· So the film business is apparently on some kind of news strike this week, because the most noteworthy industry development of the day seems to be that New Moon-er Kellan Lutz is attached to the indie Cedars of Lebanon. Lutz will play one of a pair of brothers growing up parentless in the Valley during the 1970s. Sure, the actor is excited about it now, but just wait until he hears he's roped into the inevitable Lebanon fan cruise as well. Sad face! [The Wrap]
Brittany Murphy, Rin Tin Tin and others also abhor a news vacuum as Hollywood Ink continues after the jump.
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· Who says Twitter's good for nothing? It brought us this photo of Neil Patrick Harris and Tim Gunn, seconds after Tim had furrowed his brow, bitten the knuckle on his index finger, and asked the How I Met Your Mother star if he had "maybe a cable-knit cardigan to tie around your neck and pull this schizophrenic look together? Hey, who's hungry for Red Lobster? I am!"
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Look, we'll admit it: We here at Movieline are suckers for a good catfight. We're totally a good catfight's bitch. So we really enjoyed seeing Julie Roland Bowen lay into Sofía Vergara on last night's Chelsea Lately. But what's this? Another rumble: Martha vs Rachael! We've died and gone to catfight heaven! (There really is a catfight heaven. It's filled with dogs smoking cigars and waving bills in the air.) [Us]
At NBC, the primetime lineup is flailing, Comcast is circling, and Jay Leno is hinting that he'd like his old job back. How are you holding up, Andy Richter? "Things at the network are not in good shape," the Tonight Show announcer confessed to Vulture. "Who knows what's gonna happen. Good God, with the network, and what's happening. I feel like there's storms brewing and we're just clinging to our little Tonight Show buoy trying to put on a funny show and trying to see how it all shakes down." [Vulture]
On one hand, the inevitable Lifetime adaptation of Jaycee Dugard's story -- kidnapped at age 11, held captive for 18 years by a sex offender to whom she bore two kids, reunited last summer with her family -- might not yield quite the cinematic punch that such an extraordinary tale of psychological torment and survival could produce on the big screen. On the other, it's a relatively happy alternative compared to the adaptation one gonzo filmmaker says he has in store.
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Each week on Modern Family, Sofía Vergara and Julie Bowen's characters bump heads in their unconventional stepmother-stepdaughter relationship. And in a candid segment on Chelsea Lately last night, Julie Bowen suggested that the discord extends off-camera, all because of another Chelsea Lately segment in which the "Cholo Barbie" could not remember Bowen's name. Movieline reviews the clash, and recounts each hilarious burn by Bowen, after the jump.
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·Now serving: The first stills from Christina Aguilera's marquee debut in Burlesque! This image is only a couple of scenes ahead of her first stripping gig, where the barkeep hollers, "You've got one chance, honey," and Christina rallies with a teary-eyed, breast-smooshing tribute to Chaka Kahn, womanhood, and the John in the front row who knows the Midwestern resilience behind her violet eyes.
· Hamish Hamilton, the director of events like MTV's Video Music Awards, will helm the Oscars telecast.
· Nicolas Cage visited a Kenyan prison and handed out awards to wardens to highlight the issue of piracy in the Indian Ocean. The nervous wardens were grateful and shocked by the honor, though they muttered in unison that things really went downhill for him with Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
· The Emmys are moving back to August.
· Kirstie Alley quietly typed on Twitter that she's going beat up Conan O'Brien the next time she sees him. Let's loudly re-Tweet it so she doesn't see us trembling.
While the New Moon juggernaut arrives this week in a torrid, shirtless, wolfy blur, it didn't happen overnight. From the release of its first wolfcake images, through its historic Comic-Con panel, to its seismic world premiere, join Movieline now in retracing the making of a modern phenomenon.
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When Sandra Bullock had the biggest hit of her career this summer with The Proposal, I believe we all thought, "Way to go, Sandy! Get that cheddar." (That is verbatim.) Then, what was meant to become Bullock's comeback year was sorely tested by the release of All About Steve, a comedy that almost broke Rotten Tomatoes, and before we've had any time to recover from that debacle, here comes Bullock again with this week's release of the inspirational sports drama The Blind Side. Is America ready for all-Bullock, all the time?
Here at Movieline, we say yes! In fact, if Bullock truly wants to dominate the year 2009, she'll need to insert herself into three more movies this holiday season. Fortunately for her, I'm here to offer a helpful, Photoshopping hand.
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Before Lady Gaga, there was a certain bottle-blonde, bazoomba'd celebrity oddity called Angelyne. The Pink Corvette-piloting billboard star is suing the city of Los Angeles for not forwarding her fan mail, as was promised to her in a relocation agreement signed before they broke ground on the Hollywood & Vine development. The filing claims the Community Redevelopment Agency has damaged "the maintenance and upkeep of her persona, fan club, maintenance as a public figure," leading to losses of "sales of various fan club memorabilia in the amount of $500,000." A half-million is what she's seeking, but if you ask us, she deserves more. [THR, Esq.]
The fretting producers of CW's Melrose Place hoped for a ratings comeback by reinstalling Heather Locklear as Amanda Woodward, and it didn't quite happen -- the show's numbers rose by a measly 14%. Where can the torrid drama go from here? Since Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has already been canned, I say go one of two directions: 1) Amp up the sex, because this show has never been sufficiently dirty; 2) Give Heather Locklear even juicier screen-time. Her reemergence last night was refreshing, but her quips could still be sharpened, and frankly, her blazers could be boxier. Chop, chop. [THR]
As StoneyPotterGate subsides -- and the pleasant mental image of Daniel Radcliffe coughing deeply while nervously waving clouds of thick smoke from a torch-sized cannabis blunt towards his Hogwarts dormroom window fades to but a faint, munchies-inducing memory -- we look ahead now towards the gifted young actor's next career moves. Here's the bad news: He's chosen to hop aboard the hormonal-vampire-romance bandwagon, as he's signed on to play a sparkly bloodsucker caught up in a Romeo and Juliet tale of doomed love.
The good news is that it's on The Simpsons.
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This year presented People editors with a surfeit of options for Sexiest Man Alive. Want to move newsstand copies? Pick Robert Pattinson! Need a smirking breakout? How about The Hangover's Bradley Cooper! Someone a little less smirky but still a breakout? Hey, there's always Ryan Reynolds! And so it is that People has decided instead to return to recrown Johnny Depp (who won in 2003), celebrating his virtually asexual screen presence with a cover photo that makes it look like his face is sliding off. Job well done, everybody! [People]
For a certain percentage of the population, Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen is the Sexiest Man (Kinda) Alive. For the rest of us, he's much too emo to get worked up about. But all is not lost! With Extreme Makeover tips from even the crappiest vampire-themed flicks, he might sparkle for everyone yet!
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· While the awards machine waits to see whether or not Morgan Freeman is worth processing as Nelson Mandela in Invictus, a South African production company has enlisted his fellow Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson to play the president's controversial ex-wife Winnie. Adventurously named Winnie, the film will reportedly cover all of the former first lady's ups (taking up Mandela's cause when he spent 27 years in prison) and downs (fraud conviction, relationship with a bodyguard who murdered a teenage informant). That said, Hudson lauded her character as "complex," which generally translates from actor-speak as "s/he's kind of a jerk." [Variety]
Lee Daniels looks to the South for his next project, Justin Theroux gets cosmic, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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