Wish You Were Linked

Pajiba on the staggering popularity of Adam Sandler movies on Netflix
EW super cute unseen photos from the production of La La Land (it's on DVD very soon)
THR a Richard Gere profile on the new indie phase of his career and why he isn't in the big studio pictures anymore
i09 a tour of Marvel Studios with peeks at all six movies in various stages of production
The Guardian on the making of the wonderful British comedy Wish You Were Here (1987) for its 30th anniversary. God, Emily Lloyd was sensational in that. Remember her? The '87 Oscar Actress lineup was special but I still missed her there.

Tracking Board Bill Condon who did the James Whale biopic Gods and Monsters is in talks to direct Universal's remake of Whale's Bride of Frankenstein. Shouldn't he feel queasy about this as a fan? 
Awards Daily on the TV Drama Series Actress race. Will it be Claire Foy, Keri Russell, or...? 
Variety Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will feature five, yes five post-credit scenes. Are we really still counting these in the running time? It's probably time to acknowledge them for what they are: commercials. 
The Guardian they're still planning a sequel to Labyrinth (1986)? What is the point? (sigh) 
Coming Soon. Is King Kong in the public domain all of a sudden or something. Hot on the heels of Kong Skull Island there's an unrelated TV series in the works on the big ape and his home island
Coming Soon Taraji P Henson is now trying her hand as an action lead. Proud Mary about a hitwoman with a job gone wrong is now filming 

Theatahhh People
Theater Mania Tony/Oscar winner Kevin Spacey will host the Tony Awards, claiming he was "their 15th choice"
Playbill Sutton Foster is a new mom!
Playbill The complete cast recording of Groundhog Day starring Andy Karl (Rocky, Twentieth Century). He's headed for another Tony nod for sure. I attended opening night and he was terrific. I wish I got invited to more opening nights because it was jampacked w/ celebs: Anna Wintour, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kate Burton, Hope Davis, lots of people I half recognized (as my friend StinkyLulu who I went with would say "30% famous")... and in my row Christian Slater! 
Broadway Blog If you're near St Louis, you should check out The Tennessee Williams Festival May 3rd-7th. It sounds amazing 

On this day: Best Actress Tie, Lincoln Assassination... and a Tarzan and Jill Marriage.

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz...

1865 President Lincoln is assassinated. He's surely the President that's hit the movies the most often, most successfully in Steven Spielberg's fantastic Lincoln (2012)

1894 The first commercial motion picture house opens using Thomas Edison's "kinetoscope" device. You had to look through a peephole though so it was only one viewer at a time, though the venue had 10 of the machines. Coincidentally Thomas Edison will be played by Benedict Cumberbath in this year's Oscar hopeful The Current War which is about Edison's battle with George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) over sustainable electricity in America...

1904 Sir John Gielgud, one of the great British actors, was born. He won the Oscar for Arthur (1981) but his filmography stretches all the way from the silent era through Elizabeth (1998)

1925 Oscar regular Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night) born

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First Look at Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy in "Breathe"

by Murtada

While we wait for Nathaniel’s first Oscar predictions of the 2017 season (soon) let's discuss one of the films that might contend, Andy Serkis’ Breathe. The new drama announced an October 27th release date in the UK with a US plan still forthcoming. A la The Theory of Everything (2014) it is the true life story of a marriage altered by disease. Based on the life story of its producer, Jonathan Cavendish’s parents, Breathe, is about a man who is struck by Polio in his late 20s...

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Feud: Bette and Joan "And the Winner Is" (Part 1)

Previously on Feud: Bette and Joan
1 "Pilot" 2 "The Other Woman"  3 "Mommie Dearest"  4 "More or Less" 

-Do you have any comment on your co-star Joan Crawford being snubbed?

-Define "snub"! 

by Nathaniel R

If you had told me at any point before Feud: Bette and Joan was announced to the world that there would one day be a TV show that spent a full hour recreating the drama of a single Oscar night, I would never have believed you. If that imaginative hurtle was cleared I would then preemptively call it the single greatest TV hour in the history of television. But here we are with Feud and the reality is, if not the fantasy, still the best hour of Feud as a series. The concept of the series has so far outpaced the reality of it that it's lapped by several times already. Which is to say that if you've been reading along you know that I don't love the show. So I'll turn over the finale 3 episodes to team members who are maybe enjoying it a bit more (with one last Feud-related post from me after the season has wrapped). Still, I can't not review this Oscar-themed episode.  "And the Winner Is..." was entirely riveting even though all Oscar buffs had spoiler alerts in their DNA!

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Review: The Zookeeper's Wife

A portion of this review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Jessica Chastain stars as Antonina Zabinski, The Zookeeper's Wife, a true story based on the international bestseller of the same title. The Zabinski family run a lovingly crafted zoo in Warsaw but political unrest unnerves Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh) enough to attempt to send his wife and child away. Antonia, naive and endearingly devoted to her animals, won't have it. Then German bombs hit their attraction, killing many animals. Poland surrenders to Germany quickly. Much to the Zabinski’s horror they learn that their surviving animals will all be killed for meat to feed soldiers unless they can strike a deal with fellow zookeeper and now Nazi officer (Daniel Brühl, Hollywood’s go-to Germanic villain who isn’t named Christoph Waltz). 

While working on this deal with the devil, Antonina and her husband begin a dangerous game, hiding Jews in their now empty zoo until they can figure out a way to get them out of Poland to (relative) safety in a world gone mad...

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