Feb 4 2008 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Sylvester Stallone has signed a deal to direct and star in two more action films. No news on plot, but I'd say something to do with a weirdly-muscular old guy and senseless violence is a pretty safe bet.

- How will Across the Universe writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais follow up their cinematic literal interpretation of Beatles songs? With Ruby Tuesday, a literal interpretation of Rolling Stones songs (duh!), and this time it will be animated. More specifically, according to La Frenais, "It will be some pretty hip animation." But the question remains, will it be groovy?

- Joe Johnston has taken over Mark Romanek's Benicio Del Toro-starring Wolf Man project. No need to worry with the director of Hidalgo and Jumanji at the helm.

Jan 14 2008 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- The final Harry Potter movie may be broken into two parts after the release of the last book left fans demanding more lines to wait in. [Mail on Sunday]

- Ice Cube spoke out about his plans for a Welcome Back, Kotter remake, which he says will only vaguely resemble the original, adding, "You know me, I’m gonna flip it. It ain’t gonna be no Gabe Kaplan shit." It's true; if you knew Cube, you would have already known he'd flip it. [MTV]

- Tyler Perry might be on steroids. Or it might just be a hilarious muscle suit for Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Venice Beach. [CNN]

- Ellen Page may be up for the lead in the Drew Barrymore-directed Derby Girl, the role of "a precocious teen, full of sarcasm and wit." She'll repotedly follow that up with a role in Typecast. [Film School Rejects]

Nov 9 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Another movie based on a video game? That could only be good if they got Mark Wahlberg to star as Max Payne, a cop who has "little regard for the rules." Wait, they did?! [Variety]

- Josh Harnett and Sam Rockwell have joined George-Radliff's adaptation of End Zone, with Hartnett playing a talented running back and Rockwell taking the role of an excitable publicist. I hope Hartnett can pull off the role of a good-looking jock. [Variety]

- If you're in LA, make sure to catch Life of Reilly, opening this weekend--or at least watch an episode of Match Game 76--to get your regular dose of Charles Nelson Reilly. I'll be catching it in New York next weekend to ward against the phantom ascot pains common to CNR withdrawal.

- Writers Guild members: continue not writing. You're on strike, sillyheads! And it's the weekend!

Nov 6 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Are you as old as 70, yet still somehow young and fresh-faced? Are you cool with having half your eyebrow shaved off? Are you extremely plain, perfect-looking, or an absolute mutant, yet still thin and athletic, like a graceful Elephant Man? Yes? Then you can be in Star Trek!

- Jennifer Connelly has joined Keanu Reeves in the cast of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the sci-fi classic, now with more attractive people. [Variety]

- Jeanne Tripplehorn will play Jackie O in Grey Gardens, the story of her reclusive cousin and aunt. Not Julia Louis-Dreyfus? Have these people not seen Seinfeld? [Reuters]

Nov 5 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Comedian Zach Galifianakis has nabbed roles as Ashton Kutcher's best friend in What Happens in Vegas... and as a government scientist in charge of a guinea pig commando program in G-Force. This gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite things ever. [Hollywood Reporter]

- Sylvester Stallone is in talks to direct and star as a man turned vigilante after his family is attacked in a remake of Death Wish, a title begging for jokes about his age. [Variety]

- Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel have joined David O. Russell's political satire about a woman shot in the head with a nailgun, giving her wild sexual urges, and the immoral congressman who takes advantage. Is it wrong that I'm most excited at the possibility of more videos of Russell freaking out on people? [Hollywood Reporter]

- Hayden Christensen will star in Beast of Bataan, playing the attorney to Masaharu Homma, the Japanese general implicated in the Bataan Death March. How tasteless will it be when they play Beast of Burden in the trailer? [Hollywood Reporter]

Oct 29 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Brett Ratner has said he is no longer the directing the Escape From New York remake, giving him plenty of time for two or three more Rush Hours. [AICN]

- David Dobkin, director of The Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus announced he's taken over the reigns of the Flash movie hoped to spin-off from Justice League of America. To those worried his involvement means it will be a comedy, he offered up the film's melancholy tagline, "You can't outrun yourself," indicating it will instead be a laughable melodrama. [MTV]

- On that note, Greg Berlanti is lined up to direct the Green Lantern movie, pitting the Lantern in a tough race against The Flash for critical and commercial failure. [Variety]

- Cuba Gooding Jr. has joined John Carter's action thriller The Way of War, with executive producer Nick Thurlow adding, "With his intensity and ability to take a character to the edge, the part is tailor-made for Cuba." Is that assessment based on Snow Dogs, Boat Trip, or Daddy Day Camp? [Variety Hollywood Reporter]

- Mark Ruffalo, Ethan Hawke, and Amanda Peet will star in Brian Goodman's autobiographical crime drama Real Men Cry. Telling a true-to-life Boston crime saga, it will be the 50th film of the year to do so. [Hollywood Reporter]

Oct 26 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- The Joker's marketing pumpkin's face is beginning to rot on one side, hinting at the presence of a certain villain. (Joan Rivers?) [Why So Serious?]

