- Wildly underrated, Gangs of New York has always deserved better than it got. Except for Cameron Diaz; y’all can keep sayin’ whatchu want to ‘bout her accent and lack-a talent. But I’m not sure that Martin Scorsese’s latest plan to develop it into a TV series is going to work. For starters, 90% of the awesome in that movie comes from Bill the Butcher, who is dead by the film’s end and can really only be played by Daniel Day Lewis. Find an actor willing to follow him in a role, and you find the bravest actor in history…unless you count Werner Herzog as an actor now. Then it’d be second place at best.
- Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo are supposedly in talks to return for the upcoming National Lampoon’s Vacation reboot. And somehow we’re surprised by this despite their willingness to reprise the same roles for a friggin’ Old Navy commercial. I just want them to make sure that the Old Navy appearance is part of the series’ internal continuity.
- Christopher Nolan wants Matthew McConaughey. I mean, not sexually. Actually, maybe he does, who knows? But I was talking about how Mr. Alright, Alright Alright is likely to be the lead in Nolan’s next original project, Interstellar. Consider Nolan’s last original project, Inception, remains among my favorite films, I’m willing to give the abtastic southerner a chance. But so much as one bongo drum shows up in this sci-fi film, I’m out.
- In any other world but movies, this next sentence would be gross and illegal. Judy Greer is going to do it with an ape. This is to say that she’s just been cast in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as the love interest of the ape Caesar (Andy Serkis). I suppose the two CGI apes won’t necessarily knock fuzzy boots, but if that simian is gonna take over the world, I’m guessin’ he gets what he wants.
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).