Agent Linker
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at 6:32PM W Magazine Rooney Mara loves the sex scene from Rust & Bone. Who knew?
Decider Joe Reid reminds you to catch up with the Golden Globe and Critics Choice winning Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Guardian wonders who historically accurate The Big Short is... this is such a predictable part of awards season, yes?
Guardian after a bit of rights shuffling the Little House on the Prairie movie is back on
Coming Soon Spider-Man (2017) set for IMAX so you can see Tom Holland real big like when he swings and flips and supers around
EW Matt Smith and Zosia Mamet are going to star in a Robert Mapplethorpe biopic. This is not, as far as we can tell, an adaptation of Patti Smith's Just Kids book, that was supposedly going to be adapted. So perhaps there are competing projects?
Awards Daily on why she thinks The Big Short is going to win Best Picture - short answer: PGA hasn't been wrong yet in this short "preferential ballot" era
MNPP have you heard about the bizarre sounding post 9/11 Michael Jackson/Elizabeth Taylor/Marlon Brando movie to star Joseph Fiennes, Stockard Channing, and Brian Cox respectively. It sounds too strange to be true but it is in fact true. Meanwhile...
Pajiba ... has been on a tear about the casting and shares a funny quote from Orlando Jones pitching Angela Bassett as Liz Taylor. YES PLEASE.
Pajiba on the joys (thus far) of Agent Carter Season 2
Finally...
Ear Candy! The Motion Picture Sound Editing "Golden Reel" Nominations were announced today. No film really led the nominations since Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant and Star Wars: The Force Awakens all received the same amount of nominations (3). They are all up for both Sound categories at the Oscars, too. Bridge of Spies which was Oscar nominated for Sound Mixing received 1 nomination and Sicario which was nominated for Sound Editing received 2. On the television side, Game of Thrones is the nomination champ. Here's one category I thought was fun to know about:
Feature Film — Music in a Musical
“Love & Mercy” (Nicholas Renbeck)
“Pitch Perfect 2” (Amanda Goodpaster)
“Straight Outta Compton” (Jason Ruder)
And in case you missed the Film Bitch Awards in the sound categories, announced a while back, they are located here.
Reader Comments (24)
Vanity Fair printed the "Escape from New York" starring Brando, ET, and Jacko story despite absolute denials from Taylor's longtime right hand guy and going on whose verification? But they printed it anyway. Debbie Reynolds wrote in her last memoir that she and Liz were stuck at the same NYC hotel on 9/11. And that La Liz got ex-hubby senator John Warner on the horn, who got the two a plane outta the Big Apple as soon as there was clearance. I think former love rivals Maggie the Cat and Tammy bonding over 9/11 would be much more entertaining and compelling! I hope this absurd project doesn't happen...
Fact checking is not just a predictable part of award season but easily my LEAST favorite part of award season. Why don't people get that non-documentary films are FICTIONAL NARRATIVES?
Akash Nicholas: Hmm. I mean, often they do amount to attacking the film. Sometimes for VERY good reason (See also: The Danish Girl's historical errors, which, ultimately, make the story way lamer than it should be), but most of the time they are just irritating BECAUSE they are unjustified attacks. Specific details are off, but the story's core is right, so you're going to pull the historical accuracy card? One that says "Hey, this got almost everything right"? Just let it go.
Blanchett on Broadway!
I have fantasized about Stockard Channing playing Mature Elizabeth Taylor for a decade and I can't believe it's going to happen like this. What a disaster—and what disastrous news to throw into the CLUSTERFUCK of race and identity issues bubbling over in Hollywood right now.
I have zero interest in watching a white guy play a black guy who spent his life trying not to look black. I'm genuinely embarrassed for whoever believed this casting was a good idea.
Hayden W.: Mid-late life Michael Jackson is one of those impossible casting decisions. If you actually cast someone white? You're racist. If you cast someone black? You're going to slather him in make-up anyway, so casting directors or the studio producing it could argue it's just invisible representation (like Caesar Romero being The Joker, even though The Joker's ethnicity is clown-makeup, so he'll always pretty-much read white). I'd say, in this case, actually making that kind of "invisible representation" choice is justified, but most of the time, I'd actually argue against invisible representation. So, yeah, not "easy".
Who is that in the bra?
Love the idea of Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor, and then I stumbled over Joseph Fiennes as ? Micheal Jackson??? (what an incredibly BAD idea and worse timing ever !! )
Stockard Channing must not be wasted in this casting cluster F. I don't buy the story line either.
@Rick Gould - I think your alternate escape route sounds much more likely for Taylor. She was Senator Jack Warner's wife for quite a few years and would be more inclined to pull some strings than get in a limo and drive. She was like Anna Wintour - people made it happen for her when she called.
