Wednesday, April 30, 2014

He Is the Danish Girl

Some movies are easy to make, and some are not.

It would seem The Danish Girl falls in the latter category.

I have been hearing about the love story between transsexual Danish painter Einar Wegener and his wife since 2009, when both Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow were attached to star in it.

Jupiter Ascending’s Eddie Redmayne is now reuniting with his Misérables director Tom Hooper for it, though, and taking on the role Kidman was going to at that point – that of one the first men ever to undergo operations to become a woman back in 1930.

Photo: TheTimes.co.uk.

The Lady of the Tupperware Parties

Films about household items and the ladies who helped elevate their popularity seem to be raging in Hollywood.

Let’s see...there’s the Jennifer Lawrence-David O. Russell project about the inventor of the Miracle Mop.

And now there’s a movie about the rise of Tupperware that Sandra Bullock has her Oscar-winning eye ondon’t you know, don’t you know.

The still-untitled project – to be directed by The Help’s Tate Taylor, who wrote the script based on the non-fiction book Tupperware Unsealed – will tell the story of Brownie Wise, the trailblazing saleswoman who began throwing Tupperware parties in the ’50s and thus contributed to their It-ness.

Bullock, of course, would play Wise, a pioneering lady, yet an early example of the sexism that permeated her time.

Photo: Fashnberry.com.

She Keeps Singin’ a Song

Breaking up may be hard to do – but Gwyneth Paltrwow’s gonna make the most out of her every day, no matter what.

Which is why G.P. jumped at the chance to sing back-up for someone named Holly Williams (a pal, I presume – and the granddaughter of legendary country crooner Hank Williams Sr.) when she opened for someone named Jason Isbell a couple of nights ago at the Roxy in L.A.

Further proof that a conscious uncoupling is better for the soul than a nasty divorce.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

R.I.P. Eddie Valiant

Academy Award-nominated British actor Bob Hoskins has passed away.

The Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Super Mario Bros. star died yesterday, following a bout with pneumonia, at age 71.

Hoskins was up for an Oscar in 1987, for his work in the 1986 crime drama Mona Lisa.

He also appeared in movies like Brazil and Maid in Manhattan.

Photo: Examiner.com.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The New Star Warriors

Sorry, Jesse Plemons et al., but The Force musta been stronger with him, for there was something to the rumor: Adam Driver is gonna take a break from playing with Girls to venture into a galaxy far, far away.

The Emmy-nominated actor is among the confirmed cast members of J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII.

Also just announced?

My, Inside Llewyn Davis star Oscar Isaac and About Time’s Domhnall Gleeson (both pictured here with Driver), newcomer Daisy Ridley, Andy freakin Serkis, Max von Sydow, and – hold on to your lightsabers! – original-trilogy stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill. Among others.

Star Wars: Episode VII is due out on Dec. 18, 2015.

Photos: Adam Driver (Talkbacker.com); Oscar Isaac (EZ103.CBSLocal.com); Aaron Paul (TheSundayTimes.co.uk).

Update: Check out this cast photo, which also includes British actor John Boyega, who will soon be seen on TV’s 24: Live Another Day.

Tony’s Getting Ready...

And the Tony might go to...not Bullets Over Broadway.

Which, btw, I just saw last weekend and quite enjoyed (Zach Braff makes for one heckuva good stand-in for Woody Allen).

Or Daniel Craig, who hit Broadway again, with his wife Rachel Weisz, last fall in Betrayal.

Or Daniel Radcliffe or Denzel Washington, who are back on the Great White Way in The Cripple of Inishmaan and in A Raisin in the Sun, respectively, or Zachary Quinto, who was said to be dazzling in The Glass Menagerie last summer.

Or Michelle Williams or Alan Cumming, who just opened the revived Cabaret.

No, the Tony this year might go to Neil Patrick Harris for his turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Or Sutton Foster, who is playing Violet for her Bunheads producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, or Chris ODowd for his work in Of Mice and Men.

Or Audra McDonald, who is gunning for her sixth Tony in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.

Or Nick Cordero (pictured here, with Braff), who steals Bullets Over Broadway.

Or...oh, just check out who got nominated for a Tony Award this morning, and be sure to watch the Hugh Jackman-hosted show on June 8.

It is gonna be a good one.

Photo: BroadwayWorld.com.

Grease Living

Since NBC came alive, ratings-wise, with its Sound of Music Live! special event last December, Fox is getting in on the same game.

Oh yeah, it is on: The powers that be at the network are prepping Grease Live for 2015.

