The folks out at Sony sent out a copy of The Virginity Hit, and when I first heard about it, I got the feeling it was going to be an interesting if somewhat childish comedy, at least until I saw six horrific words stamped across the top of the box. Those six terrifying words that sank my stomach into my shoes after the plot rundown.

The Virginity Hit follows Matt, a young man who’s out to do what a lot of young men his age are out to do–lose his virginity. But in the age of YouTube, we can’t just have a guy go out and try to get laid, no sir, someone needs to be recording this. Matt’s stepbrother steps up to do the job, and thus, we get to watch every humiliating moment as Matt tries desperately to find someone, anyone, willing to punch his V-card for him. But along the way, Matt’s going to have a lot of troubles–his girlfriend’s a cheat, kind of, he’s meeting porn stars and finds that internet stardom is no easy road.

All of which sounds reasonable enough, like a slightly too ambitious for its own good version of American Pie, right? Well, there are six words standing between me and optimism on this one, and those words are:

“From the guys behind Step Brothers“.

After reading that I spent the next three minutes screaming into the night like a man who has discovered that his beloved dog is dying from intestinal cancer caused by the intense amount of radiation directly underneath his property because the realtor forgot to tell him when he bought the place that the previous owners used it as a toxic waste dump.

I do have to give it some credit, though–it’s nowhere near as unpleasant as Step Brothers was, which is a minor achievement in itself. It’s got some solid humor in there, if it’s a little focused on sex, though that only makes sense given the nature of the whole affair.

It’s still pretty awkward, and deeply unpleasant in spots, but then again, such is the nature of an eighteen year old boy desperate to lose his virginity.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Virginity Hit a healthy six out of ten for being a profound combination of weird, awkward and funny, definitely more so than I would have expected out of anything that had “Step Brothers” attached to it. Sony’s got a pretty decent property here.

The folks out at Lions Gate sent over a copy of Saturday Night Live: The Best of John Belushi, part of their steadily growing line of Saturday Night “Best Of” collections, and indeed, bringing out the comic genius of John Belushi certainly qualifies.

From Little Chocolate Donuts to the various Samurai bits, The Best of John Belushi will show you all the best stuff–and this definitely looks like the best stuff. It’s organized in no specific fashion, at least not that I can tell, and it really doesn’t matter, because it’s pretty funny either way. Though it is painfully ironic to watch John Belushi expound on how stupid it is to be a drunken junkie, especially given that that’s what killed him, it’s still pretty funny to watch him rage on about the “luck of the Irish”, but you can’t escape that horrible, horrible irony.

Regardless, though, this is great stuff, whether Belushi is engaging in physical comedy, parody, or something with a bit more musical style (he is, after all, half of the Blues Brothers, and yes, there will be a Blues Brothers sketch involved), it’s terrific comedy. You’ll also get lots of lessons on seventies pop culture, including a pre-disaster OJ Simpson (did you know he had a functioning acting career before the whole Nicole thing? It’s true!), and a strange look at Liz Taylor and her husband John Warner. Belushi is not a subtle comic–his energy and level of bombast is what’s so funny about his work–but it won’t matter so much that he’s not at all subtle because he doesn’t need to be. He no more needs to be subtle than a flamethrower needs a muzzle hood.

What’s really great about this is that it will run the gamut of plotlines, with lots of storylines. It’s not hard to see where people can’t get enough of John Belushi, as this is some wildly comic stuff.

And it gets even better–once you get through the hour and twenty minute block of comic glee that is The Best of John Belushi, you’ll even get a variety of extras like Belushi’s original screen test, photos, a Rolling Stone interview, and even some extra sketches besides.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives full approval to the parade of laughs that is Saturday Night Live: The Best of John Belushi a, once again, full ten out of ten. It’s just entirely too funny entirely too often to give it any less.

I wish Sandler could just let the humor unfold because the story is a great idea.  He could learn from the best: Billy Wilder, Michael Curtis and Charlie Chaplin.

