The Premature Aging of Michelle Pfeiffer
We think she looks great and is great, but Hollywood wrote her off for a while, and is now bringing her back in sad old lady roles. It's not fair. Also today: Wentworth Miller is trying to figure out what to do now that he's out of prison, Aaron Sorkin might make fun of himself, and sad news about a promising pilot.
- One-time A-list actress Michelle Pfeiffer has been rescued from the stone wall she was sealed up in ten or so years ago and is now going to be in movies again. OK, yes, she has been in a few movies since then, most notably the underappreciated White Oleander and the fantasy Stardust, in which she played a sad old crone desperate to look young again. Today there are rumors afoot that the blonde beauty might be taking the role of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows movie. Oh, great. So she's going to play a creepy old widow who lives in a haunted mansion full of vampires and other dead people. Thanks, Hollywood. She's 52, not a million. Hey Christopher Nolan! If Michelle Pfeiffer can beat Anne Hathaway in a fair, street-rules fight, will you cast her instead? [THR]
- Wentworth Miller, former Prison Break star, has signed on to the indie Analog, about a super genius desperately looking for love. In much the same manner, I'd guess, that the Princeton-educated Miller has been looking for parts. (Which is to say desperately. Mean.) [Variety]
- The good news: funnyman Rob Huebel has been cast on a Fox pilot. He's great! The bad news: Huebel was available because FX passed on a different pilot, U.S.S. Alabama, from Reno 911! geniuses Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant. Boooooo. That show sounded funny and had a good cast. Maybe it will come about in another format? We'll see. Huebel's new show is called Family Album and is a single-camera comedy about a family on a road trip. So will it be Vacation funny or Are We There Yet hilarious? [Deadline]
- Speaking of space epics (that's what U.S.S. Alabama was going to be, except a funny epic), Battlestar Galactica's Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama, a real cute patoot except during the Bloat Times) has been cast in Galactica creator Ron Moore's new pilot 17th Precinct, the one about police in a magical town. (Better title: Stop Auror I'll Shoot. Right?) He joins the previously cast Stockard Channing, an actress who has been pleasantly buzzed on red wine for approximately thirty-five years. [TV Line]
- It seems that director Jon M. Chu is on the shortlist to helm the G.I. Joe sequel. That would make sense, given that Chu, who is the director of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, is well-versed in directing movies about tiny figurines with smooth plastic expanses where genitals should be. [THR]
- Young actress
Justin BieberChace CrawfordJane Levy, the penis-sucking coquette on Showtime's Shameless, has been cast as the lead in an ABC pilot called Suburgatory. Eyugh. I know what they're trying to do with that title, but it just does not work. The show is about a Manhattan teen who is relocated to the suburbs and is miserable about it. So yeah, the title makes sense, but it's a mouth-mangler and sounds ugly. Let's see.... what about Beenhattan. Haha. Or New Yanked. That's good. What else... Maybe Suburban Wasteland. Or Keith Suburban. Actually that one is the subject line to an email Nicole Kidman sent to her friend about her husband getting kinda fat and lazy. [Deadline] - Mushroom enthusiast Aaron Sorkin has agreed to make a cameo on 30 Rock, the show his similarly themed and titled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was supposed to blow out of the water but, one too many Gilbert & Sullivan plotlines later (one too many G&S plotlines = one G&S plotline), certainly didn't. He'll be playing himself. I'd say he'll be weeping, but what does he have to weep about at this point? He has an Oscar on the way and a big cable news pilot brewing at HBO which sounds way more up his alley than a show set at a comedy show ever did. Plus: swears! [EW]
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