Filed under: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting

Keeping things fresh, Liev Schreiber has signed on for another role. He’s already working on Defiance, which has him playing one of three Jewish brothers who escape Nazi-occupied Poland and join the Russian resistance. To balance these cinematic good deeds, he’s also getting into the body parts business. Variety has reported that the actor has signed on for Repossession Mambo. No, this isn’t Repo! The Genetic Opera, but rather the non-musical version that stars Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

Schreiber will play Law’s boss at the futuristic, artificial organ credit union where Law works. That is, until he gets an organ, can’t pay, and goes on the lam with his ex-wife (Alice Braga), who also owes money. The back story — it is twenty years into the future, and Law and Whitaker have fought in a war in Africa, and have returned as “disturbed veterans.” They settle down in Toronto, working as repossession agents until the money/implant kerfuffle happens. So, I imagine Whitaker as co-star has to hunt Law down when he doesn’t pay. Now, it seems to me that it would be cheaper to just insert some sort of tracking system into these guys, so that running away won’t do any good. It’d be cheaper than an army of repossession agents. Anyway, Liev’s a good addition, but we’re still going to have to wait and see if this turns out to be successful, or just another Jude stinker. Before we dig into people’s insides, however, you can see Schreiber in Love in a Time of Cholera.

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Filed under: Drama, Sports, Casting, Universal, Fandom, Newsstand

J. A. K. E. Jake Jake Jake! While they may currently be suffering through a horrific season, Jet fans finally have something to look forward to. According to Variety, Jake Gyllenhaal has signed on to play Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath in a new biopic for Universal Pictures. David Hollander will write the script once the strike is over, while Andrew Lazar and Jimmy Walsh produce. Though Namath didn’t break a slew of records, he is known as football’s first player to reach rock-star status. And Gyllenhaal recently became the first man to (pretend) go all the way with Heath Ledger in a tent. So there’s definitely a connection there.

Namath is probably most famous for guaranteeing his team a victory against the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, and, as Variety notes, “[He] put the AFL on equal footing with the NFL, paved the way to a merger and helped establish football as a TV sport. He accomplished all of this on knees so bad that draft board doctors refused to send him to Vietnam for fear that they would give out on the battlefield.” Recently, Namath has suffered with alcohol issues, going so far as to tell a female sportscaster during live ESPN coverage of a Jets game that he wanted to kiss her and “couldn’t care less about the team strugg-a-ling.” But I don’t think that’s the Namath we’ll be seeing up on the big screen. Gyllenhaal is currently shooting the film Brothers opposite Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman, and from there he’ll dive into a moon expedition flick for Dreamworks and Doug Liman. So don’t look for his take on Namath to score a touchdown in theaters anytime soon.

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Curvy Beauty Kim Kardashain was “freaked out” after pop-star Britney Spears revealed she was having wild fantasies about the reality TV star.

The 27-year-old leading lady of a home made sex tape said that Britney fancied her as her lesbian lover.

“She said she loves me and loves my butt and how she wants to be my lesbian lover,” the Sun quoted her, as saying.

But the latest Playboy gal did not quite like the idea of a fling with the troubled pop star.

“It’s totally freaked me out. I mean, what do you say to that other than ‘no thanks’, said Kardashian.

She added: “Actually, maybe I would do it for a million bucks!”

Kardashain recently termed her posing naked for Playboy as a helping gesture for young who had become accustomed to seeing only thin models in magazines.

“I did it because I’m not one of those stick-skinny girls you see. I felt like girls today need to see a normal body,” she said.

The raven haired stunner added: “My mum actually pushed me to do it! I think she’s living vicariously through me a little bit.”

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Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Dancing With The Stars

Readers, our long national nightmare is over.

Can the nation please now get back to talking about something else? This was a show where celebrities danced (not even for charity or money) and it consumed the media for weeks. Who would have thought that the most important celebrity on ABC in 2007 would be Marie Osmond? (I can’t wait until Bobby Sherman captures the nation’s heart on next season’s House Painting with the Stars.)

Continue reading Thank God Dancing with the Stars is finally over

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Filed under: Web, Celebrities, WGA Strike

A bunch of TV stars, including Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer, Seth Myers, Rashida Jones, Richard Belzer, Colin Quinn, Kristin Davis, and Michael Emerson from Lost are part of a video over at The Huffington Post talking about why writers are important and why the strike is important to the future of the industry. They’re joined by Presidential candidate John Edwards and big screen stars Tim Robbins and Danny Glover.

Talks have resumed and parties involved say that things have been productive. Fey even says (it’s a little hard to hear in the video) that she’s optimistic that a deal can be reached within the next week because there’s no reason why people can’t go back to work.

It’s funny to see Emerson talking about the strike. He still has that Ben “look” in his eye and you expect him to say something like “the writers should be paid for their work…TRUST ME, I WOULDN’T LIE TO YOU, JACK.”

