No!!!

HBO has broken my heart a little.

The cabler has cancelled In Treatment, its terrific “therapy” show starring Gabriel Byrne.

Kinda.

For all intents and purposes, anyway.

“It’s true that we have no plans to continue with In Treatment as previously formatted,” the powers that be said. “However, we are in continued conversations with the executive producers to find another way to continue telling these rich stories.”

I feel like I should take part of the blame...which is sorta apropos since this is a drama about a psychotherapist and his life and work. I’ve only ever watched the show on DVD and I’m only halfway through the second season, so it’s not like I didn’t not contribute to the lack of healthy ratings.

I will miss my Dr. Weston and his engrossing chats.

Photo: Subs.gr.

The Case of S2

Two of my favorite things – TV’s The Good Wife and Sarah Silverman – are coming together.

The funny lady will be doing the guesting thing on the show later this season, as “the smart, funny owner of a sexually-explicit Web site, devoted to connecting married people who are looking to have affairs.”

And, as it would happen, a woman sues Silverman’s character, for she is sure that her husband was murdered as a result of using the site.

Enter Julianna Margulies’ Alicia and the rest of the best law firm on TV, which always delivers the highest caliber of drama, IMHO.

Photo: StereoGum.com.

Becks Likes His Pie

One can never have enough David Beckham, so I’m super-happy that the British footballer has stepped in front of a camera once again, this time for the journal Fantastic Man, which features him as the most demure I’ve seen him in…well, ever.

It’s a nice change of pace from the usual peddling of underwear – but not som’in’ I advocate he make a habit of, you know.

Among the things the East Londoner reveals is the one thing his misses most from his homeland.

“Being an East End boy, I do miss my pie and mash,” he said. “I’ve been living out of England for the last eight or nine years. Whenever I can get down there, I get down there.”

Well, ain’t that nice….

Photo: TMagazine.blogs.NYTimes.

Pretty Little Sleeper

The fairy tale obsession continues.

Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld may not have gotten The Hunger Games, but she may be getting her princess on in a Sleeping Beauty project currently in development.

The young actress is attached to a retelling of the classic story entirely from Princess Aurora’s POV, which reportedly means that, instead of her merely drifting into a deep coma and waiting for true love’s kiss to break the spell, she’ll now enter a hazardous “dream world” from which she must try to escape.

So...an active Sleeping Beauty. I like that.

Photo: GraziaDaily.co.uk.

The New Miss Marple

This will not be your mom and dad’s Agatha Christie heroine.

Jennifer Garner has been cast as a definitely more kick-ass Miss Marple, Christie’s amateur sleuth, in an update of the character’s adventures.

In Christie’s 12 M2 mystery novels, which were first published starting in 1930, the character was this elderly spinster in a small English village who, underneath her sweet-old-lady exterior, is a flinty and formidable crime solver.

That was then, and Garner – remember TV’s Alias? – is now.

Photo: MakeupBag.net.

The New Wave

It always happens: Hollywood people who do som’in’ eventually get the itch to do som’in’ else.

Jennifer Aniston is leading the charge for a group of women including Demi Moore and Alicia Keys that will be directing a new film endeavor for Lifetime called Project Five, five shorts that put together as one will depict the lives of different breast cancer sufferers.

“Our hope with Project Five is to entertain, inform, and inspire dialogue, research, and prevention. Otherwise, our goals are small,” Aniston said. “We want these films to move people and empower those affected by breast cancer to stand tall through this challenge, which impacts all of our lives, no matter who we are.”

Sounds interesting and very cool that these ladies are shining a light on this subject not in October only. And it gives them a chance to stretch, which is great: Aniston has directed before (a short called Room 10 for Glamour magazine), and so has Moore (a short called Streak). So good for them.

Photo: InStyle.com.com.

Going Under the Covers

This won’t please Auggie ’shippers: It looks like the sweet sexual tension between Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham’s character on USA Network’s Covert Affairs is getting a little more…tense now that an Aussie is hunking his way to the well-liked tube hit.

Ben Lawson – one of the stars of ABC’s defunct The Deep End – is joining the show as a charming Doctors Without Borders-type physician Annie (Perabo) meets when she takes her niece to the ER.

Sparks fly between the two because he gets how demanding her career is, although he doesn’t exactly need she works for the CIA.

