Be Afraid, Turkeys...Be Very Afraid

Lady GaGa’s gotten herself a Thanksgiving TV special, and if I was a turkey, I’d duck and cover (because I’d have a good memory and remember that meat dress).

The entertainer’s 90-minute A Very GaGa Thanksgiving will air on Nov. 24 and feature eight performances as well as an interview with Katie Couric taped at New York’s Sacred Heart Catholic School, which was attended by the singer way back when she went by a different name.

And just to get in the spirit of the season (more?), Mother Monster will perform some of her current hits, as well as classic Christmas tunes.

Of course, she will also update folks on her recently launched Born This Way Foundation, so keep your ears peeled for that good stuff.

Photo: ABC.

The Return of Ingo

Who here remembers TV’s Titans?

I’m sure not a whole of people do, but that soapy confection NBC offered up at the beginning of the 2000s was a guilty pleasure of the first and most-short-lived order.

One of its stars was that hottie Ingo Rademacher, who went back to the soap world (General Hospital) after Titans got the axe.

Now the actor is flirting with primetime once again and headed to Hawaii Five-0 to guest on an ep slated for early next year, playing the dad of a kid being held hostage on a highjacked school bus. Thing is he may have had something to do with the crisis himself.

Ooh....

I kinda like that Rademacher is looking at nighttime now that General Hospital is shutting down. He’s som’in’ to be seen.

Photo: Shenderra.com.

Take It All

Ryan Seacrest wants to own Hollywood, and he just might.

The golden man is diving head first into the movie-producing pool, and he’s going big because he so doesn’t wanna go home.

To that end, Seacrest is co-producing a rom-com with none other than Reese Witherspoon, who knows a thing or two about the genre. The project in question? An untitled story written by writer Krista Vernoff (TV’s Grey’s Anatomy).

Good starting pedigree, Ry.

Photo: Inquisitr.com.

Mira Quien Es

I should do this entirely in Spanish, but half of ya would, Cómo?

Jennifer Lopez is reportedly thisclose to inking a deal to star in her first movie franchise as Carmen Sandiego, the heroine of the Where In the World World Is Carmen Sandiego? cartoon and game show.

Alright, so she may not star as the popular and elusive character, she definitely would have a hand in developing and overseeing the project.

This could be an exciting and stylish and globe-trotting, not to mention lucrative, gig for La Lopez, if handled properly.

I am cautiously excited.

Photo: VanityFair.com.

The Wildest Party of 2012

Holy smokes, y’all: Hangover director Todd Phillips is overseeing the rager to put all ragers to shame for next March.

The filmmaker has produced a low-budget comedy titled Project X, with no-name stars, that follows the one-night adventures of three high schoolers who throw a party in order to woo some girls and up their popularity.

What happens, of course, is the shindig gets massively outta control. And that’s when the fun really starts. Check it:

Project X will hit theaters on March 2.

Girl Will Be an Action Woman Soon

Noomi Rapace, thestar of the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is ready for her next role.

The actress, who’s playing the female lead in next month’s Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, is teaming up once again with her Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev for the thrilling actioner Dead Man Down, which is to co-star Colin Farrell.

She will play a seductress bent on revenge against an underworld crime boss.

Production is set to begin early next year.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Simply Irresistible, Pt. 79

Next month, Jeremy Irvine will become a star thanks to Steven Spielberg’s War Horse.

So get used to seeing the young Brit on and off the screen.

In fact, the up-and-comer has been busy keeping busy after working with S2, playing Pip in Mike Newell’s upcoming adaptation of Great Expectations, opposite Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter, and completing work in Now Is Good, which co-stars Dakota Fanning, Paddy Considine, and Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer).

Now Irvine has booked another high-profile project, The Railway Man, a in which he will play a young Colin Firth.

The drama is based on a memoir by Eric Lomax and follows the British officer’s account of his forced labor on Japan’s Death Railway during World War II, the woman he loved, and the torture he endured by the Japanese for being (presumed) a spy.

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

Down on Her Luck

Naomi Watts is going to suffer in her next movie.

The Oscar-nominated actress will co-star opposite Matt Dillon in Laurie (Sherrybaby) Collyer’s Sunlight Jr., as a convenience store clerk who finds out she’s pregnant...and then loses her job.

