- You remember Ed Norton, right? He’s the guy from the cell phone commercials who was the Hulk for a hot minute. Well, he may not have used up all his acting juju like we thought. This week, it was revealed Eddie will direct and star in Motherless Brooklyn, based on the fantastic Jonathan Lethem novel about a detective with Tourette syndrome. If done right, this could be a riveting neo-noir classic with an unforgettable central character. If done poorly, look for Norton in upcoming Dyson vacuum commercials.
- We now know who the Fantastic Four will be in the upcoming reboot. Miles Teller will be Mister Fantastic, Kate Mara will be the Invisible Woman, Jamie Bell will be the Thing and Michael B. Jordan will be the Human Torch. Other than the fact that Teller emits some kind of pheromone that makes me hate his stupid face, I’m good with this, most notably Jordan and Mara, who are immensely talented. They play siblings despite being of different races, which is apparently something many people on the Internet didn’t know could happen. Other things commenters on the Internet do not know: tact and kindness.
- Tina Fey has aced TV but is barely getting a passing grade on the big screen. That could change with The Taliban Shuffle, which is sadly not the most racist dance craze I’ve seen at a wedding. The film will be based on a journalist’s memoir of her time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, because nothing says comedy like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- Titus Welliver (the man in black from “Lost”) was talking about his upcoming film, Transformers: Age of Extinction. When talking of the darker tone and violence, he noted “it’s not a kids movie, I’ll tell you that much.” Why would we assume a movie based on a kids toy line would be for kids? To be fair, it’s not only not for kids, it’s not for anyone with taste.
Cutting Room provides breaking local and national movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Send any relevant information to film@thereader.com. Check out Ryan on Movieha!, a weekly half-hour movie podcast (movieha.libsyn.com/rss), catch him on the radio on CD 105.9 (cd1059.com) on Fridays at around 7:30 a.m. and on KVNO 90.7 (KVNO.org) at 8:30 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/thereaderfilm).