Hello Linky

Just two handfuls of links this morning. I'm still on my birthday tear for Tony weekend -- finally saw Hello, Dolly! on Broadway last night with Bernadette Peters and as usual she was an adorable diva. Laughed my ass off. A friend of mine revealed that he had already seen the show four times to see all three leading ladies (Bette, Donna Murphy x 2, Bernadette). Bette returns to the show (with the magical Donna Murphy on Bette's off days since Bette can't handle 8 shows a week) on July 17th. I don't have the funds for three trips but would definitely see again if the chance occurs.

• Vulture what would Sex and the City plotlines be like if the show were still on. Vulture asks members of the original writing team
• THR With other companies pursuin g him Warner Bros reups with prolific TV producer Greg Berlanti (who also directs the occasional movie - hi, Love Simon) for $400 million. In cash no less!
• The Daily Beast talks to Sutton Foster about Younger's evolution
• Rewire great reflective piece by Kieran Scarlett on black fathers in TV (Black-ish and Cosby)
• i09 John Lasseter is leaving Disney after his suspension for misconduct with female co-workers
• Awards Daily a glitzy Emmy FYC event to celebrate the costumes of RuPaul's Drag Race
• Words Seem Out of Place writes a letter to Angela (Michelle Pfeiffer) from Married to the Mob 

It's Tony Weekend so a bit of theatah for you
• Vulture hilarious article ranking all 41 Broadway theaters
• Time Out New York first headshots of all the Tony nominees. These are priceless! Especially the ones of Mark Rylance, Lauren Ambrose, Grey Henson, Amy Schumer, and Ari'el Stachel
• MNPP Corey Stoll is wearing leather pants as Iago in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Othello 

Review: "The Seagull"

by Jason Adams

Nina (Saoirse Ronan) is sweetly exasperated by Konstantin (Billy Howle), whose avant-garde play she has just acted (and flopped) in for a small crowd of friends and relations. "Nothing happens in your play," she says. "It's all people talking. You ought to add a love story."

Anton Chekov, who wrote the maybe-you've-heard-of-it 1895 play The Seagull upon which this movie is based, was of course making a joke at his own expense --The Seagull is really nothing but talk and love stories. Half a dozen love stories are all twisted up, a gordian knot of romantic entanglements...

Click to read more ...

On this day: Hemingway, Falconetti, Clueless, Dunkirk

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

Corey Stoll as Hemingway

1892 Maria Falconetti is born. Delivers one of the best performances ever captured on film thirty-six years later in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
1899 Famous author and real 'character' Ernest Hemingway is born. In addition to his work being made into films and TV miniseries he frequently pops up as a character in cinema played by everyone from Chris O'Donnell (In Love and War) to Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris - robbed of an Oscar nod though we honored him here) and now Dominic West (Genius) ...and that's not even the half of it.
1922 Don Knotts is born. Mugs it up in 70+ film and TV projects including Three's Company, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and The Andy Griffith Show - 5 Emmy wins for Supporting Actor thereafter until his death in 2006

1948 Steven Demetre Georgiu is born in London. He becomes the famous folk singer Cat Stevens of "Peace Train" and "Morning Has Broken" fame. Among his many early classics are the songs from the seminal 70s film Harold and Maude (which ridiculously received zero Oscar nominations). Later changes his name to Yusuf Islam and quits music for many years.
1951 Robin Williams is born
1953 Visual FX man John Nelson is born in Detroit. Gets his first FX gig with Terminator 2 (not a bad way to start) and wins the Oscar on his first nomination with Gladiator (2000)
1955 Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr is born. His best known pictures: Sátántangó, Werckmeister Harmóniák and The Turin Horse
1957 Jon Lovitz, SNL's "Master Thespian" and comic scene stealer of 90s pictures is born
1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to step on the moon; Stanley Kubrick is nowhere in the vicinity at the time.
1971 Charlotte Gainsbourg is born to famous parents in London. Later submits herself to perpetual Lars von Trier torments.
1978 Ridiculously fine looking actors Josh Hartnett and Justin Bartha are born
1981 Singer Paloma Faith is born in London. Plays herself in a weirdly unflattering role in Youth (2015)
1989 Juno Temple is born. Specializes in sexually corrupted childwomen.
1992 Jessica Barden is born. 2016's been a breakout year for her via  "Justine," a bloodthirsty prostitute on Penny Dreadful and her role as "Nosebleed Woman" in The Lobster 
1995 Clueless is 21 years old today. It can drink now though it's always given us a contact high. (Please note: IMDb lists the release date as Wednesday the 19th rather than Friday the 21st but Wikipedia disagrees so I don't know.)
2006 Monster House hits theaters. Receives a well deserved nomination for Best Animated Feature but loses to Happy Feet which... recount!

Well, whichever. At least Cars didn't win!

2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes to market in book form. Sells 11 million copies on the first day before being split in two in movie form to reap an extra billion at the box office.
2010 Orlando Bloom goes off the market when he secretly marries model Miranda Kerr
2017 Christopher Nolan abandons sci-fi for a WW II drama Dunkirk, which will open in theaters on this day. Guess he really is pissed about being denied a single Oscar nomination for directing. 

Cannes Review: Woody Allen's "Café Society"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It's reprinted here in a slightly expanded version...

Few things in life are as regular as Woody Allen movies. For the past 40 years or so they arrive exactly once a year. In recent years they generally premiere out of competition at Cannes and predictably reignite the endless cycle of media wars about Woody Allen.

The only thing irregular about the experience is the reviews, box office, and Oscars. For the past 10 years or so it’s been especially hard to predict. In that time he’s delivered critical and commercial Oscar winning hits that the media fawned over (Blue Jasmine, Midnight in Paris), well received films that didn’t quite crossover to that same extent (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), critical flops that did surprisingly okay at the box office (To Rome With Love), trifles that people tolerated (Scoop), reanimated abandoned projects that everyone wished had stayed dead (Whatever Works), as well as a critical and commercial flop (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and one that didn't actually seem to exist at all (Cassandra’s Dream).

In short (too late!) his films come with a lot of history and even more baggage.

His latest, Café Society, begins with very little literal baggage as a young optimistic man named Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) leaves New York for Hollywood for reasons that don’t extend much beyond “trying something new.” [More...]

Click to read more ...

Thoughts I Had... The "Cafe Society" Poster

Look at this amazing poster for Woody Allen's Cafe Society (2016). The film will open the Cannes Film Festival and also, a little closer to home, the Seattle Film Festival this May. It will play near you this August as counterprogramming to Suicide Squad and Pete's Dragon.

After the jump, thoughts I had as they came to me unedited. Share yours, too, why don'cha...

Click to read more ...