Black Panther Teases

Having recently returned from Disney World, where 'The Festival of the Lion King' earwormed that soundtrack into my brain again, I find myself frantically trying to rewrite "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" for Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) who we last saw mourning his king and proving something of a surprise moral center to the squabbling superheroes of Captain America: Civil War (2016).

Sing it with me...

It's Hard for a Good Man To Be King 🎵"

Marvel Studios has gone and made its first movie without a white guy named Chris in the lead role (kidding) and from 112 seconds of evidence we have, they made a great decision hiring exciting young director Ryan Coogler (hot off Fruitvale Station and Creed) to direct. The movie is still an excruciating 251 days away still (February 16th, 2018) but the teaser and the poster for Marvel's sure-to-be smash hit The Black Panther have arrived after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Isle of Links

So much news to catch up with. Deep breaths...

Vanity Fair Brie Larson is this month's cover girl. Talks awards season madness, Hollywood friendships, and Captain Marvel
Slate a breathless take on early footage from Marvel's Black Panther including kudos for what sounds like Angela Bassett's best movie part in a long time
Coming Soon Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, his second animated feature, got a teaser poster and a release date
EW Faye Dunaway breaks her silence on February's Oscar Best Picture mixup
AV Club release dates for upcoming Disney pictures including Star Wars, The Lion King, and the bound to be terrible Frozen 2 (because didn't that story feel complete as is. sigh) 
Movie City News David Poland is done apologizing for not liking James Gray movies very much. Here's why.
Deadline Monumental Pictures has announced they're making a big screen version of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court drama that determined abortion rights in the US. Curiously the article doesn't mention that this has already been dramatized. Holly Hunter starred in the TV movie Roe vs Wade (1989) and won the first of her two Emmys (both were in the category Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special)
Cinematic Corner Sati looks back at Dolores Claiborne (1995) 

The Stake an interesting piece about Scarlett Johansson's "embodiment quartet" (Ghost in the Shell, Under the Skin, Her and Lucy) doing work that's explicity about bodies and voices
IMDb has a bajillion casting updates for TV including new roles for Donald Sutherland, Ashley Judd, Teen Wolf star Tyler Posey, Kristin Chenoweth, Susan Sarandon's Feud followup, and a series lead for Miles Teller (who normally leads movies)
Kenneth in the (212) Erin Moran of TV sitcoms Happy Days and  Joanie Love Chachi dead at 56
Boy Culture Madonna is NOT pleased about the news about the upcoming biopic on her early years. Calls the filmmakers "charlatans and fools"  
...TFE in case you missed that earlier Madonna news
Awards Daily Ranking Hedda Hopper's Hats in Feud. I wanna kill Joey. I was totally working on an article just like this one when I saw this. argh. Must type faster
MNPP do you like Henry Cavill's new moustache? 
Boy Culture Whoa! the original Bananarama have reunited for a brief 2017 tour. Even I, who lived through the 1980s have never seen all three of them together. I did catch one Bananarama concert in my day but by that point Siobhan had already left the band. 
/Film Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen will be Timon and Pumba  in the remake of The Lion King
Variety the Outer Critics Circle nominations are announced. The musical Anastasia and the revival of Hello Dolly! lead. Curiously, though the awards cover Off Broadway as well as Broadway, Sutton Foster wasn't nominated in leading actress for her Sweet Charity. Actors who hop around between Film, TV, and Stage that were nominated this year include Bette Midler, Sally Field, Daniel Craig, Andrew Rannells,  Allison Janney, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, David Oyelowo, Kevin Kline, and The Lovely Laura Linney 

"Black Panther" Rescues Angela Bassett From "AHS"

Chris here. Fellow bemoaners of how Angela Bassett is being wasted on the likes of American Horror Story bemoan no more. The actress has joined the cast of Marvel's Black Panther as Ramonda, the mother of Black Panther himself. It's fitting that our queen will finally play a queen again.

It may not be the kind of heavy lifting we'd really love to see Bassett working with (though she was part of the brilliant Chi-Raq ensemble), AHS has proven that the actress can still have a good time. And with an already exciting cast, it'll be a thrill to see her alongside the likes of Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, and her Waiting to Exhale director Forest Whitaker. Fingers crossed her superpowers will include setting cars and our hearts on fire just like Exhale's Bernadine.

Can you believe Angela Bassett only has one Oscar nomination to her name?? It's been over 20 years since channeling Tina Turner for What's Love Got to Do With It? and she hasn't returned to the awards fray. It's about time someone gives her another brilliant role and an "overdue" narrative to go with it.

