John Cusack as Rush Limbaugh? Calling Robert DeNiro…get me Mr. DeNiro on the line and ask him how he went about gaining 60 pounds.
At first glance John Cusack would not appear to be anyone's idea of the ideal actor to step into the size XXXXXL pants of controversial entertainer Rush Limbaugh. Cusack is thin and wiry (although his face is getting a Ted Kennedy-style robustly horizontal growth pattern) and Limbaugh is anything but. Then again, the job of packing on the tonnage necessary to transform Cusack into the Great White Whalish Hope of ultra-right-wing lemmings everywhere is the least problematic aspect of this potential project.
John Cusack is avowedly liberal in his politics, representing, at least symbolically, everything that Rush Limbaugh gets paid ridiculous sums of money to express his disdain toward. The very idea that John Cusack will be playing him is enough to send Limbaugh into public exhibitions that might well be viewed as portents of an approaching cardiac arrest. In private, one suspects, Limbaugh might well be attempting to raise his portly figure high into the air as he leaps for joy that Hollywood didn't cast that talking Korean elephant as his character.
The film is scheduled to be directed by C-list helmer Betty Thomas, which does not inspire confidence or high hopes. Although Limbaugh possesses all the depth of the Brady kids or those singing chipmunks, one wonders how such a project might result in the infinitely more capable hands of Ben Affleck. Best not to linger over that dream, however, as the reality of the finished product is bound to cause only heartbreak through comparison of the what-if.
Wouldn't it be interesting, however, if Betty Thomas were to take her experience in commingling flesh and blood actors with computer generated graphics and make a Rush Limbaugh biopic that stands as an ideological sequel to her Alvin and the Chipmunks movie? Imagine John Cusack interacting with little animated animals representing those who share Limbaugh's orbit around a world that doesn't actually exist.
Rupert Murdoch as a sly little fox. Glenn Beck as a demented weasel. Sarah Palin as a myopic moose. The possibilities are almost enough to erase from memory that thrill over what Ben Affleck could do.
For more from Timothy Sexton, Yahoo!'s first Writer of the Year, check out:
John Cusack and the Legacy of Robert DeNiro's Weight Gain
A Lesson for Rush Limbaugh on the History of Unlikely Movie Coincidences