Under the Link

Playbill a Broadway musical of Pretty Woman? They're determined to make every 90s movie hit into a musical
The Gayest of All Time The Many Tears of Leonardo DiCaprio
Vanity Fair tries to get Matthew Weiner to talk the final season of Mad Men but wisely settles for more fertile ground since you know he won't do that! 

World of Wonder I subscribe to everything they're saying about the new Flash costume on Arrow. I have tried to watch that show so many times but i just think it's terrible and so personality free 
Screen Crush another look at the costume and in action. It does not look aerodynamic to me -- way looser fit than most superhero costume and shouldn't it be more like a swimmer's outfit to enhance speed? So who knows what Colleen Atwood was thinking
Pajiba on Lena Dunham's keynote address at SXSW
In Contention Guy Lodge reports on how Brad Pitt almost starred in Under the Skin but I can't read this because I'm keeping myself as virginal on the film as possible. I want to be surprised
MNPP continues to spread the joy of Jake Gyllenhaal's return in Enemy
Empire a new motion poster for Noah which trippily takes you through caves and the ark and fields and foes and loops back like the world is round and infinite or something
Vulture interviews True Detective's Glenn Fleshler on how he approached his very very sick character 

Today's Must Read
Jezebel's funny thinkpiece "A Grown Woman's Guide to Responsible Celebrity Worship" which examines the problem of the "It" girl narrative, the recent Oscar media Jennifer vs. Lupita situation, celebrity backlashes (almost always towards women... the men actually have to EARN backlash), and self-identification. It's pretty great. The piece also references this amazing article "Lupita Nyong'o Doesn't Need Your Permission to Be Beautiful" which is also a very good read.

Pfeiffer Leaves Her House!

It's so rare we have to report on it every time. Yesterday Michelle Pfeiffer was on the arm of her husband David E Kelley attending the 23rd Television Hall of Fame Inductee Gala. 

Kelley was one of a handful of new inductees. He's not the TV force he once was with hit after hit on the air but he's behind the new Robin Williams / Sarah Michelle Gellar sitcom "The Crazy Ones". It used to be more common to see Pfeiffer at the Emmys than the Oscars due to being his plus one now for 20 years.

Congratulations to David E. Kelley on this well deserved honor. But Mr. Kelley, now that your schedule is lighter than it once was, your daughter is 19 and your son turns 18 this summer, can you please convince Mrs. Kelley to go back to work? Seriously what does she do with all her time? I can't fathom it. 

Thoughts I Had... While Staring at Lindsay's Lohan's Alleged Sex Partner List

Maybe you're one of those ready-first-thing types? To the rest of you I apologize. If you were online yesterday (and when aren't you?) you probably saw this list which is rumored to be in Lindsay Lohan's own all caps writing, detailing her sexual history.  

After the [NSFW] jump, thoughts I had in the order they came to me

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There Are No Small Parts. Beauty from the Margins

One of my favorite activities each year is compiling a list of actors who really nailed their brief but not necessarily coveted roles. Oh sure sometimes a small part is a true get and key to the narrative. There's no way to watch 12 Years a Slave, for example, and miss the importance of "Mistress Shaw", so perfectly rendered by Alfre Woodard. And some tiny parts are designed as cameos for stars: think Jean DuJardin and Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street. But the bulk of small roles each year in any actor's medium, go unnoticed with the actors adding depth to the ensemble and colors to the director or writer or showrunner's palette. Me, I love looking at the peripheries and seeing which actors are hungry, which find ways to maximize their tertiary characters or simply inhabit them so well that you get everything you need in that one scene or, if they're lucky, two scenes.

There are few things more unexpectedly satisfying than feeling like you could follow a minor character off into their own movie just this side of the screen. It makes the movie you're watching that much richer. 

Consider David Dastmalchian who plays the key suspect "Bob Taylor" in Prisoners. The actor pops up from time to time in sinister roles (he recently played a serial killer on "Almost Human"). I suspect this is the result of lazy amateur physiognomy happening in casting offices: Angular Face = EVIL! But he was so weirdly sympathetic but "off" and damaged in this role that I kept wanting to recast the movie in my head, and give him Paul Dano's role instead. More please.

Sometimes the face is more familiar but as far from ubiquitous as its possible to be. There's a lot to be said for casting directors that don't rely on whichever character actors happens to be all the rage to plug in to any movie here or there.

Remember Polly Draper from thirtysomething? I was happy to see her pop up in Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects but I figured it would be a disposable part. In lesser hands, maybe. All aspiring actors should watch roles like this. Lead roles are very hard to come by but there are no small parts. If you get one, texture it. Serve the narrative but give it enough specificity that we could follow you right out of the scene.

It was difficult to narrow down my "Best Limited Role / Cameo" category this year. Eventually I settled on ten players ranging from little known talents like Hilary Baack (The East), to sitcom stars Kaitlyn Olson (I can't tell you how much I love that "Tatiana" scene in The Heat) and treasured characters actors like Robin Bartlett and F Murray Abraham (both from Inside Llewyn Davis) and yes, even movie stars. They're much less shy about doing "small parts" than they once were.

And, no, you're not even safe from the McConaissance here...

Begin your chest-thumping chants and read on...

A Year With Kate: A Woman Rebels (1936)

Episode 11 of 52 wherein Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order.

In which Katharine Hepburn becomes a feminist icon (as if she wasn't already).

You are all the coolest. Part of the joy of doing A Year With Kate during the many bleak movies these past few weeks (we're so close to the good ones!) has been watching everyone react, especially the repeat commenters. Thanks especially to Dave in Alomitos Beach, who has saved my ass twice with reader suggestions. Last week, when I opined that A Woman Rebels is lousy and I didn't know how to talk about it, Dave hit upon some good points from his computer in Alomitos Beach:

Well, "A Woman Rebels" could be the story of Katharine Hepburn in real life I guess. What WAS going on in her real life? Was this the Howard Hughes years? Or the Leland Hayward years? Who knows... in fact, why DID they insist in putting Katharine in all of these godawful period movies? I'd also like to know why they cast her with all these milquetoast leading men.

Well Dave, I hunted through the many biographies on my ever-growing shrine, Mount Hepburn, to search for your answers...

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