Close calls will ensure, I’m sure.

Photo: TVFanatic.com.

The Handsome of the Wonder

Their choice of costume for Adrianne Palicki’s Wonder Woman may be – how can I put this kindly? – questionable, but NBC’s pick of leading man is fine.

Handsome Justin Bruening, who starred on the Peacock’s reboot of Knight Rider, has been tapped to play Steve Trevor, an (appropriately hot) army vet who now works in the Justice department.

He, of course, will be a potential love interest for Palicki’s Diana Prince.

Photo: BoyCulture.typepad.com.

It’s Lois

Another one of Hollywood’s most sought-after female roles has been filled.

Three-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams will play Lois Lane for Zack Snyder, joining Henry Cavill, Diane Lane, and Kevin Costner in the forthcoming Man of Steel reboot.

“Second only to Superman himself, the question of who will play Lois Lane is arguably what fans have been most curious about. So we are excited to announce the casting of Amy Adams, one of the most versatile and respected actresses in films today,” the director said. “Amy has the talent to capture all of the qualities we love about Lois: smart, tough, funny, warm, ambitious, and, of course, beautiful.”

Couldn’t agree more.

Adams is a thinking-man’s choice. She’s not an It Girl anymore but an It Woman, and that kinda gives her a kinda depth, you know what I mean? Her Lois will be taken...seriously (just, please, don’t wear a wig, Amy).

Photo: PyroRadio.com.

TV’s Gon’ Be Sexy in the Fall…

Adrian Pasdar is (probably) finally coming back to us – and to NBC.

The former Heroes star has signed on to do his first half-hour comedy, a project from the creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine.

The workplace comedy revolves around, a relationship-challenged woman (Sarah Paulson) who, with the help of her co-workers, guides people through unexpected career transitions.

Pasdar will play the super-confident guy she has drunk sex with in a bar restroom and eventually joins her company. Here’s to hoping the pilot has him shirtless quite a bit – that man is fine.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

The Broad-shouldered, Handsome Prince

Armie Hammer just got even dreamier.

The Social Network standout has landed the plum part of Prince Albert Alcott, a sorta Prince Charming, in the Snow White movie in which Julia Roberts is playing the Evil Queen.

There’s no word on who will play the fairest of them all in this project yet, but Kristen Stewart is playing her in Snow White and the Huntsman, a.k.a. the movie that has Charlize Theron as the queen (which is already in pre-production, btw).

Viggo Mortensen was in talks for the role of the huntsman, but has bowed out. Rumor has it he’s gunning for a role in the new Superman reboot.

Photo: GregInHollywood.com.

Up to Do His Thing

Hugh Jackman just wants to sing and dance.

Now that the Wolverine non-sequel sequel has fallen into development limbo (Darren Aronosky was going to direct…but had a last-minute change of heart – nothing dramatic, though), Jackman has decided to pack his bags and head for San Francisco.

Book. Me. A ticket because starting on May 3 – and for two weeks only – the Tony-winning Aussie will perform his favorite Broadway and Hollywood numbers in Hugh Jackman in Performance at the Curran Theatre with a 17-piece orchestra.

Nice!

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Impossible Love Story

Charlotte Brontë’s classic, gothic Jane Eyre is out on the big screen today, and that means that Michael Fassbender is out on it, too, and I love it.

Directed by Sin Nombre’s Cary Fukunaga, this latest take is fairly faithful to the original text, a beloved and influential Victorian staple about the titular young woman so incredibly mistreated by everyone and by life itself she goes about it with the most opposite of attitudes: a so-whatness so absolute and startling and unexpected it is the only way both she and us would have it.

Raised by her snotty aunt Sarah (Sally Hawkins) after her parents die of typhus, a young Jane proves to be too wicked and burdensome to her and is thus shipped off to a stark boarding school as the result of her perceived insolence.

There, she suffers greatly at the hands of the cold, unusually strict administration. Nevertheless, her indomitable spirit will not be broken, and although shunned by most everyone but one friend, she grows up into a fine young woman capable of great compassion and strength.

She’s som’in’ else that Jane Eyre.

Upon turning 18 and after completing her education, Jane (up-and-comer Mia Wasikowska, the heroine of last year’s Alice in Wonderland and one of the kids of The Kids Are All Right) finds work as a governess for the French ward of (the gorge) Edward Fairfax Rochester (Fassbender), master of Thornfield Hall.

