Is There Any Actor Who Could Make Spielberg's Harvey Remake Interesting?

Let's face it: We're not Steven Spielberg's target audience for Harvey. In every way, the director's intended remake of the Jimmy Stewart imaginary rabbit vehicle feels safe and familiar -- so much so that industry wags have practically rubber-stamped Tom Hanks to star. That preliminary coronation got us thinking, though: Is there a single actor in Hollywood that could give this project any sort of curveball appeal? We decided to round up the best and worst of Spielberg's potential casting choices.

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Ryan O'Neal Fails To Recognize Paper Moon Co-Star/Daughter At Funeral

Well, this tidbit buried in the Vanity Fair cover story about Farrah Fawcett -- an anecdote recounted by Ryan O'Neal in an attempt at illustrating what "a hopeless father" he is -- was enough to make me recoil in horror:

"I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me," Ryan told me. "I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She said, 'Daddy, it's me - Tatum!' I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it's my daughter. It's so sick."

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Tom Arnold Returns to Comedy with Stand-Up Tour, True Lies 2 Rumors

Tom Arnold is enjoying the renaissance that arrives for all great artists, with a series in development at NBC, a steadily rising indie-film profile, and a flourishing return to his stand-up comedy roots. But as Arnold alluded to the New York Times in an extensive Sunday profile, that second career won't be complete until a return to blockbuster form takes place with his True Lies braintrust of Jim Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And if you believe Arnold (still the comic, not the governor), it's close -- perhaps even next-year close.
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CBS's Nina Tassler on Ben Silverman: 'I'm Just a D-Girl So I Really Wouldn't Comment'

After gorging themselves on a complimentary breakfast buffet, television critics herded into the Langham Huntington Hotel Ballroom for CBS Day at the TCA Press Tour. President of CBS Entertainment, Nina Tassler, kicked off the network's panels by joking that her allotted time window had been shortened since she "can respond to questions in 140 characters or less," before commenting on the new Emmys format, The Jay Leno Show and the network's GLAAD ratings.
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TV Writers Protest Emmy Banishment With Strong, Expertly Worded Letter

As envisioned by Movieline's state-of-the-art awards-simulator technology, the Emmys' decision to distribute 8 of the show's 28 awards before the actual telecast could lead to the corralling of nominated miniseries and drama series writers into a Nokia Theatre men's lavoratory, where they'll be forced to compete with the sounds of flushing toilets and XLerator hand dryers as they deliver their humble acceptance speeches.

That prospect has angered TV writers, who justifiably assert that TV is the quintessential writer's medium (as opposed to literature, which, let's face it, has belonged to dust jacket designers for years), thereby making this form of kudosfest apartheid particularly egregious. THR reports that over 100 of their ranks have signed a letter protesting their pre-taped Emmy ghettoization, including top showrunners like John Wells, Ron Moore, Carol Mendelsohn, Doug Ellin, Seth MacFarlane, Shonda Rhimes, and Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse.

The text of the letter is after the jump, followed by an equally censorious reproach from the Writers Guild of America, issued on Friday.

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Nina, Nancy, Tomato, Tomahto

Tweeted at TCA: "First question to [CBS Entertainment President] Nina Tassler: 'Nancy...' Tassler: 'NINA!' Critic: 'Whatever your name is.' Monday morning, ladies and gentlemen!" [@KateAurthur, @TVMoJoe]

Classic Westwood Village, Bruin Theaters on Verge of Extinction?

Disturbing news trickled out of Westwood over the weekend, when the LAT reported that Mann Theaters will not renew its leases on the Village and Bruin theaters in Westwood Village. That would leave both venues -- each local landmarks dating back to the 1930s -- dark headed into 2010, with somewhat ugly implications for studios, festivals and moviegoers who'd taken advantage of them over the years.
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Ben Stiller on the Red Hour Video Leak: 'They Were All In On It'

By now we hope you've had a moment to take a look at the Red Hour Films industrial movie -- a rare documentary treat offering viewers a glimpse inside Ben Stiller's Kosher Meat Condom factory to show how the trayfe sausage is made. As the footage came to us with no background information, we were left to our own fertile imaginations to conceive of how and why this short project -- which spit-roasted Stiller's new home of Fox and accused CEO Tom Rothman of having his "head so far up [Stiller's] ass, he'd probably have to send Jim Cameron up there with one of his 3-D underwater cameras to pull him out" -- was made.

