This week in Hollywood

Angela Lansbury, Joan Plowright, and Vanessa Redgrave have signed to star in the World War II ”bittersweet comedy” Tea With Mussolini. According to Variety, the film is based on the childhood of director Franco Zeffirelli, who will begin shooting in September in Italy….A nationwide talent search is under way for a very little boy to star in a movie inspired by John Irving’s 1989 novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, about a strange Christ-like child. According to ads being placed in papers by producers of the film (tentatively titled Angels and Armadillos), ”the boy will not just be a little person, but the littlest person that we have ever seen.” Hey, kids, break a (short) leg.