Bibbidi Bonhamy Boo ♫

I seriously don't know why casting directors exist anymore because there are apparently only 3 actors for every type of role since famous actors are always cast in exactly the same ways. Need an eccentric older British actress to play someone magical? GET HELENA BONHAM CARTER! 

You've probably already heard that everyone's favorite former Victorian china doll turned black arts ghoul turned Burton Queen will play the Fairy Godmother in the new live action Cinderella. (Thankfully this is NOT a musical. I love Helena but I beg her to stop doing musicals!) Somewhere Johnny Depp is grinning like a cheshire cat as they made a blood pact in the early Aughts to never play anything but cartoon characters again! 

Regardless, she'll be great fun in the role and there is a mild twist to this casting actually. For many years now, The King's Speech aside, Helena has been automatically associated with Demented Wickedness. Unless they rethink the whole story this time she's crossed over to the light!

We haven't discussed this film much beyond the casting of Cate Blanchett as Wicked Stepmother which was something of a surprise (if only because it's been a few years since Cate Blanchett was one of the 4 people who were cast in everything without fail) but I'm curious.

Lily James (Downton Abbey) as Cinderella. Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) as the Prince. Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey) as Drizella

Kenneth Branagh and his casting director have clearly been watching their tellys since they've pulled from Downton Abbey (twice...and yay on McShera as Drizella!!!) and Game of Thrones (Madden gets a happy ending this time!). Branagh is hit and miss as a director but he started off so strong (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Dead Again are all just spirited joys to watch, aren't they?) that I'm always hoping he'll recapture that. But am I the only one who found Lily James almost unbearbably irritating on Downton Abbey? Let's hope that was just her flighty petulant character confusing me!

How long do you suppose Hollywood's recent fascination with fairy tales is going to last?
And if the expiration date is near, which fairy tale do you hope they rethink / revive / regurgitate soon. 

You're Gonna Link Me When I'm Gone

Erik Lundegaard "find the future movie star". This was really fun and hard... I briefly thought I saw James Cagney but that wasn't it... (here's the answer if you can't figure it out)
Los Angeles Times Lincoln Center honored the one and only Barbra Streisand this week. I was not invited though I sought an invitation which I have to admit depressed me. In related news: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARBRA!
i09 the new After Earth trailer proves M Night Shyamalan doesn't know how evolution works
Salon YouTube's eighth birthday brings classic time-wasters 
Gawker Ben Affleck to spend only $1.50 a day for five days in honor of movie blogge... oh I'm sorry, as part of the "Live Below the Line" challenge meant to draw attention to Global Poverty. 

Speaking of Affleck...

i09 Marvel got the rights to Daredevil back from Fox. Will they use them. And how soon? I really wish they'd consider a TV series for at least one of their characters. Lawyers belong on TV. Surely they got the industry mandate on that?
Slash ...and speaking of Marvel Studios. Lee Pace, whom we love here at TFE, is in final talks to play the villain in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. I don't know that series but this is terrible news since his perfect perfect mug will undoubtedly be buried in some weird unrecognizably villainous makeup. Stop making beautiful people ugly, Hollywood! Ugly actors need jobs too.

and more non-Marvel links
In Contention Dallas Buyers Club goes to Focus. Will it be their prime Oscar contender for 2013? 
Towleroad Downton Abbey: The Musical 
Welcome to Twin Peaks amazingly creepy mashup of Twin Peaks and The Shining
Empire Chloe Moretz, uncontent to haunt me in every Hollywood picture is considering working with one of my favorite European auteurs Olivier Assayas for a film called Sils Maria. I have to admit the plot sounds super interesting (especially since the Irma Vep auteur is behind it) with Moretz possibly playing an actress currently playing one of another actresses (Binoche) defining roles.  
Cinema Blend Entertainment giant and sort of retired director Mike Nichols returning with One Last Thing Before I Go. Ugh. why didn't he just say yes to August: Osage County then?!? 

and look!

Anna Kendrick made a music video. The song will be familiar if you saw Pitch Perfect. There's a funny reaction to this on Videogum.

and Tweet of the Day goes to Dwayne Johnson "the Rock" who sent his fans this pic from his hospital bed after hernia surgery.

