Shia LaBeouf, Live and in Person
It was announced today that Shia LaBeouf, former child star turned former movie star, will be making his Broadway debut this spring in a new play called Orphans. Yes! Shia LaBeouf is finally, finally, after all of our pleading, going to act right in front of us, up close and personal. Who hasn't watched Transformers 2: More Transformers and made that lonely little wish? The wish to have the never-smug, always appealing, seems-like-a-great-guy Shia LaBeouf saying words in the same room where they are? It's a wish, a want, a need as urgent and American as manifest destiny. The pull to be with Shia LaBeouf while he does his resounding, resonant acting — at long last, soon satisfied. And he'll be doing it with Alec Baldwin! Yup. Well, wait, no, not doing it. It's theater, but it ain't theatre. Doing it meaning doing the acting, doing the play. Alec Badlwin's in it, too. The plot is described thusly: "two orphaned brothers are living in a decrepit North Philadelphia row house. Treat, the eldest, played by LaBeouf, supports his damaged younger sibling by petty thievery, and makes the house a virtual prison for the seemingly simple-minded Phillip. One night he kidnaps a rich older man, Harold (Baldwin), who turns out to have his own motives and becomes the father figure the boys have always yearned for." Aha. Sounds... well, sounds like an Adam Rapp play, except it's not. The role of the little brother has yet to be cast, but they should have no problem finding some poor child who wants to witlessly enter into a work environment with both Shia LaBeouf and Alec Baldwin, right? Because that sounds like a great time. Just a really swell, happy, never terrifying adventure. [Playbill]
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Let's just keep the terrific showbiz news coming. Chuck Lorre, creator of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, has a new sitcom in the works at his beloved CBS, this one simply called Mom. The show is about "a newly sober single mom who tries to pull her life together in Napa Valley." Which, hmm. A newly sober person moving to wine country sounds a bit strange? Like, why not move to Utah. They don't have any liquor there whatsoever! (I realize that is not true, but just go with it.) Don't move to Napa, where the rivers don't flow like wine, they are wine, and it rains zinfandel every afternoon. That's just not a great place for a newly sober single mom, I don't think. Unless she's a foodie? A newly sober single foodie mom moves to Napa. Sounds like something the CBS viewers will love. Hopefully Shia LaBeouf will be cast as the mom. Then everyone will watch it. [Deadline]
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Bravo continues its curious and upsetting wander into the scripted side of television with the announcement that they're developing a show called Moguls, which will apparently be "similar in tone to Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing." Yeah, they're getting ambitious. Especially considering this show is partly from one of the guys who wrote Love and Other Drugs, a particularly execrable movie from two years ago that, if anything, was similar in tone to Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom. Which is not a good thing. And the show isn't about any raggedy old mogul, it's about a media mogul, so it's kind of about Jane Fonda from The Newsroom? Though, it's unclear exactly what "media mogul" means here. It could mean a Rupert Murdoch type or it could mean a Nick Denton. It could mean a big happy Barry Diller or it could mean Dan Abrams and his little Gossip Cop project. It really could mean anything! Which worries us. This whole thing worries us. Not just this show, but all this Bravo/scripted TV stuff. Is this really the most prudent path? Is this the wave of the future they want to catch? It seems strange to us. Maybe you disagree. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Oh, dear. Your dad's favorite show is in trouble. Try to make sure your dad doesn't hear the news because it is going to ruin Christmas (or the Jewish Hanukkahs), but A&E's Storage Wars is getting sued. By one of its own former cast members. Yes, the show — which is fascinating and great and about people who bid on abandoned storage lockers and then sell what they find inside — is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by Dave Hester, one of the bidders. Of course it would be Dave Hester, that jerk. Barry would never do this. Anyway, the bigger issue is what he's suing for: he claims that he was fired after raising objections about the show being staged, and wants nearly $4 million for his trouble. Oh, man. If that's true, if the show really is staged, this will be the biggest loss of innocence since we learned the terrible truth about House Hunters. Please don't let it be true! (Of course it is true. Remember when they found all that money in the back of a picture frame? That was some nonsense.) Why does Dave always have to come in and "yuuuupppppppp!" and ruin things? Stop it, Dave. Please. For everyone's dad. Stop it. [Entertainment Weekly]
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Transformers 4 wants nothing to do with Shia LaBeouf. He's Broadway's problem now, so they've cast two new actors in the young roles while Mark Wahlberg plays the grownup. Those young people are this person and this person. But before you shut your office door and lower the blinds, let it be known that she is 17 and he's not much older. So... ya burnt on that one, creepo. Anyway, she's playing Mark Wahlberg's daughter and he will be her "biker boyfriend," which is hilarious. Really convincing biker, this kid. Just screams tough guy. There are so many roving bands of twink biker gangs across this nation and it is truly terrifying. You've heard of Sons of Anarchy, now here's Sons of Anarchy's Lacrosse Teammates. Watch out, robots! [Vulture]
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Here is the new full trailer for that Lone Ranger movie, the one with Johnny Depp as Tonto, and it makes the movie look about as awful as you'd think. Like, there might even be an air of the supernatural to the story? Which would be even worse than expected? But, yeah, all told, this is a big predictable whooooooops for everyone involved. Though, long ago we said the same thing about Pirates of the Caribbean (same director) and that was lots of fun. So who knows. But, of course, Johnny Depp wasn't playing a Native American stereotype in that one. He was just playing a gay stereotype. Anyway. Yowsers, guys. Yowsers.
