Variety today reports that Kevin Kline has been added to the cast of Charlie Kaufman’s Frank or Francis, alongside Steve Carell, Jack Black, and Nic Cage. That’s great, because I’ve been waiting for Kevin Kline’s return to the comedic brilliance of A Fish Called Wanda since 1988. But, and perhaps more importantly, it gives us an opportunity to examine Kaufman’s latest, and what it’s about. The folks at ThePlaylist have had a chance to read the script, and holy Meryl Streep’s tits does it ever sound nutty.  Here’s the overview:

“Frank or Francis,” in our estimation, feels like a deliciously good and contemptuous (though self-aware) screed/send-up of the film industry, not only, the graffiti-with-punctuation bloggers, but the entire machine: fatuous filmmakers, vapid PR people, self-absorbed writers, blowhard actors, and last but not least it serves up a jiujitsu-like takedown on the ego-driven, vacuous meat-parade that is the Academy Awards. No stone is left unturned nor is there much of any kind of hero in the story as everyone is as equally moronic and narcissistic as the other. Still, as Kaufman denotes, it also says a lot of things about society, culture, human nature (and race) and human behavior—albeit some of it in his patently strange and sometimes baffling way.

Yay, jiu-jitsu and meat parades are my favorite things! Anyway, the main arc tells three parallel stories, of…

• Frank Arder (Steve Carell, presumably), a pretentious auteur whose film You, in which he plays all the characters, some in blackface, gets nominated for 29 Academy Awards.
• Francis (Jack Black), a “self-important, arrogant film blog commenter”, and…
• Alan Modell (Nic Cage), “a comedian with a faltering career who is known for his wildly popular, immensely moronic ‘Fat Dad’ roles.”

And then it gets even better (and waaay weirder) in some of the details. These might be spoilers, but you probably won’t understand them anyway (*covers soy chai with latest issue of The Atlantic*):

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My poster for "Being Paul Blart"

Just days after I reported that Kevin James would soon be taking the shortest path to critical relevance, starring an indie (ish) drama about a retarded kid, word comes that he could soon be doing something EVEN MORE HIPSTER PANDERY! ThePlaylist got a hold of a script for Charlie Kaufman’s next movie, Frank and Francis, and they say it has a part in it written specifically for Blart I mean James. Assuming he agrees, he would play himself, Kevin James, “as the star of film-within-the-film, ‘Obese City.’” That actually sounds really awesome, but that could just be the grande soy chai talking.

We’ve managed to get our grubby hands on the script for Charlie Kaufman‘s latest, “Frank and Francis,” which has Jack Black, Nicolas Cage and Steve Carell already attached, and the Hollywood-set tale of a movie director feuding with a blogger has, in the script, a role for Kevin James—playing, in true Kaufman style, Kevin James, as the star of film-within-the-film “Obese City,” and then later as a presenter at the Academy Awards. Of course, the fact that he’s written into the script doesn’t mean that he’ll end up doing it. [ThePlaylist]

Not to get hyperbolic here, but if Kevin James agrees, I can say with 10,000% certainty that this would be the best thing he’s ever done. He should play a guy who discovers a service that can erase the painful memories of starring in movies about a fat guy who falls down a lot. But here’s the twist: after he erases the memories of his bad movies, people keep coming to him with fat-guy-falling-down scripts, and HE JUST KEEPS DOING THEM BECAUSE HE DOESN’T REMEMBER DOING THEM! (*BRAAAAAAAAAAAHMMM*) — I didn’t mean it was meta, that was just the sound of a Kevin James cheeseburger fart.

Joaquin Phoenix’s rap career didn’t really work out (and yet Willow Smith’s did, go figure), so now he’s back to taking real acting jobs. Namely, Twitch brings news that Joaquin is attached to an untitled political satire from Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman (the team behind Adaptation, and pretty much my favorite director and writer, respectively). Oh I’ll play your game, you rogues.