Dillon will play her paraplegic husband.

Photo: MyFunnyValentineBlog.com.

Going Indie

Much was done about a meeting Twilight Saga star Taylor Lautner took with director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black recently (were they – gasp! – trying to pick him up? were they giving him advice on – double-gasp! – coming out?), but it seems the entire thing was about work.

So down, boys.

Lautner is set to produce and star in Van Sant’s still-untitled new indie based on a New Yorker article the actor himself optioned.

What...a shrewd move on Lautner’s part. He needs to prove he can act, not just emote like a hot wolf, and Van Sant sure has a knack for getting the best out of young Hollywood.

Consider my curiosity engaged.

Photo: NewMoonMovie.org.

Here Comes Booking Photo No., Uh...What Is It Again, Linds?

Lindsay Lohan got 300 days today.

Alright, so she actually got a month in the big house, for admittedly violating her probation in her DUI and shoplifting cases, and another 270 days of tightrope-walking if she wants to remain a free woman.

Up first, though, she must surrender for her fifth incarceration by Nov. 9.

Of course, she probably will serve a beyond-ridikolous fraction of those 30 days due to overcrowding, even though the judge said she should spend the entire month behind bars.

The fun for L2 will begin afterward, when she must stick to a pretty strict schedule of compliance with her community service and psychotherapy sessions.

The way the judge outlined her requirements is sooo organized I can’t imagine Lohan will be able to walk the line the way she needs to – she just doesn’t have the support system she should to get and stay healthy (Dina Lohan’s a f---in’ joke...and the holiday parties are a-comin’).

Sad how I’ve lost all faith in Playboy’s latest Bunny. I used to be her biggest fan....

Photo: People.com.

Back to the Battlefield with a New Guy

Could Warrior breakout Joel Edgerton be the next Gerard Butler?

Well, maybe.

The Aussie actor is in talks to star in 300: Battle of Artemisia, a sequel to the 2006 hit that made Butler a household name. (The Scot can’t star in the follow-up since his King Leonidas died at the end of it, y’ see.)

Edgerton would play Themosticles, the famed archon and general who led the Greeks to victory against invading Persians in 480 BCE.

Photo: Collider.com.

The Winehouse Legacy

Amy Winehouse is pulling a Tupac.

An album featuring previously unreleased songs by the late singer will be released posthumously on Dec. 5, so we will get to hear that voice once again.

The CD titled Lioness: Hidden Treasures will include alternate versions of some of her classics, some covers, and new compositions including her duet with Tony Bennett.

Photo: AmyWinehouse.com.

Plenty to Do, I Think

Joss Whedon was in the news this week, and for the sort of reason his fans heart him so: He’s gone and done something awesome.

The Avengers director has helmed an oh-so-Whedon-esque adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, starring some of his favorite actors/collaborators, including Alexis Denisof (TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel), Amy Acker (Angel), and Sean Maher (TV’s Firefly, Serenity) – in secret, right after wrapping production on his summer 2012 blockbuster, instead of going on vacation with his wife (don’t worry...she egged him on).

Toldja he was awesome.

I probably shoulda started this one with a Geekasm Alert, huh.

Photo: EW.com.

Update: OK, if I was Whedon’s wife I’d be thinking som’in’ was up.

The guy is not happy with idle hands, so he’s throwing himself into work again, this time on a so-called supernatural romance titled In Your Eyes.

The story reportedly will follow two seemingly polar opposites who are connected in ways neither could have predicted. Whedon wrote the script, but he will only oversee the project as executive producer while Brin Hill (Ball Don’t Lie) will call the shots.

In Your Eyes, much like Much Ado About Nothing, will be produced through the filmmaker’s new Bellwether shingle, which specializes in micro-budget indies.

Photo: EW.com.

Top-secret Role

Sarah Clarke is returning to TV, and making it a bit of a 24 reunion at that and a family affair.

The actress, who played that bitch Nina on the hit Fox show, has landed a role on The CW’s Nikita. She will appear during the show’s sophomore season’s second half next year...but that’s pretty much it when it comes to the particulars of her participation.

