And the New Spidey Is...

Rumor has it that Josh Hutcherson is at the front of the running to become the new Tobey Maguire.

The 17-year-old up-and-comer, who starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth two years ago (and is due to begin shooting its sequel this fall), has screen-tested for the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in an upcoming set-in-high-school reboot of the franchise.

(500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb is set to take the helm of the project.

An official announcement regarding casting is still pending.

Photo: PhotoBucket.com.

Update: Hutcherson has confirmed he has gone in for the role, and said that he feels amazed to be consider, let alone be in any sort of short list, but he stops short of calling the role his or, for that matter, anyone else’s.

Well, the guy knows how to keep it cool, already, so that’s a good sign.

Daddy Cappie

Mamma Mia! star Dominic Cooper has joined the cast of Captain America: The First Avenger.

The actor will play Howard Stark, a.k.a. the father of Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. Mad Men’s John Slattery played an older version of the character in last spring’s Iron Man 2.

Now, get this: I’m fairly certain the Cappie movie is set before that time, and, presumably, somehow Chris Evans will time-travel to now to join his fellow superheroes in the Avengers movie that Joss Whedon is directing for 2012.

The Captain America cast already includes Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving, Sebastian Stan, Stanley Tucci, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Photo: MoxieTheMaven.com.

The First Part of Harry’s Final Battle

Ooh, excitement is in the air.

The first full trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hit the Internet today, and all I can say, not even being a massive fan of the books, is it looks like it’s going to be one heckuva fun and emotional ride:



This last chapter of the saga has been split into two parts. Part 1 arrives in theaters on Nov. 19. In 3-D.

Consider the block busted.

Quittin’ Time

It’s the end of an era – the Michael Scott era.

Office star Steve Carell has reinstated his desire to leave the Emmy-winning NBC sitcom at the end of next season.

“I think [season] 7 will be my last year,” he said. “I want to fulfill my contract. I think it’s a good time to move on. I just want to spend more time with my family.”

Carell first expressed his wish in April during a BBC radio interview.

I hope this means The Office will shut down for good, too. If we learned anything from the ill-fated-Scrubs-moving-from-NBC-to-ABC experiment it is that, perhaps, it is better to let a long-in-the-tooth show go than ask too much of it.

Photo: SideReel.com.

Friends Forever

The teaser for David Fincher’s Aaron Sorkin-penned The Social Network is out – and boy, did the powers that be go the less-is-more route.

You hear a lot, but you don’t see much of anything or anyone who appears in this movie about early years of Facebook, except for Zombieland’s Jesse Eisenberg, who plays the company’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (Justin Timberlake portrays Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster who became Facebook’s first president).



You can see if you Like the movie when it opens this fall.

Dying to Go to Dollywood

That darn Miley Cyrus has all the luck.

OK, OK – I know she works hard for it, but still....

The tween queen recently joined the one and only Dolly Parton on stage to sing “Jolene” for a Hallmark Channel special marking the 25th anniversary of Dollywood, Parton’s theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., which I’m dying to visit. What...a fun road trip that would be.

The special will also feature appearances by Billy Ray and Kenny Rogers. It’s set to air on July 3.

Photo: EW.com.

Different Coast, Same Bitchin’ ’Tude

Katie Cassidy may stop licking her wounds over the demise of the Melrose Place reboot: The CW still wants her.

The actress has scored a multi-episode arc on Gossip Girl.

Spotted: A new bitch, arriving (well-healed, natch) in town, ready to up the drama for Serena & Co.

Cassidy will play a student at Columbia and a love interest for fellow undergrad Nate (Chace Crawford) who “will make trouble” for several Upper East Siders because she’s so not what she seems.

Photo: InStyle.com.

Family Guys

Ever wonder how (surprisingly) unfunny a movie would be if, say, five of the funniest guys in Hollywood got together to pal around on screen for 102 minutes?

Well then, look no further than Grown Ups.

This is an OK, I guess, comedy about five childhood friends who reunite one Fourth of July weekend, more than 30 years after they won a championship basketball game way back when, to mourn their beloved coach by a lakeside cabin built on the memories of those easier years of yore.

Adam Sandler leads the pack as the most successful one of ’em all, a big-shot Hollywood agent with a hot, high-maintenance, fashion-designer wife (Salma Hayek). He yearns for his iKids to experience the innocence of their childhood the way he did once, before people started communicating with one another in 140 characters or less.

