The New Regime

Hollywood’s worst kept secret – that Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler would be joining American Idol next season – is no longer a secret of any sort.

Lopez and Tyler are joining Randy Jackson, who will now be the new “anchor of the panel,” on the show.

Of the gig, Lopez said, “I’m a huge fan [of American Idol]. I kind of raised my eyebrows [when I was first approached about the gig], but my career has always been the type that changes and evolves.”

Lately it’s been kinda stale, though, love, but whatevs.

Photo: EW.com.

Hello, Mike Chang!

So file this one under Dayum!

Did you see how fah-fah-fah-fine Harry Shum Jr. looked on last night’s Glee second-season premiere?

I mean….

The actor recently posed for celebrity shutterbug Tyler Shields was scorching.

Photo: SocialiteLife.CeleBuzz.com.com.

Lois’s Mama

Smallville is kicking off its 10th and final season on the tube this Friday, and the powers that be are going all out for their swan song.

Already a bunch of all-time faves will be reprising their roles on the show, including James Marsters (Brainiac), Alan Ritchson (Aquaman), and V’s Laura Vandervoort (Kara/Supergirl).

Now comes word that the show has scored quite the meta guest: none other than Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher.

The actress will play Erica Durance’s Lois Lane’s mother.

Hatcher, of course, first became a household name in the TV world playing Superman’s soul mate on The New Adventures of Lois and Clark.

Photo: TopNews.in.

And the Song of Summer 2010 Is...

Katy Perry, come on down!

I have come to decide Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” not her ebullient collaboration with Snoop Dogg “California Gurls,” was the song of the summer that just ended because it’s a fun song about love.

That its video featured the abstastic Josh Kloss is just the cherry on top of it all.

Katy Perry - New Music - More Music Videos

The song just embodies everything that is oh-so-cool about summer, I think.

Kudos go to Robyn, whose “Dancing on My Own” came in at a close second, IMHO, and to Kylie Minogue, who gave us two worthy contenders, “All the Lovers” and “Get Outta My Way.”

Jonas on the Loose

Joe Jonas is taking the whole building the TV résumé thing seriously.

The Camp Rock star, who guested on Hot in Cleveland as Valerie Bertinelli’s son over the summer, will play himself in a November episode of 90210.

He will be on hand to accompany Adrianna (Jessica Lowndes) to a magazine cover party thrown for her.

He also will give her some music-business advice.

And maybe, just maybe, he will throw her a flirt.

Photo: People.com.

G.P. Gets Glee

I like this a lot, because it’s pretty genius and because it reinforces a theory I have.

Gwyneth Paltrow is in talks to guest on TV’s Glee.

The Academy Award winner would be following in her BFF Madonna’s footsteps, in a way, by appearing on the show as, get this, a love interest for Matthew Morrison’s Mr. Will “Schue” Schuester.

Paltrow’s character, a substitute teacher who takes over New Directions while Mr. Schuester is out sick, would be seen in two episodes airing in November. The kids will love her, and Will...well, he will start to fall for her...further complicating his relationship with Emma (Jayma Mays, who will be keeping busy herself with John Stamos).

As for that theory I had....

G.P. is starring in a movie called Country Strong (that’s her as Kelly Canter at right) this holiday/award season, and she showcases her singing ability. Drawing attention to her pipes by guesting on a hit TV show about singing is quite the smart move. I dare say there is a machine at work here: a machine that wants her to get some awards lovin’ this season – and that the gamble just might pay off.

Photo: BittenAndBound.com.

The Friday Man at the Movies

Friday Night Lights Emmy Award nominee Kyle Chandler is starring in J.J. Abrams’ latest, shrouded-in-secrecy directorial effort, Super 8.

Chandler will be joined in next summer’s sure-to-be-hit blockbuster by Elle Fanning (who will be seen later this year in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere).

Principal photography on Super 8 began today, actually, in West Virginia. Details on the plot are still beyond-scarce.

Photo: Towleroad.com.

The Most Badass Mexican in the World

It was a good idea, and it sounded like it, too: What a cult-y thing to do, right, to turn one of the crowd-pleasing faux trailers especially produced for the 2007 Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-bill Grindhouse into a feature all its own!

Too bad that the shtick that worked so well in abbreviated form just doesn’t at more than 100 minutes – sorry, Machete.

