Well, what do you know, someone’s found a use for Lifetime after all — you know, for their scripted series department. Also, Tyler Perry wants to ruin television, Bruce Willis gets Joed, and American Idol judge negotiators yell Mission Accomplished.
Hollywood dish is mostly best served cold.
Party of One: So it’s been a bit rough for J.Love since those Party of Five days and the ending of movies with seventeen-word titles like I Know What You Did Last Summer Down By The River In That Small Town I Can’t Find On A Map. Poor, destitute, Jennifer Love Hewitt has had to make a living off the random Law & Order: SVU episode while fighting body snark after appearing in a bikini (Egads!) on various tabloid magazines (Dimples! Even Cellulite maybe!) There’s been just one saving grace…Lifetime. Lifetime, yes they took a chance on a television urchin like Love Hewitt and decided that they would make a little TV movie called The Client List. It was some goofy thing about a Texas housewife who lives a real life movie starring Dolly Parton in the early 1980’s, who runs a brothel, and all manner of skeevy Lifetime elements happen when it comes to women, housewifery, brothels and single motherhood. This is a staple, yes? Anyway, Lifetime, the channel of ladypart creams, and menopause vitamins, has decided that The Client List was so successful that it just screamed, and clawed from the basement door, for a 10-episode series starring and produced by Jennifer Love Hewitt. Yes, her body’s a wonderland will make more of these things, we assume because there’s just so much more story to tell about Texas happy endings and kid’s juice boxes, right? Fabulous.
Yippee-Ki-Yay-Go-Joe!: Bald, grizzled, cowboy-quoting fanboy, Bruce Willis is apparently fighting tooth, nail, and barefoot to play Joe Colton in the G.I. Joe: Retaliation sequel. Does this surprise anyone? Not really. We’re mostly excited for whatever wig choice they’ll choose, since the movie is bound to be reheated office fish in a microwave bad. Seriously, have you seen the first one? Yeah, anyway, that’s great news for Bruce Willis. It was either this or appearing on Two and a Half Men as Ashton Kutcher’s father or the cuckolded geriatric ex-husband of his current wife. HA! And oh, yeah, remember Adrianne Palicki, who made us laugh hysterically as NBC’s now canned Wonder Woman? Well, she’s just given up all hope and will be the female lead in that’s right, G.I. Joe: Stupid Things Starring Channing Steakpants.
Heeelllleerrrr! It’s Coming From Inside the TV!: Tyler Perry’s Tyler Perry is in talks with Lionsgate to create something awful, and full of beaten slippers called Tyler TV or some such nonsense. Yes, that would be a channel dedicated to the Lady of Girth Womansuit connoisseur Tyler Perry and all things he enjoys, so we assume lots of lady centric television and movies starring recycled stars from the 1990’s like entire television blocks full of House of Payne, Meet the Browns, and possibly something called Madea’s Southern Ice Tea Jook Joint? Maybe not? Yeah, who are we kidding?
Men of a Certain Bacon?: HBO has bought a new half-hour comedy called Valentine about a middle-aged talk radio host with three ex-wives. Kevin Bacon is slated to produce and possibly star. This sounds like a great idea, except there are so many men-of-a-certain age and their accompanying angst already on television, no? There’s Larry David running around doing his best Woody Allen-in-comedic-peril routine. And recently the critically acclaimed Men of a Certain Age suffered a premature end. So the biggest question is, can Kevin Bacon pull this aging, but virile guy, thing off with better zeal than his predecessors? Maybe. We basically assume that Bacon is some sort of supernatural demon with the powers of clairvoyance and energy siphoning. How else to describe his appearance in so many movies and the whole six degrees of separation thing? He’s a shapeshifter and a character actor doppelganger so we can’t put anything past him.
George Lopez Loses Show, World Now Remembers He Had a Show: Well, we kind of knew it was coming. Seriously, did you watch his show? Yeah, we didn’t think so. It was a valiant attempt with Conan O’Brien working hard last year talking to execs to keep the show on air for a bit longer, as not to be the reason why it ended. The culprit? Well, TBS is too hard to find amongst the one thousand cable channels we all have. And really, if you’re not already watching A Few Good Men on TBS for no real reason, you kind of forget there’s nighttime talk that comes on that channel, don’t you? Well, I do. So yes, okay, George blame me. After A Few Good Men went off I turned on The Daily Show. It’s either ALL MY FAULT…or, you should try and be funnier. Maybe some Republican puppets?
Feel It! Feel It! With My Guns!: Mark Whalberg is possibly teaming his funky bunch up with Vince Vaughn’s slobby bunch to make 2 Guns based on a Steven Grant graphic novel about a DEA agent and an undercover naval intelligence officer who unwittingly investigate each other as each steals mob money. Why do we think this is just The Other Guys with Vince Vaughn doing his bleary-eyed, I Whored in Vegas face, instead of Will Ferrell’s I Just Ate Too Many Tacos and You Smell It face? Just me? Okay.
From Donkey to Hong Kong Phooey…Maybe Just Call it Donkey Kong?: Sad, former funny comedian, Eddie Murphy, filmed one non-cartoon (ish) movie recently with Ben Stiller called Tower Heist (where he basically did a cartoon voice. Urgh, just go to You Tube if you want to feel nauseous and watch the trailer.) and now he’s back jonesing again for his silly cartoon banter. To that end he will voice the character of Hong Kong Phooey, an animated judo-chopping dog (which is probably considered racist in 2011), in Alcon Entertainment’s live action/animated big screen adaptation of the 1970s Hanna-Barbera animated TV series. Is anyone surprised? No? Okay. Call me when Eddie remembers that he was once a movie star. Thanks.
Whew! American Idol Armageddon Averted!: Jennifer Lopez will be returning as a judge! Were you worried? Seriously, were you strapped to a toilet bowl determined to wait out the natural disaster that was potentially an American Idol season without their newly crowned Doyenne of Dance, Song, and Having Babies in Movie Talkies?! No? Well, are you alive? This was an actual thing! This whole will she or won’t she return…thing! No one knew what would happen after she removed her chihuahua husband from her pant leg, and there were squabbles about money and whatever the hell Steven Tyler was mumbling passed out over there in the corner. But worry not American Idol weirdos, it looks like J.Lo will be there for at least one more season sitting in Paula Abdul’s medicated judge’s chair. Nice.
[Info via Deadline Hollywood]
