Remember Joaquin Phoenix’s rap career? Casey Affleck’s mockumentary about it is finished, and it’s being screened for buyers. It’s expected to answer whether Phoenix was serious, just fucking around with us, or just really high. (Deadline)
Smell the sacrilege. Comedy Central is developing a half-hour animated sitcom about Jesus Christ. “JC” will follow Jesus as he seeks to escape the shadow of his “powerful but apathetic father” and live a regular life in New York City. (THR)
Fans of Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) have now got an official plot synopsis for his next film, Looper.
Looper is a time travel movie, set in a near future where time travel doesn’t exist but will be invented in a few decades. It’s pretty dark in tone, much different from Bloom, and involves a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is to simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. So the target vanishes from the future and the Loopers dispose of a corpse that doesn’t technically exist, a very clean system. Complications set in from there.
Does anyone remember Craig Kilborn? The original “The Daily Show” and “The Late Late Show” host is returning to television. He’s testing an early-evening talk show in NY and LA this summer. He should really return to sports. He may have been the best ESPN anchor of all time. (LAT)
Elizabeth Perkins is leaving “Weeds” to star in I Hop, that ridiculous sounding live-action CGI movie where Russell Brand will play the Easter Bunny. Perkins will play the mother in the Tim Hill (Alvin and the Chipmunks) movie. (THR)
James Gandolfini is developing a comedy for HBO “Taxi 22,” in which he’d star as a taxi driver. (Deadline)
The latest addition to the Smurfs movie voice cast is Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, who joins — among others — Neil Patrick Harris. (Variety)
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So there will be a smurf who stands around looking at what all the other smurfs are wearing saying "I'm concerned" in an impossibly judgmental voice?
Posted by: PaddyDog at May 6, 2010 11:16 AM
Meh, the JC thing won't air. There will be a protest, and because Comedy Central can be a bunch of pansies sometimes, they'll back off.
Also I'm looking at this ad for Manolo Blahnik shoes on the right there?
Fuck, those things are HIDEOUS. Do people actually wear stuff like that? That makes me sort of excited to see someone wearing those, so I can laugh in their face. Because, holy crap.
But Paddy, he can rally the smurfs in their darkest hour with cries of "Make it work!"
After watching Tim Gunn critique superhero costumes ("It's just so Broadway." "She's a tramp!"), I'm willing to give him a free pass on just about anything he wants to do.
You know, it's funny that "pansy" is used as a term to mean weak, because they are pretty tough flowers.
I continue to be perplexed by the folks who are lining up for the Smurf movie.
Posted by: tamatha at May 6, 2010 11:32 AM
Did I imply that I am against Tim Gunn? He's one of the most entertaining presences on TV. My week is not complete without at least one "I'm concerned" in the work room accompanied by a tucked in chin and sharp intake of breath. I was just expressing the hope that he will play himself in the smurf movie.
Posted by: PaddyDog at May 6, 2010 11:38 AM
I don't know about Taxi 22, I'm puh-retty sure Gandolfini will have difficulty trying to pull off playing a middle eastern man.
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at May 6, 2010 11:42 AM
@tamatha- it's the same with 'pussy'. Don't get it.
Posted by: Shazza at May 6, 2010 12:04 PM
Haha, I hope they make it really crude and tacky with loads of dick jokes and maybe a guest appearance from Mohammad for extra laughs. Suck it, Religion.
Posted by: Steph at May 6, 2010 12:34 PM
I just like to say it in the manner of a 1930s super-buff trucker taunting a wimp. Paaaaaaaaan-seeeeeeeeeeee!
If you can send your "targets" into the past, why do you need to have them killed too, since the technology doesn't exist in the past for them to come back?
Oh, wait, then there wouldn't be a movie filling two hours of screen time in 1,000 theaters.
Carry on.
Posted by: , at May 6, 2010 1:05 PM
Now me, I wish my targets into the cornfield.
Posted by: , at May 6, 2010 1:06 PM
So wait... If they're killed in the past doesn't that mean they can't actually exist in the future, cuz you know, they were killed about 20 years prior? Sometimes the time travel stuff makes my head go wonky
Posted by: Even Stevens at May 6, 2010 1:27 PM
I thought for certain Trey Parker and Matt Stone would have jumped on making a Jesus sitcom YEARS ago. I can imagine it actually being really funny if they give it a chance!
RIAN JOHNSON WOOOOOOO!!!!
Every single person who's replaced Craig Kilborn on a show has been a million times funnier than him, and that includes his stint on ESPN. No doubt fat-Kilborn (have you seen him lately?) will quit this new show after a season or two and be replaced by the next Johnny Carson.
Elizabeth Perkins is leaving a successful show where she might be the most annoying character to appear in a kid flick that will likely make everyone in the universe over the age of 4 hate her forever. Smart career move.
No doubt Perkins thinks this will mark her return to big screen features. It won't, but she THINKS it will. Kinda sad actually, she was the "It" girl for a bit there many years ago. Same thing that happened to Madeline Stowe.
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at May 6, 2010 3:02 PM
Jesus, Jesus is already on Family Guy and South Park. I mean, Jesus Christ how many Jesus-featuring cartoons do we need? The man, the myth, the legend is not infinitely nor inherently hilarious. Jesus!
Posted by: Lindsay at May 6, 2010 3:13 PM
Wow! Comedy Central is so fucking brave and transgressive for daring to make a show about Jesus!
Sorry, I meant "lame" and "predictable." Fucking pansies.
This movie Looper has me confused. How does killing someone 20 years before their born prevent their birth? Wouldn't you have to kill their parents or prevent them from meeting?
The point isn't that killing them in the past prevents them from existing, but that their lack of existence in the past prevents them from being identified by the past police while police in the future won't be able to find a body, as the body was disposed of decades prior. It's really a very ingenious way to dispose of a body, when you think about it.
Christian, I get that part of the plot, and I think it's cool but... well, I think I'm just letting my mind run amok* with the time-traveling details.
*Fun fact, I just looked up amok to make sure I spelled it properly and apparently the meaning of the word is "psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder." Did anyone else know that? Because I sure did not. Learn somethin new everyday.
So there will be a smurf who stands around looking at what all the other smurfs are wearing saying "I'm concerned" in an impossibly judgmental voice?