Filed under: Casting, New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, Box Office, Politics

Yesterday's New York Post contained a gossip item in Page Six taken from the book party for James Rosen's The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate in New York, where attendee Tony Danza expressed an interest in playing Richard Nixon aide H.R. Halderman -- maybe in a movie version of Rosen's book. Halderman, who died in 1993, worked for Nixon as White House Chief of Staff until the Watergate scandal landed him eighteen months in prison in 1973. His story, partially recounted in The Strong Man, involved a longstanding relationship with Nixon going back to the 1950s and the tense moments immediately before and after the president's resignation. In between, he was involved in a botched attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro and other tumultuous events dutifully recorded in Halderman's diary, which became available to the public years later.

Many political scandals often revolve around a single corrupt individual, but it's the right hand man whose story can be most revealing. (Roy Cohen's personal drama has way more twists than that of Joseph McCarthy, for example.) There's little doubt that Halderman's experiences would work well on the big screen, but this wouldn't be the first time: IMDb lists no less than five actors who have portrayed Halderman, including James Downing in The Pentagon Papers, as recently as 2003. Would Danza make sense in this role? And will any film have a chance at getting people interested in this story after Frost/Nixon nabs the spotlight later this year?

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Filed under: Action, Paramount, Celebrities and Controversy, Comic/Superhero/Geek, War

Fair warning: This is a slight, trivial, and practically meaningless piece of upcoming movie news -- but it touches on three things we love here at Cinematical: Action movies based on cartoons based on ancient marketing campaigns, horny directors, and fake breasts. Here we go:

According to SFGate's Hot Dish blog, sexy actress Sienna Miller was forced to wear fake hooters so as to accentuate her cleavage in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie. Ms. Miller will be playing The Baroness, and apparently her god-given boobies were not adequate in the eyes of director Stephen Sommers. ("'I'm gonna be honest, I like girls with big boobs," is what the director told her. Strange comment from a guy whose leading ladies have been Famke Janssen, Rachel Weisz, and Kate Beckinsale, three gorgeous women who aren't exactly D-cups.)

Ms. Miller notes that she was "mildly offended" by the breast issue, and I'm kind of surprised that the topic didn't come up before her first costume fitting, but hey ... The Baroness is pretty stacked. Perhaps Mr. Sommers is just trying to remain faithful to the source material -- or yeah, maybe he just likes big boobs. Lord knows the target demographic for G.I. Joe loves boobs. Check out images of Sienna as The Baroness in the gallery below.

...after the jump: more pics!

Continue reading Sienna Miller's New Cleavage: G.I. Whoa!

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Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand

Movie stars can get a stylist, remove those errant eyebrow and nose hairs, and even get some high-dose skin cleaner to make themselves smooth, shiny, and sexy; if all else fails, there are legions of makeup artists to make the men and women of Hollywood look as hot as possible. But there's not much they can do about their tongue prowess. Sometimes, the smooch or sex scene is so bad that it's even obvious on-screen, and on occasion, movie kissing is so bad that those who were forced to endure it remember the moment forever and tell tales about their bad kissing moments.

Defamer has a list titled: Top Ten Worst Kissers in Hollywood: From the 'Icky' to the 'Sweaty' to Tongues That Taste Like Kitty Litter. The folks at Defamer weren't just guessing in compiling the list -- they've gathered quotes from those unlucky suckers who had to experience it for themselves.

Continue reading Hollywood's Crappy Kissers

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Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Newsstand, George Lucas, Politics, Comic/Superhero/Geek

This isn't exactly film news, but it was too odd not to share with Cinematical. I honestly thought it had originated at The Onion, and not with the AP!

On Tuesday, George Lucas testified before the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet. His intentions were really very admirable, as he was arguing in favor of reforming the universal service fund, which provides Internet and telephone access in rural, low-income, and high cost areas of the country. Lucas is passionate about education reform, and he testified in favor of making Internet access "a digital civil right," that is free to schools and libraries.

While his intentions were good, the saga of Lucas and the subcommittee quickly became downright goofy. Several lawmakers took advantage of Lucas' appearance to crack Star Wars jokes. Rep. Mike Doyle declared "The universal service fund needs to be blown up like the Death Star," while Rep. Lee Terry compared himself and fellow Representative Rick Boucher to Luke Skywalker, and their opponents to Darth Vader. Our tax dollars at work, people.

Continue reading George Lucas Testifies in Washington D.C. -- Yes, Really!

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Filed under: Drama, Thrillers, United Artists, Celebrities and Controversy, Tom Cruise, Movie Marketing, Images, War

Tom Cruise may be guilty of some odd public antics -- but he isn't guilty of photo fudging. Last week, we reported on Slate's little expose, where they examined a publicity photo released by United Artists. According to their graphic experts, the photo of Claus von Stauffenberg had been altered to better resemble Tom Cruise.

However, Yahoo! Movies now says Slate has been forced to retract the story. It turns out they were comparing the wrong photos -- they used one from the AP, as opposed to the Getty photograph United Artists used. Unfortunately, Slate didn't search all available archives for the photo before making their assertion.

United Artists is understandably upset over the slanderous claim. "The picture United Artists used of Colonel Stauffenberg can be found all over the Internet," said Valkyrie co-writer and producer Chris McQuarrie. He added that it would be much easier to "alter Tom Cruise" than to doctor "every available picture of Claus von Stauffenberg."

Now, with all due respect, I politely disagree with McQuarrie that the photo used by United Artists is easy to find. When this story first broke, I did my own Google search out of curiosity. The most readily available photo of von Stauffenberg is the one accompanying this post. It is also the first image Getty produces when you search their archives. The only site that produced the same photo was Spartacus Educational, and even then I wasn't sure, as the UA version seemed so much cleaner.

Continue reading 'Valkyrie' Update: No Cruise Photoshopping

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