Stage Door: The Hilarious Cast of "Desperate Measures"

by Nathaniel R

Before we plunge into the deep end of movie awards season, which tends to consume our every waking moment from right now through Oscar night each year, a wee theater break.

Though we love movies with all our hearts, the one thing live-action movies don't really have an equivalent of is the grand theatrical tradition of the musical comedy. I'm talking inspired silliness as goddamn raison d'etre. I recently fell hard for Desperate Measures, a hilarious wild west riff on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. The show has now been extended three times at the York Theatre in Manhattan and will close on New Year's Eve so get to it! (The York specializes in helping develop new musicals and I'm happy to call attention to this noble cause as a bonafide fanatic of the genre.)

I sat down recently to talk to with two of the musical's stars, strapping Peter Saide and rockstar feisty Lauren Molina, who both really "outta be in pictures" as they say though we're happy they're killing it on stage, don't misunderstand! The interviews are after the jump... 

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Quick Links

• Coming Soon Ant Man and the Wasp has wrapped filming. Apparently there's a scene on a beach between Pfeiffer and Douglas
• Decider 10 movies you should stream right now to prepare for awards season
• The Guardian apparently Feud is just making its way to the UK so there's a new Susan Sarandon interview where she defends her baffling political decisions of the recent past

• Rotten Tomatoes Jude Law has nabbed the male lead of Captain Marvel opposite Brie Larson
• Los Angeles Times John Lasseter, Disney/Pixar's long time chief creative officer, is taking a leave of absence from Disney after complaints of inappropriate behavior with female employees
• Playbill what are the plays that Broadway revives the most often? The top 12 features well loved playwright's like Tennessee Williams (though I was surprised by his second most revived), Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, and of course Edward Albee's masterpiece Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
• Variety Rance Howard, the character actor and father of Ron Howard, has passed away
• Gr8ter Days David Cassidy, 70s teen idol of the Patridge Family has passed away
• Variety The Seen and Unseen, which you'll remember I raved about at TIFF, has won two new prizes this past week, splitting the Grand Prize at Tokyo FilmEx and winning the APSA for Youth Feature. 

Exit Video
Have you checked out the new webseries "Power Couple"? We must thank Joe Reid for recommending it. The concept is simple and hooky (famous pairings through history) and the execution by Sudi Green and Matt Rogers is brilliant. My favorite thus far is Caesar & Cleopatra but they've also done Britney & Justin (with an amazing 50 Shades riff on negotiation) and Evil Queen & Magic Mirror.

Kevin Spacey Continues to Take Low Roads

by Nathaniel R

a famously cheeky magazine cover from 1997Sigh. How do you solve a problem like Kevin Spacey? The actor's career started off splendidly but soon after those hugely popular double Oscar wins (The Usual Suspects and American Beauty) in the second half of the 1990s, he became rather insufferable both onscreen and as a celebrity. Acting is a subjective art but I personally can't make it through a single episode of House of Cards (I've tried a few times) with that pitched to the rafters hamminess. 

The Netflix star has been resisting public admission of his open-secret homosexuality since he became famous. He's let decades go by without comment, while dozens of braver less famous actors took up the challenge and made the world a better place for future generations by coming out.

Now that he's accused of sexual assault by another man he chooses THIS moment to do it? For shame!

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NYFF: Arthur Miller: Writer

By Manuel Betancourt

There may not be a more towering figure of the American stage than Arthur Miller. From A View from the Bridge and Death of a Salesman to The Crucible and The Price, his plays remain some of the most performed / discussed / dissected dramas of the twentieth century. Capturing men (for they were so often men) caught adrift in an ever-changing world, Miller’s protagonists laid bare the most insidious aspects of American society. 12 years after his death, Arthur Miller: Writer (a riff on what he once said he hoped his obituary would read like), comes to offer a humanizing portrait of the New York City-born dramatist. That it comes courtesy of his daughter, Rebecca (yes, Mrs Day-Lewis, The Meyerowitz Stories’ bit part player, and Maggie’s Plan helmer) means that there’s a level of access and intimacy that we may not otherwise have gotten... 

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This is Link

screen
The Guardian talks to Armie Hammer about the peach scene in Call Me By Your Name and more - Hammer also recently got in a good dig at conservative asshole James Woods who is upset by the age difference in the film
Awards Daily Joey ranks the 101 greatest Will & Grace guest stars. Yes, 101.
Decider the 24 best episodes of Will & Grace prior to the revival
THR Netflix is losing some very major TV series on Oct 1st so if you always wanted to complete 30 Rock or Friday Night Lights, you'd best be bingeing...

More after the jump including Cher, Jane Fonda, This is Us, and Hugh Hefner's death...

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