Franco and Foster Join 2014 Bway Roster

James Fracno will star in Of Mice and Men 
on Broadway

Add James Franco and Sutton Foster to the growing list of hot stars coming to Broadway in 2014. Franco will be making his Broadway debut along with Chris O'Dowd of Bridesmaids in a revival of Of Mice and Men to be directed by Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County). Foster stars in a revival of the musical Violet which was such a hit at the Encores! Off Center series earlier this year. Violet fills the spring slot in Roundabout Theatre Company's schedule which was left vacant when The Real Thing with Ewan McGregor was pushed ahead to 2014-15. That Franco is a busy guy, while filming The Interview, he had time to make a shot-for-shot parody of a Kanye West video with his co-star Seth Rogen. Plus he's working on several movies including a film version of The Sound and the Fury and a bio of avant-garde author Charles Bukowski.

Other big names coming to Broadway include Denzel Washington, Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Michelle Williams, Alan Cumming, and Bryan Cranston. The Breaking Bad star will headline All the Way, Robert Schenkkan's play about President Lyndon Johnson and the civil right movement which was a hit at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. March and April are getting pretty crowded now, see the updated schedule below:

Random Cable TV Observations

So I was watching Comic Book Men the other day and during the commercial AMC is advertising its Thanksgiving Week lineup. First on Turkey Day itself Gone With the Wind. OK so far. Then on Fri., The Godfather Saga. Even better. The next day--a Hitchcock marathon. There were clips of Vertigo and Rear Window. Fantastic, maybe AMC will be returning to its original mission and live up to its initials (American Movie Classics) instead of just showing zombies and mad men. But then we got to the final day of the Thanksgiving weekend and how do they cap off this cinemaphile's feast? A Steve Segal marathon!!?? NOOOOO!!!!

Robert Osborne and Mark Cousins introducing
The Story of Film on TCM
Credit: David S. Holloway, TCM 

Speaking of classic movies, I've been faithfully DVRing TCM's showing of the British documentary series The Story of Film: An Odyssey on Monday nights. I've been DVRing because lately they show it at 2 in the morning. When the series first started, the doc would air at 10PM and movies referenced in that week's episode would be screening around it. Maybe the ratings for the Story have fallen off and the programmers are placing it in a slot it can't do too much damage. I'm really enjoying learning about all these obscure Russian, African, and Asian films and listening to narrator-historian Mark Cousins' lilting Irish accent. But he really needs to dress a bit better during the intros with Robert Osborne.

In the mornings, I tend to channel surf while slurping my instant oatmeal. The Hallmark Channel is currently going through its endless rotation of Christmas movies, so they're not showing Golden Girls reruns. That leaves me at a loss. The political news is too depressing to watch Morning Joe (thanks a lot, Obama). So this morning I found Jeff and Cole Casserole, a really weird, low-budget comedy show on Logo, featuring two kooky gay guys talking about Jessica Lange and Joyce DeWitt. My kind of show.

Photoshopping Ryan Reynolds

This image of Ryan Reynolds has popped up on the side of my Facebook newsfeed. It's advertising a link to a muscle-building article on Matrixfitness.com promoting some kind of steroid, or supplement or something. The article features numerous photos of celebrities like Reynolds, Mel Gibson, The Rock, and others beefing up for movie roles. In the article's photo, Reynolds is nowhere near as bulked up as he is in this thumbnail. (He's playing a superhero in a sequel to Blade evidently. He looks like the Hulk in this tiny photo.) So it's pretty clear this image is photoshopped. False advertising, Matrixfitness!