The production will be a live – duh – three-hour version of the Broadway high-school musical classic that inspired the 1978 John Travolta-Olivia Newton-John film.

No word on casting yet.

Up first, though, the Peacock will do it again. In case you missed it, NBC will stage a live production of Peter Pan this December.

Casting for that has yet to be announced. Although Bill Murray did throw his name in the hat a few months ago. Jokingly, of course.

Photo: EW.com.

Falling on His Sword

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin wants us to stop vilifying Gwyneth Paltrow, OKRRR, for it was – from what I think he is suggesting – his idea to consciously uncouple” after 11 years of marriage.

So who or what is to blame?

Evidently, as he just told the BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, his inability to truly open up and feel love amidst all his success and whatnot.

“This [split] was more a realization about trying to grow up basically. If you can’t open yourself up, you can’t appreciate the wonder inside.

So you can be with someone very wonderful [like G.P.], but because of your own issues you cannot let that be celebrated in the right way.

And there you have it.

Photo: HelloMagazine.com.

Monday, April 28, 2014

The Night at CBS Keeps A-changin’

Craig Ferguson is following in David Letterman’s footsteps.

The Late Late Show host has announced that he, too, is leaving his post – after a decade on the job – when his contract with CBS expires at the end of the year.

Cue up the Chelsea Handler rumor once again (since she did not get the Late Show gig...).

Anyway, Ferguson pulled a Gwyneth and Chris Martin when he said that he and the Eye Network are “consciously uncoupling” in December. And then he put his own trademark spin on the news.

“We will still spend holidays together and share custody of the fake horse and robot skeleton, both of whom we love very much,” he told the audience present at the taping for tonight’s show.

Wonder what he’s got cookin’.

Photo: FloridaTheatre.com.

Update: Watch Ferguson announce he may take up carpentry next, y’all.

On the Run They Go

Beyoncé and Jay Z are hoping that the couple that goes on a summer stadium tour together sticks together.

Because they are.

Going on tour. And, fingers crossed, sticking with each other after all is sung, rapped, and done.

Yes, the Carters are going On the Run” this summer (she does have a visual album to keep promoting and perform, after all; he just loves touring, I guess), and they are kicking things off in my beloved Miami on June 25.

The lot of the tickets for the shows – which run through Aug. 5 – will go on sale on May 2, but if ya fancy and you’re some sort of VIP you can probably get your tickets starting tomorrow.

This, needless to say, is gonna be massive.

Photo: EW.com.

The Justice League Is Assembling

It’s finally happening: The Justice League is coming together.

Man of Steel director Zack Snyder has been asked to follow up 2016’s Superman vs. Batman, f.p.k.a. Batman vs. Superman, with a Justice League blockbuster that will finally see Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg assemble.

What?!

The Justice League movie is scheduled to hit theaters summer 2018.

Let the casting speculation for who will join Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, and Gal Gadot in the project begin.

Think theyll ask Ryan Reynolds back for more, to redeem his turn as Green Lantern?

Photo: EW.com.

Swingin’ Saturday Night Man

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is ready to swing into theaters later this week, and, after an extensive worldwide promo tour that kicked off in Australia late in March, star Andrew Garfield will bring it all home to Peter Parker’s New York City stomping grounds this Saturday.

That’s right: Garfield is hosting SNL with musical guest Alicia Keys Coldplay.

This will be the first time the actor has hosted the show. Coldplay, meanwhile, will be joining the Five-Timers Club, as this will be their fifth time on the show.

Photo: DailyMail.co.uk.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

We’re Gonna Have to Ice Skate Home...

Hell just froze over.

Longtime avowed bachelor George Clooney is engaged!

Oh yeah, ladies and gents that were hoping the guy liked gents: Clooney has taken himself off the market – much to his own surprise, I bet.

The Oscar winner reportedly recently went and popped the question to his smarty pants new girlfriend, British international-law attorney Amal Alamuddin (pictured here with him while on safari last March).

The two have been seeing each other since like, last October.

Alamuddin is Clooney’s first serious gf since he and Stacy Keibler broke up last summer – and the first woman he has wanted to ring since like, ever (the guy was married once before, from 1989 to 1993, to actress Talia Balsam; “I wasn’t very good at it,” he has said).

Imma go cry now.

Photo: People.com.

Update: Urgh.

Check out the ring Clooney presented to Alamuddin.

Nice!

Mother Voice

And for her next gig, Meg Ryan will...not be seen.

Do not cue up any bad-face-work jokes; this is serious.

