Links: Madame X, Shelley Winters, and Martha Again
Monday, April 15, 2019 at 8:40AM Link roundup starting with NEWS articles...
• NYT The great Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, a Bergman regular (Persona, Wild Strawberries) dies at 83
• Cartoon Brew Rich Moore, who delivered the Wreck It Ralph movies for Disney leaves to run Sony Animation
• Deadline Gabriel Basso (The Kings of Summer, Super 8) nabs lead in Ron Howard's movie adaptation of bestseller Hillbilly Elegy. Amy Adams and Glenn Close co-star.
• The Wrap talks to Ryan O'Connell, the creator and star of the gay & disabled sitcom Special on Netflix
Lots more after the jump including In the Heights, Bond 25, the influence of Big, new albums, declining sex in the cinema, and two must-reads online this past week in case you missed them...
• Coming Soon first photo of the completed principal cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights movie (due in 2020)
• IndieWire Phoebe Waller-Bridge reportedly polishing the script of Bond 25 at Daniel Craig's request
• The Guardian RIP Seymour Cassel, Oscar nominated for Faces (1968)
• Playbill because Laurie Metcalf is the only actress available ever for Broadway productions (kidding but she sure does hog the roles!) she'll know play the classic Martha part in yet another revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Eddie Izzard will be her punching bag, George.
• Vanity Fair details on season 9 of American Horror Story, the title being 1984
• AV/News funny piece on Taylor Swift announcing new music on Avengers Endgame day
MOVIE-OBSESSING
• The Guardian on the death of sex in cinema as fewer and fewer movies contain sex scenes
• Gr8ter Days looks back at Madame X (1966), 'the mother of all Lana Turner movies'
• Film School Rejects the influence of Big (1988)
• Cinematic Corner visual parallels between A Simple Favor and Gone Girl
ICYMI
Two of our favorite reads of the past week...
• The New Yorker has a must-read essay on Shelley Winters going rogue in Debbie Reynolds 1983 exercise video
• AV/Film on Captain America's 'cage match' in Winter Soldier being the best fight scene in the MCU
Oh and Madonna announced a new album "Madame X," her first since 2015...
No word yet on whether this new persona is inspired by that aforementioned Lana Turner film
Reader Comments (14)
OMG Shelley Winters, I like her as herself more than I do any of her performances lol
Is Bibi Andersson's performance in Persona the greatest performance ever?
Also, did you all hear that Ralph Fiennes is going to co-star with Emma Stone in Alexander Payne's next movie? He plays a demented chef. If the movie is decent, it could actually be a career Oscar play for him (finally).
Not happy with the Mary Kay Place erasure on this site.
Peggy Sue -- we discuss her on the podcast which will be up today!
It takes about two hours to watch Special's complete first season and I loved every second of it!
The first episode is a bit stereotypical (with the overbearing mother, the unavoidable Miranda Priestly-type editor in chief, the sassy and curvy bff...) and underwhelming but the series gets better and better. The third episode is sort of groundbreaking for the way it shows a disabled person having (or rather getting ready for) sex and enjoying it, and for dealing with prostitution in a very unusual way.
Sure, it's not as complex and brilliant as Josh Thomas's Please Like Me but Rayan O'Connell is one heck of a funny and talented actor/writer and I loved his chemistry with Jessica Hecht (from "Friends" fame) whose character turns out to be less one-dimensional than expected. I can't wait for season two!
That New Yorker piece on Debbie Reynolds/Shelley Winters' workout video is a must-read!
ken s. - one of the very best in my list. Can we get a post just for Bibi?
A new Madonna album is not the celebration it once was.
Re: Laurie Metcalf
There should be one in every home. She is fab!
I just watched The Passion of Anna which I haven't seen before as it is great and Bibi Andersson is so awesome. She will be missed.
A new album from Madonna... don't fucking care. That's not an event. A new album from Tool or My Bloody Valentine is an event.
TheVoid -- you know. It should be very clear to you by now that i am a mega fan of Madonna. How bout just not saying anything when we mention her? Save yourself the energy it takes to be so negative because we will never not love Madonna. Sorry not sorry.
Nat I too am a big Madonna fan,for any1 of a certain age she is THE QUEEN but her recent albums have been mixed affairs.
I as a fan think she should keep her music simple with no silly gimmicks,let the songs do the talking not her grill.Love Her though.
I wouldn't call myself a huge Madonna fan, but I certainly respect her place in Pop history and I enjoy a lot of her music, so I'm interested in this new album, or at least the first single. Re: the title, its interesting timing considering the film will hit blu-ray in about a month. I've always wanted to see it.
I'm a big Madonna fan, and I think her more recent albums are way stronger than they are given credit for. Rebel Heart, in particular, I thought was quite good. MDNA had weak choices for singles and could have used some editing, but there are a lot of wonderful songs on it.
Her first album came out over 35 years ago, so of course there isn't going to be the same breathless anticipation of her new releases as they used to be. I do notice that people hold her to a different standard. Other artists are seemingly allowed to settle into "veteran" status without the expectation that every new release becomes an event or matches their classic recordings.
Especially given how many pop icons we've lost in the last few years, I want to appreciate Madonna while she's still here and still active. It doesn't mean I'll remove all critical judgment, but I'm just very happy that we are getting a new album.