This Is The End

Should tonight actually bring forth the apocalypse, one of the many regrets is that it will bring an end to the elaborate James Franco art project that is human existence. Fortunately, Franco has one more, possibly final exercise in self-reflexivity to offer in these, the world's waning hours: an appropriately timed teaser for next summer's Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-scripted apocalypse comedy, This Is The End. Rogen's directorial debut finds the loosely intersecting Apatow Gang of Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Jay Baruchel all getting out ahead of their critics by just playing themselves—alongside people like Michael Cera, Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, and Aziz Ansari, plus Emma Watson, Rihanna, and James Franco as "James Franco"—as they assemble in Franco's home to ride out the end times and take shit from McBride, making for a film that's half about Armageddon, half about an insular group of comedy dudes making inside jokes about their careers. The NSFW scene here is just a tease, appended with some timely survival shelter shenanigans from Rogen and Franco. But if we really do shuffle off this mortal coil soon, this is your last chance to see these guys amusing themselves to death.