Kevin James plays the suburban, loser-ish, married-to-a-hottie (Maria Bello)-who-still-breast-feeds-their-“48-month-old” one.

Chris Rock – stunted by his inability to curse in the same way he relishes during his live gigs – takes on the role of the Maya Rudolph’s desperate househusband.

David Spade plays the (single) perennial party boy, while Rob Schneider is the...eccentric one, a toupeed vegan married to a much older lady.

Coming together, this brood of BFF discovers why growing older doesn’t necessarily mean growing up. None of these guys is particularly well-written, not fully, you know what I mean, but you should be able to get what the movie’s lesson is: The ties that bind us are stronger than anything that divides us, and that includes merciless ribbing.

Family is what matters most and these five men are It to one another. No one drives this home more than Sandler, who as co-writer penned himself a nice role that embodies this to the point of, Alright, I get it, you’re re-inventing yourself a little bit here...but not too much that we won’t recognize you.

If only he’d written a funnier movie, not just a funny-enough one.

My Rating **

Photo: MLive.com.

The Queen of Comedy

Joan Rivers can’t get any respect.

The new documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work says as much as it chronicles a year in the life of the groundbreaking comedian, a life she candidly admits has had many highs and many, many lows.

In case you don’t believe me, regarding that respect thing, filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Rikki Stern happened upon capturing Rivers...at a low year. Just her luck. And just the kind of situation begging to be turned into a joke, for Rivers to take ownership of and flip on the sunnier side.

The doc is a study in exposition, a peeling of an onion, if you will.

The Joan Rivers we think we know is a brash broad with a penchant for plastic surgery. She’s loud-mouthed, polarizing, some may even say rude. The Joan Rivers Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work spotlights, though, is all of those things, and also unflinchingly human...“innately insecure,” as her daughter Melissa puts it. She’s a mother, a friend, a people pleaser who will do anything for a laugh, for work, and, yes, for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

This, after all, is a lady who recognizes, who knows her name usually follows an adjective, “and it’s never a nice adjective.”

Nothing is off-limits to our Joan, paver of roads for the Kathy Griffins, Sarah Silvermans, and Lisa Lampanellis that have followed in her footsteps – just don’t you suggest she make room for them.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work exposes all the wrinkles, figurative and literal. It opens with a tight close-up of the comedian’s make-up-free face. We spend the next few moments seeing her put on her armor: she colors her lips, she brushes her lashes, she smoothes out lines. Then she’s ready to fight the fight, to open up, to live her life and let a frank and funny slice of it be committed to film.

We learn it hasn’t always been all glamour for Rivers, and as she shows us her blank schedule, we believe it. She’s brutally honest about her early years, her time as Johnny Carson’s sidekick (a role he, evidently, never wanted her to outgrow), her husband’s suicide. She shares her wishes for what’s to come and clearly relishes the choices she’s made (of her lavish New York apartment she says, “This is how Marie Antoinette would have lived if she’d had money”).

At 76, Rivers is inviting us to respect her and, darn it, we better do, already.

Certainly, Sundberg and Stern have made it easier, while also delivering a searing commentary on this beast we call showbiz, its hunger, and its pitiless ability to chew someone up and spit them back out all in the same bite.

My Rating ***

Photo IFC Films.

The List, Pt. 25

In: Good, fun dance (hey, Kylie!).

So Five Minutes Ago: Button-pushing pop.

O-V-E-R: Uptight divaliciousness.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

New ADA on the Beat

Precious star Paula Patton, a.k.a. Robin Thicke’s wife, is thisclose to becoming Law & Order: SVU’s new full-time assistant district attorney.

The actress would succeed Sharon Stone, who had a four-episode arc on the show last spring.

Sounds like the perfect gig for the new mommy.... Plus, Patton could bring an interesting mix of strength and vulnerability to the role.

Photo: SceneUnseenPodcast.com.

Zoo Man

Matt Damon, a.k.a. not Astronaut Mike Dexter on TV’s 30 Rock, is in talks to star in Cameron Crowe’s next movie, We Bought a Zoo.

Based on the 2008 memoirs of a British journalist-turned-zookeeper, the movie would tell the story of a man who overhauls his life and moved with his family into a barely functioning wildlife park in England.

