The Doctor in the Hallway News Report 10.31.07

Posted by Ben Moser on 10.31.2007

Jason Statham is still Cranky, Sean Penn is still pretentious, Daniel Craig is still Bond, Ben Affleck is still in need of cheering up, and lots more in this installment of The Doctor in the Hallway News Report. Read it, or I'll show up to your Halloween party dressed in my "sexy nun" outfit.

Hi kids, and welcome to another thrilling Doctor in the Hallway News Report. Scrubs' season premiere has come and gone, and the show remains in safe territory for now. As I was re-watching season season 6 so I could properly review it(that review can be found by clicking here), I saw that the discontent from Elliot with Keith was totally hinted at and, in some cases, we were beaten over the head with it. I still maintain that if J.D. and Elliot end up together, though, the whole series will wind up weaker for it.

Now that we've talked about Scrubs, why don't we next talk about some news?

Statham sequel surfaces

Jason Statham will reprise the role of hitman Chev Chelios in Crank 2: High Voltage for Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment. In Crank 2, Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.

Man, and I thought finding a way to sequel Speed's concept was going to be convoluted and tricky. It's hard for me to knock this, as Statham has been doing really solid work in the action genre even if the flicks he chooses don't always support his talent.

Now that I think about it, neither Crank 2 nor Speed 2 are the biggest sequel plot surprise. That still goes to The Last Seduction 2.


Obscure trio look to one-half up one another

Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore and Wynona Ryder will star in drama-comedy The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, about a dutiful wife whose husband falls for a younger woman, freeing her to explore her buried sensuality and leading to a "a very quiet nervous breakdown."

Well, if you wanted a quirky comedy about quirky women, there is no arguing with this casting. You're also looking at three women whose careers could use a shot in the arm. I'm not sure that this is the movie to do it, but it's nice to hear from Wynona Ryder. Honestly, I can't name a movie she's done since the shoplifting incident, which feels like it happened a hundred years ago. I can't name a single Wright Penn movie. Oh, and the only thing I can think of with Julianne Moore in it is a movie where she's playing off of her Jodie Foster-ish looks.


"I'll eventually shake my rap as a poor man's Jodie Foster..."


Heady stuff

Heath Ledger and Sean Penn are in talks to star in Tree of Life, with River Road Entertainment finally bringing writer-director Terrence Malick's long-gestating drama to life. Ledger would take the lead opposite an actress to be determined, with Penn in a supporting role.

The film's plot has been closely guarded, but is described by an insider as a complex drama.

A "complex drama." Yep, that's a movie for Penn. I'm not saying that Penn is a pretentious, self-important douchebag; but AM talk radio hosts, everyone in film school, and that guy who shows up and every indie show in your local college town all think he needs to back off. I'm not a huge fan, and personally think that you can't spell overPennrated without "P-e-n-n."


Craig gives word, and his word is Bond

MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan confirmed that the studio has signed Daniel Craig to do four more "James Bond" movies after Casino Royale.

This would bring his total to five - just behind Roger Moore (7) and Sean Connery (6), but ahead of Pierce Brosnan (4), Timothy Dalton (2) and George Lazenby (1).

Good news for the franchise, as virtually every breathing thing on this planet loved Craig as Bond. I really do hope that somewhere Craig has a list of all the interweb dorks out there that were screaming for blood and declaring the franchise dead when his casting was initially announced, just so he can knock on their doors late at night or during their favorite TV shows only to run away by the time they go to answer.


This casting is not at all ironic

Alanis Morissette has joined the cast of novelist Philip K. Dick's semiautobiograhical feature adaptation Radio Free Albemuth.

In writer-director John Alan Simon's film, Morissette plays Sylvia, a woman who shows up in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Jonathan Scarfe) as a glamorous singer.

In reality, she's an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick's visions, gets a job as his secretary. She becomes his soul mate thanks to the pair's shared spirituality and visions.

I'm just excited that this movie is still being made. It seems like forever since I heard anything about it since the original announcement. As for Morissette's casting, I think she's just strange enough to do well in a part based on one of Dick's books.


"You know, Ben and I used to have so much fun at the movies."


This weeks edition of CHEER UP, BEN AFFLECK!

Your post World Series hangover may still be raging, but CHEER UP, BEN AFFLECK! - Details Magazine is retracting statements that you may or may not have made. From Radar Online:

Is Details bending over for November coverboy Ben Affleck, or did the mag actually run with a piece of shoddy journalism? In his December editor's letter, Dan Peres apologizes for printing a quote that he now says Affleck never made. "I've gone out and directed a movie and made it really #*!%ing good," writer Bart Blasengame has Affleck on the record as saying of Gone Baby Gone. Never said it! says Peres. Peres also claims that Affleck never implied that he would leave Los Angeles if the movie bombs (Blasengame writes, "As if to prove how far he's willing to go to regain a toehold in the upper echelons of Hollywood, Affleck says he might even leave Los Angeles altogether if Gone Baby Gone is a bust.")

So while you're drinking down that Bloody Mary, remember that now everyone knows that you never said your movie was really #*!%ing good. I'm glad we got that cleared up...


That'll do it for this week...

It's Halloween, and I haven't seen Saw IV yet, so I'll likely be getting that taken care of between now and next week. Your homework, though, is American Gangster, which I get more and more optimistic about with every passing commercial.

Until next week, don't do anything I wouldn't do...

(This week's sources: Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Dark Horizons, Radar Online)