Jena Malone aims for Lonely Hunter

She was married to a man, but Southern literary icon Carson McCullers, the author of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, was bisexual and frequently involved with women. And now her life story will come to the big screen in Lonely Hunter. The biopic is set to star acclaimed young actress Jena Malone (Sense and Sensibility, Bastard Out of Carolina), with lesbian cred behind the camera provided by screenwriter Sarah Schulman (The Owls) and director/producer Deborah Kampmeier (Virgin, Hound Dog). Meanwhile, you can bet that indie A-listers will be lining up to grab the roles of McCullers’ pals Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Ethel Waters and Gypsy Rose Lee. None of them will look as cool as Malone in McCullers’s signature menswear, but they can give it a shot. Pre-production is where it’s at right now, so it’ll be a while before audiences get a chance to look at it. Read a book while you’re waiting.

Alan Cumming visits a less groovy 1970s in Any Day Now

The struggle for LGBT marriage equality and adoption rights makes the news pretty regularly now and each step forward feels like a small victory. Now imagine dealing with all of that in 1979. That’s the subject of Any Day Now, a film about gay adoption, inspired by a true story, written and directed by Travis Fine (The Space Between) and produced by Anne O’Shea (The Kids Are All Right). It stars Alan Cumming (The Good Wife) and Garret Dillahunt (Raising Hope) as a couple who take in an abandoned teenage boy with Down Syndrome. When the authorities learn that gay men are acting as caretakers, they step in to remove the boy and the family’s fight begins. The film, which also stars Frances Fisher as a family court judge, will explore the issues faced by families – then and, by extension, right now as everything starts to change, bit by bit, for the better. It just finished principal photography and will probably start showing up at film festivals in 2012.

Roseanne Barr is Downwardly Mobile again

So they axed Roseanne’s Nuts. Big deal. It’s not like she needed the money. And besides, the blue-collar comedy diva’s Hawaiian macadamia farm isn’t going to keep her from fulfilling her TV destiny. She just sold a show to NBC – the network that passed on Roseanne back in 1987, oops – and the title makes it sound like the Connor family might be back in business again. It’s called Downwardly Mobile, about a trailer park family struggling to make ends meet. No, it didn’t sound appealing to the Suits back in 1987, either, but look what happened: America responded to the grittier version of reality and poverty-based humor of Barr’s first series and then went along for the ride when she introduced lesbian smooching later in the show’s run. Who knows what she’ll accomplish this time? Stay tuned as the outspoken heroine of the working class starts kicking up dust again.

The Revolution will be televised and it will star Tim Gunn

What are they replacing all of those canceled soap operas with? Talk shows, that’s what. Everybody wants to be The Talk, The View or The Chew these days, and ABC is aiming for another ratings grab with January 2012’s The Revolution. The self-improvement/lifestyle-oriented show will include Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, fitness and nutrition guru Harley Pasternak and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s gung-ho host Ty Pennington. And those are just the first three to be announced. Given the current trend of large panels with rotating experts and guest co-hosts, the field is still wide open for other names to hop on board and help the fledgling show make audiences feel guilty for sitting on the couch and watching TV. And in the long run, with Oprah more or less out of the picture, it’s anybody’s game to win the daytime sweepstakes. Best of all, it can only help The Soup with new material.