Another week down at Movieline, where we welcomed an old friend, got to know a few new ones (maybe too well), and said farewell to a legend. Plenty of other notable events occurred as well; reminisce with us after the jump, and have a great weekend!
· With Brüno finally here, we encourage you to see it, or not, and make up your own minds, or don't, about whether this movie is funny, or isn't, and disparagingly mean-spirited, or just the opposite. (Ebert gave it 3 1/2 stars, if that's any help.) In the meantime, here's the man himself delivering last night's Top Ten list.
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After a painstaking appraisal of a wide and worthy race, we've narrowed down the five best comments of the week. We offer their authors not just the heartiest of congratulations, but also something they'll remember for the rest of their lives -- and possibly well into the hereafter! That's right: A command performance by Michael Jackson Memorial breakout star and Frasier theme song composer Darryl Phinnessee, who'll sing either their choice of any song from the Jackson playbook, or "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs," with his signature, velvety intensity.
Now let's find out who'll be serenaded:
Success! After an outcry from Slashfilm's Peter Sciretta, Comic-Con organizers have bowed to demands that they punish teenage girls for the temerity of attending Comic-Con. Now, the New Moon panel has been moved up to a time where it can't possibly interfere with the newly subsequent Avatar panel, and thus, the uniquely "junior high school dance" laws of Comic-Con gender interaction have been preserved.
So who are today's winners and losers?
In the grand tradition of Volcano vs. Dante's Peak and Deep Impact vs. Armageddon, we now have a new cinematic duel about to play out, and this one involves intelligent, talking foxes. Who will you place your money on?
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Having put half of Young Hollywood through a punishing litany of spandex fittings, humiliating proddings with body-fat calipers, and harrowing screen tests in which an actor's tolerance for convincingly reciting comic-book dialogue was pushed to the absolute limits of human endurance, Warner Bros has apparently pruned the list of candidates to anchor its megabudget Green Lantern superhero project to three finalists. THR reports that only Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Timberlake now stand triumphantly atop the pile of broken bodies of their fallen competitors, with each actor having his own patron among the film's producer, director, and studio.
· Bloody Disgusting debuted the final one-sheet for Jennifer's Body.
· Katie Holmes's choreographer Tyce Diorio is calling her upcoming performance on So You Think You Can Dance "Oscar winning!" TV shows are eligible for that stuff, right? If only we could shed those pesky rule engrams!
· Emma Watson is preparing to meet her college roommate this fall, and Daniel Radcliffe has high hopes the roomie will be a Potter maniac: "I hope you walk in and the first thing you see is your face on a duvet."
· Twittered Lindsay Lohan recently, "Some guy just grabbed my waist - two hands, both sides. I've been held down before and fought my way out." Interventions don't count, Lindz.
· "Joe Jackson: Michael's Kids Could Be Performers." Uh, did anyone else just feel a shiver run down their spine? Just me?
We have gone through the geek looking glass, people! For years, Comic-Con has been a judgment-free zone where thousands of white men who love facial hair and Boba Fett in equal measure can get together and feel as one. Now, though, there is a disturbance in the force: women!
We have for you today the greatest conceivable casting announcement short of a banner Variety headline declaring the Queen of England has signed on for Bring It On VII: Royal Jewels: Mel Gibson will star in The Beaver, the #1 Black Listed black comedy by Kyle Killen about a family man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the discovery of an imagined (or is it?) talking beaver hand-puppet who proceeds to steadily take over his life. And as rumored, Jodie Foster is directing -- indeed, it is she who convinced her Maverick co-star to come aboard after bandied-about names like Steve Carell and Jim Carrey never panned out.
It's a tough time for those in the media right now. Publications are folding, jobs are scarce, audiences are harder to reach than ever, and sharks are devouring us off the coast of Australia. Or some of us, anyway, including one TV reporter who found bloody swim trunks and his own carefully researched obituary in a sobering package sent to his office.
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A while back, we noted that The Tudors actor Henry Cavill has spent his entire career being shortlisted, then ultimately passed over, for some of the biggest parts in Hollywood: Superman in a McG-helmed iteration of Superman Returns, James Bond in Casino Royale, the Caped Crusader in Batman Begins...hell, the poor guy was even author Stephanie Meyer's first choice to play Edward in Twilight.
Well, guess what further indignity we can add to the list?
· This is exactly the kind of development everyone was wishing for last week when Lindsay Lohan celebrated her mildly downscale birthday: The starlet has bounced back with Unforgettable Productions, a new shingle that will develop only the finest content for film, TV and digital media. Like Faux Real? An "Entourage for the fashion world"? OK, so maybe it's derivative. But one thing at a time! It's work! High-five, Linds! [THR]
Hangover sequel news, Ari Emanuel's unusual wet dream, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and incorrigibly flamboyant at the movies. This week, an Austrian import threatens America's transforming-auto industry, Hayden Panettiere is loved (sort of), and a bounty of great new indies avail themselves at the art house.
· Paparazzi snapped Shia LaBeouf jogging with his shirt off today in L.A., or as he calls it, "Gettin' shredded for mom." [People]
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I wish Sarah Palin was around right now to provide a fitting baseball metaphor for what's happening to Moneyball, but she's out clubbing seals with the kids, so we'll just lay this on you straight-up. Sony has breathed new life into the Steven Soderbergh/Brad Pitt project that was all but left for dead after Amy Pascal pulled the plug, due to "being surprised at how different the script we just spent millions of dollars developing was from the one dancing around in my brain," or something to that effect.
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