Universal Pictures’ The Five Year Engagement–a comedy reteaming director/writer/producer Nicholas Stoller and writer/star Jason Segel of Forgetting Sarah Marshall–has been selected to open the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. The premiere is set for Wednesday, April 18, and the Festival runs through April 29.
Beginning where most romantic comedies end, The Five-Year Engagement looks at what happens when an engaged couple, Segel and Emily Blunt, keeps getting tripped up on the long walk down the aisle. The film, also produced by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) and Rodney Rothman (Get Him to the Greek), opens nationally on April 27.
“When Jason and I met during the production of Undeclared, we couldn’t have imagined that one day we would write a comedy that would open such a prestigious film festival as Tribeca,” said Stoller. “We are so honored that the festival organizers have given us this platform to premiere the film. To be honest, this is all just a ploy to stand on top of a building with Robert De Niro and look out over New York City at dusk.”
The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival will announce its feature film slate on March 6 and 8.
Founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2001 following the attacks on the World Trade Center, to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture, the Tribeca Film Festival brings the industry and community together around storytelling.
The Tribeca Film Festival, now in its 11th year, has screened more than 1,300 films from more than 80 countries since its first edition in 2002. During its first 10 years, the Festival has attracted an international audience of more than 3.7 million attendees and has generated an estimated $725 million in economic activity for New York City.
Stage and Film Actor Tony Roberts Dies At 85
Tony Roberts, a versatile, Tony Award-nominated theater performer at home in both plays and musicals and who appeared in several Woody Allen movies โ often as Allen's best friend โ has died. He was 85.
Roberts' death was announced to The New York Times by his daughter, Nicole Burley.
Roberts had a genial stage personality perfect for musical comedy and he originated roles in such diverse Broadway musicals as "How Now, Dow Jones" (1967); "Sugar" (1972), an adaptation of the movie "Some Like It Hot," and "Victor/Victoria" (1995), in which he co-starred with Julie Andrews when she returned to Broadway in the stage version of her popular film. He also was in the campy, roller-disco "Xanadu" in 2007 and "The Royal Family" in 2009.
"I've never been particularly lucky at card games. I've never hit a jackpot. But I have been extremely lucky in life," he write in his memoir, "Do You Know Me?" "Unlike many of my pals, who didn't know what they wanted to become when they grew up, I knew I wanted to be an actor before I got to high school."
Roberts also appeared on Broadway in the 1966 Woody Allen comedy "Don't Drink the Water," repeating his role in the film version, and in Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" (1969), for which he also made the movie.
Other Allen films in which Roberts appeared were "Annie Hall" (1977), "Stardust Memories" (1980), "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982), "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and "Radio Days" (1987).
"Roberts' confident onscreen presence โ not to mention his tall frame, broad shoulders and brown curly mane โ was the perfect foil for Allen's various neurotic characters, making them more funny and enjoyable to watch," The Jewish Daily Forward wrote in 2016.
In Eric Lax's book "Woody... Read More