Sounds like such a Crowe-esque project...inspirational and angsty possibility.

We Bought a Zoo is eyeing a late-2011 release.

Photo: GQ.com.

Just Because, Pt. 62

How fine did Ricky Martin look while attending Giorgio Armani’s menswear runway show during Milan Fashion Week on Tuesday.

I know, I know, I know!

Hella. Fine!

Photo: People.com.

Gone Ape

Freida Pinto is joining James Franco in an upcoming Planet of the Apes prequel.

Yeah, they’re going to there. Again-ish. I thought the Mark Wahlberg remake pretty much let it be known audiences were just not that into the franchise….

Amway, the Slumdog Millionaire star will play a primatologist in Rise of the Apes, while Franco will portray a (dashing) scientist. Set in present-day San Francisco, the movie depicts how mankind’s experimentation with genetic engineering ultimately results in a war between humans and intelligent apes.

John Lithgow has signed on as well, to play Franco’s father.

Rise of the Apes is scheduled to open on next June.

Pinto will next be seen in Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Julian Schnabel’s Miral, and War of the Gods opposite the studly Kellan Lutz and Henry Cavill.

Photo: TopNews.in.

Strutting Down the Strada

Spring/Summer is like, so yesterday – Madonna’s already rocking Fall/Winter.

Sartorially speaking, I mean.

The Queen of Pop is starring once again in a campaign for Dolce & Gabbana that tells a black-and-white story “celebrating the power of charisma framed by the faces of a glorious Italian family.”

In this latest frame, M either plays an aggroyed mama who doesn’t want to take her kid to the park, or a MILF who doesn’t want to put out for her younger bf after the groceries are put away.

Photo: Madonnalicious.com.

Update: Alright, I take it back: The young fellow in the photo with her is supposed to be Madonna’s son, and he’s being played by 17-year-old actor-singer-dancer-model Max Schneider.

Spy’s A-Lovin’

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz have chemistry in Knight and Day.

Granted, it’s not the kind that like, makes you want to see them get it on – sex is the furthest thing from their minds for a good chunk of the throwback-ish action-com, which comes from director James Mangold (Walk the Line).

Surviving, on the hand, is at the top of the list…but more on that in a moment.

Cruise and Diaz’s chemistry, rather, is more of the sort that makes you believe the two get along famously off screen and like they’re having a romp on. It definitely makes you buy him as a beyond-able spy (shocker!) and her as a gal who, when presented with an impossible situation, can rise above it with a smile on her face.

Indeed, the old Vanilla Sky co-stars look and work together quite nicely in the movie. Diaz, especially, is delightful as June Havens, a somewhat unremarkable (she’s never been anywhere, keeps her nose clean) sunny restorer of classic cars who unwittingly gets enmeshed in a convoluted plot involving an invention Roy Miller, Cruise’s slightly off-kilter secret agent, has pledged to protect.

That is, of course, when the actress isn’t shrieking (or adding clumsy yelps in post that barely match the action on screen) during most of the movie’s many action pieces. Those, btw, include a pretty-cool mid-flight airplane fight, followed by a crash landing, and am ambush on a mini-island Roy calls his off-the-grid hideout.

The setup is quite simple: On her way from Wichita (which originally gave the movie its working title) to Boston for her little sister’s wedding, June accidentally bumps into Roy – or did she? – and she becomes a piece of a globetrotting puzzle that takes her on a ride of a lifetime.

Roy tells June she can trust him, but then those he claims have set him up, including a slightly underused Peter Sarsgaard, have her convinced she maybe can’t or shouldn’t.

What I liked most about Knight and Day was the plain ol’ fact that it was entertaining. It actually was fun, and those action pieces I mentioned earlier were outlandishly so. Honestly, only Cruise could get away with them, and he does.

To see him rescue the damsel he’s put in distress is to see him turn on the charm. And that’s a good thing ’cause after a bit of a rough patch there, where we all kinda forgot we were on the side of the guy with the million-dollar smile, was it’s hella great to see he’s still got It.

Then again, what I didn’t love about Knight and Day was the manic manner with which it jumped from breathless location to breathless location. From the Wichita airport to the streets of Boston to a Brooklyn warehouse to a train crossing Austria to Spain, which lends its famous running of the bulls for the story-capping climax, Mangold manages to make it as if they’ve been there for just a little bit and overstay his characters’ welcome at each locale.