With that said, the movie is about a plastic surgeon, romancing a much younger schoolteacher, enlists his loyal assistant to pretend to be his soon to be ex-wife, in order to cover up a careless lie. When more lies backfire, the assistant’s kids become involved, and everyone heads off for a weekend in Hawaii that will change all their lives.

Directed by Dennis Dugan the comedy stars Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman (she’s not in the trailer but listed as cast member), Brooklyn Decker and Dave Matthews.        

The movie opens February 11, 2010.

Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg are negotiating with Columbia Pictures to star together in I Hate You Dad, a comedy that Sandler’s Happy Madison banner is producing, according to an exclusive report from THR.

The story is about a father who moves in on the eve of his son’s wedding and promptly begins feuding with the bride-to-be. Sandler would play the dad, with Samberg as the son, even though less than 12 years separate the two in real life. 

A director is not attached with Dad in the development stages, but the two actors are attached. Dad was written by David Caspe with a rewrite by David Wain and Ken Marino. 

While Sandler is a former Saturday Night Live cast member, Samberg is among the current members of the long running program. Working with Sandler could possibly give Samberg his biggest movie break yet.

Sandler will next be seen in Just Go With It opens February 11, 2011. Samberg will next be seen in Friends With Benefits, a take on the sex-with-buddies genre that stars Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis.

Directed and written by Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother), HappyThankYouMorePlease was voted Sundance Audience Favorite 2010.  The romantic-comedy stars Josh Radnor, Malin Akerman, Kate Mara, Zoe Kazan, Tony Hale and Pablo Schreiber.

The story is about aspiring novelist Sam Wexler (Radnor) finds Rasheen, a young boy separated from his family on the subway. When the quiet Rasheen refuses to be left alone with social services, Sam learns the boy has already been placed in six previous foster homes and impulsively agrees to let the boy stay with him for a couple days.

Dropped into Sam’s chaotic, bachelor lifestyle, Rasheen is introduced to Sam’s circle of friends; Annie (Akerman) who has an unhealthy pattern of dating the wrong men, as well as an auto-immune disorder which has rendered her hairless, Mary-Catherine (Kazan) and Charlie (Schreiber) whose potential move to Los Angeles threatens their relationship, and Mississippi (Mara), an aspiring singer/waitress who tests Sam’s fear of commitment.

When Sam’s unexpected friendship with Rasheen develops, he realizes adulthood is not about waiting for the right answers to get the life you want, but simply stumbling ahead and figuring them out in the process.

The movie opens March 4, 2011.

The folks out at Image Entertainment sent over a copy of White Wedding, and this one is an impressive little comedy coming our way from South Africa.

White Wedding follows Ayanda, a young South African woman who’s about to have her dream wedding, thoroughly modern in every sense. But her husband to be, Elvis, is having a little bit of difficulty getting to the chapel on time. And as Elvis tries his best to get back home, Ayanda’s left wondering if Elvis’ problems are for real. And it only gets worse when Ayanda’s ex-boyfriend shows up to throw a wrench into things. Will Elvis and Ayanda’s wedding actually manage to happen? Will their hitching survive the hitches?

And what’s with the goat, anyway?

That last question is perfectly valid–a good portion of White Wedding will feature a goat that’s following Elvis back to his wedding.

There’s one serious problem with White Wedding that really should be mentioned here. I don’t have a problem with people shooting movies in different languages. That’s why they made multi-track audio. So yes, please, shoot this in the authentic Xhosa dialect. But make it a separate language track. I don’t want to watch this movie in Xhosa. I do not SPEAK Xhosa. Sure, there are subtitles, but I want to hear the dialogue in English with the subtitles so I can be sure exactly what you’re saying. And worse yet, don’t switch back and forth. Don’t deliver one line in English then switch off to Xhosa. Worse yet, don’t switch back and forth in the line itself–it’s infuriating.

