Link 15

New York Times Deanna Durbin, juvenile Oscar winner and 30s/40s star, has died
Rope of Silicon the first suggestive poster for Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac ...
Nymphomaniac ...which also now has an official website
Us Weekly Reese Witherspoon talks about her arrest and taking responsibility for the crazy 
People Seth Rogen's mancrush on Zac Efron. I'm wondering what the "expletive" was but FWIW Zac is "very veiny" 
DP/30 David Poland talks to actress Alicia Witt
NPR the music from The Great Gatbsy (2013) 
Empire Logan Lerman joining Brad Pitt in the WW II tank thriller Fury 

All Superheroes All The Time. Must Be Summer
Vulture a practical guide to not hating Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man Three. This is amusing but Gwynnie is actually wonderful in the movie. Take that! 
YouTube a teaser for The Wolverine that I like more than that big trailer
The Playlist Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch confirmed (sort of) for The Avengers 2. I'm confident that Joss Whedon can do right by witches (duh!) so yes, please. 
Movieline A sweded Iron Man Three parody from Thailand 

(Sort of) Off Cinema
The Stranger an excellent and funny piece about professional basketball's first coming out by heterosexual filmmaker Sherman Alexie (Smoke Signals, The Business of FancyDancing) 
ValleyWag an oblivious startup party from AirBnB themed on The Great Gatsby 
In Contention this is a few days old but fun. President Obama as Daniel Day Lewis as President Obama 

How Had I Never Seen This?
Meryl Streep with Adam Guettel ("Rain") 

As a lifelong Streep fan and also someone who loves Adam Guettel -- some of you may remember I recently saw him do a rare live performance -- how had I never even heard of this collaboration? Or is my memory going already? Thanks to TFE Reader Rene for pointing this out to me in the last Meryl post.

A Musical Diversion

Composer Adam GuettelKnowing that the next 48 hours for most of us (well, the next 96 for me) would be filled with nothing but Oscar Mania, last night I went totally off-cinema to a night of cabaret with brilliant and unprolific composer Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins, The Light in the Piazza). [Tonight is the finale, the 8:30 is sold out but there's one more available at 11:00 pm]  Although I wasn't thinking it through properly exactly. The night didn't turn out to be all that off-cinema since the material and the train of thought kept rushing there.

Guettel is, famously, the grandson of the legendary and prolific composer Richard Rodgers, the first person to ever EGOT. Rodgers practically defined the American musical with his first partner Lorenz Hart and his second Oscar Hammerstein II: Babes in Arms, Pal Joey, The Sound of Music, The King and I, Carousel, Oklahoma... the list goes on and on and on. Guettel is an engaging witty stage presence (and unlike many composers has a beautiful singing voice to boot) but his grandfather's long shadow was ever present and referenced in self-deprecating hilarious ways.  And yet after I was done laughing I felt totally sad. The world's resistance to the musical form, and Guettel's own personal creative struggles have combined in an truly unfortunate way and we're all missing out!

Floyd Collins (1996) and The Light in the Piazza (2003) Guettel's two most famous shows are nearly breath-stoppingly beautiful musical works. I personally think both would make utterly rich film musicals if done correctly (The Light in the Piazza was already a movie, albeit a non-musical one) and since they're also serious period pieces they could be Oscar hits, too. Not that that matters... but it's just something for movie producers who might be reading to think about *cough*. If Floyd Collins, a true story of a miner trapped in a cave, was approached with the conviction and delicacy of something like Once it could be a movie masterpiece. And I've long felt that if Piazza went back to screen, there'd be a potential Best Actress winning role for the 40something/50something actress who got the plum lead role. 

In the years before/between/after? Guettel has written unfinished works and three musicals that are based on movies...

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