The ultra-violent flick starring Danny Trejo, a tremendous presence and ever game for anything guy at 66 years old, plays the titular role, a renegade Mexican federale-turned-vigilante who’s never met a son a bitch he couldn’t slice and dice with mucho gusto.

The man, the legend known as Machete has left his native land and roams the streets of Texas, weathered by the memory of having seen his wife brutally slaughtered by a drug lord played by Steven Seagal.

That’s right: Steven freakin’ Seagal is all up in this joint, which Rodriguez co-directed and features Jessica Alba as an ICE agent, Michelle Rodriguez as a revolutionary, and Lindsay Lohan as a drug-addicted daughter of a crook.

Our anti-hero is trying to stay out of trouble, picking up an odd job here, another one there as a day laborer – all in a day in which Mexicans are being chased and taken out by a convoluted machine that involves a dirty Texan politico (Robert De Niro).

Machete lays on a pretty thick immigration layer. You know, for good measure and relevance.

As you can imagine, old habits die hard, and soon Machete is doing someone else’s bidding after he’s hired to off De Niro’s character.

But then he’s royally pissed when he finds out Seagal’s behind the plot.

Machete don’t like to be anyone’s bitch.

That’s when Machete finally turns into a revenge fantasy, but it’s also around the time you start wishing the guy would just get it over with and be done knifin’. The best idea in this movie is letting it end.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Single White College Psycho Bitch

Leighton Meester has been testing the waters of film for a little bit now, with cameo appearances in Date Night and Going the Distance.

She also has dipped her foot into the music scene (hey there, “Somebody to Love,” and I see you, too, “Your Love’s a Drug”), yet her music career remains TBD.

Next winter, though, the Gossip Girl MVP is headlining her own movie, the thriller The Roommate, opposite Minka Kelly (TV’s Friday Night Lights).

Meester will play a deranged college freshman who becomes obsessed with her new roommate (Kelly). It’s all very Single White Female for the teen set.

The Roommate, which also features Easy A players Cam Gigandet and Alyson Michalka (TV’s Hellcats) is due out on Feb. 4.

Keep Your Strength, Andy

Andy Whitfield has left Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

The Aussie, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma earlier this year, planned to go back to work on the Starz series’ second season after he was declared in remission over the summer.

He has been advised, however, to resume “aggressive treatment” for the disease.

“It’s with a deep sense of disappointment that I must step aside from such an exceptional project as Spartacus and all the wonderful people involved,” the actor said in a statement. “It seems that it is time for myself and my family to embark on another extraordinary journey. Thank you for the support so far.”

Starz has not made any decisions regarding the future of the series, but has extended “our concern and support to Andy and his family. We will address our programming plans at some later date.”

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, a prequel to the series, will debut early next year.

Photo: Ones2Watch4.com.

Still Struggling

Lindsay Lohan can’t help herself.

Actually, she can…and she has…helped herself…to some coke. Allegedly.

The actress tweet-confirmed on Friday night that she, indeed, had failed a drug test.

“Regrettably, I did in fact fail my most recent drug test and if I am asked, I am prepared to appear before judge [Elden] Fox next week as a result.”

Girlfriend was sprung from her shortened 90 days in jail and 90 days in rehab last month. Judge Fox warned L2 at the time that under the terms of supervised probation she would be the subject of random drug testing in addition to intensive psychotherapy sessions, 12-step meetings and regular chats with a “chemical dependency mentor.” Any violation would result in 30 days in lock-up.

The saga continues….

Photo: VanityFair.com.

Update: A (new) bench warrant has been issued for Lindsay Lohan, a.k.a. probably the dumbest starlet in Hollywood. Or the sickest.

I mean, oh, dear – someone needs to tell this girl those aren’t collectibles. (This is the fourth bench warrant on her DUI probation case.)

Lohan is due in court on Sept. 24. Beverly Hills Superior Court Judge Elden Fox will decide her fate then, in the wake of the actress’ admission that she, indeed, failed one random drug test (which came back positive for cocaine).

She reportedly failed a second one as well, this one for amphetamines.

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Frak!