It was a bit confusing, I have to say, but fun to watch nevertheless, particularly because after everything that happens I felt like Roy and June earned their right to finally kiss, and he earned her...and she earned a new world. The movie, though, could have been a bit tighter. Like both its stars’ abs.

My Rating ***

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

The Adventurer

Jason O’Mara, the star of the late TV drama Life on Mars, is going where Kyle Chandler wouldn’t...to Terra Nova.

The Irish hottie will star in Fox’s upcoming show about humans from the year 2149, who are forced to find a way to save the human race and discover a rip in the time-space continuum that can send them back to pre-human Earth.

The powers that be behind the buzzed-about project are quite cult-y, so a following is all but guaranteed.

Terra Nova come from exec producers Brannon Braga (24, Star Trek: Enterprise), David Fury (24, Angel, Lost), and Steven Spielberg.

The show will start shooting this summer in Australia, and bow its (initial) 13-episode run next winter.

I think O’Mara is a rather nice, solid choice. Handsome, too.

Photo: TimeInc.net.

Into the M. Night

My girl Gwyneth Paltrow (what – I have the autograph that gives me the right to call her that), A-Team star Bradley Cooper, and Bruce Willis are “loosely attached” to star in M. Night Shyamalan’s next next movie.

There are no deets to share about the project, but I’m both intrigued and excited about it already.

The director’s latest, The Last Airbender, is due out on July 1, btw. I say do it, G.P.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

Will Work for Laughs

The luminous Leslie Mann cannot star in another movie soon enough.

The 17 Again and Funny People star could headline the comedy Business Trip, which her hubby Judd Apatow is attached to produce.

The project is a comedy about three women on a corporate trip. Hilarity, of course, ensues.

Jeez, do I hope this will happen....

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Robyn Does Alicia

Note to self: I gotta order the new Robyn album, Body Talk Pt. 1, featuring “Dancing on My Own,” ASAP.

Amazon.com is gonna be happy to see me....

I am reminded of this because, by the power of Twitter, I found out this morning that Robyn has covered Alicia Keys’ “Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart” for the BBC’s Radio 1.

I love that song – it’s like, my jam right now.

And I am loving Robyn’s version like a hooker loves a john who turns out to be her prince charming: undeniably.

Photo: StereoGum.com.

Magnetized

I am loving this casting news.

German-Irish actor Michael Fassbender, who smoldered in Inglourious Basterds and is currently wreaking havoc in Jonah Hex, is in talks to join James McAvoy in X-Men: First Class.

Fassbender would play Erik Lehnsherr, the man who becomes Magneto in the origin-story movie.

Yes! I love this (handsome) man and how he’s combining commercial endeavors with art house fare. He’s also playing Mr. Rochester in the new Jane Eyre….

Photo: TinkaWelt.wordpress.com.

Falling in Love All Over Again

Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams are taking The Vow.

The pair is set to co-star in the based-on-the-real-life story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, which sees the newlyweds’ life derailed after they are hit by a truck and Krickitt is left in a coma.

Upon waking, she has no memory of her new husband, so the two must rebuild their relationship from scratch.

McAdams in a romantic tearjerker? I’m so in.

Photo: SpoiledPretty.blogspot.com.

Officially the Coolest Fourthquel Ever

Scream 4 and Lauren Graham are combining to rock my bones.

The erstwhile Gilmore Girl and Parenthood star has signed on to play Emma Roberts’ impossibly hip, I’m sure, mother in next year’s fourth chapter of the horror franchise.

Graham joins returning cast members Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, as well as Hayden Panetierre, Rory Culkin, and Lake Bell, who’s set to play a police officer and former school contemporary of Sid’s.

Photo: E! Online.

All A-Freakin’-Board!

O.

M.

Navy G.

The upcoming Battleship movie just got sooo much hotter.

Alexander Skarsgård is joining Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch in director Peter Berg’s big-screen adaptation of the board game.

True Blood’s hottest vamp of them all will play Kitsch’s brother, who’s described as a straight and narrow kinda naval officer whom Kitsch, a wilder type, idolizes. You know, like we all would.

Battleship is due out in theaters in June 2012.

Photo: HollywoodLife.com.

Special Schoolchildren

Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Charlotte Rampling are the stars of the latest film by video director-turned-feature helmer Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo).

