Power Link and Iron Fist

Vanity Fair interviews reclusive legend Warren Beatty. He talks Annette, his trans son Stephen and
i09 Forest Whitaker is joining the ever-expanding cast of Marvel's Black Panther movie
Vulture Daniel Craig, newly platinum blonde, is warming up to returning to the 007 gig. Money money money. Money money money. ♫ Money money money. If you happen to be rich - .......Ooooh -- and you feel like a Night's entertainment, you can pay for a gay escapade.

 

Antagony & Ecstacy catches up with The Neon Demon and loves it more than he knows he should
MNPP it looks like Nicolas Hoult will be playing Nikola Tesla in the costume drama Current War about the fight over monetizing electricity co-starring those actors of endless ubiquity: Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon.
The Playlist Guy Ritchie will direct Disney's live action Aladdin. Weird.
/Film Boyd Holbrook will play the cyborg villain Donald Pierce in the third Wolverine movie, now titled Logan
AV Club Ron Perlman has finally given up his dream of Hellboy 3 

Power Man and Iron Fist
I don't know how many people who are into Marvel's modern universe of TV and movies knows this but Luke Cage was always paired with Iron Fist in the comicbooks. That's hard to imagine now because Luke Cage has been portrayed as such a loner in both Jessica Jones and on his own show.

I know this because I was kind of addicted to that duo as a kid. When I heard they were adapting it for television I wanted Marvel to quit whitewashing the Iron Fist character. Yes Danny was always white but since he grew up in Tibet and is a master of martial arts it would make sense that he were Asian. What's more the common narrative of the white man being better than all the Asians at the super powerful stuff they picked up over in Asia (see also Dr Strange's sorcery) is inherently a racist trope. We were not alone in this thinking. Apparently the handsome actor Lewis Tan, who will play one of the villains in the show, actually wanted to play Iron Fist but Marvel was adamant that he be white (sigh). So we get Finn Jones in the lead role who is most famous for playing Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers in Game of Thrones.

In happier casting news, after Iron Fist premieres we'll eventually get the team up series The Defenders (which will feature Sigourney Weaver as their big bad (yes!))  Here's the new Comic Con teaser for Iron Fist in case you missed it.

Beauty vs Beast: Devils in the Dakota

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- you wanna know what's unlikelier than a young Catholic girl being impregnated with the Antichrist thanks to a pact with the Devil made between her role-seeking actor-husband and her elderly mousse-loving neighbors? Unlikelier than all that is the fact that I have never used my favorite movie, aka Rosemary's Baby, for this series before. Somebody call Dr. Shand to lure me off of this ledge with some of his sweet recorder music before I make myself the next Terry Gionoffrio over this. 

Did I think the choice between Rosemary (never Oscar nominee Mia Farrow) and Minnie (Oscar winner Ruth Gordon) would just be too difficult a choice to subject our brains to? I must admit I find it personally impossible. I cannot! So I leave it to you. Just keep reminding yourself that this is no dream, this is really happening...

PREVIOUSLY Where are the Wild Things? Well last week the Wild Things were celebrating Neve Campbell's birthday. And y'all gave her bad girl Suzie a win to top it off - 70% of you voted for her over co-star Denise Richards. Said Ez:

"Aw, this film is so rooted in my '90's teenage girl experience. I saw it with my buddies for the first time at a sleepover birthday party. We all squealed at the Matt/Kevin shower scene! We were big Party of Five fans (I remember that it aired on Sunday nights after The Nanny in Australia) so we were totally there for Neve. So for nostalgia's sake, my vote goes to Neve :)"

The Furniture: A Nightmare in Sleepy Hollow

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

Sleepy Hollow is an excellent October movie. It has well-placed jack-o-lanterns. Every frame shivers in the autumn chill. Washington Irving’s Hudson Valley falls under perpetually overcast skies, sapping the harvest season of its color. Rather than admire the changing leaves, Tim Burton emphasizes those aspects of fall that foreshadow the bitterness of winter. 

This harsh climate swept up three Oscar nominations, including a win for production design. It’s a testament to Burton’s fanatically specific vision. Location scouting began in Irving’s New York, but the perfect town wasn’t there. It wasn’t in New England, either, nor even in Old England. After all of that searching, the design team ended up building an entire 18th century village from scratch at Leavesden and Shepperton Studios in the UK.

The final product is an expressionistic, spooky riff on colonial life. The credit goes to production designer Rick Heinrichs, whose collaboration with Burton goes as far back as 1982’s Vincent. The set decorations were by Peter Young, who first worked with the director on Batman. Their version of Sleepy Hollow, New York is a clever blend of historical realism and nightmarish fantasy...

Click to read more ...

George Sidney Centennial: "The Three Musketeers"

by Nathaniel R

After looking at three popular musicals Anchors Aweigh (1945), Kiss Me Kate (1953), and Bye Bye Birdie (1963), in our mini George Sidney Centennial celebration, we're closing up with his other primary mode: the adventure flick. Curiously those films also feel like musicals even when they aren't. Case in point is The Three Musketeers (1948) and the subliminal feeling that at any moment a song and dance number might break out. That's not only because glorious Gene Kelly is the star. This feeling radiates outward from the ebullient movement of all of the swordsmen. It's also firmly embedded in the swooning romantic overtures that happen instantaneously between Gene Kelly and each of the women. Lana Turner is the devilish Lady de Winter and June Allyson is the saintly Constance and, in case you're wondering, no one will ever accuse this movie of subtlety or evolved gender politics. Still the love scenes are memorable for their queer duet of completely earnest and purposefully comic registers.

While The Three Musketeers, MGM's second biggest hit of the entire decade, never abandons its swashbuckler adventure commitments to make room for the theoretical song and dance number, it does make quite a few overtures to other identities. This treatment of the Alexander Dumas story is also a romantic comedy, a slapstick farce, and even a stylized melodrama...

Click to read more ...

Transparent Season 3. Part 2 - Heading for Disaster

by Chris Feil

Transparent thrives on impending personal cataclysm and the middle portion of its third season is no exception. Per usual, the Pfeffermans are on track for explosions big and small coming not soon enough for their own good or too fast that they can't see it as its happening. When Eric left us off, Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) had made the decision to fully transition, Sarah (Amy Landecker) was still struggling to get spiritually arrested, and Alli's (Gabby Hoffman) was continuing her relationship with the shifty Leslie (Cherry Jones). In this next section, Judith Light's Shelly takes a backseat, while Josh (Jay Duplass) begins a series of oncoming crises.

Episode 4 - "Just the Facts"

Maura opens the episode with a visit to her plastic surgeon to see the potential outcome from her planned facial reconstruction. She's beginning to see the belabored process of intrusive and endless therapy visits required to fully transition, but the projection of her future self staring back at her is all too promising to get discouraged...

Click to read more ...