Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Music & Musicals, Casting, Scripts, Cinematical Indie

It used to be that the musicians with the beat were the Go Gos. Now the beat is getting manly. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that there’s a new indie ’80s comedy on the way called We Got the Beat, and Robert Hoffman has just joined the cast. He’s been dancing his butt off in a bunch of films and most recently got to groove in the rain with Briana Evigan in Step Up 2.

Written and directed by John Artigo, the film follows “Brad, a high school football player who sets out to prove he’s more than just a jock by quitting the team and turning his heavy metal band into a pioneering boy band.” But that’s not who Hoffman is playing — he gets to be “Garth, the boy-toy and live-in lover of Brad’s mother.”

This sounds like one of those films that could be terribly bad, or terribly good. Here’s to hoping it’s all set to real ’80s music and is awesome. The indie begins filming this month.

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Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Music & Musicals, Casting, Scripts, Cinematical Indie

It used to be that the musicians with the beat were the Go Gos. Now the beat is getting manly. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that there’s a new indie ’80s comedy on the way called We Got the Beat, and Robert Hoffman has just joined the cast. He’s been dancing his butt off in a bunch of films and most recently got to groove in the rain with Briana Evigan in Step Up 2.

Written and directed by John Artigo, the film follows “Brad, a high school football player who sets out to prove he’s more than just a jock by quitting the team and turning his heavy metal band into a pioneering boy band.” But that’s not who Hoffman is playing — he gets to be “Garth, the boy-toy and live-in lover of Brad’s mother.”

This sounds like one of those films that could be terribly bad, or terribly good. Here’s to hoping it’s all set to real ’80s music and is awesome. The indie begins filming this month.

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Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Deals, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Religious

Top Cow is on a roll! I never actually thought a week would come in which I would have two stories about that publishing company — but here it is. Who thought sexy, weapon wielding chicks were such a draw for the movie business? Not I! (Yes, that’s sarcasm.)

The latest book to be optioned is Magdalena. It’s rather similar to Witchblade except with a much more distinguished lineage. The Magdalena is descended from Sarah, the daughter of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. She’s the supernatural defender of the Catholic Church, and can look into the human heart to show people the error of their ways. And because no heroine is complete without a weapon, she wields the Spear of Destiny (the spear which pierced the side of Jesus at the Crucifixion) against the forces of evil. Luckily, nothing in the Magdalena’s Catholic contract stipulates that she dress conservatively, so she’s allowed to wear the crop tops of a Top Cow heroine.

And according to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s already further along in production than Witchblade. No director has been set, but the leads have been cast. Jenna Dewan is currently in talks to play Patience, the spear-wielding holy heroine. (There’s been a few, it looks like they’re going with the most recent incarnation.) Luke Goss is set to play Kristof, an agent sent by the secret organization that protects the lineage. In the comic, these are cardinals, but somehow I bet Kristof won’t be one because that would require way too much chastity — and the stars are way too hot. Both actors are going to be at Top Cow’s panel at ComicCon this weekend. If you’re going, you can ask them all sorts of pressing Magdalena movie questions.

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Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Deals, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Religious

Top Cow is on a roll! I never actually thought a week would come in which I would have two stories about that publishing company — but here it is. Who thought sexy, weapon wielding chicks were such a draw for the movie business? Not I! (Yes, that’s sarcasm.)

The latest book to be optioned is Magdalena. It’s rather similar to Witchblade except with a much more distinguished lineage. The Magdalena is descended from Sarah, the daughter of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. She’s the supernatural defender of the Catholic Church, and can look into the human heart to show people the error of their ways. And because no heroine is complete without a weapon, she wields the Spear of Destiny (the spear which pierced the side of Jesus at the Crucifixion) against the forces of evil. Luckily, nothing in the Magdalena’s Catholic contract stipulates that she dress conservatively, so she’s allowed to wear the crop tops of a Top Cow heroine.

And according to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s already further along in production than Witchblade. No director has been set, but the leads have been cast. Jenna Dewan is currently in talks to play Patience, the spear-wielding holy heroine. (There’s been a few, it looks like they’re going with the most recent incarnation.) Luke Goss is set to play Kristof, an agent sent by the secret organization that protects the lineage. In the comic, these are cardinals, but somehow I bet Kristof won’t be one because that would require way too much chastity — and the stars are way too hot. Both actors are going to be at Top Cow’s panel at ComicCon this weekend. If you’re going, you can ask them all sorts of pressing Magdalena movie questions.

