RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars E3 - Herstory Lesson

by Chris Feil

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars just refused to let up. After last week's twisty, drama-fueled Snatch Game episode, you'd maybe expect the show to pump the breaks on the intensity as it builds the season narrative and character arcs. But no, this week doubled down on making this the most brutal competition in the show's history with unexpected results from the queens.

What was missing from this week's episode was an underdog to root for - *tear* Tatianna's exit still stings a little.

This week's challenge was a musical parody of Bad Girls from Herstory...

Click to read more ...

Michael Fassbender is embarrassed by his Magneto

by Murtada

Michael Fassbender gives good quote. Following a career retrospective tribute at Toronto this week, he was interviewed on stage by TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey. Fassbender came on candid and ready to tell good stories. Here are excerpts from the conversation as reported by Vulture:

He reportedly cringed while watching a clip from X-Men:Days of Future Past (2014):

"I don’t actually like that performance there, to be honest. I just think it’s me shouting. It’s just like some dude shouting."

He based the android David in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) on David Bowie and Greg Louganis:

"My mom was a fan of Greg Louganis and I just remember watching the Olympics thinking his walk was so funny and mesmerizing, the economy of movement."

He thought he was miscast as Steve Jobs (2015)

"He [Aaron Sorkin]wrote all that stuff! It was so dense! It was such a mountain, and I’m a slow learner, so when the script arrived for me and the opportunity came to play the part, I really thought, This is not me. This should be somebody else. It’s a miscast scenario.”

Co-star Liam Cunningham moved into his place to rehearse their long 23-minute interrogation scene in Hunger (2008)

We got up every morning, cooked porridge, and we started rehearsing. "We did it every day for 11 days. The goal was to do it ten to 15 times a day and then Steve [McQueen] would come in in the evening and watch us, give us some notes, next day same thing.

Fassbender is at TIFF with his latest Trespass Against Us, which is about a conflict within a clan of Irish outlaws. It’s the feature debut of music video director Adam Smith, co-stars Brendan Gleeson and has an original score by The Chemical Brothers.

What is your favorite Fassbender performance? And has he ever made you cringe?

Stage Door: Toruk - The First Flight

Errisson Lawrence © 2015 Cirque du Soleil

Jose here. While worldwide audiences wait for the impending Avatar sequels, the folks at Cirque du Soleil are aiming to quench their thirst with a new spectacle called Toruk - The First Flight, which bills itself as being “inspired by” the James Cameron film, but feels more like just another chapter in what’s become a “universe”. Imagined for those who maybe don’t like video games, are too passive for amusement parks, and have deep admiration for the human body, the show is a two hour long arena extravaganza in which Pandora comes to life in “real life 3D”.

Avatar borrowed elements from films like Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, Fern Gully, and to an extent some of Cameron’s own oeuvre (Aliens star Sigourney Weaver was two seats away from me and was always the first to applaud, during a particularly complex sequence she held both her hands near her face and sighed in relief when the acrobats gracefully pulled it off...

Click to read more ...

Beauty Break: Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt covers the New York Times Magazine in which he wears as assortment of Giogio Armani gear and talks to Man Booker prize winning author Marlon James about Brexit, Trump and Mel Gibson. And of course gives great face while doing it.

As far as magazine celebrity profiles go, this is a very innocuous one. Pitt comes in as a nice and affable guy, but doesn't really offer any interesting tidbits. Except for what he says about Mel Gibson. In the course of discussing a potential film he wants to make about Pontius Pilate, he says that his movie "certainly won’t be for the ‘Passion’ crowd". Then for good measure, adds about Gibson's box office juggernaut:

 “I felt like I was just watching an L. Ron Hubbard propaganda film.”

Brad Pitt, nice guy, movie star, expert at throwing shade.

Meryl Says Yes to TV but Shailene is a Definite No

by Murtada

Meryl Streep is not a TV neophyte. She has appeared in two of what is now called a limited series, the first time at the beginning of her career in Holocaust (1978) and then in Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (2003), she won an Emmy each time. So it’s no surprise that she’s making another limited series, particularly in this era when they are so in vogue with movie stars. The surprise here is who she’s collaborating with; J J Abrams.

Sadly however it's not Felicity:The Later Years. The project is The Nix, an adaptation of the bestselling first novel by Nathan Hill about a woman who gets national press exposure for throwing rocks at a conservative governor on the presidential campaign trail. Sounds like it would be right in Meryl’s wheelhouse.

Meanwhile that proposed conversion of the last book of the Divergent series from film to TV hit a bump in the road...

Click to read more ...