Made aware of the leak over the weekend, Stiller weighed in.

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I Have Seen the Enemy, and it is Netflix

Or so says Time Magazine critic Richard Corliss, who might have overreacted a bit to the closure of his local video store in his new piece, "Why Netflix Stinks." In addition to walking readers through the checkout-and-wait process most of us have experienced for seven or eight years now, there's the concern that renting movies and processing other media from home makes you "what the online corporate culture wants you to be: a passive, inert receptacle for its products." Unless, of course, you decide to share his plaint via blog, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, or another electronic exchange, in which case your discriminating, thoughtful media consumption is to be saluted. I think? [Time]

Regrets... Sienna Miller Has a Few

Sienna Miller hasn't had the easiest go of things on her recent press tour for G.I. Joe, confessing candidly to substandard work and swatting away at least one aggressive media detractor. So when it came time to chat with an interviewer from the Guardian -- one who wasted no time characterizing Miller's new film as "insultingly inane, cynically commercial, and almost unwatchably awful" -- which Miller showed up? Perhaps surprisingly, none of the above, but just a regular working actress reflecting on life after the big studio check has cleared.
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Battlestar, Big Bang Theory and Betty White Sweep TV Critics Awards

The 25th Annual Television Critics Association Awards were handed out Saturday night at an event emceed by Chelsea Handler. Battlestar Galactica was named Program of the Year and Movieline's own crush-object, Betty White, was given the career achievement award. The Big Bang Theory shut out 30 Rock in all comedy categories, proving once and for all which network gifts the best swag. The complete list of TCA winners is after the jump.
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Steven Spielberg to Explore the Intricacies of Man/Rabbit Relations with Harvey

· Steven Spielberg and 20th Century Fox had nothing better going on over the weekend than to finalize their deal on a remake of Harvey, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and classic Jimmy Stewart film from 1950 about Elwood P. Dowd and the six-foot invisible rabbit who changes his life. DreamWorks will co-finance with Fox; Spielberg will tackle the project after completing his current Tintin film. I presume Spielberg vet Tom Hanks is a favorite for the lead, and the motion-capture CGI title character will no doubt set an imposing standard for all humanoid movie bunnies to come. And you know what? Mel Gibson and his $10 beaver puppet will still crush them. [Variety]

Will Ferrell leaves the Neighborhood, Denzel Washington is like a good neighbor, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.

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Some People Just Can't Catch a Break

Number-one could feel a little better today for the gang behind Funny People. High expectations gave way to the sobering reality that the world might not be quite ready for an epic study of relationships, mortality and comedy -- unless you can find a way to make it with guinea pigs, in which case the sky is apparently the limit. Read on for the rest of this weekend's box-office power rankings.

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Friday Box Office: Not So Funny

Judd Apatow's Funny People looks like it's headed for the low end of its expectations for the weekend, collecting $8.6 million on its opening day and working toward an estimated $24 million three-day total. The Ugly Truth may have siphoned some of Universal's cash away with a better-than-expected Friday, and as totally expected, the guinea pigs of G-Force are making short work of Fox's embarrassing Aliens in the Attic. Horror fans rallied around Orphan, failing to boost the $1.3 million-grossing The Collector even into the top 10. Dog days indeed.

FUNNY PEOPLE: $8,630,000 (new)

G-FORCE: $5,750,000 ($55,153,000)

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: $5,405,000 ($243,168,000)

THE UGLY TRUTH: $4,450,000 ($45,931,000)

ALIENS IN THE ATTIC: $2,875,000 ($2,875,000)

ORPHAN: $2,445,000 ($21,986,000)

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS: $1,715,000 ($178,258,000)

THE PROPOSAL: $1,660,000 ($145,694,000)

THE HANGOVER: $1,545,000 ($252,241,000)

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN: $1,450,000 ($384,951,000)

Virtual Newsstand: Movieline.com, July 2009

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