The trailer for Love & Other Drugs – the Edward Zwick-directed romantic dramedy starring Brokeback Mountain’s Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway – really did me in, especially the part around the 1:40 mark:



The movie, about a charming-yet-cutthroat pharmaceutical rep (Jakey-bear) who falls for a free-spirited woman suffering from Parkinson’s (Hathaway) while feverishly hawking Viagra, arrives in theaters on Nov. 24.

Sons of Anarchy

Ben Affleck is a big-time director now.

The actor, who was once known as the male participant in the tabloid firestorm that became Bennifer, is back behind the camera with The Town, his second helming effort.

He’s also more eager than ever to be taken seriously as a filmmaker, not just a matinee idol with a penchant for mindless blockbusters (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) and romancing fellow A-Listers (Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, and his now-wife Jennifer Garner).

He’s an auteur now, so you better get with the program and wrap your head around that idea.

It’s a good thing that Affleck makes it so darn easy.

His directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone was met with lavish praise three years ago, and his acting was elevated to a new level after Hollywoodland the year before that. It’s almost like, post-Bennifer, the man decided to re-invent himself, which, I think I read recently, was a conscious decision on his part.

So kudos to him, and kudos to The Town, a star-studded Boston-set bank-robbers thriller that is not just all action, but also lots of heart.

Affleck, who also contributed to the script, plays Doug MacRay, a Charlestown career criminal and leader of a merry band of ace bank robbers.

The guy may be a bad boy, but he still lives and steals by a code: He and his fellow crooks get in quick and get out clean; they don’t hurt nobody; they play it smart. He’s also on personal path now that he has sobered up, and is still trying to be a sort of boyfriend to his druggy main girl (Blake Lively), as well as a father figure to her kid. But bank robbers are like leopards...they don’t just change their spots because they say so – he can’t just quit the biz and leave it all behind.

Doesn’t mean Doug won’t try, though.

After the gang’s latest job, they briefly take a hostage, the bank manager played by Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s Rebecca Hall, whom he soon starts befriending then romancing in order to keep tabs on her and make sure she’s not some loose end that needs taking of after they let her go unharmed but threatened.

That budding relationship will be the undoing of the gang, which includes the hothead played with aplomb by The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner, as it is now more vulnerable to the FBI investigation that’s right on their tail and led by Jon Hamm (AMC’s Mad Men).

The Town, with its accomplished mix of action and unexpected humor, is quite the feather on Affleck’s cap – one that should and will bring him lots of pride.

My Rating ***1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.

Pretty Doctor Lady

Rachael Taylor, who co-starred in the first Transformers movie and a didn’t-go-anywhere pilot for HBO called Washingtonienne, has nabbed a multi-episode role on this season’s Grey’s Anatomy.

The role is still being conceived, and while the actress is not scheduled to debut until midseason, she will be playing a doctor.

A hot doctor, natch.

The seventh season of Grey’s Anatomy premieres on Sept. 23.

Photo: FusedFilm.com.

Promiscuous Girl (Ish)

Emma Stone is major...like, major major, and Easy A is her starmaker.

The actress plays Olive Penderghast in this clever twist on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter about a girl, who tells a lie, and a lie that spreads like wildfire in – what else? – the eat-or-be-eaten world of high school.

Olive, she tells us herself from the get-go (as the movie’s narrative comes from a feature-long testimonial she’s webcasting), is not a remarkable girl.

No one at her East Ojai, Calif., school knows who she is.

In fact, she’s pretty much the consummate high school sock (you know, the kind of kid to whom no one pays attention), which is odd because she’s quite the radiant beauty, and as a redhead you’d think she’d be bound to stand out.

Alas, she doesn’t, and Easy A asks to go with it, and, by golly, we do because the movie’s smart and ironic and funny....

Anyway, about that lie.

Olive has this BFF, Rhiannon (Aly Michalka, whom CW fans are getting to know through Hellcats), who’s kinda always up in her beeswax about boys and whatnot. So one day, just to shut her up, Olive tells Rhi that she spent the weekend with a guy from junior college and cashed in her V chip.

The truth is she spent her time at home, playing with her dog, painting her nails, and dancing and singing to Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” like a big ol’ doof.

Rhi, of course, loves this salacious tidbit, and tells someone, who tells someone else, and pretty soon everyone at the school knows that Olive is no longer and virgin.