Links

Good luck finding an actress today that looks like thisFilm School Rejects a biopic of Ingrid Bergman during the Notorious era might be coming from James Mangold. I'm always hoping they'll cast unknowns rather than stars for these things, so that they'll look more like their subjects
Decider really funny ranking of all of Meryl Streep's Oscar nominated work, judged by accents, struggles, co-stars, and random intangibles
Movies Now the box office wealth gap between blockbusters and everything else - interesting piece and worrisome, too
ArtsBeat Smash's "Bombshell" musical MIGHT (sigh) actually become a Broadway musical. Yes, they're still dangling that carrot since the one night only cast reunion of Smash went so well
MCU Exchange the deal is done and Ava DuVernay (Selma) will direct Marvel's Black Panther film 
/bent is thrilled that Inside Out passes the Bechdel Test so easily on all counts

A Must Read
"The Decline of the American Actor" is a really engaging piece about today's leading men, the "Chris"es and beyond and the struggles they face without challenging roles or all that much in the way of training like their foreign counterparts. It's really fascinating and the writer Terrence Rafferty only threw me out of it once when he makes a very strange rather off topic dig at Masters of Sex's second season which had me questioning his sanity (I couldn't disagree more on all counts of what he's saying in that section). It also has a nice little detour into current 20 and 30something actressing by clever way of Clouds of Sils Maria... that movie sure did get a lot of people talking so it's a mystery why it didn't break through in a more major way since actual stars were involved. 

RIP - Exit Music
The film composer James Horner died in a plane crash at age 61 yesterday. He was a favorite of James Cameron and Ron Howard, and moviegoers of course. He composed so many well liked movies that it's tough to name a favorite though I remember always liking the scores to Aliens, Avatar, Apollo 13 and Willow. We will be treated to his three final scores this year with  Southpaw, Wolf Totem and the Chilean Miners movie The 33. The Oscar favorite won both of his Oscars from the phenomenon that was Titanic (for score & original song) and was twice nominated for movie songs. So here's a little Celine at the Oscars and a little something from An American Tail, too.

Mad Links on Furiosa's Road

Animals The Film this addiction romantic drama opens today in 8 cities. Go see it!
...David Dastmalchian, who so kindly guest-blogged for us, stars (and wrote it). He'll be doing a Q&A at tonight's screening at Village East 7:45 PM for those of you in NYC.
AV Club Anne Hathaway to star in a sci-fi monster movie called Colossal wherein she'll be psychically linked to the big monster
The Screenblog  Interview with the costume designer on Kate Winslet's The Dressmaker

Weekend Must Read
I know you shouldn't feed the trolls but this article from the MRA blog "Return of Kings" about why you should boycott Mad Max Fury Road because it's feminist is great great comedy. Unintentionally but that hardly matters when there are so many laughs to be had. My favorite part is the whining about ruining this great "piece of American culture" [slaps forehead] D'Oh. It's an Australian franchise, dumbass!

MNPP in a 'Ways Not To Die' post celebrating Mad Max, Jason sneaks in a little 'George Miller always cared about women' message 

Hollywood's Ongoing Diversity Issues
Moviefone More embarrassing news for Hollywood's anti-woman issues. Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen, supporting players on Grace and Frankie, are making the same thing as Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, the star attractions. What the F***?!? 
Heat Vision Fox developing The New Mutants, which was an X-Men spinoff back in the day. I wouldn't expect them to stick with its extremely diverse original lineup, because Lord knows when the X-Men was adapted it got a lot less diverse and way more narrowly obssessed with three alpha (white) males: Wolverine, Professor X, and Magneto
Women in Hollywood The DGA is part of the problem when it comes to underemployment of women
The Guardian Ava DuVernay might direct Marvel's Black Panther. since Marvel is looking for something more "diverse" and that word is apparently an actual quote? She seems like a weird fit since she excels at performance and humanistic drama and surely she has better things to do. Still, just when you hoped you could stop caring about superhero news this comes along. Obviously we'd watch it despite waning interest from the superhero glut.

Mad Men List Mania
Arts.Mic has a "definitive" listing of best characters with Peggy Olson, Don Draper, and Joan Holloway right where they belong in the top 3.
Rolling Stone same concept but with a different order and much love for Roger Sterling and the long departed Sal Romano in the top ten!
Esquire 100 Ways Mad Men might end. It says a lot about the show that with only 1 episode left it still retains its mysteries
Salon the 10 best Mad Men episodes from 'The Other Woman' (Joan showcase) to 'Babylon' (Peggy showcase)

Showtune Hot Song To Go
Matthew Eng reminded me of this. God I love this. Wouldn't it be great to see Maya Rudolph's PRINCE(ss) live?