The TV Addict 

This isn’t the first time I’ve ranted about celebrities driving drunk, but this time it stings a little more because I genuinely like Shia LeBeouf and have stood up for him. Ever since his Disney TV days of “Even Stevens” I’ve enjoyed watching his career flourish and especially explode astronomically in the last two years alone. He has a charming, natural movie presence that makes him fun to watch no matter what he’s in.What I don’t like watching is seeing him piss his career away Lindsay Lohan style just as it is taking off and people like Steven Spielberg have put their creative trust in him. What I like to watch even less is him pissing his career away by being an inconsiderate asshole who I think should be put behind bars (even if the accident wasn’t his mistake, as it turns out).

Young people will make mistakes, sure, but if they make ones that recklessly endanger other people’s lives, they should have to pay for them. Full stop. All the more so when - as I said in my previous rant - there is no f***** reason a celebrity of his financial status can’t call a cab or a limo service.  As John’s excellent (though a bit more colorful) rant over at The Movie Blog points out, LeBeouf (and those like him) are making an arrogant choice, and should face the consequences of that.

I am capable of separating the person from the artist, which means I will still go check out EAGLE EYE and TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, but as soon as the credits roll I’ll still probably mutter to myself: “Idiot.”

Steven Spielberg sure likes that LaBeouf kid. He was in the Spielberg produced TRANSFORMERS, he cast him INDIANA JONES, and now he’s in this film – EAGLE EYE – which is apparently based on an idea by Speilebrg, and once was being directed by him (now it’s DISTURBIA’s, D.J. Caruso). Sure, a lot of people are complaining that this seems a lot like that first call Morpheous makes to Neo in THE MATRIX, but I imagine that’s where the similarities in. In fact, it looks like a great modern twist on the classic Hitchcockian “wrong man”, just with loads more money, weapons, and espionage.

I still remember the days when Shia LeBeouf was a hyper-active Screech like character on the Disney show “Even Stevens.” Needless to say, he’s come a long way since then, having somehow turned into a major movie star who can headline a film all by himself now, and even is a sex symbol to some (so I’m told).

Now LeBeouf has singed on for the starring role in the thriller DARK FIELDS, based on a novel by Alan Glynn, and being adapted by screenwriter, Leslie Dixon (FREAKY FRIDAY, JUST LIKE HEAVEN, HAIRSPRAY). This seems to be a decidedly darker turn for Dixon, but she seems to care a lot about it given the fact that she acquired the adaptation rights herself, and forfeited her usual fee for more creative control. As for the plot of DARK FIELD, according to Cinematical’s recap of the novel’s plot, it goes as follows: “The novel follows a divorced copywriter in Manhattan who gets a helping of MDT-48, a new, illegal drug that will make him smarter — a drug he scores from his dealer and ex-brother-in-law. While reveling in the financial and social success of his new-found smarts, he ignores a selection of side effects from terrible headaches to ‘trip-switching’ — a phenomenon that makes time move like stop-motion. He becomes a successful addict, who then gets implicated in a murder and linked to pharmaceutical espionage.”
Sounds like it’s sort of like THE BUTTERFLY EFFECTS meets corporate thrillers like THE FIRM, with a little mixture of THE GAME throw in. Sign me up.

Source: Variety, Cinematical