The Incredible Linking Man

• The Cut "I'm rooting for the Lannisters" fun piece on Game of Thrones (which I still read about on occasion even though I haven't watched since season 2)
• /Film Guillermo del Toro's official tequila looks like it's from one of his movies
• Vulture every Charlize Theron performance ranked. Interesting list though I quibble with the order (as they seem to equate the quality of the movies with the quality of her performance and Theron is precisely the star she is because she is often able to be good even in terrible pictures). Also Young Adult should be #1

• Playbill all star cast lined up for Steve Martin's next Broadway show (after his musical Bright Star), this one's a comedy called Meteor Shower
• Browbeat the internet goes wild for old Russ Tamblyn dancing clip from 1956
• Tracking Board Nicole Kidman is in talks to headline a crime thriller called Destroyer directed by Karyn Kusama. Kusama is promising that though it's a genre film it's also "a beautiful character study of an incredible female"
• Variety we were wondering when Ruth Negga would start lining up big roles after Loving. She'll star opposite Brad Pitt in the sci-fi movie Ad Astra
• Awards Daily This is Us has lost one of its Emmy nominations, costume design.
• The Wrap this piece about Marvel's plans for Spider-Man got a lot of internet pass-around but it really doesn't tell you much other than they're going to make Spidey a thing in all the crossover movies

Two pieces about criticism/discussion of racial politics in movies/theaters right now

• American Theater a thoughtful piece on the counterproductive assault on Broadway's Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. (We haven't yet heard if the show is actually closing following it's poorly handled casting changes but it might... but the producers were apparently considering it)
• Birth Movies Death a very navel gazing piece about being an ally and trying to navigate pop culture criticism in the current political climate and intersectional age

Exit Video
Handsome talented Aaron Tveit is taking on the classic role of Bobby in another production of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece (one of them, at least) Company. This one starts in a couple of days in Massachusetts so go if you live near there and report back. Here he is rehearsing...

Link Wood

THR Felicity Jones replaces Portman in a Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic
Vox How Tom Holland's dance training makes him a fresh Spider-Man
LA Times talks to 18 funny black actresses about their comic careers
Vulture Revenge of the Twink as slimmer male stars finally start getting action roles -- a nice switch over from the steroid set. For now at least

Pajiba five reasons why HBO's proposed Confederate series, from the guys behind Game of Thrones, is a terrible, disappointing, irresponsible idea
Vulture Bilge Elbiri ranks all of Christopher Nolan's movies. The new one, Dunkirk, is #1
IndieWire David Ehrlich ranks all of Luc Besson's movies so you don't have to. The new one, Valerian, is #6
My New Plaid Pants honors the current social media exhibitionistic streak of Zachary Quinto and his boyfriend
Playlist Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin) working on his next film already. Yaaas!
Den of Geek People are still fantasizing about Christoper Nolan doing a James Bond movie including, apparently, Nolan himself. 
Leonard Maltin interesting article on film preservation -- what happens to the cannisters and film -- and the impending distintegration of the Hopalong Cassidy westerns
IndieWire reminds us on Dunkirk weekend, that Atonement already went to that infamous war plagued beach in that film's breathtaking 5 minute tracking shot

Off Screen
Show Score Radical Idea... what if stage shows kept the house lights on?
The New Yorker gives good satire on why Hillary Clinton should disappear from public life
Out Greyson Chance, who first came to fame with a viral video of a Lady Gaga cover when he was just 12 has come out at 19 years of age
GQ "it's time you stopped believing in 'dressing your age'"

Oh and Today is...
INTERNATIONAL NATALIE WOOD DAY
i.e. a holiday that should be real since July 20th is her birthday. She would have been 79 today... the same age as Diana Rigg, Jon Voight, Terence Stamp, and Richard Beymer who all still work. Imagine what kind of movies and TV projects Natalie Wood could have done in in the past 40 years. *sniffle*  I imagine she would have moved to TV early as so many movie queens did in the 1980s but I bet she would have had a movie comeback too, given that she was still so young when she died. 

"Girl, you'll be a woman soon... Soon, you'll need a man 🎵"

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Today's 5: 'You do an eclectic celebration of the dance!"...

Five Life-hacking / mood-boosting / homework assignments -- whatever you want to call them -- pulled from showbiz history each day. Here are your assignments for May 11th! 

2007 It's the tenth anniversary of Georgia Rule, which featured Lindsay Lohan as the wayward granddaughter of strict religious Jane Fonda, the last time Lindsay would lead a reputable mainstream film (whatever one may think of its actual quality). She was just 20 years old...

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Stand under Tom's umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh 🎵

Tom Holland might've already given the performance of the summer and Spider-Man: Homecoming isn't even out yet! He attacked Rihanna's "Umbrella" in goth drag for Lip Synch Battle yesterday, bringing all his Billy Elliott & Peter Parker dance/athleticism with him to the stage. You can watch it after the jump until they take the video down of course... 

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