A little nepotism may have gone into Clarke’s casting (and thanks the heavens for that): She is married to Xander Berkeley, who plays the villainous Percy on the show.

Photo: TNT.

The (Un)limited

Time is of the essence in Andrew Niccol’s new thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and that lucious creature known as Amanda Seyfried.

It is power, it is money, it is life. It. Is. Everything.

The futuristic movie tells the story of the lengths people go to in an era where people stop aging at 25. Not much of a reason is given for this marvel of bioengineering, really...something about crowd control, if memory serves.

The point is, once one turns 25, a neat Day-Glo green clocks lights up in people’s left arms, ticking down one year.

Timberlake, more leading-man-ish than ever, plays Will Salas, a 25-year-old going on 28 from the time-poor side of the tracks. (His 50-year-old mother is played by the beautiful Olivia Wilde.)

Will has always lived day to day ever since his time started running out, sprinting from one place to the other, making sure he has enough left on his clock to live to die another day.

One night at his local watering hole, he meets the morose Henry Hamilton, a handsome fellow played by Matthew Bomer, who tells Will that even if he could live forever he may not want to. Time tends to catch up with the mind after a century.

Yeah, that’s about how much time Henry has on his clock (he is, in the way of In Time, rich), and after Will helps him get away from Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) and his gang of time thieves (much to the chagrin of the wealthy suicidal who had spent his evening flaunting his left arm around), Henry bequeaths his fortune to his golden-hearted Good Samaritan.

Henry carries out his plan to end it all on his own (he was pretty much asking Fortis to clean out his clock), timing out from the top of a bridge, leaving Will to appear as the prime suspect in his death.

A second passing (bye-bye, mama Salas) sends Will into an indignant quest to even out the scales. He heads to New Greenwhich, which is where people with a lot of time on their hands live (you know because everyone walks), and sets out to steal the time he feels they are taking away from everybody else.

He finds an unlikely ally in Sylvia Weis (Seyfried), the sheltered and unexcited daughter of one of the wealthiest men on Earth, banker Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), and, together, they go on an us-against-them crusade to even out the playing field.

Will and Sylvia put on their Robin Hood pants and go all Bonnie and Clyde (at first, she is his all-too-willing hostage, but after she saves him from a timekeeper...a cop, in essence, played by Cillian Murphy...she then becomes his more-than-a-sidekick accomplice).

In Time is an effective piece of entertainment, I think, that works because it subtly asks of its audience provocative questions without getting in the way of enjoyment.

I think that’s important, and I can’t imagine you will find any fault in that. Other than the hotties that star in it don’t spend a little more time showing us more than their arms as a way to tantalize not only one another but us, who, obviously, woulda preferred it if their secret time stamps had been placed somewhere sexier.

My Rating ***

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Putting the Pieces Together

Anne Hathaway wants more control, and to that end, the Oscar-nominated actress is turning producer.

Oh yeah, babes....

Hathaway is set to produce and star in a psychological thriller titled Puzzler, but up first, though, she will be playing Fantine in Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables opposite Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.

Not mention, Catwoman....

Photo: Racked.com.

Officially A-List

Kristen Wiig, you’ve made it now.

The SNL scene-stealer and Bridesmaids breakthrough is joining Robert De Niro in Sean Penn’s next directorial effort, The Comedian.

The actress will play a dazzling and defiant redhead who turns the life of a past-his-prime-turned-punchline TV comic (De Niro) sideways.

Sounds very indie-esque and like it could potentially provide Wiig with a chance to stretch her acting muscle with the best of ’em.

Good for her.

Photo: Showbiz411.com.

One of the B Boys

Half of this news bugs me: Lost star Josh Holloway is hard at work on another movie (he’s featured in this December’s Mission: Impossible fourthquel)...with Chris Brown.

Guess which part ticks me off a little.

Oh, at least Holloway will be coming to a movie near us/me more often.

Production is currently underway on Planet B Boy, which is based on a doc of the same name about a crew of American street dancers training to compete in France’s Battle of the Year International Championships.

I presume Holloway – who is fine, but, you know...no spring chicken – is playing one of the adults in the movie.

And I am just A-OK with that.

Photo: FanPop.com.