"In an Iron Man poster," blogs did cry,
"You simply must promote its villain."
Consider this still to be Paramount's reply:
It's Whiplash and his cockatoo, stone-cold chillin.' [Yahoo]
E! has it that Gabourey Sidibe, the Stern-ly admonished Academy Award nominee, will host Saturday Night Live before the season wraps up. No exact date has been set, but she'll have to work around the weeks of Jennifer Lopez (this Saturday), Tina Fey, Ryan Phillippe and working class hero Betty White. [E!]
Only a day after starting a Twitter feud with George Lopez, Lindsay Lohan has agreed to appear on the comedian's TBS show on Tuesday to discuss the joke he made about white powder on her shoes. Lopez confirmed the booking on his Twitter feed: "Here's the latest @lindsaylohan is scheduled to appear on Lopez Tonight next tuesday .. Chill !" [@georgelopez]
· The Glee cast is on the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone. This is the moment that Lea Michele's panties have dreamed of forever!
· Speaking of Glee, Jane Lynch will receive the 14th Annual Achievement Award at Outfest this year.
· The Edward Norton/Edward Norton dramedy Leaves of Grass was supposed to come out on Friday. Now it's not.
· How prevalent has 3-D become? Even the next Harold & Kumar film (which will feature a returning Kal Penn) might be shot in it.
· On that note, Piranha 3-D director Alexandre Aja is promising that the film will feature "3-D double-D boobs." Looks like he beat you to the punch, Heidi Montag.
Jay Leno is a man of many contradictions. He said he was retiring his version of the Tonight Show in 2009. He did not. He specializes in low stakes interviews about iPod playlists and pets but will occasionally lay into a guest, like Monday night's Karl Rove, with a no-nonsense line of questioning about suicide, low self-esteem and shame. He has generated over a billion dollars for NBC and owns close to 100 expensive, vintage vehicles -- but he houses them in a "crappy garage" packed with cheap knickknacks, thousands of Headlines cards and presumably a few dead cats trapped under the debris. Jay Leno is a hoarder, and with the help of his wife Mavis and a cable channel you've never heard of, the Tonight Show host is seeking help.
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With a cast that's set to include Oscar-winners Matt Damon (hey, Best Original Screenplay still counts), Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and Gwyneth Paltrow, you'd be right to assume that Steven Soderbergh's upcoming global pandemic drama, Contagion, has quite the screenplay. And as it turns out, it does -- or so sayeth The Playlist which got its hands on Scott Z. Burns's script and is, for lack of a better term, in lurve. While comparing the screenplay favorably to Steven Gaghan's work on Traffic and Syriana (no word on how it stacks up to his rewrites on Medellin) they go so far as to predict that Burns will wind up an Oscar-nominee during whatever year the film gets released (right now it looks to be on course for 2011). No pressure, though! While in most circles, putting anything in the same sentence as Syriana would be enough to cause night terrors, have a look after the jump at the five other most terrifying parts of Contagion. [Spoilers follow, of course.]
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Sad news: An HBO spokesman said today that David Mills, a co-writer and co-executive producer of the network's upcoming series Treme, died last night in New Orleans of a brain aneurysm. Mills had a TV writing resume that's one of the strongest ever assembled, with work on The Wire, The Corner, ER, NYPD Blue, and Homicide: Life on the Street. [HuffPo]
We're T-minus three months away from the opening of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, whose imminent storm has already begun to stir the tranquil surfaces of the world's estrogen seas. A particularly powerful gust arrived this morning when Summit fired off three new stills from the film -- none of which arrived with any real context or background, but all of which nevertheless stoke the imagination into that enduring Twilight-ian headspace of, "What the hell is that about?" Lucky for Movieline, that's where you come in.
Everyone in Hollywood is scaling back these days. And good luck finding a more stunning example of this development than in the annals of celebrity jurisprudence, where Kelsey Grammer on Tuesday settled a lawsuit brought by a screenwriter who says the actor stole the idea for his 2008 political comedy Swing Vote. Remember that one? With Kevin Costner representing the deciding vote in the presidential election, and Grammer as the incumbent GOP commander-in-chief seeking his support? All right, me neither. But that doesn't mean it's not worth a huge two-figure settlement to someone.
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Jaime Escalante, the Bolivian immigrant whose extraordinary success teaching advanced math to inner-city students in Los Angeles became the subject of the 1989 movie Stand and Deliver, died Tuesday after a battle with bladder cancer. He was 79. Edward James Olmos earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as Escalante, whose students at Garfield High were among the highest-testing of any public-school pupils in the country. RIP, Mr. E. [AP]
· I never thought I'd see the day when Stephen Dorff and Tarsem Singh would collaborate on a ripoff of a remake of a 1981 pseudo-classic, but here we are. The actor has joined War of the Gods as the thief Stavros, who joins the hero Theseus (Henry Cavill) in a quest to save Greece from said gods and said war. Get. Excited. [Variety]
A new Twilight property peeks over the horizon, LeBron James preps for his film debut, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
One of the funniest moments in Kevin Smith's Clerks -- back when the New Jersey native was a breath of fresh air rather than the world's most prominent Tweetulence sufferer, and back before movie references were the default setting for young comic characters -- had Randall recounting the idiocy he encountered in video-store customers. "They always pick the most intellectually devoid movie on the racks," he says. That's when a dumb-ass walks into the store, scans the shelves and squeals in delight: "Ooooooh -- Navy SEALS!" And what better recommendation for a remake? Hell, Smith might even get around to Clerks 3 and weave the line back in. So meta. But here are five things you won't see in the new Navy Seals movie.
· Our goodwill toward Anna Faris is based on her usually being the funniest and cutest thing in comedies that range from the merely mediocre (Waiting, Just Friends) to the crushingly awful (The House Bunny, take your pick of the Scary Movie franchise), along with those occasionally credible supporting parts (Brokeback Mountain, Lost In Translation). Now, though, our love will be put to the test in a remake of Private Benjamin. Sure, she suits the role and has goofball charm to burn but can she improve on Goldie Hawn's Oscar-nominated performance?
· Plus, after the jump: James Bond matched with Lady Gaga, miners find Avatar a little insulting, and The Hurt Locker's explosive Nicolas Chartier gets ready for an Oscar rematch.
Is there such a thing as screenwriters apologizing for what they're about to do? Paramount has hired Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka to take a crack at the big-screen version of Baywatch. Director Jeremy Garelick, who delivered unto us The Break Up, has already re-written the first script from the team of Jay Scherick and David Ronn, who probably owe a mea culpa for the likes of I Spy, Norbit, Serving Sara and National Security. And now the appointment of new guys seems to confirm that Garelick's taking things in a comic direction. But wait: insiders are saying it'll also be about female-driven action, just like Charlie's Angels.
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More cowbell is never enough so we gotta say "Happy birthday" to Christopher Walken. Let's celebrate with a quick soft-shoe shuffle through five curious facts from his formative years. Plus, the eminently rebootable The Love Boat, though no longer exciting and new, chalks up a landmark, and remembering the tragedy of The Crow.
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