Cast Additions: J. Edgar Hoover, New Year's Eve, and Life of Pi

• Armie Hammer (The Social Network) is being considered to join Clint Eastwood's Hoover biopic, J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  He would play the role of Hoover's confidante, advisor and rumored lover, Clyde Tolson.  Charlize Theron is also in talks as Hoover's personal secretary.  This will be the first time that Clint and Leo will be working together and I'm really excited to see the outcome.  This movie is going to have a lot of pretty onscreen.  I'm not complaining.
• It's time to start thinking about New Year's Eve.  But not about the upcoming holiday but rather the film.  The holiday-centric film's cast now has Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ashton Kutcher, Robert De Niro, Lea Michele, Hilary Swank, and Michelle Pffeifer.  Sofia Vergara may also join the cast.  Biel and Kutcher, in Garry Marshall's previous holiday film , will not be reprising their characters from Valentine's Day as this is an entirely different film altogether.  Blame it on Love Actually for the catalyst for inter-connected stories with a huge star cast.
• Like Galadriel, could Legolas also be coming to The Hobbit universe?  Orlando Bloom fans are holding their breath.
• Harvey Weinstein can rest easy that his film, Blue Valentine, has had a mini-victory.  The harsh NC-17 rating has now been lowered to an R.   This greatly eases Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams chances at an Oscar nomination.  Common sense prevailed, yes but his other film, The King's Speech, wasn't so lucky and retained the R rating for the string of curse words stammered out by Colin Firth.
• Disney's The Muppets Movie is moving up its release date from Christmas to Thanksgiving.  It will release on November 23, 2011.  My December 2011 viewing schedule is less crowded.
• Life of Pi has added to its cast Gerard Depardieu and Adil Hussain.  Irrfan Khan will then be playing the adult Pi who tells his story of a most wondrous sea journey.

Monday's Mentions

• Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) has moved on from period films to teenage assassins.  He reunites with Saoirse Ronan who plays the titular role of Hanna about a teenage assassin trained by her father (Eric Bana) to find a CIA agent (Cate Blanchett).  The movie will release April 8, 2011.  But that's not all, he also developing a live-action version of The Little Mermaid, minus the singing crab and fish.  He says it will be more like the Hans Christian Andersen tale.  As a fan of the original, I'm curious to see how he would bring it accross to the screen.  
• The blogosphere is in a uproar about the critically acclaimed film Blue Valentine,  when it premiered at Cannes seemed like a lock for acting nods for both Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.  But the film has been handed a NC-17 rating by the MPAA.  While that certainly means its chances for Oscar are diminished, it means now we just want to see it precisely because of it's rating.  Way to go, MPAA.  
• The Green Lantern trailer is set debut alongside Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 movie.
• In news that will shock no one, the sequel to this year big animated hit, How to Train Your Dragon, has been all but set.  All the creative talent including the voice talents of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara and Jonah Hill will all return for the movie.   The sequel will have a release date sometime in 2013.  This was one of favorite animated features of this year and I'm pleased to see we'll see more stories taking place in this universe.   
• Martin Freeman (Love Actually, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) has confirmed that he dropped out of The Hobbit.  With the movie production in jeopardy and Peter Jackson announcing it's all not really official, will the film ever take off?  What do the fanboys have to do to make this a reality?