It’s a fairly standard narrative. A filmmaker surrogate falls in love for the first time. Recently it was done in The Wackness. The main character (generally nerdy) meets a girl with some experience who trains him in the ways of love. She may or may not stick around, and the context is often a location that is familiar to the author. It’s fair to say that both the best and worst advice to give an aspiring writer is to write what they know. And yet, as familiar as this material can be, Greg Mottola’s Adventureland is nuanced, and it gets its characters. My review after the jump.

Lorne Michaels’ decision to turn the minute-long SNL sketch of “MacGruber” (played by Will Forte) into a motion-picture has been deemed by some, to put it charitably, unwise.  We all shuddered at the thought of adding another pointless SNL-sketch movie to the pile of “The Ladies Man” and “Superstar” and then hiding in our box fort made out of “The Blues Brothers” and “Wayne’s World 1 & 2″.

But now Bill Hader has come down like a prophet to offer reassuring words in our time of doubt.  Hit the jump to start changing your opinion on “MacGruber”.

One of the films I’m most excited about is director Greg Mottola’s “Paul”. You may not have heard of it yet because it’s still being filmed, but the movie stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost (who also wrote the film), Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jane Lynch. It’s a buddy road trip movie that features Simon and Nick as two science-fiction fanatics that meet an escaped Area 51 alien named Paul - who is going to be voiced by Seth Rogen.

So while we all knew Seth would be doing the voice, nothing had been announced about what kind of voice he would do. Was he going to sound like himself or would he do an accent? After the jump you can watch what Seth said about the character and he also reveals that he’s doing the motion capture for “Paul”!

In his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman lays out what is essentially the unifying theory of Johnny Carson - the idea that the advent of cable and the home video market, not to mention the Internet, has splintered public tastes to the point that there’s no longer any such thing as a shared cultural experience anymore; according to Klosterman, the last patch of common ground was Johnny Carson, and once he disappeared from the airwaves, he took the last link in our pop culture chain with him.

Klosterman had a point, one which grows ever more relevant with each passing year - but every so often, a cultural event comes along with enough significance to achieve true water cooler status. Case in point: the long-awaited debut of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace in 1999, a breathlessly anticipated extension of a film franchise that was virtually inescapable in its day. When George Lucas announced he was working on a prequel trilogy that would fill in the story behind the original films, pretty much everyone was at least curious to see what they’d look like - and the hardcore fans were on pins and needles.

Just a few minutes ago I posted a great interview with Zachary Levi about his TV show “Chuck”. If you’re a fan of the show, it’s a must watch interview as he discusses the future of “Chuck”, this year’s Comic-Con, how next season could still be 22 episodes instead of 13, and a whole lot more.

Anyway, when the interview was almost at the end, we veered off into a new topic of conversation and since it’s about a movie he tried to do this hiatus, I figured it was worth posting separately.

It ends up that Zach tried to be a part of director Greg Mottola’s “Paul”. In case you forget what it’s about, read this.

But for the lazy ones, it’s the new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie that has a huge cast featuring Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jane Lynch. It’s a buddy road trip movie that features Simon and Nick as two science-fiction fanatics that meet an escaped Area 51 alien named Paul. While the rest of the details are still under wraps, I’ve heard from multiple sources that the script is laugh out loud funny. But with Simon Pegg co-writing it, I’m not surprised.

So now the reason for this article. While we all knew Jason Bateman and Bill Hader would be in the movie, no details had emerged about which characters they played. But thanks to Zach…we now do. Take a look after the jump:

Variety has just reported that Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jane Lynch have all joined the cast of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost film “Paul”. According to the article, Seth is voicing the title character Paul.

If you haven’t heard of “Paul” yet, it’s a buddy road trip movie being directed by Greg Mottola (”Superbad”, “Adventureland”) that features Simon and Nick as two science-fiction fanatics that meet an escaped Area 51 alien named Paul. While the details of what happens after their encounter are still under wraps, I’d imagine it’s about getting Paul home.

While I was excited for “Paul” before this casting announcement, the addition of these actors  seals the deal. Jason Bateman steals everything he’s in and I cannot wait to see what he’ll do with Simon and Nick. I prey they have more than one scene together.

With the film getting ready to shoot in the next few weeks, expect more info soon.

And if you’d like to hear what Simon Pegg had to say about “Paul” and all the other projects he’s been doing recently, click here.