Now that is quite a cast, and Never Let Me Go sure looks like quite the stirrer – it’s an adaption of a Kazuo Ishiguro novel; he wrote The Remains of the Day.

I must say I found the trailer to be rather intriguing. There’s a love triangle among the three young stars, who play lifelong friends who meet at a boarding school that’s just oh-so-mysterious, talk of “donations,” and lots and lots of questioning of the having of the soul.

To boot, it also looks like a beautifully photographed film. I really can’t wait for it to open this fall, and I’ll bet it’ll do well come awards season.

Photo: Andrew-Garfield.com

Sex God

Ryan Kwanten believes in diversifying, and in doing what one does best.

The True Blood star is leveraging his sexed-up persona (thanks, Jason Stackhouse!), and will publish a sex guide titled The G-Strategy.

The Aussie’s book is due out sometime next year and will appeal to both sexes.

“Predominantly with men, it’s more the finance-type world. With those, you’ve got the Wall Street guys that lap up anything that’s a chance to make a quick buck,” he said of his audience. “And then with the women, I guess it’s sort of the more...emotional sort of type stuff that’s gonna make you happy.”

Yeah, OK, take your shirt off and explain that again.

Photo: JustJared.BuzzNet.com.

Cowboy of the Damned

It’s summer, I get it: It’s the time for comics to come to life on the silver screen all wrapped up in their blockbuster finest with a ribbon on it.

Did the post-Civil War-set Jonah Hex, starring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox – a.k.a. Hollywood’s take on the adventures of the DC Comics anti-hero – have to be quite so…boring, though?

My goodness, I mean, I never knew 80 minutes could feel like such an eternity. This has got to be the least exciting cowboy movie ever made.

Oh well, whaddya gonna do....

I mean, it’s only natural that for every Batman movie (the first two, the third one to a certain extent, and, of course, the Christopher Nolan ones), Iron Man, and Spider-Man there should be a Daredevil, and now, a Jonah Hex, right? Balance is everything. Or so it seems.

Brolin plays the titular role of this would-be fanboy wet dream. His character is a scarred drifter, a known bounty hunter most everyone he encounters is afraid of – he’s fast and sharp and real good at what he does.

I say that not everybody is afraid of him because there’s always a brave one everywhere he goes, someone who thinks he can sneak up on the guy. They usually meet their maker.

Jonah Hex is a tortured kind of guy, not because he feels any remorse for his gunslinging. No, it’s his past that haunts him. He survived sure death at the hands of a fellow a military man named Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), an experience that left him with one foot in the natural world and one on the “other side” – and completely awash in guilt over not saving his family.

His only human connection is with Lilah (Fox, looking beyond-svelte in a stickly way in an 18-inch corset, which probably can explain her often unintelligible delivery), a a tough-cookie of a working girl whose life in a brothel has left her with scars of her own.

Anyway, the cowboy’s past catches up with him when the U.S. military makes him an offer he simply can’t refuse: freedom from the warrants on his head in exchange for stopping the dangerous Turnbull, who has a plan to bring the about-to-celebrate-its-centennial United States to its knees.

Yada yada yada, demons are confronted, and....

Alright, I won’t spoil anything, but I will say that, at least, like in any cowboy movie, the good guy comes out on top. Too bad the darn thing was anything but entertaining or amusing (I edge-of-my-seated once a little bit during a taking-of-a-train scene, laughed only once as well, and got a kick out of seeing Will Arnett and Michael Fassbender in some supporting roles...but that’s just because I like them). I’d rather see The A-Team again.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.

Narnia Rises Again

Every single time I’ve seen this cutout thingy at my local movie theater teasing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader I’ve thought the same thing: Really?

I mean, I honestly remember reading somewhere the franchise was dead after Prince Caspian underperformed at the box office a couple of years ago.

Honestly – I’m not making things up or trying to put the series down.

Now, I was never a huge fan of the movies to begin with – an old friend said I was probably made of stone for not seeing the magic in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe after that one came out – but I never wanted to the fun to stop.

And like, I eventually did catch Prince Caspian on cable last year and thought it was perfectly enjoyable (granted, in that format).

The point is the trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has caught my eye.

Not all of the Pevensie siblings seem to be back, but Ben Barnes is back as the valiant Caspian, as is Tilda Swinton, ever the temptress.



