It’s always fun to catch an old movie on cable and catch a now-famous actor in some bit part you didn’t even remember. For instance, a couple days ago I noticed Isiah Whitlock, Jr., aka Senator Clay “SHEEEEIT” Davis, playing the doctor in Goodfellas who wanted to put Ray Liotta in the hospital when he showed up strung out on coke to pick up his wheelchair-bound brother. Similarly, while Michael Shannon is today rightly acclaimed for having apocalyptic visions in Take Shelter and playing “drown the Jew” (not to mention “hatef*ck the starlet“) on Boardwalk Empire, in 1993 he was just a dude who was stoked about Bill Murray buying him Wrestlemania tickets. I don’t like to brag, but I could tell he was destined for greatness the minute he said “Thank you, Mr. Connors, you’re a real pal.”

Meanwhile, I’m told the groundhog who played Punxatawny Phil went on to start a successful bark-gnawing business with Gary Busey.
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Moonrise Kingdom, the new Wes Anderson movie starring Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Francis McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman has a trailer out, and I don’t know what else a person could possibly need to know about it other than that cast. But in case you were worried, it appears to have everything we demand from a Wes Anderson project, including:

• Yellow text
• Center-framed shots
• Matter-of-fact line readings
• French music
• Vintage film stock
• Earth tones
• Quirky childhood romance

And of course, enough whimsy to power a thousand ukulele farms. Holy crap I’m excited.

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"M'yeaahh, see? Nitschke was a pussy."

Now that he doesn’t have to worry about protecting Wes Anderson from Gene Hackman by wearing cowboy hats, Bill Murray is a busy dude. Along with showing up alongside Charlie Sheen in that Roman Coppola movie, here he is in USA Today, in costume as Franklin D. Roosevelt from Hyde Park on the Hudson. It’s interesting casting, Bill Murray is so likable he could make Rand Paul love the New Deal.

Once committed, Murray was the picture of professionalism while shooting the story about the historic visit to the United States by England’s King George VI (yes, the same stuttering monarch from The King’s Speech) and Queen Elizabeth in June 1939, three months before the start of World War II. “He rose to the challenge magnificently,” Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) says of his star.
The script, based on a radio play, concentrates on the historic public event — the first time a reigning British monarch visited the United States — and how Anglo-American relations improved considerably after FDR and wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) played host to the royals at their estate in Hyde Park, N.Y., following a more formal gathering in Washington, D.C.
There is also behind-the-scenes drama, as the long-suspected affair between FDR and distant cousin and family companion Daisy (Laura Linney) is explored.
Michell adds that while Hyde Park on Hudson is not a comedy per se, there is plenty of humor “as two cultures crash into each other.”
No more so than when the Roosevelts treat their guests to an old-fashioned picnic, featuring the then-exotic Yankee treat, hot dogs. “The hot dogs are an integral part of the story,” he explains. “The conundrum is explored of whether the royals should publicly eat a hot dog and possibly be set up for ridicule by consuming a strange and slightly socially embarrassing object.” [USAToday]

Ah yes, the heartwarming tale of how a stuttering king learned to eat dick-shaped foods and a crippled president who banged his cousin just to put the royals at ease. And in the process, brought two nations together.  A story as old as time.

"...So then I shove the kid and I'm like, 'Nitschke was a pussy!'"

When I first heard Roman Coppola had cast Charlie Sheen and Bill Murray in his new movie, I figured it was like one of those dumb memes where people just mash two internet things together (get it? it’s pictures of Dr. Who with captions from Parks and Rec!), and wouldn’t really happen. To his credit, Charlie Sheen knows that the first rule of internet is “pics or it didn’t happen,” and tweeted these pictures from the set of Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III. Aside from having a righteous unibrow, Coppola is best known for co-writing The Darjeeling Limited and for being Francis Ford Coppola’s son (and Nic Cage’s cousin). Jason Schwartzman (pictured, right) is also a Coppola cousin.

‘Charlie Swan’ stars Sheen as a successful graphic designer whose fame, money and charm have made him irresistible to women, but his life soon downward spirals into doubt, confusion and reflection when his girlfriend breaks up with him, leading Charlie on the road to self-evaluation.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Patricia Arquette, Aubrey Plaza and Katheryn Winnick co-star in the currently filming ‘Charlie Swan.’ [ThePlaylist]

Of course, “Charlie Swan” is also the name of Bella’s dad in Twilight, but if you ask Roman Coppola about it, he just gets all flustered and pretentious, like, duh, I totally meant to come up with the same name as that Mormon lady, isn’t it meta? I suggested that no, it wasn’t, really, but he just stomped off, angrily sipping a soy chai. Coppolas are so sensitive.

(More pictures below — with explosions!)

The New York Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend, and one of the events that actually makes me wish I’d been in New York to attend was a 10th anniversary screening of Royal Tenenbaums, with Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston, and Wes Anderson in attendance, with Anderson collaborator Noah Baumbach moderating. ThePlaylist has the whole rundown, but probably the most interesting bit was about how everyone thought Gene Hackman was a mean, scary, prick. And thank God they put up with him, because that mean, scary prick is like a pretend father to me. Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum is all-time, Badass-Hall-of-Fame-level greatness.

BUT FIRST! Did you know the part of Mordecai the hawk was originally written for Jason Schwartzman?

Though it was nearly 10 years before Anderson reunited with his “Rushmore” star in “The Darjeeling Limited,” his intention was to include him much earlier. The part of Mordecai, eventually portrayed by a hawk in the film, was originally conceived for Jason Schwartzman. Anderson explained, “We had a character that was called Mordecai, which in the movie was the name of a bird, but Jason Schwartzman was supposed to be a boy who lived across the street from the Tenenbaums in some embassy or something in an attic.”

Jason Schwartzman is okay, but let’s be honest, he’s no hawk. Dude can barely catch mice.

…Right, but we came here to hear about Gene Hackman. The gist of this next block quote: Gene Hackman called Wes Anderson a c*nt, and once told him to “pull up his pants and act like a man.”

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