and bad attitude in the massive K-Swiss ad campaign, we haven’t gotten the real Kenny Powers unfiltered since the last season of Eastbound and Down.

Well, lucky for you, the third season is hitting our airwaves on February 19th, so we’ll get it all back again. Just in case that isn’t enough for you, we’ve got a brand new trailer of McBride’s Powers mouthing off to a handful of poor kids.

Take a look at it after the jump.

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Every massive summer blockbuster season has to have a few surprises. Last year, a little animated film starring Steve Carrell and Jason Segal called Despicable Me surprised everyone and grossed $251 million to date. That may be what we have on our hands with Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Apes managed to surprise everyone this weekend and pull in $54 million in the first three days here in the states with $77 million worldwide, and with 81% rating at RottenTomatoes you can expect the trend to continue through the workweek and possibly next weekend.

Coming in at #2, the true winner of last weekend’s bout, The Smurfs managed to pull another kid-friendly rabbit out with an estimated $21 million for the weekend, and a total $76 million.

Also hitting theaters this weekend, the body-switching comedy The Change-Up pulled in an estimated $13.5 for the weekend, which may not be such good news for Universal, who spent over $50 million for the production.

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I’m by no means a fan of reality television. That being said, I have stuck with some of the traditional shows that gave birth (in a Rosemary’s Baby kind of way) to the current reality programming genre. Those shows are COPS and America’s Most Wanted. I even remember when both shows premiered on Fox, a newbie network at the time…and I probably just dated myself with that comment given they’ve been on for over twenty years respectively.

It was because of my loyalty to America’s Most Wanted that had me shiver a little when I saw the trailer for the upcoming Jesse Eisenberg film, 30 Minutes or Less.  Here’s the premise care of IMDB:

Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else…

Sounds pretty funny, right? Pizza delivery guy gets a bomb strapped to him and he’s forced to rob a bank.  I’d be laughing had this not unfolded in real life with far less comedic repercussions.

On August 28, 2003 Brian Wells arrived for work at 11:00 am.  His occupation: pizza delivery driver.  At 1:30 pm Brian was asked to deliver two cheese and pepperoni pizzas to a remote location near the woods.  About an hour after that Brian entered a bank with a bomb strapped to him (around his neck in this case) and handed the teller a note demanding money.

It’s an eerie tale to be sure and when I first saw the segment on America’s Most Wanted I thought, who’s going to be the first to make a movie about that.  At the time I imagined some type of Michael Mann crime drama in the same vein as Collateral. Apparently I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead, this real life, horrifying event has been wrapped in what I’m sure critics will call a “laugh-out-loud” buddy comedy.  I have no way to confirm if writers Matthew Sullivan and Michael Diliberti knew anything about what has been dubbed “the collar bomb” case, but according to Wikipedia (take it with a grain of salt) that was the basis for 30 Minutes or Less.

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Depending upon your feelings toward Russell Brand, you will be delighted or horrified by the most recent box office weekend totals. Despite the fact that four new films opened on Friday, last weekend’s holdover Hop managed to remain on top for a second week in a row.

Brand voices a rabbit who is the main character in the film. The film dropped about 42% from last weekend, which is a little high for a kiddie flick, but it has earned $68.2 Million in its first two weeks of release.

Coming in at number two was the Arthur remake, also starring Brand in the title role. The film only made about $12.6M. That total is quite low considering the fact that the film played on over 3,276 screens. That’s only a $3,276 per/screen average.

The moody assassin movie Hanna almost overtook Arthur with $12.3 million in ticket sales, while playing on a far fewer screens (2,600).  Another newcomer placed fourth. Soul Surfer played on about 2,300 screens, and made $11.1 M.  Even more impressive was the fact that the film got a coveted A+ from audiences polled by Cinemascore. That is extremely rare. Sony Pictures reports that over 80% of the audience was female, also rare.

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Your Highness is the movie equivalent of Mongolian BBQ: You get your plate and come to the first station, the meat.

There are some things you feel comfortable with, like the chicken (James Franco) and the lamb (Natalie Portman), some things that, sure, you could go for, like the lovely push-up-bra-wearing mahi-mahi (Zooey Deschanel), and then there’s the weird stuff you’re not certain you’ve heard of, like the surimi (Justin Theroux) and the calamari (Danny McBride), which you nevertheless feel obligated to try because, hey, you’re at the Mongolian BBQ, and you wouldn’t be here unless you were trying to try new things.

