Directed by Steve Pink ( screenplay for High Fidelity and an executive producer of Entourage), this absurd storyline looks to mine the same box office gold as the last big road trip, The Hangover.

Check out these clips for Hot Tub Time Machine, due out in Mid-March.

And this one….

“Up in the Air” had the most nominations this year,  followed by the musical “Nine,” with five, including top musical or comedy.  The recently released science-fiction epic “Avatar” and director Quentin Tarantino’s  “Inglourious Basterds” were nominated for four awards, including best drama.

The Hurt Locker looks like Best Drama

Other film nominees for Golden Globes were the Iraq war movie “The Hurt Locker“ and the urban tear-jerker “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.”  Others in the category for best movie musical or comedy was Meryl Streep’s  cooking movie “Julie & Julia, this years comedic breakout hit “The Hangover” and the independent darling, “(500) Days of Summer.”

The Golden Globes are given out in January by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are seen as a key indicator of which movies will compete for the world’s top film honors, the Oscars, in March. The Golden Globes will be presented mid January, 2010.

The best actor nominees were Clooney, Jeff Bridges who plays a down-and-out country singer in “Crazy Heart,” Colin Firth as a gay man suddenly alone in “A Single Man,” Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in “Invictus” and Tobey Maguire for “Brothers”, another wartime drama.

Nominations for best actress in a drama went to Sandra Bullock for the surprisingly popular football film “The Blind Side,” Helen Mirren for “The Last Station,” Emily Blunt in “The Young Victoria,” Carey Mulligan with “An Education” and  Gabourey Sidibe in the title role,  “Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire.”

A great way to know you’re looking at the Golden Globes and not the Academy Awards is that you can have Sandra Bullock nominated twice in an evening. This time it’s for best actress in a musical or comedy in  “The Proposal.”  She’s joined by Marion Cotillard in “Nine,” Julia Roberts in “Duplicity” ( really intelligent and fun movie!) and Meryl Streep once again, pulling a Sandra Bullock for “It’s Complicated” and a second for “Julie & Julia.”

The Coen Brothers have a serious claim for the Golden Globe

Nominees for best actor in a movie musical or comedy were Daniel Day-Lewis for “Nine,” Matt Damon in the black comedy, “The Informant!,” Robert Downey Jr. for the unbearably hyped “Sherlock Holmes,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “(500) Days of Summer” and Michael Stuhlberg for the Coen Brother’s wonderful fable, “A Serious Man.”

Lastly, the foreign language film nominees are the Italian movie “Baaria,” Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces“, the fabulous Chilean movie “The Maid,”  “A Prophet” from France and Germany’s “The White Ribbon.”

It’s worth noting that one film in particular seems to be on every critic’s top ten list for the year.  It’s Kathryn Bigelow’s tense Iraq drama,” The Hurt Locker”.  Though it’s still quite early and there are many films to still see, it’s the Daily Helping’s opinion that Ms Bigelow could have a Best Picture on her hands.  This is all the more interesting since she’s James (Avatar) Cameron’s ex-wife.

I’m probably alienating 98% of my readership by delving into obscure pod casts found at the itunes store, but this recommendation should prove worthwhile to anyone with an ipod and an interest in comedy.

Penn Radio was an hour-long talk CBS radio show which ran from January 3,  ‘06 to March 2, ‘07. It starred Penn Jillette, the large, talkative half of Penn & Teller.   He was also the co-director of the movie,  The Aristocrats. This was a documentary that sought out comedians of every flavor and asked for their interpretation of one of the great dirty jokes of all time.  Those that participated run the gamut from Carrot Top to Tim Conway, Drew Carey to Don Rickles.

Penn invited a good number of these comedians to his Vegas home and interviewed them for the show.  The roster as shown on itunes will identify which shows had a special guest as opposed to those days where Penn and his friend, Michael Goudeau took to rants about magic, politics, religion and breastfeeding on airplanes.  These shows are fairly interesting, but you really want to target the interviews.

Penn has a huge ego and he shares a lot of personal stories with his guests. Fortunately the stories are genuinely entertaining and add to what is already pretty special rapport.

My favorite interviews are those with Fred Willard, Kevin Pollack, Drew Carey, Adam Carolla, Dennis Miller and yes, Howie Mandel.  Gilbert Gottfried is known for his obnoxious voice but his stories are hilarious and seems to be a favorite of most hard core stand up comedians.  There are several shows that feature Gilbert.

As I said from the start, it takes an appreciation for the subject matter to warrant such an obscure search. I don’t know how long such program archives are kept at the itune site, so please do check it out when you can.