This week has been ruled by dual overhead nutcases Charlie Sheen and Muammar Qaddafi. Now, of course one is worse than the other: one is murdering tinpot tyrant, the other just a coked-up actor with a god complex, but if you look closer, as Denis Leary did too, you'll see that there's a few eerie similarities between the two.
We've already heard rumors that Kevin Costner might be joining the cast of the new Superman as Pa Kent, but now The Hollywood Reporter says that Viggo Mortensen is being eyed as a potential villain for the movie. Will he be Zod? Braniac? And where does this fit in with all the billions of other casting rumors? And how sad will we all be once Batman and Superman finalize all their casting? So many questions. [THR]
Fresh from directing America's favorite Canadian (sorry Anne Murray) in Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Jon M. Chu has now been handed the reins of the real American heroes, G.I. Joe in their upcoming sequel. But not everyone may return for the ride!
While everyone gets ready for a dose of Hollywood glamor at the Oscars this weekend, old-fashioned gross-out kings Peter & Bobby Farrelly ruled the box office as their horny man-child comedy Hall Pass weakly won Friday night. Ass-kicking Liam Neeson dropped down to number two, and speaking of number two, Nicolas Cage's Drive Angry opened in ninth place. Your Friday box office is here.
What was up with everybody this week? The moon was in Oscar and Mars was in Sheen, but that still didn't account for the crazy disclosures, discoveries and declamations that made their ways through Movieline HQ in recent days. Let's have a look back at the madness, all the while hoping redoubtable weekend editor Dixon Gaines can shake it out of here once and for all with his bold prose stylings. And of course the rest of the crew will be dropping by this weekend as well for a little hot awards action, click here to learn more. And have a great weekend!
· We've revisited three fabulous Oscar moments starring Shirley MacLaine, F. Murray Abraham, and Russell Crowe, but our choice for the greatest Oscar speech ever isn't by an actor or actress. It's by author/humanitarian/Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein, whose life was the focus of the Oscar-winning documentary One Survivor Remembers. It is heart-stopping, and the orchestra almost drowns her out. Watch and love. (Click through for more of The Last Word.)
The Charlie Sheen chronicles just keep getting better. (Worse?) After another public talk radio rant on Thursday, in which the Two and a Half Men actor trashed the show's creator Chuck Lorre and Thomas Jefferson (why not?), the actor called into Fox Sports Radio's Loose Cannons moments ago to level the worst insults at his network and sitcom yet.
Some actors are Method; others make up their own method. Like Nicolas Cage, who described his self-taught school of acting and held Movieline rapt with 8 other stories about crazy sex scenes, driving 180 mph on the highway, making the Oscars fair, and other Cage-y anecdotes only vaguely related to his latest vehicle Drive Angry 3D, a high-octane Southern-fried supernatural vengeance thriller disguised as homage to the car-obsessed exploitation flicks of the '70s.
· Here at Movieline HQ we're pretty big supporters of Ke$ha and all her glittered-fueled madness. Couple that with two of our other loves -- James Van Der Beek and tuxedo wearing unicorns, of course -- and you've got a recipe for awesomeness that can only be Ke$ha's new video for "Blow." There are really no words that do this justice, so just click ahead to watch. Once you pick your jaw off the floor, stick around for more Buzz Break.
What a rich bounty of disturbing publicity stills we have reaped to date in 2011! Studios and distributors are well ahead of last year's pace to weird out every viewer in America with its photographic quirks and follies -- and we haven't yet even glimpsed pics from the imminent Human Centipede sequel! So what have we got today? Oh, not much, just Amber Heard and Nicolas Cage sharing a tender, bloody, three-eyed moment on the road in Drive Angry.
Yes, yes. The King's Speech will win, and no matter how hard we try to tell ourselves any other film has a chance in hell, its abiding safeness will triumph Sunday night. But I'd like to think the Academy will spread the love around -- a win for The Social Network here, a Natalie Portman winner's guffaw there, and some gold for Hailee Steinfeld. Hope she brings her blingitude for the big night.
Also in this Friday edition of The Broadsheet: There's another Spider-man musical in the works... On the eve of the Oscars, the Emmys just got a little cooler... Find out where you saw that baby-talking blond on Thursday night's 30 Rock before... and more ahead.
Moviegoers are in one of two boats this weekend: The one beached on the hot, sandy shoreline of Oscar Island, where multitudes catch up with their awards-season viewing at the last minute before Sunday's Oscarcast; or the one rocketing down the murky brown rapids of Multiplex River, tumbling over the high, jagged cliff known to studios and viewers alike as Crapola Falls. Look out below! Choose your vessel and let's get going on our Weekend Forecast voyage.
Yes, the first 2/3 of the trailer for Chris Weitz's A Better Life play out like a short summary of Vittorio De Sica's classic The Bicycle Thieves, except with a truck. In that film, a poor father and his boy go on a search for their stolen bicycle which the father needs in order to keep his job, which is barely paying the bills as is. Here, the story focuses on an immigrant man and his son hunting for a stolen truck which apparently determines their livelihood. It'd be pretty easy to get cynical and angry about remaking an undisputed classic, except for the fact that just thinking about The Bicycle Thieves brings a tear to my eye, and if this film is as well-done as it looks, well, it will probably also make me cry.
Tony Gilroy is now meeting with actors for that new Bourne movie that will "delve deeper into the universe of the Bourne franchise," except you know, without Jason Bourne. In any case, as with most short lists for casting in early stages, this one is pretty long and all over the place. But there are a few very intriguing choices on the list that suggests that Tony Gilroy is at least willing to take some chances with the franchise. Either that, or the guy loves meetings.
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