Here's the Random Girl Who Just K.O.'d Half of Young Hollywood
Finally, after months of jostling and competition and speculation, they've gone and cast the lead girl for that buzzed-about Dragon Tattoo movie. Let's never speak of it again. Also today: Clint Eastwood news, X-Men casting, and Angelina Jolie as Marilyn?
Well, the long wait is over. We have finally found our Elizabeth Salamander or whatever her stupid name is for the American (read: real) adaptation of Sting Larson's book about a Swedish wizard who murders people or something, The Girl Who Was Dragons. The pivotal character will be played by 25-year-old Rooney Mara, a relative newcomer from Bedford, NY who was in the Nightmare On Elm Street reboot, appears in the upcoming The Social Network, and is the younger sister of Kate Mara, who was in Brokeback Mountain and Shooter and stuff. Quite the attractive, talented family! So fuck 'em! Fuck 'em all! C'mon kids, let's go back to the shack with no mirrors and weep. [EW]
Oliver Platt, an actor who lives in a plastic red eggshell, has been cast in X-Men: Year One, the prequel about young prep school mutants discovering each other's... powers. Luckily Oliver Platt will not be doing any probing or discovering at the prep school. Well, maybe he will, I don't know. He's playing the Man in Black, which is a thing from Lost and from Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones pictures. Nice originaling, X-Men: First Class makers! Platt is the brother of New York Magazine food critic Adam Platt. So what a talented, food-eating family they have! Fuck 'em! Fuck 'em all! C'mon kids, let's go suck the marrow out of those cat bones while I tell you tales of the Sisters Mara. [Deadline]
Clint Eastwood's latest feature, the supernatural ghost drama Hereafter (do you have a part, Ed??), has secured the final screening slot at the New York Film Festival. "Clint Eastwood continues to make the most daring, provocative films in America," said someone from the selection committee. And, wait. Really? "daring" and "provocative"? The most?? Sure Million Dollar Baby was about euthanasia (welcome to 1994, Clint), but it was mostly a folksy boxing weepy that featured a wizened old magical negro. Is that why it was daring and provocative, because it was such a staunchly and uncomfortably retro picture? And Changeling was, what? Violent? Or rather it implied violence. Otherwise it was about one brave woman standing up to the system. That movie's never been made before! And Invictus. Yes, right. Clint Eastwood took the daring and provocative stand that Nelson Mandela is a good person. How does he do it? And what was the other one? Oh, yeah, Get Off My Lawn, about the old guy who grizzledly learns about difference from a pack of weirdo foreigners. Daring and provocative! I just do not get the unending love for Clint Eastwood movies. I just don't. [THR]
Funny people Jason Jones and Rachael Harris, he of the Daily Show and she of many many commercials and VH1 talking head shows until The Hangover came out, are teaming up to star in an indie comedy called Gates of Eden. It's about a seemingly perfect couple living in gated community suburbia who maybe murder people? So it's like Serial Mom and Dad. I like both of them and think they are funny! Plus maybe Jones' wife Samantha Bee can have a part or at least a cameo. She's real funny. I have nothing bad to say about this movie. Huh. Um... Oh, wasn't Mystic River like totally overrated? [Variety]
OMFF. (Oh My Finkle Fannies) Here is a trailer for the fourth season of Gossip Gimps, in which they go to Paris and fun music starts playing. Blarney and Sangria wear hats! So many hats! Dan is pregnant back in Brooklyn and then poops out a baby and the baby is Michelle Trachtenberg. Then Blarney meets a Chuck person in Paris who is maybe a French Chuck? That would be amazing if it's just Ed Westwick doing a French accent. Sangria starts boning everything that moves, as does Nate, though it's women, which is still a bit eye-rolling. Probably Rufus and Lilly have become junkie addicts somewhere because he's a rock star and she's sad. And of course Eric is dead somewhere. Dead from being gay. Enjoy the season! They make everything look so sparkly and fun in promos and then you actually watch the show and it's like an old turtle reading Guy Mannering aloud to you, it is that boring. (Though obviously if an actual old turtle walked up to you and was like "Hi, can I read this boring early 19th century novel to you, very slowly?" you'd be so stunned that you wouldn't be bored at all.) So, happy watching or whatever. [EW]
Though none of the big trades are reporting it, there is a rumor afoot that Angelina Jolie is set to play Marilyn Monroe to George Clooney's Frank Sinatra in a biopic about Marilyn told through the eyes of her dog. Yes. It's based on a book. Again, these are just rumahz! Scarlett Johansson (yes, she has Marilyn's exact voice!) and Christina Hendricks (duhhh) had previously been up for the part. This would be a third M.M. biopic, joining one starring Michelle Williams (not Destiny's Child Michelle Williams, sadly) and another with Naomi Watts as the bombshell. I don't know if this whole thing is really falling into the sense-making department for me, but what do they care about what I think? I send them letters and emails and phone calls and I show up at the studio gates with my megaphone and I break into Bruce Boxleitner's house several times and yet no one in Hollywood will listen to me. What will it take, Hollywood??? What's that? Stop saying mean things about you, daily? Oh. Hm. Well... you wanna pay my bills? (Sing it, Michelle Williams!) [Cinematical]