Then you get to the veggies. You have no idea what combination works with what, so you toss in some of everything–water chestnuts (R-rated sight gags), bean sprouts (stoner humor), edamame (dirty puns), and then you decide “What the Hell?” and go full Mongoloid by cramming in a bunch of peppers and drenching it in spicy buffalo and Tzatzihi sauce (foul, foul language, boobies, five-headed dragons…) to make it (hopefully) interesting.

And after it’s all been worked up, you’re served with something that’s surprisingly tolerable at first, but tastes a little ickier with each successive bite.

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What do Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Elijah Wood, Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Will Arnett, Susan Sarandon, Rainn Wilson, Seth Rogan, Ted Dansen, Stanley Tucci, and a whole bunch of other named celebrities have in common?

They’re all in a brand new semi-biographical, semi-science fictional short film by The Beastie Boys, about The Beastie Boys, titled Fight For Your Right-Revisited.

The film is done in conjunction with the trio’s highly anticipated eighth album, “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”, and has got Ferrell, McBride, Black, Reilly, Rogan, and Wood playing both the Beastie Boys from the past and the Beastie Boys from the future.

Expect zany, wacky, convoluted awesomeness when the 30-minute film hits DVD (as well as the the web) when Hot Sauce Committee Part Two hits music stores on May 3. In the meantime, check out the star-studded trailer after the jump.

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Yesterday, we brought you the first full batch of clips from next weekend’s Your Highness, the stoner road comedy set in Medieval Times starring Danny McBride and James Franco. The clips were so good, we wanted to bring you more.

In this newest batch we have for you, you’ll get a little bit of Natalie Portman being bad ass, Justin Theroux being sinister, and Danny McBride trying to pull off a terrible British accent.

The film that first comes to mind when looking at clips and trailer for Your Highness is easily Cheech & Chong’s The Corsican Brothers. McBride and Franco have developed a modern-day Cheech & Chong personas, with very little changing other than the contemporary references.

Another great element in what we can see from these clips is that Portman is acting like she’s in a completely different film. This could either help or hurt her role. If the character never breaks from the stoic, hard-assed maiden to McBride and Franco’s cartoonish antics, it could most certainly help the film’s tone.

Check out the three new clips after the jump, and be sure to go see Your Highness in theaters on April 8th.

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Imagine a world where the characters from Pineapple Express and Lord of the Rings clashed. That’s exactly what Danny McBride and his writing partner Ben Best had in mind when they gave birth to the idea which became Your Highness.

The synopsis is just about what you’d think this team could come up with after getting really stoned and reading old Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks.

Thadeous (Danny McBride) is a lazy, arrogant prince with his brother, Fabious (James Franco) must go on an epic quest in order to save their father’s kingdom. Natalie Portman plays a warrior princess who is also the lazy prince’s love interest. Zooey Deschanel plays Belladonna, Fabious’ virginal bride. Justin Theroux plays Leezar, the evil wizard who kidnaps Belladonna. Michael Clarke Duncan plays the Giant Troll.

Pretty funny, right? That’s what we thought. We’ve got some pretty awesome clips for you this week so be sure to check out the first batch after the jump.

Catch Your Highness and all of its antics in theaters on April 8th.

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Another season of Eastbound & Down wrapped up, and this week we leave Mexico. Kenny, Stevie and his new wife Maria are headed back to North Carolina so Kenny can reclaim April, but a lot has changed since he’s been gone.  April’s moved on, giving up her teaching job to become a real estate salesman with her partner, referred to by Kenny as simply “the black man.” And she’s pregnant.

Sensibly, April wants nothing to do with Kenny since he abandoned her at a random gas station last season. So Kenny does the only thing left: coke and pool, followed up by crashing Dustin and Cassie’s date night (white wine and Grace Slick—nice) for a little advice, which is pretty much leave her to live her life. And like many of the hard truths Kenny’s had to face this season, he accepts it, but as a last act of good will, gives the tapes of his book to April, so she can try to understand his reasons for leaving her.

And in a final grand gesture, she shows up just as Kenny’s about to leave for Myrtle Beach to make some kind of amends…and reveal that the baby’s his.

