First Look: Battle of the Sexes

Murtada here. So you have a new movie about a very popular internationally recognizable person, what to do to announce that your film has started shooting? Why get Billie Jean King herself to tweet a photo of your two stars, right next to the two real life people they are playing. Get everyone talking about the uncanny likeness. Easy peasy, the internet ate it up!

THEN & NOW: #BobbyRiggs & me at #BattleOfTheSexes presser in 1973; @stevecarell and #EmmaStone as us, filming now!🎾 pic.twitter.com/5jTCsyoXAE

— Billie Jean King (@BillieJeanKing) April 13, 2016

Battle of the Sexes is about the 1973 tennis match between King and Bobby Riggs that made headlines worldwide and still stands in the culture as encapsulation of 1970s changing social attitudes about sport and feminism. Emma Stone is King and Steve Carrell is Riggs and boy do they look the part. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) are directing, the supporting cast includes Sarah Silverman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue and in a Birdman reunion Andrea Riseborough as Marilyn Barnett, King’s girlfriend at the time. It was surprising to see Danny Boyle's name as a producer, although not so much when seeing his Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours partner Simon Beaufoy as the screenwriter.

Barnett during the alimony trial.

Riseborough’s casting hopefully means that the movie will explore the tumultuous relationship between King and Barnett. Their relationship became public in 1980 when Barnett sued for alimony, outing King and putting her in the path of LGBT rights advocacy. That was 7 years after the battle of the sexes, so we are keeping hopes tempered.

The film just started shooting, so we have a long wait before we can see it, perhaps in the second half of 2017. However since this is an awards site, it’s never too early to speculate. We know that playing a real life person - with that person making the campaign rounds alongside the actor - is a surefire way to win an Oscar. The movie has to be good of course, this one at least has the pedigree. Will this be Emma’s moment? 

HBO’s LGBT History: Larry Kramer in Love and Anger (2015)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at the recent doc Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures which works as a nice primer on the famed photographer and, as is par for the course for films on gay icons from a certain era, as a portrait of a man working tirelessly to make the most of his ever winnowing time: Mapplethorpe died at age 42 of AIDS complications. We’re not going too far afield this week, as we’re focusing on a documentary on “America’s angriest AIDS activist” in Jean Carlomusto’s Larry Kramer in Love and Anger.

Kramer should be familiar to you. We’ve previously encountered him and talked about his righteous anger when we talked about The Normal Heart, and by that point he had already made HBO appearances in The Out List, Vito, and Outrage. That enough should be a reminder that there’s no way of talking about American gay rights activism of the last three decades without talking about Larry Kramer. Carlomusto’s film expediently moves through Kramer’s biography; from his time at Columbia Pictures, to Women in Love and Faggots, through the Gay Men’s Health Crisis group and The Normal Heart to ACT UP and his latest health scares and marriage...

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Streaming Thoughts: Broken Circles, Hunger Games, Gay Indies

Time for another "watch this before it leaves" warning. It's so stupidly complicated to follow these things is it not? So we'll do what we can here and there. The big 'new month calendar dump' is approaching but we'll deal with those next week. For now, let's just talk random streaming stragglers. The following titles are leaving either Amazon Prime or Netflix Instant quite soon so give them a shot if you've been meaning to.

As we do we've freeze-framed them randomly to see what they're serving up and to (hopefully) prompt discussion...

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Tveit Me, Baby. Or Leave Me

We didn't do our usual Stage Door column this past Monday (on account of no theater trips this week) so let's talk Aaron Tveit since we're focusing on male actors for a change this month. While he originally made his mark in stage musicals (including in the DiCaprio role in Catch Me If You Can) the small screen seems to have eaten up his time since. Nevertheless this week's "Miscast" benefit concert reminded us of his inarguable charisma. (More on that concert in a minute)

He hasn't done enough movies given how perfect he was as Enjolras in Les Misérables (2012) but at least we got to see him do Grease Live early this year. Unfortunately he's highly vulnerable right now at falling into the trap that many stage stars do where they end up wasted in TV genres like political, hospital, lawyer, or cop shows  that actors with far less broad-ranging gifts could play just as well as they do. Their musical gifts end up completely invisible/wasted. See most of Mandy Patinkin's & Audra McDonald's TV careers. (Obviously Patinkin is excellent on Homeland but his TV career has been... strange)

The gold standard for current stage stars trying to make it on TV is arguably Sutton Foster...

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Olivier Awards Live Stream. And Other Miscellania

Keyframe an interview with Oscar winner Dorothy Malone (OMG) who is now 92. Mambo!
Pajiba adorable family Force Awakens cosplay from Utah
ENO Glenn Close is starring in the revival of Sunset Blvd through May 7th. If you're in London, please go and tell us how it is! 
The Movie Scene Criterion's blindspot for female filmmakers. (I know it's uncool to be critical of Criterion excpet in these rare cases of agreed upon issues -- but they have other blindspots too, like the musical genre)
DListed Ginger Feud: Susan Sarandon and Debra Messing having words over Sanders/Clinton. (Everyone is fired up of late.)

Comics Alliance argues that the bland costumes in X-Men: Apocalypse are a key problem with that franchise -- it's true you could mistake it for a Hunger Games poster.
BuzzFeed "The Unbearable Sadness of Ben Affleck" a good long read by Anne Helen Petersen who also did that recent history of Jennifer Garner

Everything is Gay
Vulture Why Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some is inadvertently gay
New York Post Smithers finally comes out tonight on The Simpsons in its 28th season (yeesh. it's already the longest running sitcom and scripted prime time series of all time on US television)
MNPP [nsfw] Jason remembers Exit to Eden (1994) -- Dana Delany wasn't the only one obsessed with Paul Mercurio's butt

Signs of the Apocalypse
Vulture an engineer built a life-size replica of Scarlett Johansson. Don't look directly into its dead eyes!
Tom & Lorenzo Jessica Chastain posing with a terrifying baby kangaroo. RIP Jess 
i-d interviews the gender neutral artist illma gore who broke the internet with a painting of nude Donald Trump. Unfortunately this means they extended the conversation about his junk. (sigh. this world)

TODAY'S WATCH
The Olivier Awards (essentially the Tony Awards of the UK) stream at 12 PM EST. Familiar Oscar nominated darlings who are up for West End acting awards this year include Nicole Kidman (in Photograph 51, which she hopes to bring to the screen), Mark Rylance, Benedict Cumberbatch, Imelda Staunton (she'll perform and Gypsy, which we reviewed, has a ton of nominations), Judi Dench and Janet McTeer. Cyndi Lauper will also perform since Kinky Boots is up for New Musical. Because the timetables are different with UK and US theater, Kinky Boots (Tony Winner 2013) is up against Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights (Tony Winner Best Musical 2008) at the Olivier Awards 2016. Strange that Kinky Boots hit the US first since it's adapted from a British film.

TODAY'S WATCH #2
Speaking of Theater. Benjamin Walker -- who is great on stage but has yet to successfully make his mark on the big screen despite a few tries -- is doing Patrick Bateman on stage. Who knows if he'll be Tony Nominated but here he is performing "Selling Out" on the Colbert Show

We really need to see some current Broadway shows before the Tony nominations hit!