Anyone know why Bridge of Spies keeps popping up in sound awards? Doesn't seem like a sound showcase, are the professionals in the field hearing something I'm not?
Volvagia: if you're not going to cast a black actor as Michael, you have one option—Tilda Swinton. Otherwise think outside/inside the box—Terrence Howard or Evan (son of Diana) Ross (too young, but that's not a deal breaker).
Lady Edith, I notice Vanity Fair isn't posting the full original story, where Taylor's long time assistant Tim Mendelson vehemently denied this bullshit story, which is relayed by "a former employee of Jackson's"...how National Enquirer. But they are already promoting the casting and the film...no agenda, right? Wasn't ET's life fascinating enough without making up crap?
And yeah, casting a white actor as Jackson is pretty tone deaf right now...
Paul Outlaw: I didn't say I wouldn't cast a black actor as Michael Jackson. I said "in this case, it's justified", I just also said that the GENERAL precedent for invisible representation (and I gave the most obvious example thereof) should be to avoid it. Frank Gorshin as The Joker and Caesar Romero as a race-lifted Riddler? Infinitely preferable, at least going off the Batman '66 cast.
"mid-late life Michael Jackson is one of those impossible casting decisions"
..then...how bout not do it at all?
Here's Debbie Reynolds humorously discussing her and Elizabeth sharing a hotel suite after the 9/11 attack and Taylor calling in a favor for a flight via ex-hubby Senator Warner...
http://www.accesshollywood.com/videos/debbie-reynolds-recalls-being-in-new-york-city-during-911-38873/
The Guardian wonders how historically accurate The Big Short is... this is such a predictable part of awards season, yes?
Nope. Reel History: historian Alex von Tunzelmann watches classics of big screen history and prises fact from fiction. It's a longstanding series in the film section of The Guardian, not some kind of awards season takedown of the BP frontrunner. The Revenant, The Danish Girl, Suffragette, Legend, Bridge of Spies, Straight Outta Compton are other films based on true stories that she wrote about recently from an historian's pov.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/series/reelhistory
Volvagia: I don't think the Batman series is analogous to this situation, tempting as it might be on the surface. It's a comic book adaptation, after all.
I have mixed feelings about this type of casting situation, because I think a gifted actor should be able to play any role, regardless of gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. (See Meryl Streep, Linda Hunt, Quentin Crisp et al.) But the fact is, you would have to provide me with a damned good reason (conceptually speaking) for why I should accept, for example, Tom Cruise playing Michelle Obama. Or Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson.
MJS -- i've wondered this too. I don't seem to recall any specifics of its sounds. not the way some films lean heavily on their sound like SICARIO or THE REVENANT or a few others.
Volvagia -- i'ts quite something how you are able to relate literally anything back to Batman. Be honest: Are you actually Alfred Pennyworth?
Anonny -- that's Rachel Bloom from CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND
@rick gould - thanks for the link, Reynold's account is both detailed and plausible. She mentions that Jackson and entourage left in tour bus, which is most probable. Sen. Warner (who was on defense & intelligence committees) was able to get them clearance for private plane.
It's a shame that this mythological story is becoming a tv movie when Taylor's real life is legendary enough.
I agree with Paul. Although Tilda Swinton is the go-to choice for inspired and unusual casting there are other white actresses who actually resemble him more. Also, there are some black actresses who can pull off a Michael Jackson role. I remember my brother channel surfing and had to switch the channel back to make sure the black actress from Passenger 57 was not Michael Jackson. Julia Roberts during her golden locks era of the early 00's reminded me of LaToya.
MJ specifically stated that he never wanted be played by a White man. There are plenty of lighter skinned Black people or Biracial people who could play him and yes they would need makeup. Regardless of Race im pretty sure most actors use it.
Nat: Don't really mean to give off that impression, but Batman is a big franchise that's done a lot of things and it was just a fitting example of "invisible representation."
Lovers of old Hollywood and actressing should definitely be watching Agent Carter.
@Volvagia "f you actually cast someone white? You're racist. If you cast someone black? You're going to slather him in make-up anyway."
To be clear, casting someone white to play Michael Jackson IS racist. It gives bizarre credibility to the visual illusion Jackson spent his life cultivating—which anyone from the outside could see was a sick, sad, wholly unconvincing identity disorder. Michael Jackson might be the MOST important real-life character to cast as an actual black person in make-up because he publicly wrestled with the truth of his identity presentation.
Casting someone black and then convinceingly using hair and makeup to put him through a similarly artificial transformation should be the *point* of a Michael Jackson biopic. Whiteface is not a thing, even if conservatives keep trying to make it one. If White Chicks is the lowest common denominator for such a transformation, I think someone with skill and vision could give us a great Michael Jackson.