All I can say is, “Wow.” And, after a few seconds in awe of this show and its season, I’d go further and say that Season 2 is superior to EB&D’s powerhouse first. Kenny went from vulgar curiosity to halfway decent human being—and all without the aid of the first-season cast (save, of course, Stevie).

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At its heart, Eastbound & Down is about the redemption of Kenny Powers. On the surface he’s vulgar, crude, and clearly delusional. But deep down there is kind of a decent person Kenny can drag out when he needs to. And even though he can screw over others without looking back, he still deserves some sympathy—after all, he did used to be Kenny Powers!

Following last week’s first-rate (and my personal favorite of the series so far) episode, Chapter 12 has a lot to live up to…and it does, right in the first few minutes, which bring back Pat (guest star Adam Scott), the agent who screwed Kenny over in last season’s finale. Pat’s finishing up a 12-step program and is on whatever step has you make amends to all the people you’ve wronged (the most egregiously wronged being Pat’s sponsor, whose wife Pat slept with…while his sister watched).

Pat heads down to Mexico to seek out Kenny, the second-most-wronged on the list, who’s in the process of packing up his gear in preparation for his departure. But Pat’s arranged for a Mexican talent scout to stop by one of the Charros games and see if Kenny still has his stuff.

Meanwhile Kenny’s tying up loose ends, which includes severing ties with Vida (Kenny is, after all, a tit man, not an ass man), settling the score with Aaron, and apologizing to the Charros for his grandstanding antics. It’s heavily backhanded and full of rather strange expressions (George Washington is never gonna cut down that beanstalk), but, like the rest of the episode, there’s sweet sincerity to it. You can’t help but smile when Stevie asks Kenny’s permission to marry Maria.

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Is there any show that stays as true to its principles as Eastbound & Down?

Last night we finally met Mr. Powers, Kenny’s dad, and he’s played by Don Johnson as pretty much the same trash-talking vulgarian as his son. I knew EB&D wouldn’t go in for cheap sentimentality when they reunited father and son, but I was in no way prepared for this one.

First off, this is easily the funniest episode of the season, which has been hitting hard all throughout. Johnson finds just the right note for Mr. “Eduardo Sanchez” Powers as a crude Jimmy-Buffet-like layabout, and right from the introductions, you know he and Kenny share blood. Likewise, I don’t remember the last time an episode had so many quotable lines (“She keeps me on time, and I keep her wet in her underpants” is just a sampling), and they flew by as Powers and Powers sling bullshit while everyone just sits back and watches.

Even the initial scene where the two are reunited, the conversation is all one-upmanship: “Yeah, I saved up all the money from playin’ ball and invested wisely in stocks and bonds and fine pieces of arts,” “Well, I store all my valuable stuff in holes around here, and only I know where they are,” “Well I know where this one’s buried,” “Nope, because it’s a false hole—I started diggin’ it when you drove up.” The outright obviousness of each man’s lies and their mutually adolescent maturity levels pay fantastically well off—it’s funny and totally convincing.

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Thanks to Eastbound for coming up with the most disturbing opening imaginable: Stevie having sex. He’s been on Kenny’s trail and hired a prostitute (one, presumably, among many) to, ha ha, pump her for information.

Kenny’s back to pitching fastballs with his new Mexican team (the Charros).  He’s contacted by a mysterious man (whom Kenny believes to be the only rich man in Mexico, as well as the only Asian), and the two discuss buying a Mexican team. I’m guessing that since not much is made of this for the rest of the episode, it’s a setup for some of the subsequent episodes.

Anyway, Kenny returns home to find (in one of the funniest, darkest moments of the show) Stevie. I’m not going to describe all that occurs, but the sheer awkwardness, morbidity, then jarring tenderness of the sequence once again demonstrates why Eastbound & Down is one of the finest shows on television.

Stevie moves in with Kenny, who takes the opportunity to rob him blind and go through his grotesque cell phone photo album (warning: Newcomers to the show may find some of the pictures traumatizing). Stevie also fills Kenny in about the situation back home (“Your brother says I can’t come by and play with the boys when he’s not there anymore”), dealing the blow that after Kenny left, April got back together with Cutler, and the two are now married.

Though shaken, Kenny takes Stevie out for a night on the town (“This is me every night: staring at buttholes and gettin’ my buzz on”). Stevie gets beyond drunk, which was Kenny’s plan, and the next morning Stevie awakes in the back of dingy bandito-esque truck, bond for the States (or at least away from Kenny).

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