Ryan has signed on to pull a Bob Saget and play – ish – the narrator of the buzzy How I Met Your Dadthe Greta Gerwig-starring “kindred-spirit spin-off to TV’s How I Met Your Mother.

Mmm...wonder what this means for the untitled Marc Lawrence comedy she was working on for NBC.

Photo: People.com.

A Gladiator No More

Imma gonna guess that if you are a leading man on TV’s Scandal who isn’t presidential or president-adjacent, you are not meant to have a long-lasting good time off-camera.

Columbus Short – who is in the midst of an ugly-sounding divorce complete with allegations of domestic abuse and even death threats (following a late-March arrest for fighting in a bar) – is leaving the hit Shonda Rhimes property and is not expected to be back for the fourth season this fall.

Rumor has it he got canned.

Short’s departure from the show made me think of Henry Ian Cusick’s.

The erstwhile Desmond Hume from TV’s Lost left Scandal in a cloud of, well...sorta-scandalous dust after its short freshman season in 2012, some saying because the actor did not learned any lessons from a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him in 2009, others – like Rhimes – later arguing that his exit was purely a mutually agreed-upon creative decision.

Which, two years later, Cusick has echoed.

Betcha that will not be the case with Short, though.

Photo: TMZ.com.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Jem Has Been Found

From country to truly, truly, truly outrageous rock-pop, Aubrey Peeples is officially happening.

So remember her name.

The Nashville starlet has landed the part of Jerrica Benton – a.f.n.a. Jem! – in the forthcoming, crowdsourced Jon M. Chu-directed live-action adaptation of the 1980s situation Jem and the Holograms.

The movie, which is reportedly already in production, will revolve around a trip across L.A. that orphan teen Jerrica goes on, following clues that may lead her and her sister Kimber to their long-lost dad.

Now...who is gonna voice Synergy?

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

The Undead QB?

Almost It Boy Patrick Schwarzenegger is making another play – since trying to break through at the same time his dad was going through his cheating scandal kinda backfired.

The Grown Ups 2 star has signed on to scare up some laughs in a new comedy-horror movie called Scouts vs. Zombies.

Young Schwarzenegger will play a popular high school quarterback in the project, which will center on a troop of Boy Scouts who go up against a herd of zombies.

Alrighty then.

Photo: GlamourMagazine.co.uk.

Washed Ashore

So does this mean we will get an update on his shirtlessness?

Scott Speedman is set to play a mysterious man who washes up on a remote island during a most-violent storm, bleeding from a gunshot wound, in October Gale.

The luminous Patricia Clarkson will co-star as the recently widowed doctor who takes him in and who realizes that the shooter who tried to do him in in the first place has found them and is ready to finish the job.

Uh oh.

Photo: MACKBLOGMACK.blogspot.com.

Jungle Mother Figure

It’s not quite what I was hoping for (a rom-com that casts her as a beyond-stylish ingénue), but it is som’in’.

Most Beautiful Lupita Nyong’o is looking to lend her Oscar-winning pipes to Jon Favreau’s forthcoming Jungle Book adaptation, as Rakcha, the mother wolf that adopts Mowgli.

Scarlett Johansson is also fixin’ to join the movie’s voice cast – which already includes Idris Elba as Shere Khan. The Under the Skin star would play Kaa, a python that first hypnotizes her prey then eats ’em.

Photo: People.com.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Hello, Mary

Director Joe Wright has found the perfect, controversy-free Mary for his Peter Pan origin story.

Whomever Mary should be.

Oh...maybe it’s Molly Mary” Darling?

Anyway, Amanda Seyfried has signed on to play the part opposite Garrett Hedlund’s Hook, Hugh Jackman’s Blackbeard, and Rooney Mara’s Tiger Lily in the project. Newcomer Levi Miller is playing P2.

Just in time, too. Production on this one is set to kick off next week.

Which begs the question: Who will play Tinkerbell?

Photo: Miss-Seyfrieds.tumblr.com.

In Bed with James Franco

James Franco is such a tantalizer.

The multi-hyphenate – whos currently on Broadway, in Of Mice and Men – recently shared a shirtless snuggle in bed with the most abstastic star of ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars, Keegan Allen.

And, of course, as you can see, he Instagrammed the whole thing.

Thank goodness!

Lest you think it, though, Franco and Allen are not item. They two are working on a couple of projects together (IMDb that s---), and they do share a friend in common: Ashley Benson, who's one of the titular characters on Pretty Little Liars and Franco's co-star in last year's subversive Spring Breakers.

Oh, but wait. Just where is Keegan's left hand? What about Franco's right?

What...is going on over there?

Photo: UsMagazine.com.