Her new role affords Jane everything she has ever wanted and longed for: a home, but also a place where she’s not demeaned, honest work, and a sense of belonging and family (among the people she befriends there is Mrs. Fairfax, the head housekeeper played by Judi Dench).

She is as much of a hit as anyone in her position can be, and she even ingratiates herself to brooding Mr. Rochester, who takes a liking to her for in no small measure because of her outspoken and direct ways.

Eventually, Brontë fans will know (and after a few simmering will-they-or-won’t-they? moments, chief among them the one during which Jane stands up for herself and tells Mr. Rochester that just because she is poor, obscure, plain, and little she is not soulless and heartless and he shouldn’t play with her), the two become engaged to be married.

On what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, however, a secret is revealed, and the emotionally shattered governess takes flight, subsequently meeting the kindly clergyman St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) and his two sisters, with whom Jane begins a new life as a teacher under an assumed name.

Her passion for Rochester, though, burns bright in distance and time, prompting Jane to change her life again after learning a crucial secret about her own long-lost family.

There isn’t a whole lot I can say when it comes to the story, y’ know, since the powers that be haven’t taken any flagrant liberties in bringing it to the big screen.

Yeah, Fassbender’s Rochester isn’t as stern or rough or even as mean as he is in the book, but that’s not a bother to me – and purists shall be appeased by the fact that actor looks super-good in Victorian garb and has quite the commanding presence. And as Jane, Wasikowska (in what I am calling her early-Gwyneth turn) is a quiet dynamo.

Jane Eyre may not be as polished as, say, Joe Wright’s 2005’s Pride & Prejudice, but it has its moments (every scene between Jane and Mr. Rochester was, to me, tremendous edge-of-your-friggin’-seat stuff) and two stars who make the most of ’em. I would so visit it again with it. And I trust you will definitely check it out.

My Rating ***

Photo: Focus Features.

R.I.P. Dame Elizabeth

Today I woke up in Denver to the saddest news: Elizabeth Taylor has died at 79, of congestive heart failure, in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends.

Although for many that may seem like a lifetime, for her it was more than that: it was also a living legacy, for she was not only an accomplished actress but an activist who made a big difference in this world and will continue to do so long after she’s gone.

Yes, she had a penchant for marriages and for (stunning, enviable) jewelry, but she also knew what was important, and that was to give back.

Taylor was one of the first celebrities, if not the first celebrity to take a stand and help the world, really, to start to rid itself of the stigma associated to HIV/AIDS.

Her tireless work on behalf of amfAR was not only unparalleled but inspiring, and, if you look beyond the Oscars, the glitz and the glamour, and the men, it certainly is why beautiful Violet Eyes will be remembered the fondest.

A legendary icon has left us, but her memory remains.

What a welcome home party she must be getting.

Photo: WhyFame.com.

Going Private

Paging Benjamin Bratt.

The actor will be back on the small screen at the end of this season when he joins the cast of Private Practice in a top-secret role that will develop into a regular gig in the fall.

His arrival will coincide with the departure of original cast member Audra McDonald – but I’ll wager a guess he won’t be replacing her. Not exactly, anyway.

Photo: CrazyDaysAndNights.net.

Hey Mr. Theater Man

So you know – and I hope you know – how Lauren Graham’s character, Sarah Braverman on TV’s Parenthood, may have finally found her calling as a playwright?

Well, her new path may bring a new man along the way.

Steven Weber is joining the show as a potential love interest Graham on the season finale, playing a charismatic artistic director of the theater company to which Sarah’s budding work is submitted.

The door will be left wide open for Weber to return in the fall when (not if – you hear, NBC!) Parenthood premieres its third season.

Photo: BeckSmith Hollywood.com.

Keeping ‘Em On

Ewan McGregor has decided it’s time he keeps his clothes on in the movies.

The so-not-shy actor – who so has it and has flaunted it in movies like Trainspotting and Young Adam – has revealed that, from now on, he will remain fully clothed in his future projects, unless, of course, the story really, really calls for a little extra show of skin.

“I’m getting older and the actresses stay younger,” he recently said. “I don’t want to become Clint Eastwood, where his love interests seem 50 years younger than him. You never want female co-stars to feel like you’re taking advantage of the situation. Anyhow, sex scenes are terribly exposing and rarely of any use in learning about character.”