- Is Mad Max 4: Fury Road back on, with George Miller taking the project on alongside JLA? How much farther beyond Thunderdome can a man possibly go? [Moviehole]

- A movie based on a video game, by the writers of Dr. Dolittle 4, and by the company that made Garfield's Fun Fest is the nightmare that will be Spyro the Dragon. [Variety]

- An Underworld prequel is on the way, called Rise of the Lycans, that will finally answer all the questions left over from the current films. Like why I'll never see them. [Variety]

Oct 24 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Billy Ray Cyrus has been cast as the lead in a non-PAX-sponsored movie, blowing my achy-breaky mind. [Hollywood Reporter]

- Jessica Biel will play the lead in Die a Little, a role she reportedly took in place of Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, I will have sex with an older, barely-conscious woman I find at a bar, taking the place of my fantasies of Jessica Biel as Wonder Woman. [Variety]

- Ty Burell has joined the cast of The Incredible Hulk as the green-haired, super-strong Doc Sampson. Burell can currently be seen on Fox's Back to You, which should not be considered an endorsement to watch that for any reason. [IGN]

- Pirates of the Caribbean writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot are working on a Lone Ranger script for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who will mold it into a multi-billion dollar turd. (PS: Entertainment Weekly, you're really stretching with that "Kemo-savvy" headline.) [EW]

- Leslie Mann has joined the cast of 17 as the wife of Zac Efron, a man who awakens to find himself in the body of a 17-year-old boy again. It all sounds a bit ridiculous to me. I mean, Zac Efron with a wife? [Hollywood Reporter]

Oct 23 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Data and Chunk have confirmed what Mikey and Mouth already told us: that they've been contacted to do voices for an animated Goonies movie, also confirming--what was once thought a rumor--that Chunk ate his weight in Godfather's pizza. [Empire]

- Diablo Cody seems to be the new 'it' screenwriter, with the Juno penner working on a burlesque musical, a Steven Spielberg television series (United States of Tara), and now a comedic supernatural thriller titled Jennifer's Body. I find myself somewhat embittered that someone named Diablo Cody is having so much more success than me. [/Film]

- Zooey Deschanel has joined Jim Carrey in Yes Man, about a man who decides to change his life by saying yes to everything. Hey, that sounds like what Owen Wilson says to do in The Darjeeling Limited, except much stupider. [Hollywood Reporter]

- Producer Brian Glazer and director Ridley Scott talked to MTV about their Russell Crowe-starrer, Nottingham, calling it, "the Gladiator version of Robin Hood." I guess that makes Kevin Costner's Prince of Thieves the "Field of Dreams version of Robin Hood." [MTV]

Oct 22 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Harry Potter author JK Rowling announced the character of Dumbledore was gay. In response, my roommate said, "No shit. The whole f***ing thing is gay." [Newsweek]

- Mark Wahlberg has stepped in to replace Ryan Gosling in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones with just a day until shooting. Incidentally, this isn't the first time this has happened, with Wahlberg having previously stepped up when Gosling, at the last moment, abandoned his funky bunch. [Variety]

- Steve Buscemi and Daniel Bruehl have joined the cast of John Rabe, the true story of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjin massacre. It sounds like a lot of people, but percentage-wise it's like saving an American's left arm. [Variety]

- James McAvoy is rumored to be up for the role of grunge legend Kurt Cobain in an upcoming biopic. The first screen test will be to see if he can show affection to something that looks anything remotely like Courtney Love. [All Headline News]

Oct 15 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened

- Strangers With Candy creators Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello are working on a pilot for HBO? That makes me moister than a snack cake, I say, cleverly referencing the aforementioned show. [Cleveland Scene]

- Lionsgate is working on an Albert Einstein biopic that will cover the physicist's early years, but won't star Yahoo Serious. [Variety]

- Matt Dillon is in final negotiations to play Leonard Chess, the legendary founder of the South Side Chicago blues label Chess Records, who is not, as I had suspected, the man who invented chess. [Hollywood Reporter]

Oct 10 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Universal has acquired the rights to the book I Am a Man, Hampton Sides' unfinished story of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Someone tell Will Smith to start putting on some weight. [Variety]

- Shia LeBeouf will return for the next Transformers film, which is being fast-tracked for production to squeeze in prior to the Writer's Guild strike and before Shia's hair helmet gets too ridiculous for screens. [IGN]

- The new terminator film, the first of three, will be called Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins in an attempt to hide the lack of content with a verbose title. [Variety]

Oct 8 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Frank Miller has added the sexy duo of Paz Vega and Jamie King to his cast for Will Eisner's The Spirit. I imagine while deciding on them, he made this seductive/haunting expression. [Variety]

- Con Air director Simon West will direct an adaptation of the Iraq War nonfiction book Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad. He hopes to capture the excitement and tragedy of the war, like Black Hawk Down, but also be stupid, like Con Air. [Hollywood Reporter]

- Wesley Snipes has spent the majority of October shooting a sequel to The Art of War, leaving November to regret shooting the sequel to The Art of War. [MovieHole]

- Neil Gaiman wants Terry Gilliam to direct an adaptation of his Sandman series. The writer added, "I would always give anything to Terry Gilliam, forever," then gently slid his hand into Gilliam's waiting palm. [Empire]

