Exodus: To Links and Blogs

Let my readers go... to other places. Here are a bunch of articles I enjoyed elsewhere or which are worthwhile for their informational newsiness. But come back soon, okay? Okay.

Screen
Dissolve a new Pee Wee Herman movie is "imminent"  
The Dissolve rights to John Carter of Mars have reverted to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate. Do you think we'll get another film... and will it be better? 
The Guardian on Renée Zellweger and 'the Actor's face as His/Her brand'. I made a point of not talking about Zeéeeee's looks yesterday in my own post about the photo but this is an interesting non-aggressive non-misogynist piece about movie stars and how shifts to their brand work (or don't).

I was going to link to another Guardian piece about Julianne Moore and Ellen Page's lesbian drama Freeheld experiencing bigotry already banned from filming at a Catholic school but the page started playing really loud Arby's ads (WTH?) so, no. If you appreciate that I don't allow audio ads on this site (unless it's your choice to play the audio as in the sidebar Oscar ads later in the year) than you should maybe donate to the site to help keep us afloat. (see right hand sidebar. Kisses) 

Screen, Superheroics Corner
Pajiba Ming Na-Wen fought herself on last week's Agents of SHIELD for a series highlight. Which other characters should do the same? And yes, the show is actually really good in season 2. Surprise! Last night's episode was really exciting and next week, they'll premiere the trailer to Avengers: Age of Ultron
Comics Alliance talks to Jason Momoa who is excited to embrace his Polynesian heritage as Aquaman. I like Aquaman, and I have no trouble with switching races of known characters - especially when it makes sense (as it would here and similarly I pray to God they don't try to cast a white guy as Iron Fist when they get around to that character since he'd make so much more sense as an Asian). All that said I am not a fan of Jason Momoa - don't respond well to his enormously bulky look and wasn't impressed with him as an actor in Game of Thrones. 
We Minored in Film Painkiller Jane to get her own movie, possibly beat high profile superheroines to the screen

Off Screen
Vanity Fair Sarah Jessica Parker's unauthorized shoe-stoop photography 
Boy Culture meets Annie Lennox
The Cut The Met's new cleverly titled exhibit on mourning fashions is called "Death Becomes Her". Sadly there is no sidebar exhibit on Madeline Ashton & Helen Sharp. A pity because "I would like... to... talk... about... Madeline Ashton"  

EXODUS: OF COSTUMES AND KINGS
I recently attended a sneak preview of footage from Exodus: Of Gods and Kings. We were shown about 40 minutes of the Biblical epic which seems to be Cecil B DeMille's The Ten Commandments minus Anne Baxter's campiness (pity) remade through the lens of Ridley Scott's Gladiator. Moses is no longer a "splendid adorable fool" but a guylined killing machine (at least in the early action sequence we saw). Ridley Scott's movies are always great looking however they come across otherwise and this one looked suitably gigantic. Especially the plagues and the finale Red Sea chase. I admit I was somewhat distracted worrying about the horses who are dying right and left in these sequences. I will never be able to watch old school war scenes without worrying about the horses, all the pretty horses. Yes I am one of those animal lovers that stays through the end credits to make sure no animals were harmed in the making of anything.

Here's a featurette on the golden costumes by Oscar winner Janty Yates (Gladiator)! She mentions the film's powerful women but they weren't showcased at all in our preview. Sigweavie only got a couple of side-eyes in. I must admit, too, that at our preview I was baffled as to why Sir Ridley kept appearing between the scenes to explain the plot. UM. MOSES. THE BIBLE. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. It's a bit like describing what happens in Noah. Let me guess: Rageful god warning, two animals of every kind, floods!? Actually come to think of it, Moses's story beats are not unlike the Noah template only two animals of every kind is more thousands of only two kinds (frogs/locusts) and the flood is region specific.

Are you planning to see Exodus? Do you like actors in guyliner and gold plated costumes? The latter is a rhetorical question since your answer should be use.

Top Ten Tweets: from Death Becomes Her to Dracula Untold

No, I'm not desperate for material. I'm not!

It's just that certain other more substantive articles are taking me longer than I expected because I over do it, don'cha know. In case you haven't noticed today, our season premiere, is a special "top ten day" - lists all day!

It is no secret that I love twitter. So much truth, fun, satire, insight, and silliness in 140 characters for when your attention span is very very short. You should follow the team on twitter: Nathaniel, Michael, Anne Marie, Jason, Glenn, Amir, Abstew newbies Manuel & Margaret (...and Matthew should he ever resurface)

10 BEST TWEETS OF THE WEEK
 aka random tweets that Nathaniel loved

The one thing that is more threatening to me than ebola is the proliferation of YouTube celebrities into mainstream culture.

— Robert Kessler (@robertkessler) October 13, 2014

We should remake DEATH BECOMES HER using only this year's Best Actress contenders.