Photo: JollyPeople.com.

Gwyneth and Matthew...Sitting in the Recording Studio...

Glee fans and Gwyneth Paltrow haters shall rejoice when they hear this one: G.P. is going to be on Matthew Morrison’s upcoming solo debut, which already counts Elton John as a collaborator.

Morrison reportedly asked Paltrow to sing on the album during one of her guesting stints on the TV show. They will be covering a tune very familiar to the actor and his Glee fans: “Over the Rainbow” (he auditioned for the show with the song and performed it on the first season finale).

“People kind of know me for that song now,” he said. “I wanted to do a duet with a female. I thought that was a good song to do, and we really did a different arrangement of it. It’s a lot of strings, and it’s beautiful.”

With G.P. on it how could it not be?

Morrison’s self-titled debut will drop on May 10. You can give his single “Summer Rain” a listen here.

Photo: iGossip.com.

Daring Shutterbugs

Ryan Phillippe may be at the multiplex right now with The Lincoln Lawyer, but we can already look ahead at what’s coming up for the actor, especially because what’s ahead involves Taylor Kitsch (pictured here).

The Friday Night Lights MVP and future star of our our world is readying his assault on the big screen (he’s got the Battleship movie coming up, as well as John Carter of Mars), but up first he’s cutting his teeth with an indie.

Ktisch is starring with Phillippe and Malin Akerman in The Bang Bang Club, a drama based on the true-life experiences of four combat photographers capturing the final days of apartheid in South Africa.

The movie is due out in limited release on April 22, so check it if you have the chance.

Photo: Collider.com.

Let Her Have Cake

Well, it seems Marcia Cross won’t go without for too long on Desperate Housewives.

My favorite Housewife just broke up with Brian Austin Green on the TV show like, five minutes ago, right, but fans should expect her Bree to rebound nicely during the last four episodes of the season.

That’s when actor Jonathan Cake will join the cast as a handsome (duh), sexy (double-duh), college-educated police detective with strong family values who comes to Wisteria Lane to investigate a case.

The character will be back – and will stick around – next season.

Photo: ContactMusic.com.

Way to Go, Dan!

The gay community’s love affair with Daniel Radcliffe, one of its most dedicated – not to mention youngest – supporters, continues.

The Trevor Project, the suicide prevention group that the actor has supported for the past couple of years, will honor the artist a.k.a. Harry Potter this summer with its Hero Award.

“The people that are doing the heroic things are the people answering phones 24 hours a day in the Trevor call centers,” Radcliffe said, ever so humbly. “Out of everything that I’ve done so far in my career, I think this is absolutely one of the most important, if not the most important thing that I’m associated with.”

DanRad is currently back on Broadway – making his musical debut! – starring in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Photo: Details.com.

GLAAD for Ricky et al.

It was a fantastically gay weekend to be in New York City as GLAAD honored Ricky Martin, HBO’s True Blood, TV’s 30 Rock, and Russell Simmons at its 22nd Annual Media Awards ceremony.

The organization will celebrate other winners, including Kristin Chenoweth, at a ceremony in Los Angeles next month and at an event in San Francisco in May.

Martin, who received the Vito Russo Award as an out entertainer, encouraged GLAAD to further its cause in Latin America, offering to help spread its message throughout the region.

“Let’s share the love!” the headed-back-to-Broadway (hot) multi-hyphenate said. “Let’s go to Mexico! Let’s go to Colombia! Let’s go to Argentina! Let’s go to Chile! Let’s go to Brazil! We need you GLAAD – we need you down there. I can help, I can do it! I’ll be part of it. I want to be part of it.”

Good for him for wanting to effect change, alright.

Photo: People.com.

Horrible Boss

Heather Locklear is plotting her return to TV, and I, for one, am ready to welcome her with open arms.

The tube all-star has been cast in The Assistants, a CBS ensemble comedy pilot as a neurotic celebrity prone to wild mood swings.

Hope it works out better for her than the ill-fated Melrose Place reboot of a couple of seasons ago....

Photo: Boston.com.

Just Like a Pill

Drugs are baaad, kiddos – just don’t tell Bradley Cooper’s character in the trippy Limitless (he won’t listen).

Cooper plays Eddie Morra in this oh-so-stylish executive produced-by-him movie.