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Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Casting, Deals, Scripts, Cinematical Indie

It was a bummer to learn that Franka Potente was backing out of Pope Joan back in May, but it looks like she’s found herself another weighty gig to add to her plate. Variety reports that she has signed on to star in a new German drama called Flucht aus Tibet, otherwise known as Escape from Tibet. The film, which is based on a true story, will be the big-screen debut for writer and director Maria Blumencron.

Heading out of Che Guevara territory, Potente is moving over to Tibet to play Judy Cronenberg. The woman was a press photographer who led “a group of refugee Tibetan children over the Himalayas to safety nine years ago.” There’s nothing more being said about the story, which seems to be surprisingly free from the Internet (anyone know the details?), but it is a big German project. The film has received FFF Bayern’s largest film funding — $1.1 million.

It should be a little bit of time before we get to see Tibet, but in the meantime, of course, we can watch her play Tania in Steven Soderbergh’s The Argentine and Guerilla.

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Filed under: TV Royalty, Programming, Music and Variety, Celebrities, Talk Show, Reality-Free

Here’s who’s on the late night shows tonight.

• Charlie Rose: chef David Chang
• The Daily Show: Will Ferrell
• The Colbert Report: Margaret Spellings
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Amanda Peet, Jon Hamm, and Augustana
• Jay Leno: Gillian Anderson, Dave Atell, and The Duke Spirit
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: George Foreman and Alanis Morissette
• Tavis Smiley: Debbie Allen and Anne Lamott (repeat)
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien: Jason Lee, Eva Amurri, and Galactic (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Julie Chen, Adam Scott, and Ricky Skaggs
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Bear Grylls (repeat)

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Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Celebrities

CBS and Condé Nast Media Group announced some heavy hitters for Fashion Rocks. The show, which coincides with New York’s Fashion Week, will now include A-listers like Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Fergie, Mariah, Carey, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Duffy, Keith Urban, Kid Rock and Lil Wayne.

Okay, maybe they’re not all A-listers. But all of them are performing.

Continue reading CBS announces big line-up for Fashion Rocks

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Filed under: OpEd, Video, Celebrities, Reality-Free

Liquid Generation has put together the 10 Most Racist Moments in TV. While the moments were extremely racist, I was expecting some more clips from primetime television, cartoons, and soaps. Most of the moments were just evidence of how some people are idiots (idiotic to think the way they do and idiotic to think that they should say something like that on television). I had other choice words in place of “idiot,” but it will have to suffice — trying to keep it clean.

My favorite moment from the video is from Jeopardy. Alex Trebek tells the Indian-American contestant, “Yeah, it hurts to miss that one” after he missed New Dehli as an answer. Got to love the Trebek.

Check out the video below and let me know what you think. Also, they play M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” throughout the video which is a little distracting. I’d rather just hear audio from the clips.

[via Digg]

Continue reading Shockingly racist moments of TV - VIDEO

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Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Celebrities, Obituaries, Reality-Free

One of the Golden Girls has died.

Estelle Getty, who played Bea Arthur’s mother (even though Arthur was a year older in real life) on the NBC hit comedy Golden Girls (which also starred Betty White and Rue McClanahan), passed away this morning in Los Angeles. Getty was 84 years old and had been suffering from a disease known as Lewy Body Dementia for a number of years.

Getty appeared in several other TV shows over the years, including the Golden Girls spinoff The Golden Palace (which also starred a young Don Cheadle), Empty Nest, Nurses, Brotherly Love, Mad About You, Touched By An Angel, Blossom, Newhart, Hotel, and many others. She also appeared in the movies Tootsie, Mask, Mannequin, and Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!

Interesting trivia: Getty played her Sophia Petrillo character in no less than five different shows: Golden Girls, Empty Nest, The Golden Palace, Nurses, and Blossom. That’s gotta be some sort of record. She also played a character named Sophia in an episode of Ladies Man in 2000, though the character had a different last name.

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Filed under: News, TV Royalty, Celebrities, Reality-Free

The name might not immediately ring a bell, but you know who he is. Jay Barbree is the guy who reports for NBC/MSNBC whenever there is space news or a shuttle launch. It seems like he’s had the job forever, and actually, he has. Yesterday Barbree celebrated 50 years of reporting on the space program for the network. In fact, Barbree is the only journalist to cover every single manned mission that the U.S. space program has had, starting in the early 60s. When NASA started the “teacher in space” program in the 1980s, they also started a “journalist in space” program, and Barbree was one of the 40 finalists (both were shut down after the Challenger explosion).

One thing I didn’t know was that Barbree also wrote the novel Pilot Error, which was based on an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. He also wrote the book Moon Shot, which was made into a TV documentary in 1994. Happy 50 years, Jay.

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