The internet was on fire yesterday with the shocking news that Ashton Kutcher has been cast as the lead in a biopic about Steve Jobs. Of course, that’s the only reason anyone would cast Ashton Kutcher in a biopic about Steve Jobs, so that people would write about it. Speaking of, how’s Lindsay Lohan’s Linda Lovelace biopic coming along?

Ashton Kutcher is attached to star as Steve Jobs in Jobs, an independent biopic being produced and financed by Five Star Institute’s Mark Hulme. Wasting no time, Joshua Michael Stern is set to begin principal photography in May while Kutcher is on hiatus from the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Ooh, clever title! Hmm, well this is odd, I haven’t heard of Mark Hulme, and neither has IMDB. What’s “Five Star Institute,” you ask? Well it sounds like an institution that would advertise during daytime judge shows with a girl who raps their 800 number, but according to their awesome flash site:

The Five Star Institute is the premier provider of education for the real estate professional, providing innovative and unparalleled academics developed by industry authorities.

Sounds like the perfect background for someone getting into the movie business! Director Josh Michael Stern, meanwhile, you may remember (though probably not) from Swing Vote, the ultimately money-losing classic about a presidential election coming down to the vote of one Joe Sixpack, played by Kevin Costner. But he also directed The Contractor, with Wesley Snipes.

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Amanda Seyfried is currently busy shooting Lovelace, a biopic about a lady famous for shoving giant penises down her throat, but despite that, Seyfried, who has already done topless scenes in Chloe (ahem), says she’ll never do “full frontal.”

PRUDE ALERT, PRUDE ALERT! (*rings bell, adds more Everclear to jungle juice*) Well la di da, Princess Too Cool to Free Muff. What do you think, Burnsy, should we let her into the party? Seems like she might be too uptight to enjoy it.

Amanda Seyfried covers Glamour’s March 2012 issue and opens up about her personal life, competing with other twenty-something actresses for roles and why she’ll probably never go full-frontal for a film — even for one about a porn star.

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TOLDJA.com this morning is reporting that Steven Spielberg, fresh off an Oscar nom for his epic tale of a horse that had moxie, is close to signing a deal to direct a “a Braveheartish version of the Moses story” called Gods and Kings for Warner Bros.

“Him coming down the river, being adopted, leaving his home, forming an army, and getting the Ten Commandments,” an insider tells us. And despite the awesome screen possibilities of the parting of the Red Sea, the movie isn’t being contemplated in 3D. Warner Bros wants Spielberg to direct it with the gritty reality of Saving Private Ryan, which is considered a masterpiece redefining battle movies. ”There have been glossy versions of the Moses story but this would be a real warrior story,” an insider tells us. Insiders tell us the dialogue should consummate by the end of the month. Warner Bros wants to start production sometime in March or April of 2013.

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Separated at birth?

Mickey Rourke has been telling anyone who will listen that he’s going to play Gareth Thomas, an openly gay Welsh rugby player who in 2009 became the only openly-gay male active in pro sports, in a biopic. This always seemed a little ridiculous considering Mickey Rourke is about to turn 60 and Gareth Thomas is 37. Last year, Rourke was telling people he was going to have his front teeth removed for the part, and now, according to reports, he’s had plastic surgery on his eyes (around his eyes, I assume).  Surgery for a part seems drastic (EAT YOUR HEART OUT, DAY-LEWIS!), but keep in mind it’s Mickey Rourke, whose face looks like it’s made of clay, for whom getting face surgery is about as drastic as Lady Gaga buying new sunglasses.

The Hollywood actor is looking lean and mean and has dropped two stone as he continues to transform his body, having already had work done on his eyes.
Producer Colin Vaines has contracted trainer and stunt co-ordinator Nick McKinless, who also happens to be a pretty good rugby player, to work with Mickey on engineering his body so that he could pass muster on the rugby pitch.

Is he a witch doctor? Because I don’t know how else that’s going to work. Just get Andy Serkis and put him in his little suit. He could play Gareth Thomas as a super-intelligent kangaroo if you wanted him to.

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Politics Schmolitics, Being a Lady is Hard!

WOOF, what a dog of an assignment. I try to go into movies with an open mind, but let’s be honest, that was impossible here. The Iron Lady. I felt stupid just saying the title. Try it. Go to your local theater and tell the cashier, “I’m here to see The Iron Lady.” You’ll feel like an asshole, I promise. It sounds like a torture device, and it was.

Basically, I expected a cut-rate The King’s Speech, which was already the same boring biopic we’ve all seen umpteen times before. A COURAGEOUS OUTSIDER AND BLAH BLAH BLAH UNLIKELY PARTNERSHIP WAR SPEECH THE END.

Imagine my surprise when I found that it wasn’t a biopic about Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister at all, but rather a biopic about Margaret Thatcher: Senile Old Lady, grieving over her husband (Jim Broadbent) who died eight years ago. You know that shitty flashback structure they use in every biopic where the decrepit old protagonist stares wistfully at a picture of himself on a horse before it flashes back and turns into a period piece? Well imagine if that pointless flashback justification wasn’t just five minutes at the beginning and end of the movie, but A RECURRING THEME THAT TAKES UP HALF THE RUNNING TIME. Hate boring, conventional political biopics? Well hey, here’s that, intercut with 40 minutes of an old lady hallucinating conversations with her dead husband about tea! MY GOD, IT’S ALL WORTH IT TO HEAR MERYL STREEP DO AN ACCENT!

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