Eddie’s a shaggy, kinda dirty-looking underachiever who somehow has a book contract and a pile of blank pages waiting at home. Otherwise unemployed, he’s managed to hold on to Lindy (Abbie Cornish), his beautiful girlfriend who – oh, wait...she’s done and out of his life shortly after we meet him. The guy’s pretty adrift in New York City, going nowhere fast.

So, of course he’ll have a chance encounter with his old brother-in-law, right, who comes back into his miserable life bearing a gift: NZT, a revolutionary, supposedly FDA-approved new pharmaceutical that promises to unlock it all (the drug, brother-in-law explains, allows the taker to access 100 percent of his/her brain, not just the usual 20 percent).

And that is how good ol’ Eddie’s life changes from one reluctant moment to the other: a pop of NZT rushes him with clarity, with knowledge...with purpose. In the hours after his first fix, he talks his way out of late rent and into his landlord’s wife’s pants, cleans his ew- filthy apartment, and bangs out like, 40 pages of his previously inexistent book (which his editor devours).

He’s hooked.

The next day, he’s gotta have more, so he pays brother-in-law a visit, but stuff happens and he begins to realize NZT is serious business and that people definitely will kill for it. I don’t want to spoil things, so let’s just say he gets his fix and then some, whaddya say?

Armed with a stash of infinite possibility, Eddie goes on a wild self-improvement bender – he gets a fancy haircut, he starts working out and learning languages...just absorbing and tapping into long-lost knowledge, he gets fancy suits custom made, he starts playing the stock market (catching the attention of many a big Wall Street player, including Carl Van Loon, a tycoon with questionable intentions played by one Robert De Niro), and he seduces Lindy back.

Drugs can’t be that bad, he figures as he keeps on climbing...as he keeps on living.

They do come at a high cost, though, which he realizes someone bad is following him, when people start dying...when he, uh, starts skipping freakin’ time. With his life in jeopardy and the drug’s brutal side effects starting to take their toll, not to mention the fact that he’s teetering on grody-junkie territory, Eddie has to smart up but fast if he wants to stay alive.

The Hangover is the movie that made Cooper a household name, but this one’s the one that could very well make him a star. It’s not a perfect offering – mind you, it’s a bit of a high itself, especially when it gets all dangerous – but if it hits, it will open up a limitless world of opportunity for the actor. He’s got the charisma for it, and a go-for-broke attitude that sets him apart, which makes him oh-so-special and watchable and, to borrow a Sheenism, winning.

My Rating ***

Photo: Relativity Media.

Hatchet Woman

Chloë Sevigny is ready for life after Big Love.

The celebrated indie It Girl will be sticking around the place she called home for the last handful of years – HBO – to star in a two-part, four-hour miniseries about Lizzie Borden.

And no, Lizzie Borden is not some just-too-cool dowtown New Yorker lady who gives everyone around her the jellies, but, actually, a Massachusetts woman who in 1892, at the age of 32, was acquitted of murdering her father and step-mother with a hatchet.

So not a fee-good story.

Photo: WhosDatedWho.com.

Would You Hire This Man?

The first time I saw an anything about The Lincoln Lawyer – be it a pap shot of star Matthew McConaughey on set or the tease for the trailer on Yahoo! Movies – I thought to myself, Oh there goes the Shirtless Wonder...doing another rom-com....

He just looked sooo shiny. I figured he probably would be playing another shtick-y charmer. That’s how little I’ve come to expect from the guy, you know...how unsurprised I anticipate I’ll be the next time he takes to the silver screen.

Boy, was I wrong.

The Lincoln Lawyer is not more of the same ol’, same ol’ for McConaughey. It’s a bit of a return to form for the actor who first made a splash onto the Hollywood scene with a star-making turn as a lawyer in A Time to Kill back in the mid-’90s. He’s stretching his acting muscle once again, not just his biceps, for he is playing, yeah, a bit of a shyster, but a bright one at that, as well as a family man who grows a conscience when he takes on a case that confronts everything he’s about, in and out of the courtroom.

McConaughey plays Mick Haller in this adaptation of Michael Connelly’s best-selling thriller. Mick, a divorced dad, is a slick lawyer whom I recently heard the McC describe on the radio as the kind of guy who would’ve thrived as a top-dollar Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer had he been equipped for that kinda job and life (check out why he was attracted to the part here). He wasn’t, though, and that is why he runs his business from the back of his Lincoln, defending lowlifes.