I’m in, I think, and looking forward to the movie’s Dec. 10 release. Why not, right?

Chace, the Butcher

His life quite literally may have gone to pot – ha! – but Chace Crawford’s career is still very much all lit up.

Oh snap, I made two funnies. And I digress. Anyway....

The Footloose remake may not be in the cards anymore, but the Gossip Girl heartthrob’s transition to the big screen shan’t be stopped now that the actor will join Catherine Keener and Jane Fonda in Peace, Love and Misunderstanding.

Crawford will play “an anti-war butcher who arouses the romantic interest of the daughter of Keener’s character.”

The actress will star as a New York lawyer who takes haven at her hippie mom’s (Fonda) farmhouse after her husband leaves her.

Alrighty then.

Photo: JustJared.BuzzNet.com.

Just Because, Pt. 61

Portugal’s MVSoccerP, Cristiano Ronaldo, is kicking off another season tantalizing us with his abstasticness as he models Emporio Armani Underwear. And I likey. (Ditto Megan Fox, btw.)

Perfect timing, I’d say. Half the world is watching Ronaldo’s every move out on the World Cup stage.

And now the other half is paying attention, too.

In related news, click here for a gallery of skivvies-wearing soccer stars.

You’re welcome.

Photo: People.com.

The Writers

Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman are set to play husband and wife in a new original HBO TV movie titled Hemingway & Gellhorn.

Owen will play Ernest Hemingway, while Kidman will play his third wife, Martha Gellhorn.

James Gandolfini is producing the movie, which has been a pet project of his that took him six years to get off the ground. Philip Kaufman (Quills) will direct.

A production date has yet to be set, but I gotta say that Owen and Kidman together on screen could and should make for an interesting thing to see.

Photo: ImageHost.com.

Halista!

Harrison For and Calista Flockhart have made it official.

After dating for more than eight years, the couple was married on Tuesday in Santa Fe, N.M., where Ford is shooting Cowboys & Aliens.

Congratulations and best wishes, you two!

Photo: SmackAMack.wordpress.com.

Come Up to Meet the Gleeks

After playing hardball all season long, Coldplay have said A-OK to letting Glee use their music beginning next season.

I can already here Lea Michele take on a wanting “A Message,” or belt out a mean “The Scientist.”

I just hope the powers that be choose their songs wisely....

Photo: KrishK.wordpress.com.

Just a Girl…Standing in Front of a Boy

Anne Hathaway is doing the rom thing again.

The Oscar nominee has signed on to star in an adaptation of David Nicholls’ One Day, a novel about a working-class woman’s romance with a charming rich man.

Jim Sturgess (21) is set to co-star in the movie, which Lone Scherfig (An Education) will direct for a 2011 release.

Photo: Polyvore.com.

Good Boys and Girl

I’m so glad to hear most of Friday Night Lights’ MVPs will go back to Dillon, Texas, for the fifth and final season of the show.

The Emmy-worthy Zach Gilford – if you don’t know what I mean then you’re clearly not watching the fourth season on NBC, and you obviously just lost like, seven points with me (just look at the actor’s face at right to get an idea) – will reprise his role as Matt for four episodes including the finale.

Also coming back? Adrianne Palicki and Taylor Kitsch, a.k.a. Tyra and Tim.

The former will guest in next season’s last two episodes, while the latter has signed on for the final four.

Loves it!

Photo: EW.com.

For Your Song of Summer Consideration

I know a lot of people already have annointed Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” as the song of summer for the year – the ditty could melt a popsicle, alright – but here I are, offering an option.

It’s quite likely because I live in Miami, but I think Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull’s “I Like It” is equally, if not way more deserving (East Coast in the house!).

It’s a synthy dance track, and it freakin’ samples Lionel Richie. Hello!

I’ll forgive the fact that it’s the song for the second season of MTV’s Jersey Shore, although I admit that Situation is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine.

And This Is How Rumors Live On...

I like how Courteney Cox thinks.

The Cougar Town star recently told the L.A. Times that she wishes Friends could pull a Sex and the City and go all silver screen on us.

“I wish we could do that,” Cox said. “The thing is, the characters from Sex and the City hopped all over Manhattan. On Friends, we were always stuck in the apartment and that coffeehouse.”

