Letting Go of "Looking" Has Not Been Easy

This article originally appeared in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It is reprinted here with minor adjustments. 

The first Sunday night without HBO's "Looking" came and went. Of course there would have been no "Looking" this past Sunday night even had the show been renewed, since the second much improved season had just wrapped. One of the funniest things I heard after the cancellation was this:

The good news is Looking thinkpieces are also cancelled."

Well, yes. Those are almost at an end, too.

The autopsy reports have to run their course and so does the mourning process. And if HBO makes good on its promise of a wrap-up movie (believe it when you see it), the cycle starts all over again in miniature even if the end point is still goodbye. Given all this finality, it's strangely apt that the second season's finest episode "Looking for a Plot" took places at a funeral (Doris's father) and sent Dom, Doris and Patrick spinning emotionally, even if they didn't quite realize it at first. But the mourning is real. At least for those of us who loved the show for what it actually was. More...

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White-Tailed Link

The Guardian features a new short story from Rupert Everett, writing about his altar ego movie star Keiran O'Nightley
Playbill reviews special features on the Blu-ray for Into the Woods
/Film Batman getting another animated film, this time in style of the 60s TVshow
Instagram Hugh Jackman is still threatening to quit Wolverine. I'll believe that when I see it. I'm not as gullible as the rest of the internet. It's the man who cried wolfverine.

Variety YouTube gets slammed for placing age restrictions on The Fosters' sweet gay kiss between high school friends Connor & Jude (actors Gavin Macintosh and Hayden Byerly who are 16 and 14 respectively) in an historic storyline
Playbill talks to Richard LaGravenese about Barbra Streisand's Gypsy project and the (gulp) Lady Gaga rumors
Boy Culture Madonna performs "Ghosttown" her best single in ages with... Taylor Swift?
Empire Broadway legend Audra McDonald will play the wardrobe in Beauty & The Beast extending its all star singing cast. But the wardrobe doesn't have any solos. Grrrrr
The Matinee why don't contemporary films produce iconic film cars any more 
Variety NBC will next mount The Wiz for a live music event. That actually might be an inspired choice. We'll see.
Coming Soon I could've sworn this was old news but maybe it only feels like old news since everything is being remade / recycled but Disney's Mulan will get a live-action redo
/Film talks to Elizabeth Olsen about The Scarlet Witch 
Salon fills you in on 'everything you need to know about' Trevor Noah, the young comic who is taking over The Daily Show when Jon Stewart leaves
AV Club Jon Hamm could have starred in Gone Girl? Huh.

TODAY'S WATCH
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson IS Bambi... in this well deserved SNL spoof of Disney's live action remake obsession of their animated canon

The Rock also starred in a...uh... 'suck the poison out of me' sketch. Haha.

Turkey Does Not Heart Julianne

It's your weekly reminder that Julianne Moore won an Oscar! And also a news story that sounds like sketch comedy. Thanks to Benji for this heads up that the universe is keeping Juli humble. Seems she filmed a commercial - part of a series of commercials using celebrities to promote tourism in Turkey.

Unfortunately the powers that be in The Culture and Tourism Ministry of Turkey have rejected the commercial she filmed for "poor acting" and cited her "depressive persona" as a concern. They offered her a chance to reshoot but she declined and they scrapped the commercial.

Someone somewhere leak this commercial. We beg you! You all know we love Julianne far Moore than is healthy but this story is so weird it's funny, don't you think? Especially since she surely got paid regardless and she just won an Oscar. (In case you hadn't heard.)

TCMFF Wraps with Hollywood History & more Shirley MacLaine

Anne Marie here in Hollywood, reporting on the end of the TCM Classic Film Festival.

The 6th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival came to a close last night after four days. Though the theme of the festival was History According to Hollywood, the diverse programming of the festival showed that not only was TCM celebrating historical events and the films that portrayed them, it was also highlighting the this histories of the films being made, and - most importantly - the shared histories of the audiences that watched them.

It's impossible to cover everything the TCMFF screens (though The Black Maria did try), so instead I attempted to focus on the diversity of the programming. I watched Greta Garbo kiss a woman and renounce her throne for a man in Queen Christina. I watched two Pre-Code Hollywood musicals, Lubitsch's The Smiling Lieutenant and 42nd Street. I saw Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in a Tennessee Williams-penned movie called Boom! that was so bad that it made Lindsay Lohan in Liz and Dick look like Meryl Streep. I saw Christopher Plummer honored twice, but as a result missed Sophia Loren. I had three festival highlights: the French Revolution film noir Reign of Terror, a program of single reel films run using a hand-cranked projector from 1905 (have you seen a short called The Dancing Pig?), and the newly restored 1919 Houdini film The Grim Game, constructed from the only surviving complete print.

But by far, the most valuable asset to TCMFF is its star power. Reader's choice film discussed after the jump...

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Beauty vs Beast: Mommie Knows Best

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast," which could be considered a preview of coming attractions (random aside: I can only hear that phrase in Grace Kelly's voice) -- this week's episode of TFE's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series on Wednesday is devoted to the camp masterpiece Mommie Dearest, and so are we. I can't help myself. It's perfect for this series too, and somehow we've never asked the question. In one corner you've got Christina Crawford (played by Mara Hobel as a little girl and Diana Scarwid as a not-so-little girl), adopted daughter and axe-bringer. In the other corner you've got legendary movie star and crazy person Joan Crawford, played by legendary movie star (and perhaps also a crazy person - I have heard stories!) Faye Dunaway, giving a great, dedicated performance - I won't hear a word about her being "bad" in this movie. Not a word of it! On the one hand I'll grant you that it's awfully hard not to side with an abused child... but on the other hand, come on! Who are you watching this movie for???

Whose team are you on?

Team Christina

Team Joan

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PREVIOUSLY Last week we climbed inside the brains of Charlie Kaufman & Spike Jonze and oh yeah Catherine Keener for her birthday with a Being John Malkovich round, pitting Keener's caustic Maxine against Cameron Diaz's desperate Lotte - ultimately it was Cathy's brilliantly sleek sarcasm that won the day with just over 60% of the vote. Said Mr. Goodbar:

"Team Maxine. She is cut of the same cloth as Linda Fiorentino's from The Last Seduction: a misanthrope with irresistible charm and wit, except she finds love and changes whereas Fiorentino just stays on course to become a psychopath."