Links: Color Purple, Yuba County, and Rebel Wilson

Playbill very cool news. The tony winning The Color Purple musical will be adapted to screen. Smart of Cynthia Erivo to immediately focus on the screen following her Tony win for that show. Perhaps she can transfer the role now that she has a larger profile in the film industry?
Pajiba first photos of Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly offer an uncanny resemblance
Tod Phillips Joaquin Phoenix taking a smoke break on the set of The Joker
/Film Deadwood just began production on a movie with the TV series cast returning to their acclaimed roles

IndieWire held a little ceremony to honor some of this year's top film people: Charlize Theron, Amandla Stenberg, Ryan Coogler, and Alfonso Cuarón among them.
Tribeca Film Disobedience deserves a place in awards season
Variety Rebel Wilson in hot water after proclaiming (incorrectly) that she's the first plus size woman to lead a rom-com (if she had just admitted she was wrong, this wouldn't have blown up but for some reason she doubled down)
Variety Fun! Allison Janney and Laura Dern will be co-starring in a comedy called Breaking News in Yuba County for director Tate Taylor (The Help)
Awards Daily Best Song Oscar-winner Annie Lennox wrote a new tune for A Private War
Into on the erasure of both polyamory and bisexuality in Bohemian Rhapsody
Humanizing the Vacuum perceptive review of Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Review: "Bad Times at the El Royale"

by Chris Feil

Drew Goddard has become a Hollywood go-to screenwriters for charging genres with new life, molding The Martian with equal parts brainy science and dopiness and both upholding and subverting the monster movie with Cloverfield. Bad Times at the El Royale is his first return to the director’s chair since the horror spoof-but-also-not-a-spoof The Cabin in The Woods, and again he has perhaps bitten off more than he can narratively chew.

This time Goddard is taking on pulpy pop noir, setting for a showdown at a highway hotel bisected by the California-Nevada border. Checking in are Cynthia Erivo’s quiet lounge singer Darlene, Jon Hamm’s chatterbox vacuum salesman Laramie Sullivan, Dakota Johnson as a mysterious woman named Emily, and Jeff Bridges giving the most Bridges as a suspicious priest named Father Flynn. The writer/director has Tarantino on the brain as Agatha Christie, chaptering the film by the various rooms hosting each guest and slowing revealing the night’s dirty deeds from each of their perspectives. Think of it like a heterosexual Clue mixed with a bisexual Reservoir Dogs, but not as fun.

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Cynthia Erivo will play Harriet Tubman

by Murtada Elfadl

Cynthia Erivo who made waves this week at TIFF as one quarter of Widows has announced her next project. She will play iconic freedom fighter Harriet Tubman in Harriet. The film will follow Tubman on her escape from slavery and subsequent missions to free many slaves through the Underground Railroad in pre-Civil War America. More exciting is that Harriet will be directed by Kasi Lemmons of Eve’s Bayou (1997), a film we adore. This will be Lemmons' first film since Black Nativity (2013), in the past few years she’s been directing episodes of TV shows like Luke Cage and Shots Fired.

Joining Erivo in the cast are Leslie Odom Jr.,  Joe Alwyn ( who’s very busy this fall with parts in Boy Erased, The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots), Clarke Peters (Detective Freamon in The Wire) and surprisingly country music singer Jennifer Nettles.

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Would you rather...?

Time for our intermittent stupid game in which we fantasize about hanging with celebrities. You can see all past roundups here if you want to be confronted with yet more impossible choices as to your celeb-fueled fantasy life options. Ready? Pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

Would you rather

...eat burgers with directors Gregg Araki & Andrew Ahn?
... do your makeup with Janet Jackson?
... tour Russia with Sarah Jessica Parker?
... celebrate Jeremy Jordan's birthday with a slice of Star Wars cake?
... cosplay Wonder Woman with Manila Luzon?
...work out with Cynthia Erivo?
... try Madonna's new skin care line with one of her BFFs Debi Mazar?
... visit an art gallery devoted to cinema with Emmanuelle Devos?
... get Christmas sweater-festive with Juliette Lewis?
... be inspired by the superhero Nightwing in your fitness goals with Vincent Rodriguez?
...help Naomi Watts celebrate her mom's new book launch?

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Q&A: The Force is With Reader Questions

by Nathaniel R

I got a little verbosely carried away whilst answering reader questions so you get two Q & A columns from your last batch of questions. Thanks for playing. This week I asked for a few Star Wars Questions but that's just three of the six questions answered here. Ready, let's go! 

TROY: Within the past year Cynthia Erivo has won a Tony, Grammy, and Daytime Emmy for her work in the recent Broadway revival of The Color Purple, making her only one step away from completing the EGOT. Which type of project do you think would giver her her best chance at winning an Oscar?

NATHANIEL: I hate to get nitpicky but technically should Daytime Emmys even count with the EGOT? If you count any old Emmy as towards the EGOT than about 100,000 people you've never heard of who have local Emmies (seriously they give those statues out like candy) are 1/4th of the way to that showbiz goal. It's only Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Lopez, and their fans that would argue that Daytime Emmys count. No shade!

Anyway my dream for Erivo is that they give her either the film version of The Color Purple musical, though I fear they'd just hand it to a bigger less worthy star (like, oh, Jennifer Hudson, who she and Danielle Brooks, the other Tony nominee from that show, both ran circles around onstage) or a film version of Caroline or Change (if they won't rehire the incredible Tonya Pinkins) as those two roles are powerhouse vehicles for a black woman with giant pipes. But any musical role would be dreamy. That voice!

 PEDRO: What is your favorite Star Wars character? And your favorite Star Wars actor?

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