SkimIt
To paraphrase Heidi Klum: In the entertainment world, one day you're in, and the next, you're out. Most of the celebrities you'll see in this space each week (should) have the spoils of fame and fortune to show for the years that they were in, but may have found themselves closer to being out of the loop recently before climbing their way back toward the top.
Perhaps the only thing more unlikely than a blockbuster action movie star becoming the governor of California would be the former governor of California becoming a blockbuster action movie star, but Schwarzenegger looks like he's about to pull it off.
At first it didn't seem like big news when Schwarzenegger was announced as part of the macho ensemble cast for The Expendables 2, since Arnold's part in the original Expendables nothing more than a grab-some-popcorn-and-you-missed-it cameo. But as more details of the movie (release date August 17) come to light, it sounds like Arnold's role in the sequel is worth writing home about. Expendables co-star Terry Crews called it Schwarzenegger's "big comeback" during an appearance at Comic-Con this week, and Crews and Dolph Lundgren couldn't stop gushing about Arnold's performance during filming.
And that's not all. Schwarzenegger, who was also at Comic-Con to help promote The Expendables 2, confirmed he is working on a sequel to Twins.
Jennifer Lopez
Can I go ahead and predict a career comeback before it actually happens? J-Lo undoubtedly reinvigorated her music (and advertising) career during two-year stint as a judge on American Idol, but with this week's news that she (and Steven Tyler) are leaving the show, I'm seeing an upcoming run of major movie releases for J-Lo.
All I've heard is that Lopez reportedly left Idol after she was rejected in her attempts at getting her salary bumped to $17 million per season. So if J-Lo is willing to walk away from the eight-figure salary she was already pulling down, she must have some other big projects in the hopper. Stay tuned.
It takes a certain special something for an actor or actress to do a believable turn on a show like Game of Thrones. Or maybe all it takes is a British accent. Whatever it is, Diana Rigg has it, and she's used it to land a recurring role on Season 3 of the HBO hit after a six-year hiatus from acting. The 1960s icon -- best known for The Avengers and the Bond flick On Her Majesty's Secret Service -- hasn't made a notable screen appearance since 2006's The Painted Veil, but will be playing the "Queen of Thrones" when Games of Thrones returns next March.
I don't think it's possible to execute a retirement, comeback and re-retirement better than La Russa did in the span between October 2011 and July 2012.
Last year, as the manager of Major League Baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, La Russa led his team to a World Series championship before calling it a career. But because MLB rules allow the managers of the previous year's World Series representatives to manage in the annual All-Star Game, La Russa came out of retirement this past Tuesday for one game to manage the National League. So donning the uniform one last time (what other sport has its coaches dress like the players?), La Russa guided the NL All-Stars to a dominating 8-0 win over the American League. And then, like a good-natured Keyser Soze, La Russa vanished back into retirement as the ultimate winner.
McLovin
Remember what I wrote last week about certain actors being so good at one role -- and so average at others -- that we inevitably typecast them for life? In modern movie history, there may be no better example of that than Christoper Mintz-Plasse, a.k.a. "McLovin."
It's been two years since Mintz-Plasse's best post-McLovin role in the superhero flick Kick-Ass, and since then he's been working steadily but not doing much to stand out. So the good news is that this week, Mintz-Plasse told a crowd at Comic-Con that a Kick-Ass sequel is headed toward production beginning in September and that he'll be reprising his role as Red Mist. The bad news is that most people are still going to see him in that role and think, "Hey, it's McLovin!"
