Australian Penthouse

DIGITAL PLAYGROUND’S KAYDEN KROSS GETS ‘DIRTY’ WITH SETH ROGEN ON FX’s THE LEAGUE

Don’t miss Digital Playground star Kayden Kross in the season three premiere of American FX channel series The League.

The League is a comedy about friends competing in the same fantasy football league.

Last season on The League the character of Raffi (played by a hirsute and wild-eyed Jason Mantzoukas) dropped out of the league while being sodomized in a car by sex addict Russell (Rob Huebel).

This past weekend, show creators Jackie and Jeff Schaefer announced that Raffi’s friend Dirty Randy (“He scouts locations for pornos. And he mostly cleans up everything”) will be played by Seth Rogen.

The Season 3 opener will at long last introduce viewers to the legendary-ish “Dirty Randy” who is played by big-screen funny man Seth Rogen (Knocked Up). Kayden plays “Kayden” but we won’t reveal what her role is!

“I couldn’t believe I got to work with Seth Rogen!” exclaims Kayden. “He is a comedic genius and we had a lot of fun with the improvisation part.”

“Kayden is such a versatile actress that she’s equally comfortable with comedic roles as she is with dramas” says Digital Playground’s CEO, Samantha Lewis. “She puts everything into her performances and her mainstream career is blossoming as a result.”

Kayden’s latest Digital Playground blockbuster, Fighters, was released last week to rave reviews.

To see more check out: http://fightersxxx.com/

The Green Hornet

Director: Michel Gondry
Stars: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Tom Wilkinson, Edward James Olmos

Sony Pictures

The Green Hornet is the champion of unconventional choices, from lead/writer Seth Rogen (Superbad) as the crime-fighting socialite Britt Reid and his sidekick Kato played by Taiwanese pop sensation Jay Chou to art house, now action, director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). On paper it should be a mess of epic proportions, but it almost gets the formula right… almost.

Constant disappointment to his media mogul father, man-child Britt Reid (Rogen) wiles away the hours moving from one booze-fuelled party to the next, with a string of floozies in tow and demolished hotel rooms left in his wake. Britt’s path in life seems set, until his father’s mysterious demise leaves him a changed man, the sole inheritor of the family fortune and head honcho of jewel in his father’s crown, hard hitting newspaper, The Daily Sentinel.

A horrific morning coffee is the catalyst that intertwines the fates of Britt and his father’s savant mechanic/barista Kato, leading the two to an epiphany. The only way to protect the innocent and the law is to break it. By becoming criminals and cozying up to the seedy underbelly, they can mete out their own brand of justice.

Utilising Kato’s prowess at dishing out pain and his tech know-how to create gadgetry, namely the magnificent modified Chrysler Imperial dubbed Black Beauty, the pair take back the streets. But when the dynamic duo irritate local kingpin Chudnofsky (hammed up to perfection by Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds), they may very well have bit off more than they can chew.

The Green Hornet takes many of the cast and crew out of their comfort zones, and most handle the change of pace admirably. Michel Gondry has a unique technique for shooting action, with Kato’s special ability to slow his heart rate and target highlighted threats very slickly handled. It’s bullet-time we’ve all seen a thousand times or more since The Matrix, yet Gondry puts his own stamp on it, as does Jay Chou as Kato.

Considering the massive shoes Bruce Lee (Kato – The Green Hornet 1966) left for him to fill, Chou does a fantastic job.  He looks comfortable with hand-to-hand combat, is surprisingly charismatic, extremely watchable and steals the show, much like his counterpart in the original television series.

Unfortunately, the weakest link in The Green Hornet is Seth Rogen himself. By juggling dual roles of writing (with Superbad and Pineapple Express co-writer Evan Goldberg) and acting, one very important factor seems to have fallen by the wayside, likeability. Britt Reid is a self-centred child, using belittlement and insults as his weapons of choice to pull focus away from his own inadequacies and by taking away any hint of charm, you care very little for his plight.

Rogen’s Britt is very similar to Danny McBride’s Kenny Powers from Eastbound and Down, with one main difference, growth, specifically, Britt’s lack of it. With little development of the main character, he just comes off as a spoiled, obnoxious douchebag playing superhero with Daddy’s money. Sure the toys and gadgets are imaginative, and the 3D conversion is better than most (though that’s not really saying much), but Rogen just seems a little off, forced at times and not quite as relaxed as we’re used to seeing him in his comedic element.

Many have already prejudged this film, not willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, and while it’s clearly not The Dark Knight, it still has some very entertaining moments and well shot action pieces. It sits somewhere in between “not nearly as bad as I thought it would be”, and “not as good as I hoped it would be”.

The Green Hornet opens nationally January 20^th.

Review: Dave Kozicki