Already sick of middle-aged guys like Ted Strickland barking at you from behind a podium at the Democratic National Convention? Well fear not, because tomorrow three lovely ladies of stage and screen will be giving speeches in Charlotte, classing up the joint with their classy good looks and good-looking class. Actresses Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Kerry Washington will be speakers tomorrow night, putting those regular old weirdos like Kathleen Sebelius to shame, and making all the intern dudes in the audience squirm with fuzzy delight. So watch out, intern ladies. Tomorrow night the guys going to be even more randy than usual. No word yet on what any of the ladies are going to say, but if their past political speaking is any indication, it will be well-articulated and sincere, if a bit vague and general. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Showtime has bought a pilot script that turns Robert De Niro's birth of the CIA film The Good Shepherd into a series. De Niro would even direct the show, while Oscar winner Eric Roth writes. So that could be good, like a Homeland prequel, kinda. And then in one crossover episode Claire Danes' character travels back in time to solve a mystery with whoever plays Matt Damon's character and maybe they fall in love or something and at the end she goes to visit him in his nursing home in the present and it's sort of like the end of The Notebook and you find out that the whole Good Shepherd show was just Claire Danes reading this old guy his diaries or whatever! See, I should write this show. Come on, Showtime. Gimme a call. [Deadline]
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Vivica A. Fox, who was in Kill Bill and on HBO's award-winning Curb Your Enthusiasm for a time, has signed on to host a hidden-camera show called Prank My Mom on Lifetime: Television For Staring Into The Lukewarm Abyss. Which is... Sigh. Can Prank My Mom really be much better than Date My Mom? Which is to say, can Prank My Mom be AMAZING, as Date My Mom was AMAZING? Probably not. That seems like a tall order. Oh Vivica. Oh dear. It's work, I know. It is work. We should all be grateful for work in these ruined times. But, sigh. Still. Sigh. Independence Day! That was a big movie. And Soul Food. And Set It Off. So many things. So many things long gone. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Well, The "Dwayne Johnson" Rock is also hosting a reality show, so it can't be all that bad, can it? He'll be doing a TNT show called The Hero which is about trying to find a "true hero" by putting people in a house together and "test[ing] their brains, their brawn and even their morality." Even their morality? What the hell does that mean? Is this going to be like that What Would You Do show? How do you compete in morality? Doesn't the very idea of competing in morality seem immoral? And what is this hero going to do when they win? Just become... a hero? Or win money? It's probably money, which doesn't seem very heroic. Come on, Rock. At least there will be some chuckles on Vivica's show. Yours just sounds foolish. Tsk. [Entertainment Weekly]
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Whoa! Richard Linklater has announced that he's actually finished filming on the followup to Before Sunset, which we only just heard about. But yup, he's done. They were filming in Greece apparently. Oh, and the movie is called Before Midnight and will be for sale at the Toronto Film Festival. This thing's on the fast track. Co-writers, and stars, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy released a statement saying, "It’s great to be back together again, this time in beautiful Greece to revisit the lives of Celine and Jesse nine years after Jesse was about to miss his flight." Nine years. Woof. Which means it's been seventeen years since the original. Which means... Everything is old and terrible, basically. Holy cats, where does time go. Huh, Vivica? Where does time go. [Deadline]
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Here is a new trailer for Taken 2 which sounds like Tekken 2 but isn't, it's just the sequel to Liam Neeson's hit kidnapping thriller from a few years ago. (Not nine years ago, don't worry.) Basically Neeson has to once again take people back who were taken so he gets to takin' as best as he can take. Take, take, take. That's all it is these days. How about a movie called Given. Y'know, a charity thriller. That's what the world needs.
And here, just for the hell of it, are some Parks & Recreation bloopers. They're fun. And are a nice reminder that not only are these people making millions of dollars at their jobs, they're having a lot more fun while they do it. So.