So thank the lord above for Al Pacino. Not content to confine his bellowing, stupid-haired abilities to films where he gets to shout at people, hook up with improbably young women and then solve a murder at the end, Al Pacino has decided that his next movie will be King Lear.

And we’re looking forward to it – if only to hear Al Pacino yell “I PRITHEE, dotter, do NO-ORRRT make me MAY-ADDD,” in that peculiar way of his.

Remember when a new Al Pacino film came with a mark of quality? No, nor can we, but that’s because we were born after 1975. We can remember when a new Al Pacino variously came with a mark of a crappy second sequel, or the mark of a hideous Madonna vehicle, or a mark simply reading “Hoo-ah,” but never really a mark of quality.

Thanks to 88 Minutes, Righteous Kill and Ocean’s Thirteen, Al Pacino currently ranks somewhere between Stephen Baldwin and Larry The Cable Guy in terms of box office desirability. Give the average punter a choice between watching the new Al Pacino movie or jamming their head inside a binbag full of angry snakes for 15 minutes, and roughly 98% of them will opt for the snakes. The remaining two percent are sadists.

So it’s clear that Al Pacino needs to give himself a jolt to remind himself that he didn’t just get into the acting game to chew scenery in a succession of increasingly bewildering haircuts. He needs to reconnect with his craft. Al Pacino needs Shakespeare in his life.

And that’s precisely what he’s doing. Al Pacino has announced that his next movie is likely to be an adaptation of King Lear, as Variety reports:

While Pacino has played many Shakespearean characters, he has never played King Lear. “Al has been offered this role many times over the years, but didn’t feel ready,” Navidi said. “He’s ready now. The film will be true to its period, very similar to the classical look of ‘Merchant of Venice.’ Michael came up with the most brilliant adaptation and Al and I flipped for it.”

You see, Al Pacino didn’t want to play Lear any earlier, because he felt he wasn’t ready. You just can’t play King Lear as a youngster – you need to spend a career preparing for it by getting older and older and louder and louder and starring in shittier and shittier films until you’re completely ravaged by grief about the way you’ve wasted the last 30 years by spunking away your natural talent on a series of largely pointless endeavours. So in that sense, Al Pacino is more prepared for King Lear than anyone else in history.

But that’s not to say this will be easy for Pacino, because there’s another King Lear in production starring Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow, and the two are bound to compete for viewers. Which one will you go and see?

Everyone dies in the end, by the way. There, you don’t have to go and see either of them now.

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9 – Rejected James Bond songs. Shame it’s not rejected James Bond movies, because Quantum Of Solace would be the entire top three. Honestly, it’s pants – Guardian

8 - Ever wondered what Toronto’s smallest house looks like? Yes you have, you bloody liar – Ebaumsworld

7 – Prince Charles describes why he’d be a brilliant king with a single facial expression – Best Week Ever

6 - World’s scariest national anthems – Cracked

5 – Friend of hecklerspray Tina Barrett? Thank you for not having anything to do with this – Holymoly

4 - Missing Joe The Plumber? Don’t. He’ll have a record out soon – MSNBC

3 - There are no words to describe this - I Am Bored

2 - Proof that Al Pacino just screams everything at the top of his voice these days – Unrealitymag

1 - Have you ever made a mistake as expensive as any of these? No? Well, up your game – Wreckedexotics

He’s been pictured looking pretty rotund and his archetypal black outfit was failing miserably to ‘slim’ his figure.

Read the rest of this entry (link opens in new window)>>

That most blasphemous initialising of ‘Oh My God’, which the youths of today treat so brazenly, as if the name of our Lord were merely a soiled menstrual nappy to be tossed away willy-nilly, it’s sacrilegious smudge left to spread amongst the scum-ridden culture-wasteland of working class society.

The word God must never be abbreviated. It is an act of devolution so disgusting that it shant be matched until the day The Kooks are considered anything other than the most grotesque of namby-pambies.

But, if hecklerspray were as pathetic as those sites, then right now we would be licking our own ejaculate into a mural of OMGs, high on to the ceiling above us, because Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are going to be acting together in the same movie.

Hollywood producer Avi Lerner summed it up succinctly:

“This is an event in world history.”

It certainly is.

Now then, the more switched-on fellows of the readership may well be saying, ‘Wait a minute, you ignorant posh twat, they already acted together, in 1995, in the movie Heat’.

And you’d be absolutely right, they did act in Heat, but only for two scenes and, splendid as they were, it’s not quite as long-john drenching as a whole movie of them together; in the same scenes; in the same rooms; two proud men; brushing by one another; perhaps sweating occasionally; the passion between them forever growing as the story approaches it’s arching jet of a crescendo.

Spiffing.

The film is called Righteous Kill, and is a remake of the hit French thriller 36 Quai des Orfèvres, which is apparently the address of the French CID in Paris.

Lerner told the Los Angeles Times:

“They’re playing New York City detectives; they are as New York as it gets. De Niro and Pacino the way you want to see them. They’re both very opaque. You don’t know whether they’re going to kiss someone or kill them. And that suspense is what makes their performances so intense in the moment.”

We know what you’re talking about, Avi, hecklerspray is a fan of the odd intense moment or two too and, as we ignore the worth of their recent output and the fact that 50 Cent will be starring alongside them as a character called Spider, we bend forth, cheeks asunder, and pray that the merging of their ingenious talent is lube-enough to cordially welcome them into our gaping expectations.

Read More – De Niro, Pacino get an offer they can’t refuse – CNN

You guessed it – Al Pacino is going to star in the new James Bond movie A Quantum Of Solace.

Thank God for that – after spending weeks fretting over the quality of the new James Bond film, it looks like all our fears were misplaced. Now that Al Pacino has signed up for a role in A Quantum Of Solace, we're confident that it'll be at least as good as Ocean's Thirteen. Phew, right?

New James Bond movie A Quantum Of Solace isn't even released until November, and already everyone's frothing themselves into a tizzy about it. Daniel Craig may have proved himself in the not quite as good as everyone says it is Casino Royale, but that's not to say there aren't plenty of other things to worry about.

Like the director. Marc Forster might be good at directing hushed little films about sad Afghans, but films about a smooth-talking wanker shooting 32 foreigners in the head and then zinging out an off-the-cuff quip about female genitalia? We'll have to wait and see. The main concern, though, seems to be that Bond 22 is called A Quantum Of Solace – not so much a title as an apology. An apology about dishwasher tablets, from what we can work out.

Or at least that was the main concern about A Quantum Of Solace. The new main concern with A Quantum Of Solace is that fucking Al Pacino's going to be in it.

It's true, Al Pacino is going to be in A Quantum Of Solace. The Mirror said so:

After top secret negotiations in LA, the screen legend is set to play the head of the international terrorist group introduced in Casino Royale. A Bond insider revealed last night: "It's not a major role but it's an extremely important one. It will be a brief on-screen appearance. "Everyone is really excited at the prospect of having such a huge star joining the cast. It will be fabulous to see him square up against Bond."

Yes, we can't wait either. Imagine that – the star of Gigli, Two For The Money and Ocean's Thirteen lending some star power to the 007 franchise. Well, when we say 'lending some star power' we actually mean 'strolling on five minutes from the end and shouting all his lines like he's trying to explain a complicated abstract concept to a clueless deaf pensioner.' Which is kind of the same thing.

Anyway, we don't want to judge Al Pacino's role in A Quantum Of Solace yet because we haven't seen it. Plus it's just a cameo, like when Madonna turned up in the middle of that Die Another Day fencing scene.

And that was just super, wasn't it?

Read more:

Al Pacino to make a guest appearance in the next Bond movie – Mirror