● Now this sucks! Say what you want about Sean Penn and his political agenda, but the dude is an AMAZINGLY GREAT actor. He’s a two-time Oscar winner for Christ sakes! Unfortunately, Penn just announced that he’s taking a year off from making movies, to resolve “personal matters.” Last month Penn filed for a request to dismiss his divorce proceedings from his wife Robin Wright Penn, the second time he’s done so. This decision is going to affect some high-profile films that he  had already committed to.

One of my earliest posts discussed the casting of Penn as Larry in the Farrelly Bros.’ upcoming Three Stooges movie, that will also star Jim Carrey and Benicio Del Toro. He has obviously backed out of this project. He also had to drop out of a political action-thriller called Cartel, about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. So this hiatus is going to rattle some big cages at these respective studios. Penn did have a few films already completed prior to this announcement, one of which being Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, co-starring Brad Pitt. So needless to say, this sucks, but I just hope Sean can get his personal stuff figured out so he can come back and win some more Oscars.

● MI:4 is in the works. The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop that both Tom Cruise and MI:3 & Star Trek director J.J. Abrams are NEARLY in agreements with Paramount to return to the spy-action series for Mission Impossible 4. The film is apparently on the fast-track for a 2011 release. That’s pretty surprising considering both Cruise and Abrams are both busy, busy bees. But, when you have a franchise that has grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide, why the fuck not, right?! The article states that there are currently two scenarios being bantered about: 1) they “could re-conceive it in a way that is closer to the ensemble approach of the TV series”, or 2) they “could reconfigure Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a less front-and-center role, as some kind of mentor to the new M:I crew.” I would prefer the former. Even though Cruise is a Douche in real life and is almost 47 years-old, he still looks like he’s 37, is still a great actor and can still kick ass!

● Let me just start with, no, the image above are not posters for any upcoming Adam Sandler movies. They are, however, posters for the movies that Sandler’s character, George Simmons, starred in, in Judd Apatow’s upcoming  film Funny People. In the film, Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition and his desire to form a genuine friendship cause him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act. This is probably one of the most-anticipated comedies of the summer. Not only because Apatow is the new comedy king and this is his third directed-film after the two mega-successful LOLer’s 40 Year-Old Virgin & Knocked Up, or because the film also stars Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana and Jason Schwartzman…But, also because the film features a cameo from non-other than EMINEM. That’s right! Slim Shady himself has a brief cameo in the film, most-likely playing himself (as the film deals with Hollywood). You can read more about Eminem’s cameo HERE. Below is also an interview with Jonah Hill about Eminem’s cameo at the MTV Movie Awards, (BEFORE the Bruno incident) where Hill gushed about how awesome Eminem is and how Em claims Superbad is is favorite movie of all time. Check it out.

I wrote an article a few weeks ago on how Funny People was going “viral” in its promotion, by uploading videos online of Jason Schwartzman’s character in the film. It looks like the posters are following suit, accompanied by short clips from Simmons’ “movies” that you can see on SlashFilm.

What Do You Think? Discuss.