Splink!

In Contention the Stephen Hawking biopic Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne is getting an Oscar prime November release. Best Actor is going to be tight this year, people
Telegraph interviewed Winona Ryder last month. Not sure how I missed this one but it's a good interview with smart comments on her career and age.
Shadowplay "things I read off the screen in In The Heat of the Night" interesting piece on 1967's Best Picture

Playbill has a history of Cabaret's journey from the pages of "Goodbye to Berlin" to the stage and screen
Cinema Blend I hadn't heard about this but there's a Twilight related lawsuit going on about profit sharing. Apparently Robert Pattinson made $25 million from Breaking Dawn. Wow.
Pajiba on Rob Lowe's "awesome" Reddit AMA
The Playlist Denis Villeneuve's career is heating up post Prisoners/Enemy and he's prepping a sci-fi thriller called The Story of Your Life which might star Amy Adams. It sounds vaguely Contact-esque to me.
Towleroad X-Men Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy do great impressions of Sir Ian McKellen and more. Adorable.
AV Club on "the return of the consumptive heroine" via The Wind Rises and Winter's Tale 

Today's Watch
It's a new Batman short in the style of his animated adventures in the 90s to celebrate his 75th anniversary (which is actually in but people are excited so they're starting early)

Creative Tributes
Cinema Blend Jackie Chan, who turned 60 this year, has been immortalized with a portrait in chopsticks
i09 2001: A Space Odyssey gets an homage via fruits and vegetables in this commercial 
Chaz Ebert her late husband Roger Ebert is getting a statue during EbertFest 

An Actor's Director
Guardian Sean Penn is returning to the director's chair for a South African romantic drama starring his new squeeze Charlize Theron (originally from South Africa so that's kind of cool) and Javier Bardem. My main concern with Penn as a director is that he's just so heavy/grim. I hope he finds a way for a range of tones here. This will also be Adele Exarchopoulos follow up to Blue is the Warmest Colour as she's playing a journalist

And finally...

AV Club let's us now the remake of Time Cop (1994) is back on. I don't care about this but I will take any excuse to post Jean Claude Van Damme's infamous kitchen counter split. It's one of my most vivid memories of 1990s moviegoing. What?

Stage Door: Michelle Williams in "Cabaret"

Jose here. I have a confession to make that might make me very unpopular around here: I don’t get Michelle Williams. I understand the reasons why she’s beloved and acclaimed and why she’s earned three Academy Award nominations so far, but I can’t bring myself to declare myself as part of her fanclub. The reason behind this is that I can’t fully fathom her as a true sexual being, yet time after time she’s asked to portray characters for whom sex is an essential trait. For instance, as much as she aced the moves, comedic timing and picaresque tone of Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, she played the most famous sexual icon of all time as a timid porcelain doll, whose internal turmoils kept her from having an emotional life. What is the point of having Marilyn onscreen if you’re not having at least mildly naughty thoughts about her?

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Beauty Break: Marisa Berenson

Happy 67th birthday to Marisa Berenson. This New York born multilingual beauty, originally a model, has been around forever and in key films, too. Her film career couldn't sustain its major start but few careers could have. Consider that in her first decade acting she made  Death in Venice (1971), Cabaret (1972), Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) and Blake Edwards S.O.B. (1981). Tough acts to follow, no? She was never prolific, opting for the occasional TV guest spot and films here and there in various countries, but that face -- memorable and impossibly beautiful.

According to IMDb she was rumored for a Vivien Leigh biopic in the 1970s (and wouldn't that be both a challenge and a coup for the right actress?) but the film sadly never materialized. 

More of the impossible beauty [nsfw] of Marisa Berenson after the jump...

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I'm Linking As Fast As I Can

Who can keep up this week?

Vanity Fair Katey Rich on the embarassing Armond White display at the New York Film Critics Circle awards ceremony. I seriously don't know why the NYFCC risks their reputation this way each year?
BBC Jane Campion will head the Cannes jury this year. Yay! (Although this article weirdly states that Campion is the only female to win the Palme D'Or which is no longer true. Lea Seydoux & Adele Exarchopoulus won with their director for Blue is the Warmest Color
ScriptNotes with John August and Craig Mason wonder if filmmakers will ever be able to release a surprise feature a la Beyonce's surprise record
Time 50 things you didn't know about Nicolas Cage for his 50th birthday
The Carpetbagger Will Forte on his surprise detour into Nebraska
Towleroad Lily Tomlin finally marries longtime partner/collaborator Jane Wagner
THR hilarious interview about the forthcoming Golden Globes with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

Finally...
Cinema Blend Liza Minnelli loves The Dallas Buyers Club, says to McConaughey...

And, honey, if you don't win the Academy Award, I'm giving you mine."

Next time I hear "Mein Herr" I'll think, however briefly, of McConaughey. But I hear Mein Herr so often so it won't ruin it for me (what? You watch Cabaret monthly, too, right?). In fact, I'm okay with this regifting if:

1) Matthew can do the entire choreography of Mein Herr flawlessly
2) Matthew gives Liza a supporting role in Magic Mike 2

A Voyage to the Link

Retronaut Amazingly sexist rejection letter from Walt Disney to an aspiring female artist
Technicolor Disney has reference photos for animation mashed-up with final art. Cool 
LA Times AMPAS may expand past 6,000 members this year. They're talking about diversifying and may relax their membership cap
Cinema Blend 80s/90s hitmaker Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) to return after a long absence for another sexual thriller, this one about an open marriage and a trail of bodies. Expect big stars to headline as the troubled couple.
Out Soderbergh interviewing Soderbergh? The director's gay brother talks to him about Behind the Candelabra. (Someone remind me why this isn't opening in movie theaters again?)

Empire Ryan Reynolds for Tarsem Singh's Selfless? This only leads to one logical question...
My New Plaid Pants what kind of revealing costumes will Tarsem put him in? 
Variety Jane Fonda about to get the immortalizing hand-in-cement treatment
Playbill the revival of Cabaret on Broadway already has Alan Cumming returning as the emcee but they're obviously looking for a starry Sally. Initial rumors said Anne Hathaway but now Emma Stone is the rumor
Slate "the secret autobiography of Tom Cruise" ...what's behind the grinning mask?
Guardian Pedro Almodóvar calls I'm So Excited his "gayest film ever". Hmmm. It's also supposed to be some sort of metaphor for Spain's economic crisis.

one more thing...
I was just bitching about Into the Woods but the idea of a new movie musical version of Guys & Dolls sounds great. Especially since the original film version isn't exactly a "classic" outside of being, well, old. It's especially good news if both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Channing Tatum really are on board. But if it doesn't get a good director I'll worry. A lot. 

off cinema
i09 huge breakthrough in artificial skin. How long until we see Blade Runner style replicants? 
Gothamist last three days to see Edvard Munch's "The Scream" at MoMA. When I was last there I wrote about Tilda Swinton in a box but I neglected to tell you how embarrassed for everyone I was when I went to see The Scream. People were not looking at it but posing beside it with their Scream Face on (which always ended up looking more "Home Alone Face"). some people were so confused about the pose/provenance that they were doing Monkey See, Monkey Do. TRAGIC!  

Watching "Hugo" at MoMA

In the middle of a nearby exhibit about architecture, there's a 3D screen showing pieces of Hugo because of the famous train station set. My bestie snapped a photo of me unawares looking on (above). Some of the scenes they played weren't even set-specific though. Unfortunately this meant that I couldn't even escape Chloe Moretz at MoMA.

Also tragic!