Link Factory

• Mashable badly seeded March Madness brackets are terrible storytelling
• Film School Rejects picks the 18 best movies of 2018 thus far (weird-ass rankings if you ask me, especially with Isle of Dogs below A Wrinkle in Time... and the kind of obnoxious indie supernatural ovie The Endless)
• Decider looking back at an old Tiny Toons episode about representation in 1990
• Screen Crush man died when head got stuck in seat at movie theater (I'm going to have nightmares)
• E! Online Arnold Schwarzenegger has emergency open heart surgery

• Tracking Board  Twice delayed X-Men adjacent movie The New Mutants has been a nightmare to make; Fox keeps changing their mind about what they want it to be. While we all might complain from time to time about Marvel Studios (who are far from perfect -- especially in regards to gender) at least they seem to know what they want every time and how to get there. Even if what they want has been a bit formulaic until recently.
• Cartoon Brew it only took 32 years (oy!)  for a woman to get to direct a Pixar short
• AV Club here's another cute report about that movie which is called Bao and about a dumpling that comes to life
• My New Plaid Pants Klaes Bang, of The Square fame, made a gay short film
• Jim Carrey I somehow missed that in his spare time the seemingly retired movie star has become a political cartoonist. A pretty good one, too. This reminds me of the first time I saw him. Anyone remember his short-lived sitcom Duck Factory in which he played a cartoonist?
• Vanity Fair a good pilot season for South Asian actors - lots of roles in all sorts of shows
• Deadline the cast of Sex & the City supporting Cynthia Nixon's run for NY Governor
• Theater Mania Desperate Measures, which was so so wonderful in its premiere engagement (we talked about it here) is getting an open ended run off Broadway soon. Here's hoping the hilarious original cast is available.

Merch Madness: Actress Edition

Seán here with a little bit of fun. Cynthia Nixon was blessed to be a called an "unqualified lesbian" last week, and is now dropping some of this dank dope cool merch to raise money for her campaign for Governer of New York.

And while Miranda was swapping brunch for nutritious lunches in our public schools - I couldn't help but wonder: what is some of the best and truly worst actress-centred merchandise out there in the swamp we lovingly know as Etsy? From the brilliant Girls on Tops to something a little bit more, um... interesting.

I never had to google "Meryl Streep merchandise" before, but I'm glad I did. Share your finds in the comments.

And the Links Go To...

Team Experience has been sharing favorite moments from Oscar night  but we must slowly ween ourselves off of Oscar (*sniffle*) and back to the new year in progress. Link time! 

• Vulture The Oscars should always be long (I love this piece with all my heart)
• Liza Donnelly her collection of live drawings from Oscar week

Miscellaneous Screen
• Indie Wire how fun is this? A theater in San Francisco is hosting a screening of Isle of Dogs in which moviegoers can bring their dogs into the theater!
• Deadline apparently there are competing projects about Sharon Tate and the Manson murders. Tate's surviving families are supporting a version starring Kate Bosworth and they're upset with the other two projects (one of which is Quentin Tarantino's)
• AV Club hilarious story -- a teen broke her retainer biting down on it while thirsting for Michael B Jordan in Black Panther. He's now offered to buy her a new one
• MNPP Jason reminds us that David Robert Mitchell (of It Follows promise) has a new movie coming out starring Andrew Garfield
• The Muse how many more non-hits can Jennifer Lawrence's career withstand?
• Straight Outta Crouch End A fascinating take on A Fantastic Woman and its references to Orpheus and Eurydice.

Off Screen
• Vox on MoviePass's fuzzy business model
• Slate Russell Crowe holding a "divorce auction". Do the items paint a "strange and mesmerizing portrait"?
• Out Actress Cynthia Nixon is laying the groundwork to run for Governor in NY
• TodayTix "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" on Broadway has $40 lottery tickets -regular seats are hundreds of dollars so competition will be fierce. Friday morning entry only!
• NYT "The Shed," a newperformance space in Manhattan is looking to mash art-forms up from film directors staging concerts to collaborations between actors, poets, and opera stars? Sounds exciting.

The New York Times' Great Performers' Shorts, Ranked

by Ilich Mejia

Every year, The New York Times Magazine picks their greatest performers of the year. This year's top ten each got to star in their own silent, "Horror Show" themed short. Italian-Canadian photographer Floria Sigismondi directed the group as characters that wouldn't be out of place in Beyoncé's haunted house. Hopefully next year, the magazine will branch out and recognize some of television's equally terrific performances. Check out the spooky standouts after the cut...

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The Furniture: A Quiet Passion's Floral Punctuations

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

by Daniel Walber 

If you know one thing about the life of Emily Dickinson, it’s probably that she was a recluse. She spent the last years of her life cooped up in her Massachusetts home. Very few of her 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. Up until very recently, only one picture of her was known to exist.

Yet she is now recognized as the most important American poet of the 19th century. That her universally resonant voice emerged from such isolation has seemed miraculous. A Quiet Passion peers into this conundrum and finds some strikingly poetic answers.

Unsurprisingly, the key to understanding is found in her house. Cynthia Nixon gives a brilliant performance, but the difference between Terence Davies’s film and lesser biopics is that she is not left to fend for herself. The work of production designer Merijn Sep and set decorator Ilse Willocx is crucial... 

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