Hey, it’s your girl Nina Shay, bringing some new flavor to the Hollywood Shuffle. Thanks to our friend Scott Yeti at Wooohah.com for holding it down the past few months!

So what’s in the cards this week?

Terrence Howard turns up aces in his new Broadway role as we anticipate this week's release of Iron Man, Meagan Good is in another horror flick (hopefully she’ll make it this time!) and Angela Bassett confirms her role in Biggie’s movie.

Meanwhile, Halle Berry is playing both ways in her new movie, and KeKe Palmer ups the ante in a history-making role.

Let’s get it started!

Meagan Good for Saw V

Just when you thought, there was nothing attractive about blood and gore and more blood and gore, the beautiful and sexy Meagan Good steps in the picture. Fresh off her face-grabbing cameo in One Missed Call, the cute, classy around-the-way girl we’ve grown to love is back in the fifth installment of the Saw movie series.  

Who really cares if you’re in a movie for all of two seconds and end up getting ripped to pieces by some crazy and deranged saw wielding maniac?  A check is a check right?  Besides, according to our friends at Lionsgate, Good won’t lose that good-girl sex appeal in this role. Her character Luba is an urban planner who comes from a wealthy family - but what they’re not saying is if Meagan gets sliced or diced. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Terrence Howard  On Broadway

Terrence Howard is definitely one of the coolest cats in Hollywood. After countless movie credits including a supporting role in the soon-to-be-blockbuster Iron Man, Howard can take whatever direction he wants. But a detour to Broadway is not exactly what you’d expect from this big screen superstar. 

“Once she read, I knew I had witnessed talent rarely seen,” says Howard of Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls), his play wife Maggie in Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Director Debbie Allen and the rest of the ensemble cast, James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad, would have been enough to inspire the rest of us. 

Howard’s character, Brick, is a piano playing, low-spirited ex-jock who lies between the tumultuous layers of alcoholism, homosexuality, greed, lies and loss survived by this dysfunctional, well-to-do Mississippi family. 

Angela Bassett in Notorious

It’s official! Angela Bassett has finally confirmed the rumors that she's signed on to star in the highly anticipated Notorious biopic as Voletta Wallace, the mother of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. The veteran actress, who portrayed Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It and Betty Shabazz in Spike Lee’s Malcom X, said in a recent statement that she jumped at the chance to play the role after taking a look at the script.

It’s said the film hits home with flashbacks, starting at the funeral, through the eyes of different characters in his life. George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food) will direct. Newcomer Jamal Woolard a.k.a. Gravy has been cast as Biggie, and his real life friend and record producer Sean "Diddy" Combs will be played by Derek Luke. Combs is also attached to the film as Executive Producer.

Halle is Back and Busy! 

In her first role since the birth of her now five-month-old baby girl, Nahla Ariela Aubry, Berry is set to take on producing and starring in the psychological drama Frankie And Alice. No word on who else is in the cast or when the film will shoot, but according to Daily Variety, the Oscar winning actress will play a woman struggling with a multiple personality disorder. As if that isn’t challenging enough, one of her alter egos is a racist Caucasian.

When she’s done with that, Berry plans to jump back in the saddle with Billy Bob Thornton.  No, there won’t be a Monster’s Ball II.  This time, the two will star in the film Tulia, directed by John Singleton. The movie is based on the true story of a lawyer who exposed a plot by a small town Texas undercover agent, who framed 46 African-Americans for drug charges that were later dismissed by the town’s Governor Perry.

We’ll keep you posted on this one.  I am not mad with Ms. Berry. Do your thing Mama!

 
Keke Palmer Doing Big Things With The Big Boys

After making a name for herself in Akeelah and the Bee, and then a supporting role in Madea's Family Reunion with Tyler Perry, little Keke Palmer is doing it big. She recently wrapped up filming on the set of The Comeback produced buy Ice Cube’s production company, Cubevision.

The film, directed by Fred Durst (formerly of Limp Bizkit) is based on the real life story of a young girl from Illinois who becomes the first female Quarterback in Pop Warner History.  Under the tutelage of her uncle Curtis (Ice Cube), Palmer’s character, Jasmine Plummer, proves herself as a bonafide QB and leads her team to the Pop Warner Super Bowl.

And it don’t stop! Be on the lookout for Palmer in her next role as Roxanne Shante in The Vapors, a film about the formation and the rise of The Juice Crew. She is definitely one to watch!