Still though, White Wedding starts off kind of slow, but it does build up nicely in terms of laughs. It’s actually pretty funny stuff after about the first half. The downside of that, of course, is that there’s a lot of the movie that doesn’t have a whole lot of the way of laughter in it. And a lot of the laughter will kind of fizzle out on the ending, which is a shame, because this was shaping up to be pretty good after a slow start.

But still, there are some nice, worthwhile laughs in here, and that’s a definite plus. If you’re willing to put up with a soft first half, you’ll be pretty nicely rewarded by the second half.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives White Wedding a six out of ten for having a weak opening, but turning it around and doing reasonably well in the second half. It’s a pretty decent movie, and you should be surprised by the laughs to be had here. Oh, and guys out there? Worthwhile date movie on the hoof.

Screenhead is hosting a giveaway for the soon to be released The Virginity Hit.

From the guys behind Step Brothers comes The Virginity Hit, an outrageous mockumentary about trying to lose your virginity while the whole world watches. Matt is the last of his buddies to lose his virginity. With his stepbrother recording his every humiliating move and posting it online, Matt gets revenge on his cheating girlfriend, breaks the law, gets a sexy cyber offer that looks too good to be true, meets the porn star of his dreams and becomes an Internet sensation in the process.

This actually looks funny.

The Virginity Hit arrives wherever DVDs are sold on January 18, 2011!

The giveaway consists of a copy of The Virginity Hit DVD, a T-Shirt and a branded razor!

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winner, January 25, 2011.

U.S. Residents Only

Here is Sony’s theatrical trailer of The Virginity Hit.

Cars 2 is directed by John Lasseter and Brad Lewis. The voice cast involves Owen Wilson, Michael Keaton, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jason Isaacs, John Ratzenberger, Bonnie Hunt, Joe Mantegna, Cheech Marin and Larry the Cable Guy.

The sequel is about star race car Lightning McQueen and the incomparable tow truck Mater take their friendship to exciting new places. They head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car. But the road to the championship is filled with plenty of potholes, detours and hilarious surprises.

Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage. Torn between assisting Lightning McQueen in the high-profile race and towing the line in a top-secret spy mission, Mater’s action-packed journey leads him on an explosive chase through the streets of Japan and Europe, trailed by his friends and watched by the whole world. Adding to the fast-paced fun is a colorful new all-car cast that includes secret agents, menacing villains and international racing competitors.

Cars 2 opens in the States June 24, 2011 and July 22, 2011 in the UK.

After serving 3 years in prison for a bank robbery he didn’t commit, an amiable but aimless man (Keanu Reeves) decides to rob the bank in downtown Buffalo, New York for real. His plan involves infiltrating a local theatre company, but his scheme gets complicated when he falls for the lead actress (Vera Farmiga). James Caan also stars in the romantic-comedy.

The trailer looks good, but no word when the movie will open.

Despite a tough start to his career in which the comedic writer/director saw several TV shows get critical acclaim but got cancelled swiftly, Judd Apatow has pretty much changed the shape of contemporary comedy. While hardly amazing, the films he has overseen as director or producer have garnered plenty of fans and often plenty of cash at the box-office. So it’s strange to see him reprise characters from a previous success.

According to Variety, Apatow’s next film (due out in the summer of 2012) will feature two characters from his biggest success to date, Knocked Up. Actors Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife) will reprise their roles as Debbie and Pete, the not so loving couple who deliver plenty of poor advice to Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen’s character. Unfortunately, that’s about it in terms of information about the project. We’ve no idea whether Rogen or Heigl will make an appearance, whether the film is about the couple’s early days, or whether it’s a completely separate spin-off.

It’s also saddening to see Apatow delve back into a previous success. Despite films he produced, like Superbad and Pineapple Express, exceeding box-office expectations his last directorial effort, Funny People, was a significant failure. Is this an attempt of desperation from a film-maker who is tired of failure, or does he have another great idea (if you haven’t seen the charming The 40 Year-Old Virgin, get it now) up his sleeve?