Lest you think otherwise, the actress did say, though, that no plans are in place for a Friends movie.

Photo: MollyBeckFerguson.com.

Urgh, One More Reason for Her to Think Herself a Queen

A movie about Cleopatra is reportedly in the works for Angelina Jolie to star in.

Super-producer Scott Rudin has purchased the film rights to an upcoming biography titled Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra: A Life, which “is being developed for and with Jolie.”

The Egyptian ruler was famously played by Elizabeth Taylor in a lavish 1963 film (La Taylor’s real-life love, Richard Burton, played Marc Anthony).

Jolie will next be seen in Salt late next month.

Photo: Flickr.com.

Update: She’s doing it, alright. Since La Jolie radiates the grace and the power the role calls for, she has signed on to play Cleopatra.

I cannot wait to see how the tabs spin this into a poor-Jennifer Aniston story.

All Four One and One Four All

I admit the moment I heard they were remaking The A-Team for the big screen I thought – still burned by the memory of Bewitched and The Dukes of Hazzard – that a movie adaptation would be a hot mess.

Thanks to co-writer-director Joe Carnahan, though, The A-Team is quite easily the best blockbuster so far this season.

Honestly, the movie’s totally rock ’n’ roll, relentlessly cheeky, and because of Liam Neeson, as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, and Bradley Cooper, oh-so-studly.

Neeson and Cooper, who plays Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck (and sooo should’ve been re-nicknamed “The Body” the actor got so ripped), are joined by District 9’s Sharlto Copley, as H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdoch, and Ultimate Fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in the role of B.A. Baracus.

The foursome slips into character effortlessly, perfectly cast and suited to complement one another. These men, like the plans they execute on screen, come together in a way audiences will love, trust.

The plot of the movie you know: Just as on the TV show upon which it’s based, it follows the members of an elite military unit looking to clear their names in the eyes of the military, which suspects them of a crime they didn’t commit.

They specialize in the ridikolous – like breaking out of maximum-security prisons in the most spectacular of ways, flying tanks, and being awesome 24/7 – so their considerable talents come in handy when they find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that may or may not involve Jessica Biel’s Capt. Charisa Sosa, a.k.a. an ex of Faceman’s, and/or Patrick Wilson’s shadowy CIA operative, Lynch.

The A-Team clocks in at almost two hours, but what a fun couple of hours it is. This is how you remake a TV show, smartly and with a touch or irreverence and just enough of a tip of the hat to the past. It so worked for Charlie’s Angels, and I’m beyond-glad Carnahan & Co. have a winning formula in their hands.

My Rating ****

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Tough Little Guy

I don’t remember a thing about 1984’s The Karate Kid, other than I would watch it with my grandpa on Saturday afternoons (dubbed, on TV, years after its release), and, of course, that it starred Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita.

What – it was an ’80s offering…that’s my lost decade when it comes to cinema.

And I have to say I wouldn’t have raced to see the Jaden Smith-starring update had it not been for an old friend who asked if I could take him and his nephews to a press screening last week.

There I was, though, sitting through The Karate Kid in a room full of nostalgics and young martial arts enthusiasts, actually enjoying myself as I watched the story of 12-year-old Dre Parker, a kid from Detroit adjusting to a new life in China after his auto industry-working mother (Taraji P. Henson always reliable, even when underwritten) is transferred to the Far East.

No sooner does Dre set foot in his new neck of the woods it becomes evident that he’s the ultimate fish out of water.

The kid doesn’t speak the language, he doesn’t know the ways, and he isn’t keen on the move. No one looks like him, no one sounds like him. He’s the wrong kind of special.

I would say he even has a bit of an attitude about it, but Smith can’t go there – he’s too young to tap into that gravitas effectively, and too focused on not turning Dre into a two-dimensional punk. Not to mention he’s kinda sorta burdened by an ebullience of Smith charisma (he’s Will and Jada’s son, after all). The boy’s going to have a long, healthy career, I tell ya.

But I digress.

To make matters worse, Dre’s caught the eye of a beautiful, violin-playing girl, a classmate named Mei Ying (Han Wen Wen) – and the feeling is mutual. Too bad her family and that of this other kid Cheng are close, which somehow means that this tweenager bully can claim her as his and treat her poorly.

Defending the girl’s honor, Dre gets his handed to him, his pseudo-karate moves shut down, in public, by Cheng.

