Benedict Cumberbatch, revered in the wide world for his work on Sherlock as well as his recent old-school engagement announcement, is starring as math genius and father of modern computing Alan Turing in the new biopic The Imitation Game, out Nov. 28. Here, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) impresses Turing with her crossword puzzling skills.
Sopranos creator David Chase has been playing with fans’ emotions over the last year, by continually hinting at his interest in doing a prequel to the mob show. In a new interview, Chase revealed more details about the possible project, which would likely look rather unconventional.
“There are a couple of eras that would be interesting for me to talk about, about Newark, New Jersey,” he said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. “One would be (the) late ’60s, early ’70s, about all the racial animosity, or the beginning, the really true beginning of the flood of drugs.”
Chase has gone on record several times with his interest in a prequel that would focus on Tony’s parents’ generation (can you just imagine Livia in her prime?). While promoting his film Not Fade Away in 2012, Chase told Showbiz 411 that he had even discussed the idea with HBO. “It would be with Tony’s father, and Uncle Junior, and Livia–Tony’s mother–long before any of the other characters we know now.”
In May, while participating in a panel at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, he said he still “flirts” with the idea of doing a prequel set in Newark.
One of these days, maybe HBO will announce they’ve actually green-lighted the project. Until then, we have plenty of time to pick our dream cast. Jennifer Lawrence as Livia Soprano? Bada bing!
[AP]
A former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader was charged Wednesday with raping a 15-year-old boy.
Molly Shattuck, 47, pleaded not guilty to nine counts including rape, unlawful sexual contact and providing alcohol to minors, WBAL in Baltimore reports. She was released after posting $84,000 bail. She allegedly had sexual relations with the boy over Labor Day weekend in a vacation rental home in Bethany Beach, Del.
Shattuck was 38 when she joined the Baltimore Ravens cheerleading squad in 2005, making her the oldest cheerleader in the NFL.
“This is a difficult situation for everyone involved,” Shattuck’s lawyer said.
[WBAL]
Disney announced the title of its forthcoming Star Wars: Episode VII in a tweet Thursday.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has completed principal photography. #TheForceAwakens #StarWarsVII http://t.co/qBhel6CDjr—
Walt Disney Pictures (@DisneyPictures) November 06, 2014
The sequel, which brings back original cast members including Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, alongside actors Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac, has now finished filming, and is slated to premiere in 2015.
A John Steinbeck story titled “With Your Wings” will be published Friday in The Strand magazine, 70 years after the Of Mice and Men author read it in a radio broadcast that until now was thought to be undocumented and unrecorded.
The quarterly journal’s managing editor recently found a transcript of the story while going through the University of Texas at Austin’s archives.
“With Your Wings” tells the story of a black WWII pilot who returns home after training feeling out of place and apprehensive. When his father sees the silver wings pinned to his chest, he expresses how meaningful his service will be at a time when the U.S. Army was still segregated. “‘Son,” he says, “every black man in the world is going to fly with your wings.”
[AP]
We’ve heard of actors dropping massive amounts of weight in the quest for an Oscar, but for his role in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, Matt Damon’s weight loss will be more sci-fi, less South Beach.
The Bourne Identity actor has agreed to play a man who undergoes a shrinking procedure as a way to cut costs. His wife agrees to this austerity measure, too, but backs out after he’s already been downsized.
Payne wrote the script for Downsizing with his writing partner Jim Taylor between 2004’s Sideways and 2011’s The Descendants, when it was slated to star Paul Giamatti and Reese Witherspoon. It was tabled so Payne could work on The Descendants (which won a Oscar for its screenplay), and again when he started work directing Nebraska.
But it’s back on track now, and with no financing announced, the team may have to think big to get small.
Disney has released a new trailer for the upcoming Into the Woods, and unlike the first one, this time you can actually tell it’s a musical.
The ensemble of fairytale characters, from Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) to a big bad wolf (Johnny Depp, looking creepy even for him) all have their moment in the spotlight in the new trailer, but Meryl Streep’s witch gets top billing, showing off her singing chops and offering glimpses of her character both pre- and post-magical makeover.
The James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim-penned musical, a mainstay of high school stages everywhere, will make its big screen debut on Christmas Day.
A Dallas nurse who survived a bout of Ebola caught while treating a Liberian patient with the disease has told how she received only a “crash course” on treating the highly infectious disease.
Amber Vinson told People of her surprise at learning that her hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian, would be treating Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, and that she would be assigned to his care. “They told everyone to go downstairs except for me and one other nurse,” she says. “They gave us a crash-course education on this is what you have to wear, this is how you take it on and off.”
Vinson was sent to Emory University Medical Center for treatment after she tested positive for the disease, while a colleague who also contracted and survived the disease, Nina Pham, was treated at the National Institutes of Health. She says the two would text back and forth to encourage each other’s recovery.
Police in Orange County, Fla. are looking for a quadruple amputee who is considered a person of interest after his parents were found shot to death.
Sean Petrozzino, 30, had recently moved back in with his mother and father, Nancy and Michael Petrozzino, after separating from his wife, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Their bodies were discovered in their home Tuesday after Nancy failed to show up at work. Michael’s car, a red Toyota Camry, is also missing.
The sheriff’s office has maintained that Petrozzino is not currently a suspect, only wanted for questioning to investigate the circumstances around his parents’ shootings. But a spokesperson added that he was armed.
Petrozzino lost his hands, feet and parts of his limbs to bacterial meningitis as a teenager. It is possible for a person without hands to fire a gun, according to one prosthetics and orthotics expert who spoke to the Sentinel.
Starbucks has announced it will bring back the Eggnog Latte, after customer complaints that the holiday favorite did not appear alongside the coffee chain’s red holiday cups on Nov. 1.
Starbucks had dropped the seasonal drink—made with spiced eggnog, espresso and nutmeg—in an effort to streamline its menu, but because it has been a seasonal offering since 1986, fans were not ready to give up their holiday treat.
Though customers in the Pacific Northwest have already seen the beverage return to menus, the rest of the country will have to wait until Nov. 17, when the coffee giant estimates it will be able to stock up on the necessary supplies.
The Seattle-based chain was also forced to bring back its other seasonal favorite, Gingerbread Latte, after retiring it in Pacific Northwestern stores (though it has remained stocked in the rest of the country).
Next year, Starbucks will know better than to mess with the sentimental ties to that time of year when we all need a little extra caffeine.
