Zookeeper

Writer-director Cameron Crowe’s next movie, the anticipated based-on-a-true-story We Bought a Zoo stars Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson and Elle Fanning, so you know I’m excited about it.

Check out the trailer of this oh-so-Crowe affair, which features a man on a journey, an epic I-quit-my-job scene, great music – y’ know, many of the director’s staples:

We Bought a Zoo opens this Christmas.

And You Can Tell Everybody This Is Your Song

Adele’s “Someone Like You” slays me – because it’s such an amazing song, because its emotion is so raw, because I could have written it had I had like, an iota of the talent the British sensation does....

Now we have a video to go with it, a stark, black-and-white, Paris-set meditation on...heartbreak.

Ah, yes – “Someone Like You” like may be a love song, but it’s a song about love after love. And Adele is (re)living that pain for our enjoyment (remember, her sophomore smash, 21, of which this track is a single, was inspired by a relationship that went sour on her).

The song is about her knowing, realizing, accepting that her ex has moved on and is very happy with somebody else.

The video has her walking around Paris, shooting glances at us. And it’s almost as if she’s following her former, knowing we know she’s doing something she shouldn’t, only to then catch up with him, and lose him all over again. She’s still shellshocked in the end, but resigned to seeing him walk away.

Perhaps I’m reading into it way too much, but that’s the beauty of “Someone Like You.” It just speaks to me. And I heart it.

Photo: YouTube.com.

Looking Intense There, Tommy

Well, hey, Tom Cruise...I am loving the look in the Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol poster, man.

Do we get one of Josh Holloway, too?

C’mon, say it’s coming, powers that be.

Photo: EW.com.

The Lady Is a Vamp...and a Witch

Kristin Bauer van Straten is taken her time off as Pam, one of HBO’s True Blood MVPs, to get a little wicked.

Maker that more wicked.

The actress has signed on to guest on the upcoming ABC fantasy Once Upon a Time, which stars Ginnifer Goodwin and Jennifer Morrison, as Maleficent, the evil sorceress from Sleeping Beauty.

Bauer van Straten is set to appear on the show’s second episode airing late next month.

Photo: TrueBlood-News.com.

He Holds the Key


Come Christmas, we will get an on-screen pairing we never knew we should’ve seen ages ago: that of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.

The Oscar winners are co-starring in Stephen (Billy Elliot, The Hours) Daldry’s adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel Extremely Close & Incredibly Loud. Which, trust, looks super-good.

They play the parents of a gifted boy (newcomer Thomas Horn) who sets off to unlock the secrets held by a mysterious key left behind by his father (Hanks), who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

His quest leads him to touch the lives of a number of people, including Viola Davis, James Gandolfini, and Max von Sydow. And to weave a story that will surely have us reaching for a hanky.

Can’t wait, really, especially because Daldry has yet to disappoint.

Photo: HeyUGuys.co.uk.

Here Comes Trouble, Klaine

Looks like happy days are coming to an end – ish – for Klaine, Glee’s golden gay couple, Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss).

The powers that be have cast theater up-and-comer (and all-around cutie-patootie) Grant Gustin to play a gay Dalton Academy Warbler who will put the moves on Blaine.

Evidently, the troublemaker will be totally not Kurt, and more like Santana (Naya Rivera), meaning kinda slutacious and on the scheming side. Gustin’s character is described as a major season for the show’s third season.

Kurt better file his claws – sounds like he’s gon’ needed ’em.

Photo: Homorazzi.com.

Wet Guns on Display

I have said it once, an I am sure I have it twice, and I will say it again: Dayum, Hugh Jackman.

Whoever is in charge of tourism in Australia needs to cut this guy a check because I am so hitting Bondi Beach as soon as I marry ric...I mean, as soon as I can afford it.

If life’s a beach, then Jackman should be its king (and I his faithful servant).

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

A World of Jess

I seems the era of Jessica Chastain is just getting started.

The actress, who broke through and then some this year with turns in The Tree of Life, The Help, and The Debt, is joining Tom Cruise in his next project, effectively adding some more buzz to the entire proposition.

Chastain will play the female lead, a.k.a. the Cruiseter’s love interest, in Joseph Kosinski’s still-untitled (f.n.a. Oblivion) follow-up to TRON: Legacy, a movie set in an apocalyptic future where the majority of humankind lives above the clouds.

I have only one thing to say about this: Yes for Jess!

Photo: FilmFestivalToday.com.

And As Gabriel

Casey Affleck, an angel?

