Since no one cares about her new album “Bionic” or the Lada Gaga aping video for “Not Myself Tonight” that it spawned, Christina Aguilera is probably hoping that the upcoming musical “Burlesque” will save her career. A first look at the film has arrived and well, it pretty much looks like a feature-length version of that “Lady Marmalade” video. The film, which follows a small town girl who finds her calling in life by burlesque dancing, will hit theaters on November 24th. Cher, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming and Peter Gallagher co-star and you can see a complete selection of stills here.
Ashley Greene (“Twilight”) and Thomas Jane (“The Mist,” HBO’s “Hung”) are set to join Miley Cyrus and Demi Moore in “LOL,” a remake of a 2008 French comedy. Could this cast get any more random? The film “centers on a teenage girl (Cyrus) who is dumped by her more sexually experienced boyfriend while her divorcee mother (Moore) struggles to move on with her life.” Greene will play a “high school bad girl” while Jane will play Miley’s Dad. LOL indeed.
Angela Bassett and Paula Patton are set to star in the comedy “Jumping The Broom.” The been-there, done-that film will focus on “the clash of two black families from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum meeting for the first time during a weekend wedding in Martha’s Vineyard.” Yawn. Bassett will play Patton mother’s and member of Washington’s elite. The film will be directed by Salim Akil who has extensive work in television directing episodes of “The Game” and “Girlfriends.”
Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger” has received a pretty lovely Spanish language poster that is miles ahead its boring North American counterpart. The London-set comedy starring Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto and Lucy Punch will open on September 22nd.
Channel surfing is about to get much more awesome thanks to IFC. The cable channel has acquired the rights to the landmark Judd Apatow comedy series “Freaks & Geeks” and “Undeclared.” The shows launched the careers of James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Martin Starr and Linda Cardellini and featured a host of guest appearances by the likes of Jason Schwartzman, Lizzy Caplan and more we’re forgetting. Basically, any Apatow player that has appeared in his feature films was probably seen at some point in one of those shows. If you haven’t seen these, here’s your chance. Both get regular marathon sessions on our DVD players and we’re stoked that we can now stumble across these shows on TV (again).
Warner Bros. is set to adapt “Tales from the Gangster Squad” based on a series of 2008 articles in the Los Angeles Times by Paul Lieberman. The articles explore “an LAPD unit that’s set up in the 1940s to fend off the growing influence of the East Coast Mafia in the city.” Will Beall will write the screenplay, and WB is eyeing the project as an A-list vehicle in the vein of “The Departed.”