On the 8 Spot

Haven’t seen a great performance from Robert De Niro in a long time. Hope he can make something of this role!

Robert De Niro has signed to play legendary football coach Vince Lombardi in ESPN Films’ big screen feature Lombardi. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich, Benjamin Button, The Insider) penned the script. The National Football League is involved in the project, which means we probably won’ see anything controversial in the movie (steroids, alcohol).

I don’t know a lot about football, but looking at photos of Lombardi, you can certainly see how De Niro would be cast in the role. Risky Business says the plan is to release the film between the AFC and NFC conference championship games and the Super Bowl in 2012. The film will focus on Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers years, although ESPN acquired the entire life rights to Lombardi’s story from his estate, as well as the rights to Jerry Kramer and Dick Schaap’s book Instant Replay.

via Robert De Niro Cast as Vince Lombardi | /Film.

Capone goes in over his head with the marvelously silly HOT TUB TIME MACHINE!!!

Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

Sometimes you admire a comedy because of its subtle wit and cleverness, because it keeps a sustained smile on your face that lasts the duration of the film. Other times, you fall head over heals for a comedy because it is balls-out the perfect combination of stupidity and intelligence, with a healthy serving of charm thrown in and a dash of the grotesque. Welcome to HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, folks, a movie that almost dares you not to giggle your way into a frothy stupor. What put this film over the top for me was its complete and utter disregard not only for conventional logic and sensibility, but the film actually bothers to set up its own time-space continuum rules and then breaks them with a wanton disregard for the Butterfly Effect. On the plus side, TIME COP's essential rule about the same person from two different times occupying the same space is cited and dealt with quite effectively. But for God's sake, this isn't a movie about science; it's about partying '80s style, and who better to do that with than John Cusack?

via Capone goes in over his head with the marvelously silly HOT TUB TIME MACHINE!!! — Ain’t It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news..

See I see myself do this a lot. I read something that appeals to who I believe I am and I grab it like a Recovering Alcoholic grabbing his Johnny Walker. I believe I do this, and am probably not alone in doing this because in some ways we have a yearning to validate who we are at least or even only to ourselves. It is that we sometimes grab these things just to say to ourselves we were not wrong. I know this is not a rational way of living. I hope to change this.

If this were the only case where I had this dispiriting result … perhaps I could treat it as an exception. But what I’ve found is every time I did a study like this … there was nobody home in terms of really wanting to know the result.

via Edward Tufte, Ron Howard, and government consulting