Jeff is a jobless 30-year-old slacker man-child who does indeed live in the basement of his mother’s house. He is an expert at marijuana smoke rings, daytime television and pickup basketball but whines and protests when asked to perform a simple household errand for his mother (a wonderful Susan Sarandon). Lost and paralyzed, he casts desperately about for clues on what to do with his life, as per a favorite movie, 2002′s Signs, M. Night Shamalayan’s ridiculously self-serious examination of the eerie and paranormal.

So far the title character sounds like a cliché of the zeitgeist, but as played by the shambolically charming Jason Segel, and in the witty, expertly paced hands of the Duplass brothers, this movie is joyful entertainment from start to finish. Jeff is earnest and open-hearted. When the universe sends a sign, he follows. Never mind that every step ends in folly and humiliation. It is enough for him that there is a path.

That path merges him directly into the way of his distant, scornful brother, Pat (Ed Helms, channeling a lower-runged, far angrier version of his uptight corporate drone in The Office). Pat is an underling who has to spend his days in a hideous paint company shirt and tie, lives in a low-end apartment complex with his sweet and pretty wife (Judy Greer) and is suffering an early midlife crisis manifested by the purchase of a Porsche he can’t even begin to pay off, but hey, at least he has a job.

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The story of The Lorax has never felt right to me. Either the Once-ler is the most short-sighted whatsit in the world, next to the Lorax himself (or at least the forest creatures), or the entire tale is a buried parable on the importance of stable property rights. Given Seuss’s general lack of subtlety when making a political point, the latter probably isn’t the case. In any event, why does no one preserve the Truffula trees? If the Once-ler owns the forest, and his business is based on the Truffula trees, why on earth would he practice clear-cutting?

He, like pretty much every other private timber company that owns the forest they log, has an incentive to preserve the forest (unless he’s renting it from the creatures, but that doesn’t seem to be the case) – clearly the Once-ler needed to fire his business planner. Or, once the land had been deforested, should have sold it and the seed to another logging concern.

Heck, they’d probably seek him out, since Truffula trees are a hot commodity, and there’s a lot of Thneedians; we already know that one of the characters is a budding entrepreneur, it’d be a lot easier and a lot more profitable for him to replant the forest than find a way to sell air. Evidently the Thneedians don’t understand marginal utility, but that’s okay, what gets me is how Seuss (and the movie) stacks the odds in his favor.

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Those who have had the stomach to sit through the post-departure of Steve Carell from The Office know that the show hasn’t had the same excitement and originality it had when he was attached. Since Helms and newcomer James Spader have taken the lead in the show, it’s become less about the boss and more about the employees of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

That’s probably why NBC is contemplating taking the show’s standout character, Dwight Shrute, and giving him his own spin-off, a la NBC’s move with Friends and Joey. We all remember how that ended. THR has the scoop.

Reports of NBC eyeing a potential spin-off centered around Rainn Wilson’s quirky Dwight Schrute character are indeed true, according to a well-placed source. The idea would be to further explore the Shrute family farm, with multiple generations of Schrutes involved. The comedy concept could get a test of sorts on an episode of The Office later this season.

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The second Hangover movie was a success. The movie might have suffered from being to much like the original, but the original was pretty damn awesome, so there was still lots to like. So a third installment seemed likely, and now according to The Hollywood Reporter the final hurdles are being cleared as we speak.

Dealmaking on the studio’s third installment in the raunchy comedy franchise is wrapping up after dragging on for months due in part to the salary demands of its three stars. Sources close to the negotiations say Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are asking for $15 million each (against backend) to reprise their roles, and they now are likely to get it.

The next Hangover film is said to be a departure from the formula of the first two films. It is risky to stray to far from a proven formula, but knowing that the filmmakers actively want to make a film with these characters that we know and love with out an inexplicable third memory blacked out party is a great sign.

Warner Bros. is hoping to bring the story to Los Angeles, with filming beginning in the summer. Hangover 3 has a tentative release date of Memorial Day 2013.

It’s never a good sign when a film gets pushed back over 6 months. It’s even worse when a studio like Paramount pushes 3 of their upcoming 2012 films back. That seems to be the case, as the mountainous studio has pushed back 3 of its releases. One of these releases is the upcoming 3D epic Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton.

According to an interview with Deadline, a studio exec for Paramount says this is all part of the plan to push the film overseas, but when a film gets pushed from March 2 to January 11 of the following year, it’s never a good sign.

“This should really set up the international,” a studio exec explains to me. ”Jeremy Renner’s international profile should be in great shape after being in Mission: Impossible 4 now, then The Avengers in May, then The Bourne Legacy in August. As this past weekend shows, January is great play time internationally, and we haven’t done too bad domestically in January, either.”

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Last year didn’t have many major hits, but one film that managed to sneak past critics and turned out to be one of the highest grossing films of the year was the animated film Despicable Me. Bringing in both kids and adults alike, the film was able to prove that Pixar isn’t the only studio to produce quality CG-animated films.

Now, from the same studio, and the man who brought us The Cat in the Hat, comes The Lorax. For those who aren’t aware of this lesser known Seussian tale, here’s a breakdown.

From the creators of Despicable Me and the imagination of Dr. Seuss comes the 3D-CG feature Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, an adaptation of the classic tale of a forest creature who shares the enduring power of hope. The animated adventure follows the journey of a 12-year-old as he searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.