He figures it’s easier to defend people who are, by all intends and purposes, guilty, and he’s quite good at what he does because he knows how to work the system, you see, which obviously hasn’t really endeared him to be LAPD or the DA’s office (Marisa Tomei pops up as his friendly and smart and sexy ex, who, btw, is a prosecutor, to humanize Mick).

Everything begins to...change for Mick when he meets Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe), a good-looking, high-profile, moneyed playboy with a penchant for semantics who thinks he’s God’s gift.

Louis has specifically asked for Mick after being accused of assault and rape. The latter doesn’t really know why, but he takes the case, anyway, because he is curious and it seems straightforward enough and oh-so-profitable. This, it soon becomes evident, was too good to be true, and their privileged relationship soon develops into a deadly match between two masters of manipulation.

The Lincoln Lawyer works hard to entertain, to keep us plugged into its pretzel-like twists, and McConaughey is super-salty in it.

It’s got a strong supporting cast, like Phillippe (playing sleazy much too well for his sake) and Tomei and William H. Macy, who pops up as Mick’s investigator BFF.

And although it definitely has a few blind spots – what, exactly, was the point of Tomei, other than to provide strength to an otherwise thankless role...and could Mick really have had such an easy time coming out of the high-stakes tight corner against which he found himself in the second half of the movie? – it is well worth a ride-along.

My Rating ***

Photo: Lionsgate Films.

The Producing Band

Coldplay are moving into the film industry.

The foursome is staying behind the camera, though, to produce (i.e., finance) the film noir Ashes, a project that will star Ray Winstone, Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe), Lesley Manville (Another Year), Jodie Whittaker, and Luke Evans.

This will be Mat Whitecross’ follow-up to Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.

Photo: Idolator.com.

Mr. Kent

Diane Lane just got a new on-screen hubby.

Kevin Costner has been cast as Clark Kent/the Man of Steel’s (Henry Cavill) adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, in Zack Snyder’s forthcoming Superman movie.

“Jonathan Kent is the only father figure Clark has ever had, the man who was there to help Clark understand what he was meant to do in the world as Superman,” the director said. “Kevin will be able to communicate the quiet strength of this rural American man who raised the greatest super hero of all time.”

Agreed.

Alright – who’s gon’ play Lois Lane? Will the character even be in the movie? Give us a hint, y’all.

Photo: FilmPopper.com.

Here They Come to Save the Day

Charlie’s Angels are back...and they’re in Miami, bitch.

Earlier this week Rachael Taylor and Minka Kelly and Annie Ilonzeh hit South Beach’s Ocean Drive to shoot scenes of the Charlie’s Angels TV reboot that Drew Barrymore & Co. (that is, the team behind the successful movie revamp) is developing for the fall.

The lovely trio hit the Savoy Hotel on SoBe, and, as you can see, looked super in the process.

The show is expected to stick around Miami should be pilot go to series, so ABC better get – I want these Angels to stay.

Photo: EW.com.

Keep Your Commitment, Thanks!

He’s emotionally unavailable, she’s emotionally damaged.

He is Justin Timberlake, and she is the impossibly It Mila Kunis, and together these two are starring in this summer’s Friends with Benefits, a.k.a. not No Strings Attached:

Look for this one to spice up summer in July.

Turning to the Funny

Megan Fox is hoping comedy can redeem her standing in Hollywood.

The PR-embattled actress reportedly is in talks to join the cast of Judd Apatow’s next movie, which could prove to be her smartest move, IMHO, for, if you ask moi, Fox literally stumbled onto her career after Lindsay Lohan decided to flush hers down the toilet with any evidence of her stoopidity (if y’ know what I mean).

An Apatow joint is always in need of a sexy girl who can keep up with the antics of its boy-centric, so this could prove to be just what Brian Austin Green’s wife needs.

Photo: JoesDaily.com.

Hart Tugger

Scott Porter (pictured here), one of Friday Night Lights’ MVPs and the current portrayer of Archie Panjabi’s antagonist on The Good Wife, has lined up his next TV gig over at The CW.

The actor will romance Rachel Bilson’s Dr. Zoe Hart in Josh (TV’s Chuck, Gossip Girl) Schwartz’s Hart of Dixie.