In March, Deadline described the story as “a satire about how world leaders gather to figure out all the seismic events that will take place in the worlds [sic?], from oil prices to wars that will be waged.”
Things have been quiet since but Twitch has learned that Warner Brothers have now also come on board. Plot details remain sketchy but Joaquin Phoenix is attached to star and Vincent Landay to produce with a March 2012 start date eyed for production. [Twitch]

It’s fun to give Joaquin sh*t (or take actual sh*ts on him while he’s sleeping like in I’m Still Here, whatever the case may be), but if I’m Still Here proved anything, it’s that he’s a brilliant (and clearly committed) actor. If Joaquin and Casey Affleck had approached their documentary from the standpoint of “look at this hilarious poop prank we’re going to film!” instead of “think of the profound implications of this ingenious Banksy stunt we pulled on the media and what it says about our times!”, it might have actually been good. (Yes, the media will write about you if you act insane and let your friends dook on you, brilliant deduction there, Einstein). Let’s not forget, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman made Nic Cage look like Philip Seymour Hoffman, I’m sure Joaquin Phoenix will be fine. Handling crazy weirdos is kind of what they do.

Megan Ellison is the 25-year-old daughter of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.  (Go here for the tenuous explanation of why I refer to her as a bisexual, but the short answer is “PAGEVIEW$, SON!)  She’s got money to burn, and as we learned recently with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scientology movie, she’s trying her hand at movie producing.  But being that she’s independently wealthy and didn’t come to her position through years of telling Jerry Bruckheimer what a genius he is for coming up with Kangaroo Jack, she actually has decent taste.  So when the studios bailed on PTA in favor of safer bets like movies based on board games and remakes of gum wrappers, Ellison stepped up and put her money where her bisexual mouth is.  (*cough*) LESBIANS! (*cough*)

Her latest move, according to Deadline, is financing a picture for Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, who are awesome at movies, despite probably smelling really bad.

Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures is negotiating to acquire an untitled satire that will re-team screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, the tandem behind the mind-benders Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. The project was pitched recently to financiers, and I’m told it’s a satire about how world leaders gather to figure out all the seismic events that will take place in the worlds, from oil prices to wars that will be waged.

But does it have name recognition?  How can we license it for toys?  How many quadrants is its tentpole, AND WHAT OF THE FOCUS GROUPS, DEVIL WOMAN?!?!  Putting up money for a movie because you think it sounds good?  Jeez, this bitch has a lot to learn.

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Since we’re in a punny mood, here’s “Tron Jeremy.” Here’s a double pun: Tron Jeremy stars in… Little Fockers. Anyway, you’ll never believe this, but they make reference to his large penis. |ScreenJunkies|

Tron Legacy opens today. Here’s my review. I cleaned it up a lot since I wrote it on no sleep yesterday, and I’ve added more Tron dog. Still wish I’d seen True Grit instead.

Also opening: The Fighter, How Do You Know, Yogi Bear, Casino Jack, and Rabbit Hole.  How Do you Know cost $120 million, so it must be good, right? Right???

“Winona Ryder’s comments make things hairier for Mel Gibson’s Beaver.“  Hee hee! That’s the actual headline.  Damn you, why couldn’t you have said “Jodie Foster’s ‘Beaver’?”  We know what you were going for, there’s no need to beat around the beaver. I mean muff. I mean bush. I mean vagina. |LATimes|

Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman looking to reteam for the first time since Adaptation.  Jonze is coming off Where the Wild Things Are, Kaufman off his directing debut, Synechdoche, New York.  All I know is, if these guys can make a good movie with TWO NIC CAGES in the lead role, I’ll line up for whatever they do. |LATimes|

Clooney replacing Downey in Cuaron’s planned sci-fi epic, Gravity. Can we just make this movie already?  It sounds cool, but I’m sick of hearing about it already.  Pretty sure Yogi Bear went from script to finished product in like three weeks.  On second thought, take your time. |Deadline|

A Very Muppet Proposal. (After the jump), a guy proposes using muppets.

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