Some, mostly the boys, are all like, yeah about it, while others give her the stink eye, none more than the self-righteous religion freak Marianne (the hootlicious Amanda Bynes, taking a page from Mandy Moore’s character in Saved!).

At first, Olive is amused by the rumors and the silliness of it all, but then, when confronted with an opportunity to help a much-bullied gay satellite friend (Dan Byrd, from TV’s Cougar Town), she starts to see that there’s something about this lie that could work to her advantage.

So she decides to use the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing, which, yes, sounds a little sketchy, but it also exposes the hyprocrisy of high school politics (the things that are said about this girl are outrageous, but she nevertheless walks the halls with her head held high, proud of the scarlett “A” she has sown on her clothes), a few skeletons, and a secret love Olive thought would go unrequited forever (hello, Penn Badgley!).

What I liked most about Easy A, other than the obvious (i.e., that it’s a tremendous showcase for the ebullient Stone), is it felt fresh, effortless, and whatever is the opposite of didactic.

That it features Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s just-too-cool parents is an added bonus.

My Rating ***1/2

Photo: Sony Pictures.

The Power of Oprah’s Forgiveness

Oprah Winfrey kicked off her farewell season earlier this week – oh, by the by, did anyone notice the TV promos for it didn’t include any footage of the Big O at her heaviest?

I digress, I know.

Such a momentous occasion (you know her audience is calling this final season precisely just that) means there will be plenty of surprise moments coming up.

The book industry will get one tomorrow when Winfrey reportedly will announce Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom as her Oprah’s Book club official selection, which is particularly kinda jaw-dropping in light of the row the two had back in 2001 over The Corrections.

Bygones, huh….

Photo: ChicagoReader.com.

A New Kind of Sherlock

Sometimes I just heart PBS.

Coming up next on the network’s Masterpiece Mystery addicting schedule is a modern-day-set take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes character titled, simply enough, Sherlock.

The sleuth, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, now roams the streets of contemporary London as the world’s first consulting detective, one who works with his new roommate, Afghanistan war vet James Watson (Martin Freeman) solving all manner of complicated crimes.

Three feature-length episodes of Sherlock will premiere on PBS beginning on Oct. 24:



With luck, we’ll get plenty more Sherlock for years to come.

Keri Does Sexy

It’s always kinda sorta jarring to see Keri Russell wearing something skimpy like this, but, you know what, I welcome the sight nevertheless.

The erstwhile Felicity – will I ever not call her that? – has a new show to promote (Fox’s Running Wilde), so she’s doing the exact opposite of what is expected of her to get the word out.

It’s a bit easy to vixen it up, but I get that Russell is playing a character in particular settings (this photo is from the new issue of Esquire), and that the realer her, the one we see, say, out on a red carpet is, perhaps, closer to the real her. Got that?

At the end of the day, I heart Keri Russell in any way she steps out of the house.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

What Happens Next?

Clint Eastwood is playing with a little summer blockbuster-y F/X in his latest fall entry Hereafter.

The trailer dropped today, and as you will see that’s Matt Damon playing a reluctant psychic living in San Francisco, while Bryce Dallas Howard plays the object of his affection.

The movie, written by Peter Morgan (The Queen) follows three separate plotlines grappling with mortality. One of them is that of a Parisian anchorwoman who nearly died in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.

“It’s about people dealing with tragedy in different ways,'” Eastwood said. “But it’s also got this hope thing going for it, too.”

Hereafter opens on Oct. 22.

Photo: EW.com.

In and Out…and In Again

Jennifer Lopez wants to keep people guessing.

Too bad she’s doing so with a lame career move, huh.

A rollercoaster month after negotiations to join American Idol as a judge broke down – a month during which Kara DioGuardi confirmed her exit from the show and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler was (maybe) locked down – La Lopez reportedly has signed a $12 million contract to come on board, after all.

The entertainer’s demands had supposedly gotten “out of hand” originally, but it seems everyone involved was able to bring something agreeable to the table. Among the items that did not make the cut: movie and TV development deals that Lopez was said to have wanted included in her hiring package.

No word on whether Fox gave in and said OK to an unlimited supply of expensive white candles for her dressing room, but whatever they did do, she is “very excited.”

Tyler has yet to be confirmed.

Others names that have been tossed around to join staying-put founding judge Randy Jackson on the panel? Elton John, Shania Twain, Harry Connick Jr., and Chris Isaak.