Oct 5 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- The chances of Peter Jackson directing The Hobbit have risen marginally with reports that the director and New Line are talking again. Just talking? Or flirting? Wheeeeeeww! [EW]

- JJ Abrams is creating a 2-hour, $10 million pilot for Fox he describes as mixing elements of The X-Files, Altered States, and a "slight Twilight Zone vibe." I know a lot of people like Lost, but are we really going to keep pretending the writer of Armageddon (look it up) is so infallible? [Variety]

- Old School director Todd Phillips will direct Hangover, featuring the familiar concept of three crazy guys getting in misogynistic trouble in Vegas. Yet somehow this isn't Old School 2, which he's also making. [Variety]

Oct 3 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- More pictures from the Sex and the City set reveal Carrie appears to be marrying Mr. Big in the same garish, over-the-top manner as the rest of the show. [The Superficial]

- Rumor is spreading that McG, director of the Charlie's Angels franchise, is attached to direct Terminator 4. Just as soon as he can find a way to stretch cute boy underwear over liquid metal. [CHUD]

- IMDB added a new character profiles to the database, allowing users to see who has played a particular character and in what films or shows the character has appeared. This will aid me in my quest to see every movie featuring the character of "topless slut." [IMDB]

- Gullermo del Toro may finally get to shoot his passion project, At the Mountains of Madness, adapted from the Lovecraft novel. This drastically decreases my hopes of seeing a reality series about that Pan's Labyrinth guy with the eyes in his hands. [Latino Review]

- Natalie Portman will star in Brothers alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, who play some sort of blood relatives. [Variety]

- Over 2,000 production stills, production budget, breakdowns, and other top-secret materials were stolen from the set of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. TMZ will have the Jones Sex Tape posted within the hour. [IESB]

Oct 2 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- The nation breaths a collective sigh of relief as Comedy Central renews Mind of Mencia. Carlos Mencia then steals that sigh to use for a joke about "beaners." [Hollywood Reporter]

- Rome's Marc Antony, James Purefoy, has been cast as puritan swordsman Solomon Kane in a movie to be made from the stories of Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard. This is relevant if you have tons of Magic cards or your favorite band is Rush. [Reuters]

- Steven Moffat will write Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg's collaborative Tintin trilogy, adapting Herge's comic strip. However, the headline 'Tintin Goes to DinDin!' will still be written by US Weekly, referring to whatever actor that plays Tintin eating out with a hot young starlet. [Hollywood Reporter]

- The Wall-E trailer I posted yesterday is now available in higher quality video and in English, the highest quality language. [Yahoo!]

- Javier Bardem is set to play Pablo Escobar with Christian Bale as a Delta Force commander sent out to kill him in the biopic Killing Pablo. Hate to ruin the ending for you, but the film's title is in no way ironic. [Variety]

Oct 1 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Rumors are flying that Tim Burton or Henry Selick may have a new stop-motion animated film on the way. Either way, Hot Topic is going to make a fortune selling its merchandise. [AICN]

- Remember the talk of HBO making a couple Deadwood made-for-TV movies? That was just to subside your sorrow until the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm gave you something else to tell your friends they were missing by not paying $90 a month for premium cable. They aren't happening. [Cinematical]

- The man hired to direct the Wolverine movie spoke out to pretend there were reasons other than money that inspired him to direct a Wolverine movie. Really, though, it's just the money. [IESB]

- Someone is making an animated Noah's Ark picture told from the point-of-view of--get this--the animals! Combining the comedy genius of both Evan Almighty and Madagascar will surely equal something at least as bad as one of them.

- Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas are teaming up in The Code, in which the former will play a veteran thief pulling one final job with a younger thief with a thick, sexy accent and his own line of scents. [Variety]

- Jessica Simpson's latest bimbo-defining role in Blonde Ambition was already headed to the world of straight-to-DVD, but now it's creating a new form of public shaming/release deemed "straight-to-QVC" (which is exactly what it sounds like), where it will be purchased as stocking stuffers by as many as hundreds of grandmas. [Faded Youth]

Sep 28 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...

- Jessica Biel decided to pass on a role in Justice League of American, meaning the actress won't be wearing the Wonder Woman outfit. Guess it's back to drawing Jessica Biel wearing the Wonder Woman outfit. [EW]

- Jackass's Steve-O mentioned to Howard Stern that he's resting up for a third film in the series, which will start shooting in January. This means no hanging things from his scrotum until after the new year. [/Film]

- David Goyer, writer of Batman Begins, Blade, Dark City, The Crow: City of Angels, will direct Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. His parents and teachers pray this "dark and stormy vampire thing" is just a phase. [Variety]

- Wes Anderson's first film, Bottle Rocket, is finally getting the high-end DVD treatment it deserves with Criterion re-releasing it in their usual glory. It's now officially pretentious and cool to like it. [MTV]

- Sir Ben Kingsley announced plans to play the emperor who built the Taj Mahal in memory of his late wife. It's all part of Kingsley's greater plan to play every historical Indian guy. [Reuters]