By Romeo San Vicente
Ron Howard wants Jodie for 'Stroke of Insight'
Harvard neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte Taylors' 1996 stroke at the age of 37 turned her life upside down. Eventually, though, after eight years, she made a full recovery and her subsequent memoir titled "My Stroke of Insight" became a bestseller. Now Oscar-winning director Ron Howard plans to make the film version and he wants fellow Oscar-winner Jodie Foster to star as Bolte. Sounds like perfect casting. But Foster has yet to sign on. She's already preparing to star in "God of Carnage," so whatever decision she makes will have to wait for that to wrap. Whatever transpires, the inspiring story of Bolte's miraculous recovery should be handled by an actor with the skills to play someone who loses and painfully, slowly regains movement, speech and memory. And Dakota Fanning is still too young, so someone get Jodie to say yes, OK?
Hidden 'Hugo Cabret' gets highly visible cast
Highly dedicated readers with long memories will recall that back in 2007 Romeo reported on the new project from Martin Scorsese and Academy Award-nominated gay screenwriter John Logan ("The Aviator") called "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." In the three years since it was announced, the name has been shortened to just "Hugo Cabret" and the fantasy tale about a 12-year-old orphan living in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris who solves a mystery involving a robot finally has a big A-list cast: Jude Law, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Ray Winstone and Hollywood's current child-actor It Girl, Chloe Moretz ("Let Me In," "Kick-Ass"). The film is currently shooting and its mysteries will be revealed sometime in 2011. In the meantime, you can always go back and watch Scorsese's "Shutter Island" again and try to figure out what "that" one was about.
And now for some Leo/Tobey/Baz Luhrmann rumors
Romeo already reported that Baz Luhrmann wants to make his next film an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." That news has been around for about a year now. Well, the flamboyantly straight/free-spirited/somewhat heterosexual-ish director does want to make "Gatsby," and it's firing up the blogs lately that Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Amanda Seyfried are in talks with Luhrmann to star. Now it's true that there've been some talks, but "Gatsby" might not even be Luhrmann's next film at all. He's set up to direct a musical soon, as well, which is good news for all "Moulin Rouge!" fans. But ultimately what all this means is that anything you hear about this or any Luhrmann project right now is subject to total change. In other words, don't go fantasy-casting before the names are signed on the dotted line. It can only lead to heartbreak.
Lili Taylor brings the bad to 'The Good Wife'
One of the great things about DVRs is that they allow you to catch your favorite actors in guest-star story arcs on shows you don't otherwise watch. Case in point: We love Lili Taylor. Always have. From her "Joe Lies" songs in "Say Anything" to playing extreme lesbian would-be assassin Valerie Solanas in "I Shot Andy Warhol" to her heartbreaking role on "Six Feet Under," there's nowhere Lili Taylor can go that Romeo won't follow. So when she shows up soon on "The Good Wife" as someone being described as a "romantic foil" for Archie Panjabi's character Kalinda, the TiVo will be fired up and ready. No one likes spoilers, but it seems that Taylor's investigator character may have been involved with Kalinda at some point and might be back in her life to cause some trouble. Not that it matters too much. Taylor could play Charles Manson and it'd be easy to enjoy watching her do it. The episodes are coming up in November.
