As you might have figured, Shia LaBeouf is in Cannes promoting Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. As you might not have figured, the young star is spending some of that time confirming he's on the same page as the rest of the world when it comes to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. To wit: Yup, it sucked. But! At least he expects the third installment to redeem it.
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After videos of Michael Jackson's kids Blanket and Paris surfaced yesterday, I took Blanket's Star Wars monologues to heart and remembered my old lightsaber in the attic. But nefarious grandfather Joe Jackson doesn't care that I pretended to growl at Darth Maul in the mirror using lyrics from "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin." He claims the videos weren't meant to be posted at all, adding he plans to track down the goons who hacked the private footage. Call me crazy, but there's a chance the smooth criminal here is the grade-schooler operating the camera.
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· The long-delayed Helen Mirren whorehouse drama Love Ranch is actually coming out. Need proof? Here's a poster!
· Mary J. Blige is set to play Nina Simone in a biopic directed by Cynthia Mort (The Brave One).
· What did Ryan Phillippe and a friend do while in Austin for SXSW? "We ended up going to a gay bar there, but I don't even think anyone noticed me," he told The Advocate. "I was kind of shocked. Maybe my gay fans are just better behaved than my straight fans."
· Did Kathie Lee Gifford cheat when the women of Today went without makeup this morning?
· Heidi Montag called the cops on her "psychotic" mother today. This isn't fun anymore, guys.
Today, word broke of the next project from director Andrew Dominik (of the woefully underseen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford): an adaptation of the Joyce Carol Oates novel Blonde, with Naomi Watts set to star as Marilyn Monroe. There's only one problem: Michelle Williams is also about to play the silver screen bombshell in Simon Curtis's My Night with Marilyn. So, we put it to you: if only one of these projects gets the go-ahead, which Marilyn would you like to see?
Tyler Lambert, the son of late Diff'rent Strokes star Dana Plato, died of a self-inflicted gunshot last Thursday -- almost exactly 11 years after the death of his mother. Unspeakably terrible, and yet only another harrowing event in Diff'rent Strokes's haunted biography: Plato died of a drug overdose in 1999; Gary Coleman sued his parents, filed for bankruptcy, and was arrested for assault; and Todd Bridges survived a drug habit so terrible that it justifies his memoir's title Killing Willis. Condolences. [People]
NOOO, it has begun anew! You may remember how taunted we felt last year when, in a burst of total coincidence that came just as the Broadway musical Shrek just happened to be struggling, a whole bunch of people dressed up as the green ogre in public, including Regis Philbin and some wackadoos getting married across the Atlantic. Now, it is happening again. And I think we need to take a closer look.
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A little while ago, we introduced you to Pixels, a cute web short about 8-bit video game characters on the rampage. Now, Adam Sandler's Happy Madison shingle has picked up the feature rights, and you can extrapolate from there, can't you? Like, Donkey Kong will probably teach him something about connecting with his kids. And they'll get Seth Gordon to direct, and people will draw comparisons between that and his King of Kong, and he'll stroke his chin thoughtfully and say, "Well, they're two very different movies." [Deadline]
Forget pollution, debt, war and all the other miserable legacies passed from American generation to generation. My children's children will be blogging about Roman Polanski's legal team stonewalling the director's extradition. I'm serious! How else are we supposed to take the latest news reports from L.A. and Switzerland?
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· Remember all those movie posters from the '70s and '80s whose cast listings always ended with, "...and X as Y"? Like anybody who didn't know any better about Taxi Driver really cared that it featured Peter Boyle as Wizard? I never missed those days until now, when Jamie Foxx is set to appear as Motherf*cker Jones in the employer-homicide comedy Horrible Bosses. Motherf*cker will provide advice to employees (played by Jason Bateman and Charlie Day) who want to wipe out their bosses (Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell are in talks). Of course, the name of Foxx's character may yet change, which would be ridiculous. Someone start a Facebook page to resist this, would you? [THR]
Katherine Heigl shows her Age, Shirley MacLaine hits the old-lady jackpot (sort of), and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
· A leaked YouTube video of Blanket Jackson proves the late King of Pop's son is... a potential Movieline reader! Little Blanket, who looks like a Pocket Fighters version of Andrew WK, reenacts lightsaber wars from Star Wars. It's a little uncomfortable to finally understand everything about this child. Adorable (and strange, of course) video after the jump. [Jezebel]
After a few years spent wandering in the career wilderness, actresses Kirsten Dunst and Winona Ryder have emerged, hoping to triumph over spotty roles, substance abuse rumors, and recent blank spots in their filmographies. Ryder has juicy supporting roles in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan and Ron Howard's Cheaters on her docket, while Dunst booked a lead in Lars von Trier's Melancholia and today added a new project to her comeback bid.
This week, MTV finally released a marvelous box set of Daria, the alternative-rocking cynic's favorite TV series about high-school survival. As I reacquainted myself with the show's great characters (including arty best friend Jane and fashion-clubbing brat Sandi), I wondered: What makes a cartoon chick cool? After evaluating TV history and plucking from all areas of the animated spectrum, Movieline has chosen the ten coolest cartoon females in history. All listed ladies are sublime, but the #1 retains an untouchable patina of sophistication, camp, and cool.
When Bear Grylls gave himself an enema on Man Vs. Wild, did you cry out for more? Listen, as the rugged outdoorsman teases an upcoming episode: "I was half way up a rock face and had diarrhea," he tells Best Week Ever. "I'm trying to sort of get off of this rock, and I realized it was all about to happen. I had to just say to the camera man, 'Listen, turn the camera off, I've got to go. Now.'...And there's just diarrhea in free air. I look up and see this red light blinking and he's like, 'You've got to be joking, this is great!' You think that would never get on TV, but it does." [Best Week Ever]
Not to be outdone by Jeff Bridges' $24,000 federal tax lien, Kathryn Bigelow has both domestic and international quarrels affecting her post-Oscar profile these days. And while you could argue that this year's groundbreaking Best Director isn't technically on the front lines of the war on Hurt Locker piracy, she faces a bit more personal skirmish in her attempt to make her follow-up, Triple Frontier.
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Why was Sharlto Copley replaced by Timothy Olyphant in DJ Caruso's I Am Number Four? Variety says "scheduling conflicts," but FilmDrunk has the much more fun behind-the-scenes story, where Caruso wouldn't let Copley wear a prosthetic nose and Spock ears to play the film's inconspicuous, human-looking alien. For the District 9 alum, it's apparently alien-human hybrids or bust! [FilmDrunk via Slashfilm]
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