As you may recall, Shia LaBeouf and Alec Baldwin were supposed to appear together this season in the Broadway play Orphans. Then, LaBeouf got fired. The reasons why were never explicitly stated by Orphans' producers, but reading between the lines would lead you to two observations:

1. Baldwin and LaBeouf weren't getting along very well. At all.
2. LaBeouf, with at least one documented instance of wall-punching during rehearsals to his name, went a bit overboard in his approach.

 
LaBeouf caused quite a commotion when he went out, tweeting out private e-mails between him, the cast, and the producers that landed somewhere between confessionals and humblebrags (one quoted his former co-star Tom Sturridge saying "I was stunned by the work you were doing, the performance you were giving. I think you lifted the play to a place high than maybe it even deserved to be"). Since, he's gone out of his way to appear graceful in defeat. On Letterman, he called Baldwin a "good dude," not once but twice. (He also, like a true fan of the theater, showed up at Orphans' first preview screening, sat in the front row, and "was said to be effusive in his applause, at one point slamming the stage with his hand.") As for Baldwin? Ehh, not so much.

Shia LaBeouf appeared on Letterman and spoke about his Broadway beouf with Alec Baldwin. "Now what did you do to him?" asked Letterman, a friend of Baldwin's. Short answer: two impulsive people clashing and creating "fireworks," tension between the two "as men — not as artists, but as men," and definitely not the PR-generated "creative differences" that were cited as the reason behind LaBeouf's departure. But we knew that already.

Terrence Howard, who is coming to get you, got really creepy when he started talking about Oprah's "tig ol' bitties" in an interview. I guess he's just trying to live his breast life.

Star

Liam Hemsworth & January Jones: Miley Cyrus's fiancé was spotted leaving a pre-Oscars party at the Chateau Marmont with January Jones. Betty Draper Francis! "Liam got January's coat and helped her put it on, then they headed outside. They made sure to leave a few seconds apart, so they wouldn't attract too much attention. Then they jumped into a waiting car and took off." But, of course, paparazzi caught them. Miley went to Elton John's party the next night and was "all over the place." She was spotted at fashion week in New York "flirting with every guy and girl in sight. Especially the models!" The couple haven't been spotted together in a week. "January, meanwhile, has a reputation for romancing unavailable men." OOH, THEY WENT THERE. "In addition to high-profile exes Ashton Kutcher, Josh Groban and Jason Sudeikis, she has reportedly been linked to married celebrity chef Bobby Flay and supermodel Claudia Sciffer's [sic] husband, producer Matthew Vaughn." But apparently it's not January's fault, because "Miley is not the girl Liam fell in love with. She's turned into an embarrassment." Because she cut her hair short? Pfffffttttt.

It was only this summer that a chain of curious events in the life of America's erstwhile foremost Transformer ally led us here at Grantland to wonder, So What the Hell Has Been Going on With Shia LaBeouf Recently? There was the on-set boozing, for Lawless, and there was the on-set drug-consuming, for The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, and, best of all, there was the on-set fornication for Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac. And through it all there was Shia, yearning with all the might of a thousand failed child stars, to be taken seriously as a True Artist. Since, we haven't heard much from Shia. But when it rains it pours: Our man LaBeouf just got dropped from Orphans, what would have been his Broadway debut, and the story of why, exactly, is a rich, still-developing tale full of all manner of soul-baring tweets and private e-mails and creative differences with a Baldwin. Let's get into it!

Here's a look back at Rob Lowe's bad date with a princess on the stage of the 61st Academy Awards: "Poor Snow White. She didn't have the dwarves to support her."

How's this for some added credibility? Nymphomaniac, the indie movie that promises us the tantalizing possibility of Shia LaBeouf having real sex onscreen, already has a pretty legit pedigree: Its director is Lars von Trier, and its stars are Charlotte Gainsbourg (as the title character, a woman relaying the manifold sexual experiences of her life) and Stellan Skarsgard (the guy listening to all the juicy details), as well as Jamie Bell and (whoa!) Christian Slater. But seeing as this project is currently associated, and possibly will for evermore be so associated, with the aforementioned specter of "Shia LaBeouf real sex" — Young LaBeouf has promised it is so, the production company of the movie (possibly for legal reasons?) says nu-uh — it needs all the legitimacy it can get.