Photo: EW.com.

The Day the Music Video Died a Little More

You know it’s a testament to how irrelevant a video awards show has become when instead of talking about the videos that won with any sort of actual recollection is trumped by the effect on the zeitgeist of a…meat dress.

Thank you, Lady GaGa.

(And, yes, I know that even going with that statement is kinda moot.)

Look, all I’m saying is MTV needs to refocus its Video Music Awards – itself, actually – if it shall insist on celebrating something that registers on its radar.

The fact that pop’s reigning princess walked away with eight awards (out of 13 nominations) is swell, but it sucks that no one seems to be talking about that, wouldn’t you say? I mean, I couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge the VMAs yesterday....

Photo: MTV.com.

Girl with the English Sleuths

Swedish actress Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is going to play the female lead opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes 2.

This will be Rapace’s first English-speaking role.

Details about her role are scarce, but word is she’ll play a French Gypsy.

Production on the sequel is set to begin this fall.

Photo: Tribune.ie.

The Return of a Country Queen

I want Gwyneth Paltrow to win another Oscar.

And y’ know what: Country Strong, her next movie, just might get her an invite to the big party next winter.

The facts are these (oh, how I miss Pushing Daisies – but I digress): In the movie G.P. plays a fading country star staging a comeback after a stint in rehab (behind the glamour is a drinking problem).

And as well all know, America, heck, the world likes a comeback story, so we should all love to root for Paltrow’s Kelly Canter, as the singer struggles to find her place back in a spotlight that now craves Chiles Stanton, a pretty young thing played by Leighton Meester (that Paltrow herself has been away from the spotlight and hasn’t headlined a project in a while is an added bonus):



Country Strong co-stars Tim McGraw as Paltrow’s husband/manager, and Garrett Hedlund (TRON: Legacy), as the opening act who’s rooting for her on a more personal level than just a professional.

The movie, which features Paltrow singing again (super-smart to release the movie’s titular single during the Grammy qualifying months, btw), is due out, in limited release, on Dec. 22, and goes wide on Jan. 7.

Hot Mama Coming Through

New York Fashion Week got off to an unofficial start last night when Fashion’s Night Out: The Show brought out the lot of the world’s top supermodels to a runway that snaked around Lincoln Center.

New mama Gisele Bündchen was among the catwalkers strutting their stuff at the event, which drew out Gossip Girl fashionistas Blake Lively and Leighton Meester, Bar Refaeli, and Vogue editrix Anna Wintour, natch, among others.

Fashion Week officially kicks off on Friday, which is the same day Fashion’s Night Out is set to take over the Big Apple. Events are scheduled to take place across the country – Bal Harbour, I’m a-comin’! – and major fashion hubs around the world.

Photo: People.com.

Amy the Alumni Goes Live

Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler is going back to her where it all began, SNL, to kick off the show’s 36th season on Sept. 25.

She will be joined by musical guest Katy Perry.

I hope Poehler resuscitates her foul, fart-machine, one-legged character Amber for the show.

Photo: 89thAndBroke.com.

Update 1: Someone who will not be there to make us laugh alongside Poehler? Jenny Slate.

Slate, who joined SNL only last year (and quickly gained notoriety for accidentally dropping an F-bomb on her first show), will not be back this season.

Longtime cast member Will Forte is also leaving the show. He I am really sorry to see go....

Update 2: Click here to meet all four of SNL’s new cast members.

Woman on a Mission

Get used to seeing Paula Patton around.

The Precious actress, who recently became Law & Order: SVU’s new full-time assistant district attorney, will star opposite Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner in the Mission: Impossible fourthquel.

This latest installment – which Cruise and J.J. Abrams are producing and Brad Bird (The Incredibles) is directing – will not be, contrary to word on the Hollywood street, a “reboot,” and it won’t be titled Mission: Impossible IV, either.

Patton will play an up-and-coming agent working with Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.

The movie is expected out in theaters on Dec. 16, 2011.

Photo: GGPHT.com.

Update: Well, how’s this for bittersweet.

It seems that Patton’s big-screen score has resulted in an abbreviated stint on the small screen and her character on SVU will be seen all but one time.

