For a long time, I had nothing against Shia Labeouf. He bore the brunt of a predictable backlash for being an overexposed actor in a series of underwhelming films, but that wasn’t really his fault, you don’t have that much control over that stuff when you’re a young actor. At times we respected his honesty. But the more we see of him lately, the more he comes off as this fast-talking, cliché-spouting existential buffoon. One thing I’ve never thought is, “hey, you know who’d be great in this movie? Shia LaBeouf.”

Which brings us to: How do you explain the fact that he’s now worked with Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Lars von Trier, Michael Bay, and others, yesterday signed on for a film opposite Robert DeNiro, and today joined a WWII movie starring Brad Pitt? Someone find this kid’s agent, because that guy deserves all of the cocaines.

With Brad Pitt attached and Sony on board to distribute, WWII-set “Fury” has begun building its ensemble cast with Shia LaBeouf in talks to co-star. David Ayer (End of Watch) is directing the pic from his own script. The story follows the commander of a Sherman tank and its five-man crew on a mission behind enemy lines in April 1945 as Nazi Germany collapses. LaBeouf would play a member of the crew. Lensing is set to begin in September with a Nov. 14, 2014. [Variety]

That seems like a pretty cherry role in a year that’s seen him plagiarize an apology from an Esquire article and get laughed at on Letterman. There’s only one explanation for this. SORCERY!

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I thought DeNiro’s legacy couldn’t be tarnished more than it already was by this body-snatchers face he’s making in the poster for The Big Wedding, starring Diane Keaton and Katherine Heigl (which I will be courageously subjecting myself to tomorrow night, just for your amusement). He looks like a goddamn Berenstain Bears cartoon. Anyway, news on the DeNiro front isn’t getting any better today:

BREAKING: Robert De Niro & Shia LaBeouf to play real-life father-son spy duo in Paramount’s SPY’S KID, which has DJ Caruso in talks to helm.

— Jeff Sneider (@TheInSneider) April 22, 2013

That’s right, Spy’s Kid, not to be confused with Spy Kids, or Agent Cody Banks, starring Labeouf nemesis Frankie Muniz. Man, is there any premise more tired and lame than the family o’ spies? I was hoping this one went out of favor some time between This Means War and the stalled development of Spy vs. Spy. I’d take a body-swap movie over this. This Summer, Robert Deniro and Shia Labeouf, in… The Toddfather! He’ll make you an awesome you can’t refuse! (*slide whistle, whoopie cushion*)

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Last night Shia LaBeouf went on David Letterman, and Dave, to his credit, wasn’t Shia (sorry) about asking The Beef about his public feud with Alec Baldwin. You know, the one where Shia passed off an Esquire article (and a pretty lame one at that) as his own public apology. Shia tried to explain, but he was so obtuse and full-of-sh*t actorsy about it that the audience was openly mocking him before he’d even finished talking. It’s actually remarkable how quickly they turn on him. Here’s a partial transcript (more after the jump, with video):

SHIA: I’m pretty passionate and impulsive. And he’s passionate and impulsive too, and I think that makes for some fireworks.

DAVE: So… why did you get fired?

SHIA: Because me and Alec had tension as men. Not as artists, but as men. In a room, I think that became a hard thing to deal with. When you got tension as men, that’s tough till July. You know, it’s cool for increments, but I think to do that for a long period of time… is pretty tough.

“When you got tension as men, that’s tough till July.” Deep, bro. Is that another truism gleaned from the perfumed pages of the Megan-Fox-as-Aztec-sacrifice issue? Got any juicy bon mots about matching ties to cuff links?

Now, it’d be good internet business to just say “HERE’S SHIA LABEOUF ACTING DOUCHEY, LET’S POKE HIM WITH STICKS!” because that’s the kind of simple morality tale that plays here in the cat-o-sphere. And you know, it wouldn’t be totally wrong. But in the interests of fairness, it should be pointed out that there are some contextual reasons why Shia Labeouf might be trying to communicate in metrosexual slam poem that go beyond his personal preference.

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TODAY IN EXISTENTIAL BUFFOONERY

Shia Labeouf recently left a Broadway production of Orphans over “creative differences” (the producers’ words), with co-star Alec Baldwin. Which wouldn’t be particularly newsworthy in itself, except that The Beef himself posted a bunch of inside-baseball emails between himself and the director, himself and Alec Baldwin, and himself and actor Tom Sturridge on his Twitter account, detailing just what went wrong.

Apparently, it was an “incompatibility” between LaBeouf and Baldwin that led to the departure. Now, I hesitate to paint Shia Labeouf with the “existential buffoon” label – a phenomenon we’re obviously quite fond of here – because having a personality that tends towards sensitive, overwrought, and dramatic is basically what makes actors good at their jobs. Still, I don’t what else to call it when a guy sends an apology email and prefaces it by quoting liberally from an Esquire essay called “How to Be a Man.”

Here’s Shia’s email to 72-year-old Orphans director Daniel Sullivan (which, again, was posted by Shia himself):

My dad was a drug dealer. He was a sh-t human. But he was a man. He taught me how to be a man. What I know of men, Alec is-

A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.

Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation.

A man knows his tools and how to use them – just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud.

A man does not know everything. He doesn’t try. He likes what other men know.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to.

He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.

Alec, I’m sorry for my part of a dis-agreeable situation. – Shia. [transcription via Jezebel]

“Look, my dad may have been a piece of shit drug dealer, but at least he taught me that real men eat dirt steaks, unlike that pussy Mark McGwire.”

I’m not sure if it speaks better or worse of Shia that he stole the dumbest parts of that email from a printed pep rally for dipshit finance guys published in 2009 in Esquire. At least he didn’t write them himself? But he still thought they were worth repeating? Here’s the original:

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Anyone knows that when you’re competing for a job, you have to show that you’re willing to go that extra mile. When that job is a role in Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, that extra mile, at least for Shia Labeouf, was sending the director his sex types. Because, to be clear, Shia LaBeouf sent Lars Von Trier tapes of himself having sex with his girlfriend.

Shia LaBeouf sent “sex tapes” to director Lars von Trier to get his role in ‘Nymphomaniac’.
The 26-year-old actor claims he showcased a different aspect of his talents to the filmmaker by sending him intimate footage of himself and his girlfriend in order to land a role in the forthcoming movie, which is expected to include scenes of real sex.
Speaking on ‘Chelsea Lately’, he said: “I don’t know what it’s gonna be until I get out there.
“I know he’s a very dangerous director, I know we’re trying to do something different. It’s not your typical film. It’s about what it’s about.
“I sent him videotapes of me and my girlfriend having sex and that’s how I got the job.”
Shia has previously said Lars will make the cast do everything “for real” in the movie, and anything too explicit will be “blurred”. [femalefirst.UK]

Wow. Well let this be a lesson to you, that’s how you show initiative. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Or undress, as it were. I’m just happy that after all that, Shia ended up getting the job. No one talks about how Crispin Glover let a talking fox chew his dick off and still didn’t get cast. Luckily it grew back, but still.