Cast This!: A Bosom Buddy for Tilda's Auntie Mame

Chris here. It's been so long since we first heard about Tilda Swinton's plans to remake Auntie Mame that we'd assumed the project had died. But, as it turns out, Annie Mumolo and Tilda Swinton are giving us a banquet because we poor suckers are starving to death.

While being interviewed by Vanity Fair, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Annie Mumolo let slip that she's working on the screenplay for Auntie Mame, with Tilda Swinton taking over Rosalind Russell's fur coat. No, it won't be a musical version, because Tilda Swinton in a musical would be too much for our tender hearts.

This would be a huge star vehicle for the actress, putting her at the forefront of a big cast rather than her usual spot on the periphery of comedic ensembles. One thing Swinton doesn't get enough credit for is her incredible chemistry with a wide range of different kinds of performers, so the possibilities to pair her with a great cast is all too exciting. From her nephew Patrick, goofy Gooch, and dreamy Beau, there are a lot of great parts to bounce of Swinton's eccentric socialite.

Vera (Coral Browne) and Mame (Rosalind Russell) in the 1958 classic

But the role we should all be most intrigued to see cast opposite Swinton's Mame is her bosom buddy Vera. More after the jump...

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Review: Melissa McCarthy in "The Boss"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Melissa McCarthy cuts an imposing figure in her first scene in The Boss and I’m not talking about her plus size physique though we’ll get there in a minute. In the new comedy she’s Michelle Darnell, a mega-successful businesswoman (details are fuzzy on what kind) descending into a stadium on a giant faux phoenix that’s shooting off fireworks. The sound mix is as uniformly deafening as that image is unsubtle so you can’t make out a single word of the rapping, mob chanting, pandemonium that follows. This should be annoying but it comes as a weird relief in this relentlessly politicking season of pandering narcissistic windbags wearing saggy human costumes on TV every night. It’s better to close your ears and laugh at the inanity of the spectacle than really contemplate what they’re saying and what their cults are cheering about; that way lies nihilistic depression about the state of the world and we’re here to laugh, damnit, this being a Melissa McCarthy movie. (In short: I was in the right mood to see this movie. And that often matters with comedy.)

Shortly after that insane entrance, which presents Darnell as a Susan Powter style self-help guru (for economics), the movie recasts her as a less specific cutthroat executive who buys and sells companies in the blink of an eye — and buys and sells out people with equally swift mercilessness.  [More...]

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