Humiliated and alone – the kid’s much too proud to run home to mama – Dre eventually meets Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), his building’s maintenance man, who takes him under his tutelage and shows him the art of…kung freakin’ fu.

Why didn’t they call this one, a re-invention of a classic from casting to setting, Kung Fu Kid, I dunno. What I do know is it’s an enjoyable, albeit too long movie – honestly, Hollywood, edit! – that in the end will have you rooting for our boy as he goes from zero to hero, learning a few Important Lessons along the way.

My Rating ***

Photo: Columbia Pictures.

The Les Word

Coming on the heels of his outing as Les Grossman, the raunchy film producer he first played in 2008’s Tropic Thunder, at the MTV Movie Awards last weekend, Tom Cruise will reprise the role for a movie based on the character.

Tropic Thunder co-star and director Ben Stiller will co-write the screenplay.

It was only like, four days ago that Cruise adopted the Les Grossman persona once again for a sketch during the MTV awards show, as well as a live performance with Jennifer Lopez. Paramount, the studio behind the project, said, ever so cheekily, that it has “secured the life rights to Grossman,” who “recently mentored talents such as Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.”

Stiller, for his part, said, “Les Grossman’s life story is an inspiring tale of the human class struggle to achieve greatness against all odds. He has assured me he plans to quote ‘F---ing kill the s--- out of this movie and make Citizen f**king Kane look like a piece of crap home movie by the time we are done.’ I am honored to be working with him.”

This is going to be funny, I can tell.

Photo: MTV.com.

Ladies, You’re Both Pretty

Longtime BFF Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow reportedly are in a feud.

“They don’t speak,” a source said. “I can’t tell you exactly why they had the falling out, but Gwyneth can be jealous and competitive.”

Didn’t they supposedly have a tiff around this time last year…and then showed up to a party for Valentino in New York and hung out all night? You see the pic at right.

Anyway, supposedly, the row has deep roots and whatnot, and M’s divorce from Guy Ritchie is one of the reasons – the two have fewer things in common now. G.P. remains a married lady, to Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

I really hope the news is bogus, you know...because I have so much riding on this friendship.

Nah, I just like the idea of these two as friends.

Photo: People.com.

Update: A rep for Gwyneth Paltrow has debunked the rumor, saying the Oscar winner and M are very much still friends.

Ditto a Queen of Pop mouthpiece, who called the story “BS.”

Sisters

Since Paul Rudd is starring in the comedy My Idiot Brother, he, natch, is going to need sisters.

Three exciting actresses have been lined up to co-star opposite the Ruddster, and one of them is one of my favorites.

Elizabeth “She Better Getter and Darn Emmy for Guesting on 30 Rock!” Banks (pictured here) will play with her 40-Year-Old Virgin co-star’s aspiring-journalist sister), while Emily Mortimer will portray his perfect-mom sister, and Zooey Deschanel will take on the role of the lesbian sister.

No word on who will play their overbearing mother yet, but let’s face it, this movie just got even more must-y.

Photo: People.com.

Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay

Get her to...the place where they can help her!

Evidently, something “alcohol-related” set off Lindsay Lohan’s latest SCRAM bracelet on Sunday after the MTV Movie Awards, so the same Los Angeles judge who issued a warrant when the actress failed to show up to court last month, because she was so-called stuck in the south of France, issued another one today.

The judge found that Lohan had violated the terms of her bail and upped it to $200,000. A bond was later posted, sparing Lohan from being arrested until a hearing takes place next month.

President, CEO, chairman of the board, secretary, and janitor of the Lucky Club that girl.

L2, of course, tweeted that her “scram wasn’t set off,” blaming paparazzi for making stuff up and whatnot.

So tired.

Photo: EW.com.

Dentist, Dentist

Former ER doc John Stamos is gonna get his Glee on as a dentist.

The erstwhile Uncle Jesse is thisclose to signing on to appear on the Fox hit as the object of Emma’s (Jayma Mays) affection next season.

In fact, Emma will announce it to Mr. Schue (Matthew Morrison) during tonight’s season finale that she’s been dating her dentist for a bit now.

Oh, the drama.

Stamos is a fine choice, IMHO – the man is easy on the eyes and he’s done Broadway, most recently, in fact, Bye Bye Birdie.

Photo: DayMix.com.