Yeah, that’s what it looks like will the case if the actor joins Bradley Cooper and Benjamin Walker in Paradise Lost. Affleck would play the archangel Gabriel in the 3-D adaptation of the John Milton poem.

Meanwhile, guess who the powers that be want to play Adam and Eve.

Come on, guess.

No? OK. Diego Boneta (who will make a splash next year in Rock of Ages) and Camilla Belle.

Photo: Technorati.com.

Well, Hello, Sean Maher!

I did not know Firefly and Serenity alumnus Sean Maher had a role on TV’s The Playboy Club, otherwise I might’ve watched the show’s pilot last week.

Evidently, the actor plays a closeted man in the period piece, and he saw the gig as the perfect opportunity to knock down the closet’s door and come out as a gay man today.

“I was nervous [about talking about his sexuality to Entertainment Weekly, which got the exclusive revelation],” he said. “But it’s so liberating. It was interesting to have a conversation that I was always afraid to have."

Maher, who’s been in a relationship with another man for almost a decade, with whom he has to children, thought that it was time to conquer his fear and live out loud and in the open.

“This [time, this role on The Playboy Club] is my coming out ball. I’ve been dying to do this.”

Glad you did, cutie (and nice guns, btw).

Photo: EW.com.

This Hotness Has Got to Tour, Already

Jennifer Lopez has pulled off her comeback beautifully – there’s no doubt about it, especially not after her scorcher of a performance at the iHeartRadio Festival in Las Vegas over the weekend.

Dayum, girl!

For someone who was never known for her vocals, she certainly sounded good, and, yeah, she looked even gooder.

Gal pal pulled out all the stops working it through crowd-pleaser after crowd-pleaser, opening her set with “Get Right,” going old school with a medley that included “Ain’t That Funny” and “I’m Real,” and makin’ ’em get loud with more current hits like “On the Floor” and “Papi.”

Jenny, it’s time you hit the touring block, already ’cause, honey, you’re only getting better.

Photo: People.com.

She Has It...So She Is Sharing

The party don’t stop when you’re Rihanna, who’s just put out a new single to get the word out for an upcoming new, still-untitled record she has coming out in November.

I guess she really won’t stop the music, huh.

A good thing since her latest, the lyrically minimalistic, already-remixed-sounding, Calvin Harris-produced “We Found Love,” is the s---.

Bonus point for the air of early-Madonna the art for the single is rockin’.

Photo: EW.com.

Out of the Shadows
Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows is officially happening.

I say that because there now is an official first photo from the production, which is now underway, and as you can see, it looks like all kinds of Burtonian goodness.

Standing right smack in the center of the image is Burton’s leading man of choice, of course, one Mr. Johnny Depp, and surrounding him are Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Helena Bonham Carter, among others.

Looks good, huh.

Photo: EW.com.

The Mother of All Roles...Maybe

Katie Holmes is headed back to TV for a minute.

The actress will play a pivotal role on How I Met Your Mother this season, that of a character named – get this – Slutty Pumpkin, a woman that was first referenced during the show’s freshman season six years ago.

Blast from the Past Alert much?

Photo: Glamour.com.

Extreme Measure

Sam Worthington plays a man forced to take a stand in Man on a Ledge (which is not to be confused with The Ledge, btw).

The amazing Aussie plays an escaped framed convict who attempts to clear his much-maligned name with a suicide stunt, which his little brother (Jamie Bell) sees as the perfect opportunity to misbehave.

Or so it seems.

Elizabeth Banks co-stars, so you know I’m so there.

Photo: FlicksAndBits.com.

Lisbeth, Mikael...Could You Get Here, Already?

A few weeks ago I went to a screening that started with an extended look at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that was welcomed with rapturous awe followed by applause.

A sanitized version of that trailer hit today, and so I give it to ya for your viewing pleasure:

Imagine it more aggressive, fouler, louder...and bigger (watching it on your computer will not do it justice), and you will be only scratching the surface of how awesome this latest David Fincher offering, starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, could really be when it opens in December.

I. Cannot. Wait for it.

A Musical for G.P.

Ryan Murphy hearts Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Glee boss is planning on reuniting with his golden girl, no, not on the small screen but on the big one once again (he directed her in Running with Scissors a few years ago).

“We want to do a musical together,” Murphy revealed recently. “An original – I want to write an original movie for Gwyneth and [G.P.’s real-life lifelong friend – they went to school together, if memory serves] Maya Rudolph, both of whom I’m great friends with. That’s all I will say.”

Well, Ry, that’s enough to get me all excited.

Make. It. Happen.

Photo: Vogue.com.