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Filed under: Music & Musicals, Casting, Mystery & Suspense, Dreamworks, Johnny Depp, Movie Marketing, Trailers and Clips

A new Sweeney Todd making-of featurette has hit the internet, and any fan of either Johnny Depp or Tim Burton’s well advised to check the footage out; of course, as with any piece of marketing making-of material, what the piece doesn’t say is almost as interesting as what it does. One of the more notable bits in the featurette is how it almost seems to be bracing audiences for how violent the movie’s going to be; this is, after all, a movie about a mass-murderer. Alan Rickman notes with a jovial grin that “There’ll be loads of blood spraying all over the place, so if that’s your thing, you’re going to have plenty of it. …” So, then, squeamish moviegoers: You can’t say you haven’t been warned.

Another sequence in the piece offers an in-depth look at the title character’s implements of death, the straight razors he used to wield bloodlessly as a barber. After several close-up shots of the wicked-looking blades, Burton notes of Sweeney’s tools that “The razors are just an extension of him, really.” We then cut to Depp, in character, holding a razor aloft and exclaiming “My arm is complete again. …” Depp, Burton and a lead character with a sharp object at the end of his wrist; I guess someone thought that it might be wise to evoke the visuals (if not the gentler spirit) of Edward Scissorhands.

But with all the warnings of bloodshed and the invocation of past collaboration in the spot, it’s still notable that the piece doesn’t mention the film’s musical nature, and only includes a brief section of a musical number — and even that’s more spoken than sung by Depp. I guess the question is: Are modern audiences more afraid of musical numbers than bloodshed? And is DreamWorks actively trying to hide Sweeney Todd’s Broadway origins?

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Filed under: Late Night, TV Royalty, Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show

Here’s who’s sitting down on the couch on the late night shows.

• Charlie Rose: John McCain
• The Daily Show: Halle Berry (repeat)
• The Colbert Report: Katie Couric (repeat)
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Al Franken and Isla Fisher (repeat)
• Jay Leno: Julia Roberts, Pierce Brosnan, and Geechy Guy (repeat)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: TBA (repeat)
• Tavis Smiley: Laura Linney and Gina Nahai
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien: Ted Danson, Patton Oswalt, and Devendra Banhart (repeat)
• The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Samuel L. Jackson and The Cliks (repeat)
• Last Call with Carson Daly: TBA (repeat)

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Filed under: Late Night, OpEd, Celebrities, Talk Show

What a difference 15 years makes.

I have to hand it to Leno and NBC. It’s a great idea to air older episodes of Leno’s show during this strike. I’ve been saying for a couple of years that the late night shows should run repeats from years ago when they have repeat weeks instead of an episode we saw just a week or two ago. Leno’s doing it, though I wonder if it’s more of an NBC decision and not one that Leno made.

Last night he aired an episode from June, 1992, which was only one month after Johnny Carson retired and Leno took over the show (with the controversial Helen Kushnick still producing the show). It’s interesting to note the differences between Leno 1992 and Leno 2007.

Continue reading Jay Leno 1992 vs. Jay Leno 2007

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Filed under: Celebrities, Game Show, Dancing With The Stars, Pickups and Renewals

GSN has announced the pickup of a new gameshow called How Much is Enough hosted by actor Corbin Bernsen.

The show, which is produced by BBC Worldwide America, is a contest to see which contestant can win the most money without being the greediest. The game begins with five “Money Clocks” ranging in value from $1,000 to $5,000. In each round players secretly buzz in as the amount of money is shown on the clock in an attempt to capture the second-highest amount of money each time. Whoever rings in last, and scores the highest amount of cash goes home empty handed.

Continue reading Corbin Bernsen hosts for GSN

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Filed under: Horror, Casting, New Releases, Newsstand

Here it is; just what we need in the world: A movie that scares people into forwarding along those annoying chain emails. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Nikki Reed, Noah Segan, Keith David and Betsy Russell (Saw III, IV) have signed up to star in Chain Letter. Oh yes, they’re going after you … Ms. I Never Forward Chain Mails Because I Think They’re Lame. Well what if you received a chain mail that asked you to forward it on to ten friends … only instead of spamming ten friends, you deleted it and found out that — holy sh*t — the Chain Man is out to kill me now. Yes, the Chain Man — HR describes him as “the chain-wielding killer …” Wait, so does that mean he kills people with actual chains? And when he shows up to kill someone for not forwarding along an email, do they … laugh at him? Because, honestly, I think I would.

Saw producer Mark Burg and Roxanne Avent have snagged executive producing duties on the horror flick, while Deon Taylor is tapped to write, produce and direct. You might remember Nikki Reed as the girl who co-wrote and starred in the movie Thirteen, which was partially based on her own life as a rebellious teenager. Michael Bailey Smith (who’s creepy as all hell) will play the Chain Man, while a bunch of these young actors will play the victims. Honestly, I’m curious to see how this one unfolds. Does the Chain Man come after you if you don’t forward the email? And what if you only forward it to three people, instead of five? Do you get half-killed? Hey, as long as at least one person utters the line: “No, you forgot to forward the email — that’s why the Chain Man is trying to kill you!” — then I’ll be a happy man.

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