How To Get Away With Linking

/Film Keith Stanfield of Short Term 12 fame will play Snoop Dogg in the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. He also has a key supporting role in Selma. So glad things are going his way
Buzzfeed Must read list of 17 black women who deserve their own biopic. God, if we could get even half of these projects greenlit there'd finally be roles for our best black actresses to fight over. I'd replace some of the dream names with better actresses though. Where's my Lorraine Toussaint and Kimberly Elise?
In Contention icymi images from Selma have been going around. Can't wait to see this movie 
Playboy interviews the one and only Terry Gilliam on Zero Theorem and his past pictures

Playbill in light of all the 'was it or wasn't it cut from the movie?' discussion around Into the Woods' songbook, here's a list of famous numbers that were cut from their film versions like Cabaret, Dreamgirls and so on
Gawker has an amusing objection to Clive Owen hawking vodka
MI6 the new James Bond film is looking for a memorable assassin called "Hinx" -- muscular and over 6'2" and will have some major fight scenes. 
Bam Smack Pow a twitter account called Josh Trank gave us our first look at what Jamie Bell will look like in Fantastic Four (i.e. not like Jamie Bell at all. Ugh. Why you wanna cast him in a role where we can't see his face. Sigh) but it turned out to be a prank
Moviefone talks with Joseph Gordon-Levitt about Sin City: A Dame To Kill For and tries to ask about that proposed Sandman adaptation, too

Tweet of the Week

View from my car on the way to work....uh....pressure? pic.twitter.com/28iZ4JyyRz

— Viola Davis (@violadavis) August 23, 2014

 Love you Viola! We do. We do. 

Gay Gay Gay
The Guardian MPAA is homophobic. What else is new. If you have gay content you're obviously always R. Even without sex scenes. See: Love is Strange. 
The Advocate explains why there needs to be more gay sex on television. Looking can't do it alone!   

Cinema and Real Life
The Stake on what we can learn from sci-fi movies and TV about the militarization of police forces 
Salon is the medium's obsession with Robin Williams suicide rough on those struggling with depression? That'd be a yes.

Off Cinema But Of Interest
i09  incredible photo tribute to the cats who served in World War I. I had no idea about this. I now feel personally cheated that there's never been a good cat moment in a prestige war movie.
AV Club have you heard there's a transphobic Congressmen messing with Laverne Cox's Wikipedia page. Shameful. (And while we're on the subject of Orange is the New Black stars, I'm thrilled that Lori Petty will be joining Season 3. I guess she'll get transferred to Litchfield or something)
Salon interviews Sinead O'Connor on her new record and why she won't sing some of her early work anymore 

"Outstanding Main Title Design," An Undersung Emmy Category

If you're a carbon based life form, chances are you feel a certain amount of affection for the opening notes and images of the main title designs of certain TV series. These things have a way of seeping into our DNA.

I cannot watch True Blood's titles, for example, without singing along "...I wanna do bad things to you ♫" and it would probably take my Emmy award if the Outstanding Main Title Design were handed out only once every 10 years. Unfortunately it has been ripped off ever since and now every remotely creepy TV series aims for a mix of slow-mo vs sped up montage of religious, violent, and sensual grotesquerie from American Horror Storyto Penny Dreadful. But True Blood's titles were the perfect marriage of everything that makes that show that show. It's actually even BETTER than the show itself.  True Blood lost this category in its year to the adorable pop up multiple identities of The United States of Tara. 

My other favorite main title of a current series is Game of Thrones. I don't watch the show for reasons I've long since overshared but I think the opening titles are refreshingly original, a masterwork even. For what it's worth Game of Thrones won this Emmy in 2011 (Trivia Alert: David Fincher's two-time Oscar winning editor Angus Wall, who we've interviewed in the past, was the creative director!).

Even in the YouTube/Gif era when we are all accustomed to obsessing over the tiniest mnemonics of our favorite things, this category is rarely remarked upon. So let's discuss this year's nominees after the jump

THE NOMINEES THIS YEAR? Stroke the kitty to continue...

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Happy Olivia de Havilland Day!

A very happy 98th birthday to the woman who collected Oscars and cats as if she were personally flirting with me before I was born.

Thank you for Maid Marian, cousin Melanie Hamilton, heiress Catherine Sloper, identical twins Terry & Ruth, Miriam who hushed sweet Charlotte, Virginia in that snake pit... and many more.

Your summer Centennial party is just around the corner in 2016!

Only Linker Left Alive

Screen Crush Top Secret the making of an 80s comedy classic 
The Playlist celebrates Chinatown's 40th Anniversary 
MNPP David Oyelowo twelve times 
The Wire a rumor roundup on Doctor Strange and what's going on

The Movie Scene takes a different tack on those "halfway mark" lists that are starting round the web, merely ranking the films that were new to him this year on DVD... classics mixed with brand new things. I've never been able to compare different eras well in terms of "rank" - give me year to year contests or decade lists but otherwise... too tough! 
Row Three I haven't listened to this yet but I love the concept: a podcast devoted to one movie soundtrack an episode with a new person interviewed about what the soundtrack meant to their life. This episode is Dirty Dancing
/bent Lupita Nyong'o on the cover of Vogue for July. Only the second African (though some African-American entertainers have made the cover) 
The Wire remembers the Broadway-to-screen adaptations prior to Jersey Boys which brought the stage actors to the screen. As you can see this practice has decidedly mixed results - when it works it's magic but when the people are way too old for the roles on the big screen... 

first official image of Jamie Dornan in 50 Shades of Grey (2015)

Great Question
The Guardian is doubtful that 50 Shades of Grey could do it but with a history of horny films asks 'what could bring the erotic thriller, a long dead genre that peaked in popularity with Fatal Attraction (1987), back to the cinemas?'

Off Cinema
Gayest of All Time "Kitty Bro Five" -'Dat Be Cute' is right!
Pitchfork MoMA will host a Björk retrospective next year
Autostraddle every character from Orange is the New Black as they appeared on guest stints in Law & Order -- as much as I blame that show for so much that is wrong with television, I recognize it kept food on the table for countless thespians
Mr Dan Zak true life story that inspired the nun's arc on OITNB

Finally...
Our 'Halfway Mark' articles are coming up in a week or two surveying the year in progress but Indie Wire started early and polled critics about the best of the year thus far (I always forget to vote on these things). Grand Budapest Hotel, Under the Skin, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Ida are the top four. Their combined domestic gross is $65 million OR what Fault In Our Stars and 300:Rise of an Empire earned in their first week. (Le sigh)

Tim's Toons: How to animate your dragon

Tim here. This weekend sees the release of How to Train Your Dragon 2, the first of just two major animated features coming out this summer (and having to imply that Planes 2: The Plane Fight Fire Now is a “major” film tastes like ash in my mouth). More importantly, it’s the sequel to a four-year-old film that’s broadly regarded as the best movie DreamWorks Animation has ever made. And there have been many appreciations advanced through the years as to why How to Train Your Dragon is so good – a comic tone that never trumps the basic sincerity of the story, John Powell’s gorgeous, Celtic-tinged score, the first actual decent animation of normal humans in the studio’s history – I can tell you pretty easily why it’s my own personal favorite: it’s the best movie about cats ever made.

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