The wheels of Hollywood justice, they turn fast! This morning, America was shocked to discover that this monster, this Mel Gibson monster, was under battery investigation for tearing open a man's shirt in a nightclub. All the better to examine his sugar pecs? But then, a twist!
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Yes, that Tom Ford -- the ex-Gucci captain, Keira Knightley-nuzzler and now writer-director whose A Single Man will have its world premiere (in competition, no less) at next month's Venice Film Festival. Ford adapted Christopher Isherwood's acclaimed novel about an English college professor (played by Colin Firth) who quietly attempts to go about his business unaffected after his partner's sudden death; Julianne Moore, Ginnifer Goodwin and Matthew Goode co-star. Among Ford's peers also chasing the festival's Golden Lion? Just some schlubs named Werner Herzog, Michael Moore, Jacques Rivette, Giuseppe Tornatore, Todd Solondz and John Hillcoat, whose The Road will also have its long-awaited debut. [indieWIRE]
If there's one thing we've learned about Twilight drama, it's that it doesn't happen quietly. ("EEEEEEEEE!!!") Why, then, should the recasting of series villain Victoria (originally Rachelle Lefevre, now Bryce Dallas Howard) be any different? Tuesday, Summit painted the sub-in as an amicable result of scheduling conflicts, then Lefevre responded with an aggrieved "That's not the whole story" statement. Then, late last night? Summit responded to the response, and the fangs are out!
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· Last time someone messed with the wife of a Russell Crowe character, a Caesar died and Oscar smiled. Who knows how he'll one-up that for The Next Three Days, director Paul Haggis's foreign-film adaptation about a man who attempts to free his wife from jail time for a crime she says she didn't commit. Haggis told Variety that he "needed an actor who can thrive as an Everyman who rises when faced with an extraordinary circumstance." Great. Bolt down the phones. [Variety]
More stars board the formidable romcom Valentine's Day, Jennifer Aniston is almost a cougar, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
· Heroes' fourth season extended trailer is now online, including a glimpse at Hayden Panettiere's new female love interest. Is it us, or has this show totally Kissed the Lesbian? [via THR]
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You and I will never know exactly how fraught a relationship Katherine Heigl has with her masters at Grey's Anatomy, whom she very publicly chided last week for a 17-hour work day upon her return to the set. But while they claw at each other behind the scenes, another trusted TV insider offers a bit of scathing expert testimony that won't do the diva any favors.
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· Take a look at this amazing drawing, and tons more over here, that are thought to be the concept art for a top-secret Wii game currently in development that takes a "steampunk" approach to the Disney universe. Is that Captain Eo hovering by in his vapor-powered space-cruiser?
· Want to star in Sex and The City 2? An open casting call is looking for "international types, professional soccer players, fashion models, urban club goers, gays and lesbians, celebrity types and upscale socialites." Couldn't they just have said "Beckhamesque?"
· Linda Evangelista was molested with a mousepad.
· 9 to 5: The Musical is closing Labor Day weekend. Those fickle theater crowds -- it's enough to drive you crazy if you let it.
· The cast of Saved By The Bell has reunited on the cover of People magazine! Except Screech and Mr. Belding, whose exclusion was a pre-condition.
"It's hard to believe that ever played on the Disney Channel," said Tim Burton, looking a little shellshocked today at the Museum of Modern Art. The museum had just screened part of his long-lost short film Hansel and Gretel, a mad hallucination of neon fluids, fire, vomiting windows and a witch wielding candy-striped nunchucks and weaponized cookie cutters. It was the first time an audience had seen it since 1983, when the short debuted on cable. "I think they showed it once at 3 a.m. on Halloween night."
Of course, that was well before Tim Burton was, you know, Tim Burton.
This just tweeted in from the Television Critics Association panels: "Jeff Dunham's puppet makes fun of the French at #tca panel. French reporter in crowd yells out: 'You suck!'" We hear the journalists are being openly hostile to the Comedy Central-special-hogging ventriloquist. [FranklinAvenue]
Steve Zahn's appearance on The Tonight Show has been making the rounds this morning, with some suggesting the actor was perhaps under the influence of some home-cultivated medicinal analgesics while discussing his day-to-day farming duties back at his home in Kentucky (he talks to a horse named Dude, ignores the sheep, shovels crap -- basically all things one might also do living in L.A., only with actual animals). I don't know, I've watched it twice now -- what can I say, I'm a Zahn fan -- and he just strikes me as being the kind of guy who marches to the beat of his own hilarious sheep-bleating impressions.
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There is some confusion going around the Web this morning about the status of Lars von Trier's Antichrist, the rollicking sex-and-mutilation horror opus that so polarized Cannes Film Festival audiences earlier this year. According to a new interview with Time Magazine, the filmmaker acknowledged he'd be cutting some of the movie's most graphic content (which includes, among other things, explicit sex and bloody ejaculation). Except his U.S. distributor mere months ago said that they intended to keep the film intact, at least in theaters. So what's really happening?
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It seems like only yesterday when the whole world was buying anything Jeffrey Katzenberg was selling. Alas, it was further back than you think. Not long after the LAT pointed out the unprecedented lag in overseas gross for a Dreamworks Animation product, Katzenberg got on the phone with reporters to acknowledge a hard truth for his franchise-milking operation: Monsters vs. Aliens underperformed to the point where it might not get a sequel.
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You already know that we at Movieline uphold only the highest standards of accuracy and taste. (Except for that "Harry Potter is the new Dark Knight" thing I foisted on you a few weeks back; don't worry, I'll do my time with the dunce cap.) But you also know the sad truth that you often can't trust all our movie- and celebrity-obsessed contemporaries further than you can throw them. Enter Gossip Cop, a brand-new, kind of addictive site dedicated to verifying just how bad that Katie Holmes film-set fire really was or if Angelina Jolie is actually plotting a political career. (Answers: Not bad, and you're kidding, right?) We heartily welcome their neighborhood patrol, and we hope to never hear their billy clubs rapping on our office door. [Gossip Cop]
· Bryce Dallas Howard got the call Tuesday to replace one of the Twilight series' myriad villains in the third installment, Eclipse, due in 2010. Summit attributes its replacement of Rachelle Lefevre -- the curly-haired minx who played Bella-stalking, baseball-game-spoiling vampire Victoria in the franchise's first two films -- to scheduling conflicts. Of course. In any case, Bryce, watch yourself; these fans are much less forgiving than the ones who shrugged when you stepped in for Nicole Kidman in the sequel to Dogville.
The Lorax is ready for his close-up, the Wolfman reschedules his own, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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