Breaking: Some guy named Neil Patrick Harris lands two new movie roles

In his continuing bid to become the white, gay, and considerably more lithe Oprah, increasingly ubiquitous out star Neil Patrick Harris today announced two upcoming film roles that he will shoot while on hiatus from filming How I Met Your Mother, hosting awards shows and appearing in the audience of televised dancing and singing competitions.

Here's the dirt on NPH's new projects, both of which sound pretty interesting...

First, Harris will play the lead role in The Best and the Brightest, an indie comedy about an unassuming couple from Delaware who moves to NYC and gets caught up in the Manhattan kindergarten enrollment gridiron (think Little Miss Sunshine ... please!). The film co-stars Bonnie Somerville (Cashmere Mafia), Amy Sedaris, the brilliant John Hodgman (the "PC" in the Mac ads), Kate Mulgrew and Christopher McDonald.

Harris will also appear in Beastly, a teen-targeted modern-day retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story, again set in NYC. The film stars Vanessa Hudgens and Mary-Kate Olsen and is being directed by out filmmaker Daniel Barnz, who directed last year's Phoebe in Wonderland. Harris plays a blind man who befriends the lead character, who is turned ugly by a curse.

The impossibly adorable Daniel Barnz

We haven't seen NPH on the big screen playing anything other than a gonzo version of himself (in the Harold and Kumar movies) for quite a while, so I'm excited to see him back and in fightin' Starship Troopers shape again.