Melissa Sagemiller, who co-starred on the short-lived TNT legal drama Raising the Bar not too long ago, will now play the new ADA on the show.

Sing It, Mary!

Mary J. Blige has a new single out, and you better be ready to love it.

All hail the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, and all love her “Break Up to Make Up.”

I cannot wait to hear this one live. I can’t get it out my mind, alright.

Photo: People.com.

Swoon for the Guest Croon

I like me some Robin Thicke, especially the guy sings, which is what he does for a living.

So I likey a lot.

The Thickster recently joined B.o.B. on an unplugged performance of his hit single “Nothin’ on You” for MTV’s Unplugged.

And now, I just cannot resist the song, not even if I try:

B.o.B - New Music - More Music Videos

Can more artists have Thicke guest on their work, pretty please? Or better yet, MTV, give the guy his own unplugged special. It’ll be a guaranteed panty-dropper.

2 Hearts

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, a real-life on-off-on-off? Hollywood couple, has It (in spades) in their first big-screen collaboration, Nanette Burstein’s Going the Distance. (I know the two were in He’s Just Not That Into You, but that one doesn’t count because they didn’t have any scenes together.)

Seriously, these two hot childs in New York City could not have more chemistry.

This is only heightened by the hipster-y, effortless way Burstein (who delivered the winning 2008 doc American Teen) shot them running wild and looking pretty – and in love and in heartache and in everything in between.

I tell ya, this one has it all: fun, laughs, a bit of poignancy....

That’s because, I should point out right outta the gate, this is not your typical romantic comedy. This isn’t boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl stumble over a misunderstanding but ultimately live happily ever after. This is a reflection of how things really are sometimes.

Barrymore and Long play Erin and Garrett, a pair of thirtysomethings who meet by chance at a downtown-New York bar one night, and become inseparable in that E+L 4ever kinda way.

Except 4ever is more like six weeks: Erin is in the Big Apple catching up on her life, working as an intern at the newspaper of her dreams, while Garrett – a working bee at a record company who wishes he could sign the bands that he likes...the indie ones who actually deserve a shot – is beyond-fresh out of a relationship, and maybe not all that into relationships, anyway.

It’s a bit of a thing at first, where each of them is at, but, ultimately, not that big of a deal.

A good thing since the two are, clearly, made for each other.

They both are so easy breezy, so tuned into the each other’s vibe, it’s almost sickening but, nevertheless, completely genuine. When their six weeks together are up, they face the issue in an honest way, without making silly-love-song promises to each other. It’s so matter-of-fact, so the way it would and should be...so...not the way they feel.

Erin and Garrett have been falling in love. They know it, and we know it. So they decide to go at it long distance, which is when Going the Distance gets really real.

The movie takes us through the ebbs and flows of their trying to making things work with her in San Francisco and him in the city. With a merciless job market that makes relocation pretty much impossible. With trust issues that arise out of not seeing each for months at the time.

It’s hard out there for two star-crossed lovers, y’ know. The situation is made bearable only by E and G’s tremendous support group, which include her sister, played by Christina Applegate with an impeccable sense of bitching comedic timing, and his bros before...anything, really (Jason Sudeikis from SNL and the scene-stealing Charlie Day from FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). If you already were looking at these two kids’ lives with a Oh-they-look-like-sooo-much-fun! eye, wait until you meet their friends.

To see this couple go the distance the way they do is a breath of fresh air that I know a lot of people will mistake by a whiff of bulls--- because they won’t be able to buy the trials and tribulations of an honest opposite-coasts courtship.

The audience will be looking for the sugarcoating, and the lack of it, the replacement of it by cursing, and the attempts at phone sex, and the acknowledgement of temptations, will prove jarring.

We get the good, the bad, and the jealous from this atypical rom-com, and that’s a good thing.

Therein lies the sweetness of this movie, and that’s why I think Going the Distance is so good.

My Rating ****

Photo: Warner Bros.

Young Thief

Zac Efron is really taking this producing thing seriously.

The young buck, who’s attached to star and produce a remake of a Swedish thrilled called Snabba Cash, is also reportedly set to do the same for another thriller titled Art of the Steal.

The project is based on a Wired magazine article about a seemingly ordinary man who leads a double life as a conman and executes elaborate heists.

As long as he uses those guns of his (and I do mean his biceps), this should be the hit that Efron has been looking for.

