April Showers: Éponine in Les Misérables

waterworks at 11. here's abstew on Les Miz...

Ever since the musical version of Victor Hugo's sprawling novel hit the boards, Éponine, the tragic waif whose love for her friend Marius goes unreciprocated, has always been a fan favorite. Her storyline in the musical is definitely the most relatable. I don't know about you, but I've never had to turn to prostitution to support my young child or served a 20 year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. But being in love with someone that doesn't have the same feelings for you? Yeah, we've all been there. And this patron saint of unrequited love's anthem "On My Own" has become the rallying cry of broken-hearted teenage girls (and gay boys) for decades now.

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'six links forward and five links back, I got -- I got an angry link'

Vulture Jeff Tetreault, the screenwriter of Bad Johnson, is a go-go boy by night. This is an amusing article
Defamer Lupita Nyong'o chosen to headline this year's People "50 Most Beautiful" issue. Yeah yeah. But can we hear about some new roles? Seriously? What is this insane wait. Why isn't she buried in offers?
Vanity Fair's Hollywood turns out that Naomi Watts Marily movie Blonde is back on... only now it will star Jessica Chastain. Basically every actress is rumored to or will play Marilyn Monroe at some point in her life
USA Today congratulations to Jodie Foster. The actress just married her girlfriend after a year of dating
Variety Cannes by the numbers with directors from 25 (Xavier Dolan) to 83 (Jean Luc-Godard) in two women in competition this year
THR oh jesus Christ. Hollywood can't leave any franchise alone. They're talking about reviving Flash Gordon now.

Playbill Opening night of the Hedwig revival on Broadway with Neil Patrick Harris
Towleroad Andy Towle was also there in the first row

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS SAT ON MY FACE LAST NIGHT AND I LOVED IT

Variety it's really happening. They're remaking Ben-Hur (1959) which won 11 Oscars. No film is safe! (That said, Ben-Hur was also a remake of a silent epic so...)
Mark Ruffalo is tweeting photos from the set of Avengers: The Age of Ultron
Coming Soon weird news: Meg Ryan will be the voice of future Greta Gerwig on How I Met Your Dad

Tonight's Watch
Screen Junkies gets really cheeky supercutting all the F words in The Wolf of Wall Street. But not those F words

Beauty Break: "On Wednesdays We Wear Pink"

Mean Girls Week Begins! For the next seven days (betwixt the normal blogging) we'll be dropping in occasionally on the students of North Shore High to celebrate 10 years of Mean Girls which opened April 30th, 2004.

For now please to enjoy this very pink gallery with a lavender note from Damian...

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A Year with Kate: Woman of the Year (1942)

Episode 17 of 52 of Anne Marie's chronological look at Katharine Hepburn's career.

In which Tracy and Hepburn explode on screen in a dynamic maelstrom of celluloid chemistry.

What sparks great star chemistry? Katharine Hepburn, an actress who was all angles and independence, bottled that lightning not once, but twice, with two men who were polar opposites: Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy. Near the end of Bringing Up Baby, Grant’s character tells Katharine Hepburn “...in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but, well, there haven't been any quiet moments.” This stuttering sentence sums up the banter-based rapport between Hepburn and Grant that played through their four films together. Watching Grant and Hepburn is watching two master comedians play a scene - glamorous, theatrical, loud, and wonderful. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are the complete opposite: authentic, intimate, sexy, and sweet.

Woman of the Year, the first Tracy/Hepburn film, is full of those “moments of quiet” abolished from Bringing Up Baby. But, oh! how loud a quiet moment can be! The electricity crackling through those moments between Kate and Spencer isn’t born of perfect comedic timing or a well-written script. It is one of those undefinable energies, like the always elusive “star quality,” that you know as soon as it hits you like a bolt of lightning.

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Tribeca: Spacey, Shakespeare, and Sightseeing

Tribeca Film Festival Coverage continues. Here's abstew on a Kevin Spacey doc

"That's why the film is called 'Now', it's not just the first word spoken at the beginning of the play, but it was meant to evoke that immediacy of live theatre. It's happening right now, in front of you," director Jeremy Whelehan said to a packed audience at the world premiere of his documentary film Now: In the Wings on a World Stage.

The film chronicles The Bridge Project, a transatlantic theatre company that was a collaboration of the British Old Vic (which for the past 10 years has had two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey at the helm as Artistic Director) and New York's BAM, and the last production the company performed, Richard III. The documentary (which Spacey also produced) goes behind the scenes of director Sam Mendes' production of the Shakespeare work about the deformed, power-hungry king and the year long, globe-spanning journey of its company of players. Spacey and the entire cast were on hand to introduce the film and stayed afterward for a discussion moderated by legendary anchorman Charlie Rose. [More...]

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