The film has a pretty awesome cast, featuring Danny DeVito, Zac Eforn, Betty White, Taylor Swift, and Ed Helms. We’ve got a bit before the film hits theaters on March 2nd, but you can check out the trailer after the jump.

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Yeah, so I missed the season premiere of The Office, too (again, Sister’s wedding last week, combined with a total ignorance of the show’s return—I’ve seen tons of ads for the new “comedy” with the two sisters from that one show and the other “comedy” with Zooey Daschenel, but nothing about The Office or Parks and Rec). Has NBC put the kibosh on advertising for their shows?

Still, I watched last week’s episode “The List” to catch up, and, writing out this recap, I can safely say that don’t remember much of it outside of there being a list made up by Robert California (I love that name) and everyone worrying about what it signifies. I can’t say it was very good, but it didn’t seem particularly bad either. More ho-hum.

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Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• We finally get the first sounds of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull in a new teaser for Captain America: The First Avenger. Funny…he sounds a lot like Megatron.

• It looks like the lawsuit against Warner Bros for use of Mike Tyson’s tattoo on Ed Helms in The Hangover Part II may force them to CG the tattoo out of the DVD’s. This seems like a completely reasonable use of that $400 million the film made in the box office.

• Dark animated film 9 director Shane Acker is planning on a big-screen adaptation of Thomas The Tank Engine. Our hope is that Tim Burton also produces this film and Thomas is now a train…from hell!

• Ever want to know what Raiders of the Lost Ark would be like with Tom Selleck and Sean Young? Here you go, but we warn you: the mustache did not help him in the audition.

• Before we ever get the inevitable leaked pilot, we’ve got a whopping 7 second teaser from the failed NBC Wonder Woman series. Who knew you could sum up the entire reason why it failed in 7 seconds?

• In hoping to leave the kids table and join the big boys, Nintendo has teamed with Ubisoft to work on a new raunchy game for the WiiU, titled Killer Freaks from Outer Space. We’re totally sold.

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With The Hangover Part II making upwards of $350 million worldwide, Todd Phillips and his Wolfpack aren’t even going to have the time to spend any of that money, because there is already a plan for Warner Bros. to crank out yet another Hangover film.

Phillips has expressed interest in closing out the trilogy with a big film, but it looks like star Zach Galifiniakis may have spoiled the plot for the film in a recent interview with Rolling Stone:

“I’m terrible about people wanting to take pictures with me,” Galifianakis says. “I’m a giant baby about it. They treat you like a cartoon. There’s nothing you can do except make light of it. That’s if I’m in the mood. Sometimes I get superbummed.”

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There were plenty of predictions from analysts that Hangover Part 2 would do well over the 3 day weekend, but with film breaking over $200 million worldwide, you had better believe Warner Bros. is jumping on the train to get a third film up and running as quick as possible.

Worldwide box office success is a sure way to lock in a sequel to any film, but Phillips and his Wolf Pack were actually playing with the idea of making The Hangover a trilogy way before this sequel hit theaters. From THR.

Talk of a third move surfaced several weeks ago when Part II was tracking off the charts. Part II was famously put into development two months before the first movie came out when Warners hired Phillips and Scot Armstrong to write the script. The studio was high on the strong test scores and in an unusual move, especially on something not based on a comic book or brand, hired the writing of the sequel in April before the movie’s release in May.

Craig Mazin, who co-wrote the Bangkok-set sequel, is in early talks to come back to write the new script for whose story details are being kept secret.

You can assume that Cooper, Helms, Galifiniakis, and possibly Ken Jeong will be back for the third installment. The question then becomes: where do you go when you’ve already done Vegas and Bangkok? Our vote is for the Moon.

Hard to believe, but it has been over 10 years since we have had a theatrical release starring The Muppets. That film was Muppets in Space and had a pretty stellar (no pun intended) cast for 1999 with names like Jeffrey Tambor, David Arquette, Andie MacDowell, Ray Liotta, and Rob Schneider joining in the felt wackiness.

Hard to believe it, but it looks like Jason Segel may actually be able to top that cast with the list of cameos for his upcoming Muppets film, tentatively titled The Greatest Muppets Movie Ever Made.

Just to drop a few names, the film promises to have appearances from Emily Blunt, Zach Galifiniakis, Neil Patrick Harris, Ed Helms, Jack Black, Danny Trejo, Amy Adams, Ricky Gervais, Katy Perry, Donald Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, and dozens of other names.

Needless to say, that title may just fit this film. The very first poster has arrived for the unnamed project, and much like the tagline in it, the film is much closer than you think, as the current release date is set for November 23rd of this year.

Check out the full poster after the jump, and be sure to keep it here as we bring you more news on the upcoming film.

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He may never play Superman or Captain Marvel, but Robert Smigel and the gang at Saturday Night Live finally got Jon Hamm to portray one of America’s most treasured superheroes: Ace of the Ambiguously Gay Duo.

This past week marked a special episode of SNL, as Robert Smigel’s “Saturday TV Funhouse” presented the first ever live-action episode of The Ambiguously Gay Duo, a cartoon short that started in 1996.

Originally voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrel, the short made sure to give parts to the original cast, as well as guest host Ed Helms and Jimmy Fallon, who played Ace’s partner (in crime) Gary.

We won’t make you wait any more for this epicness, but if you’re looking for some hardcore superhero action this summer, look no further than the special short after the jump.

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