Enter Uma Thurman: THR reports The Bride has now signed on for Nymphomaniac, in an undisclosed role. Does this mean she'll maybe be having some form of sexual relations with Shia?! Well, sadly, probably not — presumably, Gainsbourg's character will be at the center of most of the action. Still, though, considering the source material, it's fair to say that Uma will have plentiful chances on set to see Shia, up close and personal, and also naked.

By the way, this movie is currently shooting in Cologne, Germany. Any members of the Cologne-based Grantland readership interested in doing some snooping around? Of course, if you get caught, we will deny any knowledge of your actions (this post will self-destruct). Have fun!

The flagrantly odd third act of Shia LaBeouf's still-young career reached its to-date pinnacle earlier this month, when the scruffy young star made it known in no uncertain terms that, soon, he'd be having sex onscreen. Speaking about his role in Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac, a telling of the sexual history of a 50-year-old woman, LaBouef said, "[The movie] is what you think it is. For instance, there's a disclaimer at the top of the script that basically says we're doing it for real. Everything that is illegal, we'll shoot in blurred images. Other than that, everything is happening."

Well, actually, according to the production company, no, it's not: All sex scenes, a rep says, will be shot “with the help of body doubles and visual effects."

But forget that. A trifling technicality.

The last time we checked in with Shia LaBeouf, our dude was starring in a devastatingly sexy Sigur Rós music video. He wept, he punched butterflies, he danced (sadly), he painted boob faces (sadly), he flashed his penis (sadly). It was incredible — you couldn't have scripted a better satire of a throwaway side project for a bankable movie star going rogue. (Go ahead, watch it again. Get all caught up and refreshed on the heartache ballet of Shia LaBeouf. We'll wait.) And where this now comes back into play: THR is reporting that Shia is in talks for a part in Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac. That's right. Shia LaBeouf is making more sex art.

Oz: The Great and Powerful (March 8, 2013)

Silver: I make no secret of my steadfast and wholehearted love for Sam Raimi. I’ll get his back when needed ("Spider-Man 3 was not his fault. It’s one of the clearest examples of studio meddling"), apologize for him (“But you have to admit the baseball scenes in For the Love of the Game were pretty great. You could totally tell he was a real baseball fan”), justify his shortcomings (“The Quick and the Dead is underrated. And just look at that cast — Stone, DiCaprio, Crowe, Sinise, and Hackman — the guy’s got an eye for casting”), and fully embrace his flaws (“Yeah, I just bought a bootleg copy of Crimewave on eBay. That movie rocks!”). So I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably not going to be able to provide the most unbiased critique of his latest film, Oz: The Great and Powerful.

I can't get the new Katy Perry video to play for some reason, so I can't guarantee that this Shia LaBeouf–Sigur Rós collabo is the best thing you're going to see all day — but I can guarantee that it's the best thing you're going to see all day that will also feature Shia LaBeouf's penis. The story here is that Sigur Rós outsourced the production of music videos for their new album to a bunch of artsy people, giving them cash and then letting them do whatever they wanted. Israeli director Alma Har'el tackled the track "Fjogur Piano" and churned out a goddamn masterpiece — I mean, this is just some sublimely pretentious bullshit. Shia and a lady play really sad, really sexy characters being trapped, or being abused, or I don't know what. They do seductive dances in the semi-nude and Shia stares so, so sadly (I should say here that Shia actually does an excellent near-tear thing) at the tally-mark scratches on his lady's back and they eat magical lollipops that look like the Jurassic Park amber, then at one point he draws a face on her bare chest. Yes, the boobs are the eyes.

Here's the trailer for John Hillcoat's Lawless, with Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy as the real-life-historical brothers Bondurant, devil-may-care bootleggers running white lightning and dodging gangsters and crooked cops in Depression-era Virginia. Normally we'd make a joke here about Young Tommy-Guns, point out that circus-people descendant and budding graphic novelist Shia LaBeouf is the only actor who's ever made us nostalgic for Short Round, facetiously speculate on which of these independent liquor distributors grows up to be Bo and Luke Duke's Uncle Jesse, land on a one-liner about how all the vests and side parts on display make it look as if these hillbillies are about to make that moonshine into artisanal cocktails that pair nicely with a plate of locally sourced cured meats and stone-ground mustard, and call it a day (or, OK, an afternoon).

You should maybe go see Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to Clash of the Titans, this weekend. Why?, you ask? It looks really dumb, you say? It’s not even clear that any Krakens will be released, you astutely point out? Listen: I have it on good authority that it is, at least, better than the awful first movie. None other than its star, heroically candid Australian-Na’vi Sam Worthington, said so!