Speaking of Schwartz, click here to find out what one of his other players, Kevin Zegers, is up to this pilot season, as well as where Lauren Cohan (The Vampire Diaries) could be seen in the fall.

Photo: TVSquad.com.

Found Katniss

And The Hunger Games’ leadind lady is...Jennifer Lawrence.

The actress has landed the coveted role of Katniss Everdeen after an exhaustive search during which many a name was mentioned as a possibility.

I can see why Lawrence was chosen: she obviously has the chops – she was nominated for an Oscar this year for her turn in Winter’s Bone – and she projects a physical strength that I can only imagine helped set her apart from all the other young ladies who wanted the part (Katniss is girl who joins a survival contest in order to save her dystopian-future community).

Lawrence was recently seen in the Sundance hit Like Crazy, and will soon be seen in X-Men: First Class and The Beaver.

The Hunger Games, which may co-star Hunter Parrish as the franchise’s male lead, Peeta Mellark, is due out on March 23, 2012.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Update: Check out why director Gary Ross is calling going with Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, “the easiest casting decision of my life.”

Yummy Peeta

Now, this is exciting….

Weeds cutie-patootie Hunter Parrish could have just snagged his breakout part as Peeta Mellark, the male lead of the highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of The Hunger Games.

“I’ve met the producers,” the young, hunky up-and-comer said. “I’d be grateful to get the opportunity. Like, really grateful. It would be amazing.”

Hear, hear.

No word yet on who will play director Gary Ross’ Katniss Everdeen, although several names have been mentioned recently, among them leading contenders Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), Abigail Breslin, Saoirse Ronan, Emma Roberts, and Lyndsy Fonseca (TV’s Nikita).

Photo: SuperHeroHype.com.

The Gays (Still) Love the Queen

Madonna is, of course, gracing one of the covers of Out’s Ladies We Love Issue (onetime heiress apparent Britney Spears is on the only other one).

The cool thing is the powers that be decided to put together an oh-so-cool look at the early days of the Queen of Pop that features never-before-seen photos of the icon.

Sweet!

Photographer Richard Corman remembers hanging out with M in summer ’82, saying she “was like the Pied Piper of the neighborhood – [people] loved her. They followed her, they danced with her, they sang with her. It was something they did on a daily basis, and it was remarkable. We just walked up and they gathered around. She put the boom box on – it was her music [obviously!], though I don’t remember which song – and they just started dancing and singing.

“She was so alive and unpretentious. She was fierce, determined. Nothing was going to stop her.”

And you know what – nothing did.

Long live the Queen!

Photo: EW.com.

Look Who’s Getting Her Bitch On

Pilot season is in full swing, and the lovely Kristin Chenoweth has tossed her name into the hat of hopefuls for next fall.

The Pushing Daisies Emmy winner has joined the cast of Good Christian Bitches, an ABC pilot produced by Darren Star.

Chenoweth will co-star alongside Leslie Bibb, Annie Potts, and Marisol Nichols, among others, in the sexy Dallas-set drama, playing a former mean girl who returns home to after her marriage ends in scandal.

Will the titular characters welcome her with open arms…or will they make her life as miserable as she used to back in school.

I guess we’ll maybe find out later this year.

Photo: VEntertainmentOnline.com.

Update: Looks like La Cheno’s character’s love life won’t have always been so tragic: David James Elliott (TV’s JAG) is going to play her estranged husband.

Keep Your CPR

Do look know and open your ears, mofos, because Robyn just dropped a new song, and it is a goody.

The Swedish star has reteamed with her countrymen the Teddybears for “Cardiac Arrest,” a beyond-catchy tune that’s giving me the right kind of palpitations.

Make her a star, already, people. Come on!

Photo: Gangster.SquareSpace.com.

Trying to Make It Work

Is couples therapy in the cards for Sarah Jessica Parker?

Maybe – that is, of course, if she signs on to do Married and Cheating.

SJP, and Marisa Tomei, are eyeing roles in the rom-com-ish project, a movie about three unhappy married couples trying to recapture the sparkle.

The actress is currently at work on I Don’t Know How She Does It, a comedy about a harried career woman/mother with too much on her plate – and harbors a desire to eventually do a third Sex and the City movie.

Photo: Allure.com.