When the recent announcement came that Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moorehad been cast as Bill and Hillary Clinton, respectively, in The Special Relationship, Peter Morgan’s third film involving the Premiership of Tony Blair (played once again by Michael Sheen, who previously portrayed the former British Prime Minister in the Morgan-scripted films The Deal and The Queen), many of us began wondering if Monica Lewinsky would appear as a character, and if so, who would play her. Anne Thompson even provided an hilariously implicit visual aid for why Anne Hathaway would be great for the part.
Unfortunately, it’s been revealed that Lewinsky will only be included in the made-for-HBO film via archival footage. But that isn’t going to stop us from imagining who should have been cast in Morgan’s film had he decided to focus more directly on the Lewinsky scandal. Because we’d all much rather see that film, right? And although a low-budget depiction of the affair, titled The Blue Dress, is already in the works, it certainly won’t be as much fun as a high-profile picture featuring big stars as the infamous figures involved with the scandal.
So, we’ve cast the second-term Clinton movie we’d prefer be made. And as always we welcome you to suggest your own casting ideas — whether to substitute for those we’ve selected or to play characters we’ve forgotten — in the comments. …Read more
Will this year’s presidential election be determined by which candidate is more hip? Barack Obama is younger, listens to Jay-Z and Kanye West and is something of a trendy choice among college students. McCain, on the other hand, is older and (now) less athletic but is still considered to be hip in a cool grandpa kind of way. Like the grandpa who has exciting war stories to share. Have you seen the video footage of him jumping from an explosion during the USS Forrestal fire? That’s pretty cool.
So, the outcome of the race may depend on what the majority of Americans think is cool. Charisma or Muscle. It reminds me of an election for high school class president. Who is more popular, the preppy basketball player or the more jockish captain of the wrestling team?
But do we really want a cool president? Let’s take a look at some of the coolest fictional presidents from the movies and decide if it’s truly a good idea to base our vote on which candidate we’d prefer to hang with.
UPDATE 4/22 9:57 AM: We’ve been asked to remove the photo of Dennis Quaid in his G.I. Joe costume which originally accompanied this post.
Is it just me, or does Dennis Quaid look completely out of place in his G.I. Joecostume? It appears that he’s unsure of himself, too. It’s like they took a photo of him while he was saying, “are you guys sure this looks cool?” Fortunately, he can now receive the answer: no, Dennis, it doesn’t. But it’s fine, because most of the internerds are too busy drooling over the Rachel Nichols “Scarlett” images to pay much attention.
Plus, the four shots of Quaid as “General Hawk” (none of which make him look any cooler than the one to the right), are, along with the rest of the ton of G.I. Joe cast photos, being taken down all over the place. But for now you can still find the pics, which include Quaid, Nichols, Channing Tatum (”Duke”), Karolina Korkova (”Cover Girl”), Marlon Wayans (”Ripcord”), Byung-hun Lee (”Storm Shadow”), Sienna Miller (”The Baroness”) and Ray Park (”Snake Eyes”) over at What Would Tyler Durden Do?
The site is claiming an exclusive on the pics, which may explain Paramount’s request of removal elsewhere, but something tells me they might just have been leaked. Check them out while you can, just in case.
If you were even slightly irritated by Ellen Page’s too-precocious performance in Juno, then you might want to avoid the trailer for Noam Murro’s Smart People. In the movie, which screened at Sundance last week, Page plays yet another teen who seems too smart for her own good. In fact, it is obvious that the trailer is trying to make this character appear similar to her Oscar-nominated role. Now, I’m not one of the many Juno haters, and I think Page has talent, but doesn’t it take away from her performance in Juno to show us that she’s doing the exact same thing in her follow-up? Never mind the fact that Smart People seems like The Squid and the Whalemeets The Ballad of Jack and Rose — I’ve heard that it is pretty funny and smart despite its familiar territories — I’m more turned off by the fact that it’s like Juno II without our favorite Juno I actors (Cera, Bateman and Simmons, of course).
Not that you can go wrong with Thomas Haden Church, with or without a catfish mustache (I just watched Spider-Man 3for the first time, and he’s the only good thing about it). Here he plays the adopted brother of a pompous Carnegie Mellon professor played by Dennis Quaid. Page plays Quaid’s Young Republican daughter; Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence) plays his son; and Sarah Jessica Parker is his former student-turned-doctor who becomes his love interest. Apparently Church’s character is more free spirited than the rest, and he probably teaches them all to have more fun in life. This sounds pretty unoriginal, but from what I’ve read the film as a whole works as a satire of academia and specialized knowledge. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re going to enjoy any of those too-intelligent characters while waiting for them to relax.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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