Crazy in Link

I Need My Fix Kate Winslet for St. John. I want to bury my hands in that rug. Look at it! So comfy.
The Atlantic remembers the worst January releases in recent memory. Ah, the toxic dumping ground.
Towleroad Madonna's new album will be called M.D.N.A ... maybe. So she said but was she serious?
THR reports from the NBR awards ceremony where Hugo was honored. Their photo gallery is from last year though so save the clicking on that.

IndieWire Catherine Deneuve will be honored at Lincoln Center this spring, receiving the Chaplin Award
Gold Derby The DGA's television nominees include actresses!
AWFJ Female film critics name their award winners with The Artist taking the top prize
Animation A big informative piece on Oscar finalist The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore.
Carpetbagger Jean Dujardin tries to impress Robert DeNiro... who is not easily impressed (at the NYFCC awards)

Guardian much about about nothing. They've closed the Natalie Wood case again in case you were wondering.
Scanners doesn't believe film critics should read screenplays until after they've seen the movie (but is happy to dissect them afterwards (Moneyball & Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). I kind of agree but I keep wanting to read Django Unchained. It is tempting me!
Gunaxin on Oscar nominations that look baffling in retrospect to some. Unfortunately it sounds like they didn't even see Howard's End before dissing it. I cry foul. Howard's End is GREAT. Merchant/Ivory movies get no respect and it makes me so angry. They were great filmmakers and that was the best film nominated that year.

P.S. "Do not weep for Beyoncé..."

BREAKING: Witch Who Granted Beyoncé Fame Returns To Claim Firstborn Child

[maniacal laugh maniacal laugh]

"A Star is Born"... or, will be *after* the Star's baby is born.

Beyoncé announced her pregnancy at MTV's VMAs last night. I switched channels after Gaga's drag king opening number so the news got to me secondhand.

There be film fallout. The fourth feature film version of A Star is Born (2013? 2014?) is now delayed for at least nine months as Beyoncé gestates and welcomes her first child into the world. The musical, meant to be Clint Eastwood's post J Edgar project, had hoped to go before the cameras early in 2012 and with the speed that Eastwood tends to work we would have probably seen it as a Christmas 2012 release.

But now that Beyoncé is pregnant (and considering also that Leonardo DiCaprio has turned down the male lead role), this won't be happening just yet. The Beyoncé/Jay-Z babe will be born first.

Oscar-obsessives should keep a close eye on this one -- the film, not the babe. While the project seems ridiculous on the surface for both "another one?" superfluity and Eastwood + Beyoncé odd-coupledom, A Star is Born is a durable cultural object. It's always a major morphing showcase for the gifts of its leading lady. The first three incarnations resulted in 17 Oscar nominations and 3 Oscars all told including bids for Best Actress for both Janet Gaynor (1937) and Judy Garland (1954) and a Best Original Song Oscar for Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen" (1976).

Will we see Beyoncé as a Best Actress nominee in 2013 or 2014... or will she have to "settle" for a Best Song Oscar?

Clint Eastwood & Beyoncé. A Match Made In...

This might just be the strangest thing you read all week.

Clint Eastwood, currently working on FBI biopic J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover and Armie Hammer as his lover and star employee, will be chasing that unlikely project with... wait for it...

A STAR IS BORN with Beyoncé. According to Deadline it's a go and they may even start shooting the third musical version of this story before the end of the year. There are so many things one might say to this news including.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo"

or perhaps

"the earth is doomed" which is what I tweeted.

Maybe "Streisand is gonna be pissed" which is what I went with for my upcoming Towleroad column.

Stars Are Born in the 30s (Gaynor) the 50s (Garland) and 70s (Streisand)

I've never understood why anyone would want to remake A Star is Born (including Babs in the 70s), given that Judy Garland's 1954 performance is so unassailably ginormous and mythical and awesome and Oscar winning (damnit!). But mostly, I'm scratching my head about conservative manly "get off my lawn" Clint Eastwood doing two gay-appeal projects back to back. First he's training his Oscarbait eyes on a closeted cross-dresser and then he's turning klieg lights on an actual show queen?

Finally, aside from Eastwood's "what the hell will this be like?" involvement it feels rather redundant and not just because we've already had three film versions. Won't watching Beyoncé do A Star is Born be like watching a two hour extended remix of "Listen" from Dreamgirls.

That's the whole emotional arc and story right there.