
Emma Watson
Image by: Warner Bros./Jaap Buitendijk
There’s been so much rumor and speculation about what stars
will pop up in The Muppets – the upcoming reboot of the film franchise
featuring Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the rest of the crew – that it
seems like this movie’s been shooting since The Muppets Take Manhattan came
out back in 1984. But the long wait is nearly over – the new Muppet epic,
starring and co-written by Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting
Sarah Marshall), is in post-production and will be in theaters before year’s
end. But who else will star? It’s been confirmed that funny ladies Amy Adams,
Emily Blunt and Rashida Jones are in the cast, but the
still-officially-under-wraps bit players are even more queer-adjacent; the
celebrity cameos allegedly include Wanda Sykes, Modern Family’s Eric
Stonestreet, girl-kisser Katy Perry, bear magnet Zach Galifianakis,
tart-tongued diva Kathy Griffin, and the mother of them all, Liza Minnelli.
Here’s what Romeo really wants to know, though: Will Scooter finally come out?
Wallflower dances with Emma Watson
Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one
of those beloved young-adult novels that always turns up on the lists of Most
Frequently Banned Books, since it deals with (gasp) homosexuality, suicide and
drug use. And now you can expect the book to become even more famous because
it’s going to be a movie. Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The
Lightning Thief) will play Charlie, a high-school outcast whose horizons are
expanded when he is befriended by two unusual seniors, step-siblings Patrick
and Samantha. The beautiful and uninhibited Samantha will be played by Emma
Watson, in one of her first major post–Harry Potter roles, but no actor has
yet been chosen to play Patrick, a gay student who’s having a secret affair
with a closeted football player. Chbosky will adapt and direct his own novel
for producer John Malkovich, and Mae Whitman (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World)
co-stars. Let the protests resume. Not among uptight parents, mind you, but
among real life wallflowers resentful that they’re always being portrayed in
movies by astoundingly attractive young actors.
Staring back at Marina Abramovic
You don’t have to have stood in line with Bjork and James
Franco at New York’s Museum of Modern Art last year to have heard about the
700-hour-long staring contest that Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic
undertook with anyone and everyone willing to sit opposite her and gaze into
her eyes. The piece made headlines outside of the art world for its sheer
audacity (and, yes, its celebrity fans).
The next step for Abramovic, then, feels exactly right: she
will collaborate with Willem Dafoe and some high-profile gays for a theater
piece about herself. The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic will have its
world premiere this summer in Manchester, England and will be directed by
avant-garde A-lister Robert Wilson, with musical input from Antony of Antony
and The Johnsons, as well as experimental electronic band Matmos (comprised of
M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, partners in life as well as music). In other
words, big stars to people whose tastes run well outside the mainstream. And
you know what that means: Bjork is going to scoop up all the front row seats
unless you fans of weird stuff book your tickets – both for the theater and for
the flight to England – now.
Sean Hayes A fine choice for The Three Stooges
Two stooges down, one Moe to go –
that’s the latest casting news from the production camp of The Three Stooges,
the upcoming feature about the knuckleheaded kings of physical comedy from
filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly. Curly came along first in the form of Will
Sasso ($#*! My Dad Says) and now Sean Hayes has signed on to play Larry. It
makes perfect sense, of course, since Hayes has a strong physical comedy
background from his time spent as the exuberant Jack on Will & Grace. And
there’s even a slight resemblance to the former boxer-turned-comic actor, minus
all that frizzy hair. No word yet about whose names appear on the Moe short
list, but no matter who winds up with the weird bowl haircut, the Farrelly
brothers have already made a solemn vow that there will be "non-stop slapping"
when this thing eventually hits multiplex screens. Finally, a biopic with its
priorities in line.
Romeo San Vicente thinks Curly was the sexy one. And the less said about Shemp the better.