We’ve known about Clint Eastwood’s planned bye-oh-pic of J. Edgar Hoover since April, and the last we heard, he wanted Leonardo Di Caprio to play Hoover. At some point, Joaquin Phoenix was discussed for Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s protege and lover.  (Oh yeah, spoiler alert, J. Edgar Hoover was gay). Anyway, Reuters recently spoke to Eastwood, and they discovered part of the story wasn’t true.  Guess which part.

“No. I don’t know where that came from…didn’t he become a rapper?” Eastwood said, when asked about recent reports Phoenix was being considered for the role. Phoenix had taken on rapping in a hoax that surrounded the making of a mock documentary film called “I’m Still Here” about his supposed transition.
Oscar-winning director Eastwood did say that DiCaprio definitely wants the role of Hoover. “It’s a great role for him,” Eastwood said, adding that the film’s makers were “in the process” of signing contracts with DiCaprio. [Reuters]

“This one here, didn’t he go off to make the jungle music?”

“No, no, Clint.  It was just performance art.  A ‘mock-joaqumentary’, some people are calling it.”

(*cocks pistol*)

“You see, the rap stuff wasn’t for real, that was just our meditation on celebrity culture.  As Pablo Picasso once said, ‘Art is the lie that tells the tru–’”

“Is someone gonna get this jabberin’ gook off my lawn?”

I tried to talk J. Edgar out of wearing that hat when we went to the parade. It looks so gay!

In The Aviator, Leonardo Di Caprio proved himself more than up to the task of toplining biopics, and Clint Eastwood has also made one.  Deadline today reports that they could soon combine forces like the two guys who doubled-teamed my ex-girlfriend in college.

Leonardo DiCaprio is in early talks to play FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in Hoover, an epic drama about my ex-girlfriend that Clint Eastwood will direct and that he and Brian Grazer will produce

Sources tell me that Imagine had been developing “the story of the beginning of the FBI” for a year when it finally showed the script to Universal, where the reaction was negative. “This is exactly what we don’t want to make,” Uni execs reacted. “It’s period, and we have lost enough money with these things.” But then Grazer got the screenplay to pal Clint (they did The Changeling and have had a personal relationship ever since), the two men met about it in mid-February, and suddenly Universal has a tough decision to make since.

J. Edgar Hoover was the famous FBI chief who ran the agency like a dictatorship for almost 40 years and had unprecedented, perhaps unequalled powers, but of course the most interesting thing about him was that he maybe liked to dress up in women’s clothes and bang dudes.  He was like an olden-day Richard Gere.

Here are some more of today’s stories that, instead of covering completely, I’m just going to gently waft my farts onto:

Clint Eastwood in talks to direct J. Edgar Hoover biopic.  Ron Howard and Brian Grazer will produce, with screenplay by Milk‘s Dustin Lance Black.  Little known fact: the J in J. Edgar Hoover stands for ‘Jackin’ off in women’s underwear.’  |HollywoodReporter|

- RELATED ASYLUM POLL: What’s your favorite Clint Eastwood-directed movie?

Jason Segel and Ed Helms teaming up for Duplass Brothers movie.  Jeff Who Lives at Home has been described as “a Sword in the Stone-style quest movie about a stoner’s search for some wood glue. The story takes place over the course of one day, and follows two brothers, one a loser who lives at home (Segel)  and the other more together but overbearing” (Helms).”  So basically, a mumblecore version of Stepbrothers.  I still haven’t seen a mumblecore film, the same way I refuse to find out what “steampunk” means.  |SlashFilm|

Steve Martin to join Jack Black and Owen Wilson in birdwatching comedy.  “Based on a 1998 book “The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession, it is about three men who try to outdo each other in a bird-watching competition to spot the rarest birds in North America.”  Said The Stafe, “Where Oy is from, it ain’t about ‘oo sees da fit birds, it’s about ‘oo knobs ‘er onda ‘ood of ‘is sazz wagon, donnit.” |HollywoodReporter|

Some dude from Twilight and some other dudes star in new Calvin Klein campaign aimed at abrasive gays. Seriously, this is weird. |Vulture|

John Krasinski’s set to star in Something Borrowed opposite Ginnifer Goodwin.  Looks like someone read my How to Write a Rom-Com article. |THR|

Korean pop star Rain set to star in remake of Sydney Pollack’s The Yakuza. It’s really good casting, because I imagine The Yakuza will be about Asian people. |Pajiba|

And finally, that autistic British ogre filmed herself watching a Twilight video again.

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(“Shirtless MMMATTT DAAAMON.”  /obligatory)

Clint Eastwood is a hell of a director, but he gives himself quite a task in Invictus.  He has to give us enough background on the complex history and politics of a place where even the national anthem is in five languages, just for the contemporary American audience to understand it, let alone care.  Then, after he’s sufficiently familiarized us  with the complex racial dynamic in post-apartheid South Africa, which has just elected a dynamic speaker with no governing experience to its highest office (relevant!), he has to prove to us that a sport is relevant. And not just a regular sport either, a sport that to most Americans, just looks like a bunch of burly white guys trying to stick their heads up each other’s butts.  *furiously masturbating* Oh, and there’s also the matter of explaining how the South Africa Springboks apparently went from laughingstock to World Cup contender in less than a year with no significant personnel changes. (a montage?)

You catch all that?  Don’t worry, the expository dialog should bring you up to speed.  Exchanges like: “The New Zealand team will be doing the Haka.”
“You mean the traditional Maori war chant?  Yes, thees ees a prrroblem.”

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Oscar bait, anyone?  This is the trailer for Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, starring beloved actor Morgan Freeman as beloved leader of South Africa Nelson Mandela. Hoping to unite his country in the wake of apartheid, Mandela calls on Springboks captain Francois Pienaar (Mmmatt Daaaamon) to get the country behind their rugby team during the 1995 World Cup hosted by South Africa.  It’s basically Cinderella Team, or District 9 without the aliens.

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