— Jordan (@veilleuxwho) October 12, 2014

8 more: Clooney, Mean Girls, Dracula after the jump

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Beauty Vs Beast: Death Becomes Them

JA from MNPP here, starting off a new week with a brand new round of Beauty Vs Beast! I hope everybody enjoyed the Oscars last night - there were highs (Lupita!) and there were lows (another year of ill-incorporated montages) but there is one thing we can all agree upon: seeing Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in the same room like that made us all wish we were watching Death Becomes Her instead.

I was really hoping they'd present together, or maybe Meryl would just randomly scream out "NOW, A WARNING?" while Goldie was on-stage, or maybe Jennifer Lawrence would tumble down the theater's stairs and break into pieces in an elaborate tribute to the nearly twenty-two year old film? ...Something. Anything! Isabella Rossellini could've been carried out onto stage by some muscle men, perhaps? Alas it wasn't to be, save my imagination.

Thankfully I can trot out my imagination here, then. I give you this week's competition...

poll by twiigs.com

As always go ahead and make your cases for and against Robert Zemeckis' forever-living nut-cases in the comments, and in one week's time we'll down the potion and crown our new eternal queen.

And speaking of, crowns and queens and golden things with icy-cold skin, we've got to name our winner from last week's Frozen poll! It was pretty much a blow-out - Princess Elsa had too much diva-draw and strut herself to an easy win against her less flashy sister. As Anne-Marie said in the comments:

My vote is entirely colored by how badly I felt for Anna when I went to Disneyland in January. Literally every Elsa doll in the park was gone, so there were just all of these abandoned Anna dolls all through the park and it just made me so sad for this fictional character. Always living in her sister's diva shadow."

And so she shall remain. Team Elsa for the win!

Twins: Isabella & Isotta Ingrid

We're celebrating twins while we're in Gemini

Did you know that Isabella Rossellini had a twin sister? They aren't identical but she does. The legendary screen goddess Ingrid Bergman had four children, the first Pia arrived with her first marriage to Peter Lindstrom. After her scandalous affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini (which sank her career in the US for a good long while -- her third Oscar was seen, to some extent, as Hollywood's forgiveness) she moved to Italy, and had son Roberto Rossellini folllowed by daughters Isabella and Isotta Ingrid.

The Rossellini kids in 1959: Isabella, Roberto and Isotta Ingrid

Do you think Isotta Ingrid is as fascinated by animal sex* (Green Porno forever!) as her sister Isabella? Well, Isotta is in Academia, so... maybe.  

a more recent picture of the twins and more after the jump.

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Readers' Ranking: Our Streep Fixation

It's our first "Reader Ranking" project. The subject was the one and only Meryl Streep. Recently I gave you a little bit of a statistical tease about reader ballots including little tidbits like Ironweed (1987) being the least seen and Prada (2006) the most. Since it's too early to know where The Iron Lady (her 17th Oscar nomination) will fall in long term evaluations of her career, I asked readers to rank all 16 of her previous Oscar nominations (only the ones they'd seen) and I weighted the ballots so that the more you'd seen the stronger your voice in the final tally. This would give the little seen movies a fighting chance if the people who'd seen them loved them. For the readers who had seen everything, I contacted them to hear more about their Streep fixation.

Wanna hear some of their stories? 

I thought so.

We'll start the countdown tomorrow with #16-#11 but here is a prologue to get you in the mood. Not that you need a mood setter for Streep. You're always in that mood. I'm saving some of the quotes for the countdown but here are a baker's dozen discovery stories...

__________________________

ERIK
When did you first discover Streep?
"Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979. It opened on my birthday and at the time my parents were on the verge of divorce. I didn't know anything about Streep at the time but I was transfixed immediately. It was amazing that I could be watching something about a situation I was actually going through but instead of dwelling on that I was so absorbed by her and her performance." 

Top of his ballot?
Bridges of Madison County. "I could have a different 1st place almost any day of the week." 

Hey, couldn't we all?

__________________________

BEAU
When did you first discover Streep?
"My first memory of watching Meryl is Death Becomes Her (1992).  I was 11 when it came out and my mom and I watched it in the theatre.  It was just so much fun. My fascination with her and her career came a few years later when I was shown Holocaust (1978) at school.  I will never forget how I felt watching her dedication to James Woods and her eyes telling such a heartbreaking story.  It was after that, at age 13 or 14, that I became a Streep devotee." 

Top of his ballot
Sophie's Choice. (I always forget that it was her second Holocaust related movie. I've never seen Holocaust!)

__________________________

MARTIN
When did you discover Streep?
"Silkwood, blown away immediately buy her performance. Movie poster was up on my wall next to Duran Duran. I was always addicted to the Oscars and Meryl quickly became one off my favorites next to Katherine Hepburn, Jodie Foster & Doris Day (yeahh I know, but I still think she delivered some great performances - she's my Sandra). I love the way her acting mind works...

MORE READER ♥ STREEP AFTER THE JUMP

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