"Into the Woods" Watch...

When Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" was announced as part of the great Shakespeare in the Park series for this summer (July 23rd- Aug 25th), I felt like living happily ever after. It's such a great show and seeing it outdoors may well feel like how it was always meant to be seen. With the recent announcement that Amy Adams would be playing the Baker's Wife (a wonderful part) it occurred to me ~ this won't be the first time she's sung in Central Park.

Lately Shakespeare in the Park has been easing up a bit on the star casting preferring midlevel stars or stage talent or one big name but the casting of Adams may signal a change. My friend Tom at the Broadway Blog got  me way too excited about what might follow with this little bit (after the jump).

Click to read more ...

Oscar Loves Two Women. In The Same Film. Often.

Amir here. Since the Oscar nominations were announced on tuesday we’ve all heard tons of new stats about this year's slate. All the ‘oldest’ and ‘youngest’ and ‘most’s aside, the one thing that caught my eye was the double nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Help’s ladies Jessica Chastain & Octavia Spencer. This is now the fourth consecutive year that the category has included two nominees from the same film. For the trivia lovers among you, this equals the previous longest streak of double supporting actress nominations from 1947 through 1950: Gentleman’s Agreement, I Remember Mama, Come to the Stable, Pinky and All About Eve... (though the earlier run is more impressive since 1949 had two sets of double nominees.)

Trivia: The two longest double supporting runs (though 47-50 actually had a year with two double noms."Pinky" is not pictured by accident. Apologies). In both one actress appeared multiple times (Amy Adams and Celeste Holm) and one of those times she played a nun!!!

Last year’s winner, The Fighter’s Melissa Leo, was accompanied by her co-star Amy Adams, who had been nominated along with Viola Davis for Doubt two years earlier. When Adams was taking time off inbetween, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick filled in for her for their performances in Up in the Air. Had it not been for 2007's spread of wealth, the record could have been extended another two years since Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza were both nominated for Babel the year before.

If you look back through the history of the shiny gold man you'll find that in the 76 years since the Supporting categories were introduced 28 films have managed two supporting actress nominations. That’s an astonishing number but here’s what's more interesting. (Continued... with Pie Charts!)

Click to read more ...

Happy Turkey (and Muppets) Day

Marilyn Monroe and TurkeyWe've been watching the Macy's Parade while cleaning / cooking and there has literally yet to be a musical number from Broadway that's NOT movie-based as I type this. Should've live-blogged and talked Sister Act, Spider-Man, Priscilla, How To Succeed, Newsies and more... Broadway is basically movies on stage now, with a special emphasis on 1990s comedies.

Meanwhile at the multiplex, it won't just be turkeys slaughtered for today's festivities. In Hollywood's infinite wisdom, three showbiz-centric movies for adults must open simultaneously (The Artist, My Week With Marilyn, Hugo) and three movies children might like (Hugo, The Muppets, Arthur Christmas ...two of which are obviously for adults) must open in direct competition as well. There probably won't be enough dollars to go around which is sad because the same ticket buyer might well like all of those movies. On balance, this is an absurdly high quality crop, not one, well, turkey in the batch [Disclaimer: Arthur Christmas is the only one I haven't seen but I hear good things.] 

If all five of those newly released options weren't enough, Oscar maniacs can also sample The Descendants (expanding) and, in NY & LA, A Dangerous Method and Rampart. In case you haven't been keeping up and since we're hosting a big dinner, here are past thoughts...

THE ARTIST ~ review | all posts | best pic race | interviews soon
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN review | more Marilyn on the way
HUGO  ~ the filmmakers speak | work in progress thoughts |  all 
A DANGEROUS METHOD ~ several reviews from our team
RAMPART - all posts | best actor race 

As for THE MUPPETS... I didn't have time to review the new film before guests started arriving but I'd love to hear your thoughts. I found it quite uneven even within both of the narratives. The Muppet reunion brand relaunch is what I came to see and the nostalgia factor there worked like a charm. But individual scenes didn't always sparkle and I wanted more funny performances and less story beats. Meanwhile the musical comedy factor seemed to fall mostly to the Jason Segel / Amy Adams / "Walter" coming-of-age storyline which I liked much more than I was expecting to -- great sight gags in the beginning and Amy Adams could not be a better fit for the Muppet world -- until I didn't. By the time the three of them met The Muppets I was over it because... THE MUPPETS; stop distracting me from them! So my reaction was all over the place and far more colored by my own childhood fixations rather than the movie itself. But if you grew up loving The Muppets it's a total must-see. I recently rented the DVDs of the original series and it is crazy enjoyable -- like giddy-smile making -- just as we all remember. In fact, after watching three episodes back to back I think TV needs a relaunch of The Muppet Show more than the movies need the muppets. Variety shows are sort of back given the plethora of performance competitions but the variety has gone out of them as they are the same thing over and over again, whether that's contemporary pop karaoke or dancing.

One of the new songs "Life's a Happy Song" (Bret McKenzie --yay!) is a total charmer and should give the felt fuzzy group their fourth music-related Oscar nomination (the first three films all won one nomination in Song or Score categories.)

Do your Thanksgiving plans include movies? Have you seen The Muppets yet?

The Adventures of Linklink

You may have heard that Ricky Gervais will be hosting the Golden Globes again. I don't have the stomach to give this its own post but let it suffice to say what I already said on twitter... Gervais smug superiority is so offputting. You have to back that shit up and was Gervais the funniest best awards show host ever? No. 

Link Time
Tom the Dancing Bug on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin
The Advocate fun interview with Dylan McDermott on American Horror Story, nude scenes and sexuality and Steel Magnolias
Ad Age wowee but those Oscar ads are expensive. $1.6 million for 30 second of air time please. 
The Playlist the competing Linda Lovelace porn star biopics. It's Amanda Seyfried vs. Malin Akerman. You'd think that was an easy call but for the news that Sharon Stone will play Mama Lovelace in the Akerman version. Sharon Stone!
Empire Will Amy Adams sign on to co-star with Clint Eastwood in The Curve, a father/daughter drama? He plays an aging baseball scout. We're betting that he won't be portrayed as indelicately as the "they're fossils!" approach in Moneyball. (A film we love, don't misunderstand. It's just hard on the old scouts.)
BuzzFeed 63 Reasons why Bradley Cooper is not the "Sexiest Man Alive". No matter what People magazine says. 
Speaking of Bradley Cooper...

In Ye Olden Times when I used to watch Inside the Actors Studio I couldn't help but make immediate "you'll never make it!" assumptions about many of the audience members seeking professional advice. So it's totally crazy to see an actual future star asking one. 

Puppet Mania
Flickr Muppet illustrations covering the whole alphabet
YouTube Clever Inglourious Basterds/Fantastic Mr Fox mashup

Finally, Drew McWeeney at HitFix had his son Toshi interview Kermit and Miss Piggy on the eve of the release of The Muppets. So cute...

It's a great angle for an interview since The Muppets biggest marketing muscle might well be partents taking their kids who missed out on the Muppet phenomenon to "meet" them on the big screen.

Score!

Randomness: I was watching The Fighter out of the corner of my eyeballs again the other day. Guess whose scenes always demanded full eyes? Damn, but Amy Adams earned that Oscar nomination! I'm glad I medalled her. We now return you to your normally scheduled 2011 programming.