Photo: USAHangout.com.

Ryan and Bradley, Sitting on a Set...

Two of my favorite Hollywood male stars to watch, Ryan Reynolds and Bradley Cooper (look at ’em hanging out together at right!), are set to play together.

The actors are teaming up for a new cop action/comedy. The untitled project follows a couple of San Francisco police officers forced to work with their retired former-police-office fathers to help solve a crime.

Reynolds (who will next be seen in Buried later this month) and Cooper’s partnership is expected “to have an updated Lethal Weapon flavor that plays into edgier R-rated territory.”

Photo: JustJared.BuzzNet.com.

Tales from the Inside

J.J. Abrams – who is, according to me, a.k.a. The Man – is teaming up with former Lost executive producer Elizabeth Sarnoff for a new show titled Alcatraz.

You can guess what it will be about, right?

It sounds like a totally old concept, right, but if anyone can make a show about the infamous San Francisco Bay prison feel fresh it’s Abrams.

Up next this fall, his Undercovers will join Fringe as two Abrams properties on TV. You can bet I’m already arranging it into my schedule, and Alcatraz will get the same treatment should it make it to series.

Photo: AskMen.com.

Simple and to the Point

Conan O’Brien announced the name of his new TBS show today, and I love it because it’s simple and evocative of things that are fun.

Here comes…Conan.

Of the name the talk-show host said, “I wanted one word that captured my essence, and ‘Oprah’ was already taken.”



Conan will premiere on Nov. 8, so mark your calendars, people.

The Loneliest Killer on Earth

George Clooney doesn’t smile in director Anton (2007’s Control) Corbijn’s The American.

The actor (who is charisma personified off screen and, more often than not, on screen as well), in fact, mutes himself to such an extreme it’s almost off-putting.

I suppose it was a necessary evil, one needed to play a character who can muster only the semblance of a smirk or two – never a full one – lest he reveal anything more than his extremely guarded nature.

Clooney plays an American assassin living/hiding in Europe who goes by the name of Jack most of the time, Edward the rest. That’s how closed off he is from the world. And that’s, ultimately, why I don’t think this oh-so-very European movie will...connect with a wide audience stateside – the guy is impenetrable.

I know it’s kinda terrible of me to say the movie probably won’t do so well on this side of the pong, but it’s true – and anyone interested in seeing this decidedly art, let’s say, thriller will be a person interested in seeing Clooney, no matter how bleak the movie, anyway.

Look, The American is elegant, methodical, and quiet. These are remarkable qualities that, combined with a slooow, indulgent script and approach (Corbijn shot every detail of Jack’s doing of anything in a way that made me wonder if he was setting up something...or if he was just killing time), make me dread the notion that this super-early fall entry could be setting the pace for the season to come, not to mention question its odd for box office domination.

Like any movie, though, this one has its moments (it’s interesting to see Jack fight to stay away from people but be nevertheless drawn to them), but not exciting-enough ones to make anyone forget that we know nothing about Jack. Other than, you know, he’s this like, lone cowboy – when the movie begins, and, worse, when it ends. We really don’t learn much about him in the course of two hours.

When we are first introduced to him, the guy is hiding out with a lady friend in the snowy wilderness of Sweden. A man of few words, we don’t hear him utter more than a few here and there until the next morning, when they discover tracks in the snow. Someone’s after them...him, he realizes, and just like that he quickly finds out who and introduces the hunter to his maker.

His lady friend to hers, too, for good measure (he can’t very well leave any witnesses around, and maybe she was in on it, too?).

One phone call to an associate later, Jack retreats to a quaint Italian countryside town. There, he at first relishes the isolation, the distance between him and the killin’ business. However, he is then tasked with a “last job” – he has to custom build a weapon for a mysterious contract.

Little by little, as he entangles himself in the lives of the locals (including the town’s priest and a prostitute who falls for him and whom he doubts he can let in), his life, and the movie, become more and more complicated.

As The American’s stakes got higher and higher I kept hope that the payoff would come with a flood of answers as to who Jack was, how he got into his line of work, where he had come from and where he wanted to go.

All I got in the end was our cypher Jack has some serious trust issues with the ladies – and Clooney must always be allowed to smile on screen.

My Rating **

Photo: Focus Features.