Ha! (The Superman t-shirt is perfect since he's already practically a cartoon superhero)

Link Bowl

AP the inventor of Etch-a-Sketch has died. If I still had one still, i would draw you the saddest frown right now. Unhappy about this!
YouTube "Upside Downton Abbey" via Sesame Street
Playbill interviews Sebastian Stan who has now made a name for himself on all three actors mediums: film, tv, and stage (with Picnic, previously discussed)
BuzzFeed why The Amazing Spider-Man sequel will prove to be a bizarro version of Spider-Man 3 

Comics Alliance this made me lol'an extensive discussion of Batman punching animals'
Salon Richard Kramer remembers his mentor Pauline Kael
/Film Matthew Modine has had his diaries from Full Metal Jacket made into an iPad App. Great idea.
Carpetbagger Wreck-It Ralph scores at the Annie Awards
Empire Johnny Depp might finally play a non cartoon again. He could attend Black Mass, a true story crime drama, with Barry Levinson directing. He's done this genre before to varying but mostly positive results (Public Enemies, Donnie Brasco) 

Awards Daily on the conjoined fall & rise of Zero Dark Thirty and Argo
The New Yorker nominated The Paperboy for future camp classic now that it's on DVD "where it belongs"
Jeremy Helligar on why Joaquin Phoenix should win the Oscar instead of Day Lewis. Love this bit... 

Quell was a mix of standout characteristics of at least three of the characters played by Phoenix's Best Actor Oscar competition, a drunk like Washington's Whip Whitaker, cuckoo like Cooper's Pat Solitano (though hardly recovering) and criminal like Jackman's Jean Valjean (again, hardly reformed). If The Master had been set 100 years earlier, circa 1850, I have no doubt that Freddie would have wanted to free the slaves, too.

Do you have any impossible dream of Daniel's third going to someone else?

I Could've Linked All Night

Boy Culture shares photos of 25 stars first and last appearances onscreen. Fun randomness. Greta Garbo & Marlene Dietrich transformations are big whoas.
FilmDrunxx has a funny piece on declining Rotten Tomatoes scores (in this case: The Last Stand with Schwarzenegger). Be warned sensitive Steven Spielberg fans: there's a jab at him at the tail end.
Guardian is asking for mocked up movie posters with title casting and soundtrack suggestions for JJ Abrams proposed Lance Armstrong biopic. My guess is their inbox is already full.

Pajiba looks at 20 interesting facts about Joss Whedon and The Avengers -- I'm not sure what brought this on, now, in January but I enjoyed reading it. 
The Sun Benedict Cumberbatch teases his legion of crazed fans by joking about how tight his Star Trek Into Darkness costume is

You can almost see what religion I am." 

CHUD famed poster artist Drew Struzan has been asked about doing posters for the next three Star Wars films. I approve. Weirdly the article refers to Strusan as "the director"... um... the director of his airbrush and cintiq?
Vogue UK has Miucci Prada sketches for The Great Gatsby costumes 

Small Screen
Pajiba b*tch rankings with Downton Abbey
Advocate recommends FBI vs serial killer show The Following which is supposedly slightly gay-ish horror. Doesn't American Horror Story already cover anyone jonezing for that? 

Devil's Advocate
David Edelstein 'why i hate the Oscars'... the piece, though anti-awards, is much richer than the dumb headline
Telegraph 'why I walked out of Les Misérables' it's another attack piece but I'm linking up because there is stuff of note: like voice goddess Marni Nixon's (Sound of Music, West Side Story, My Fair Lady) feelings on live-singing. This piece has further convinced me that people, in general, whether they love musicals or not, have a really hard time dealing with musicals of any kind, being satisfied by them, knowing even what they expect of the form. I'm still not sure why the genre has such difficulties with audiences given the absolute suspension of disbelief afforded every other genre in modern times. The silver lining for the ongoing Les Miz debate for me though is that more and more people seem to be saying 'why can't they just cast great singers and let them sing great songs' which is reductive but correct and also what I've been bitching about for my entire lifetime since I wasn't alive in that mythical time (post-silent cinema - pre Cabaret) when people loved musicals without shame and without so many hard-to-navigate hangups, caveats and ever-mutating conditions.

Link Book

Timothy Brayton took up the challenge and filled out our "Summer Report Card" (see previous posts right before this one). Well done, good sir
A Blogwork Orange is currently holding a Paul Thomas Anderson Appreciation Month
I Need My Fix Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are calling it quits *sniffle* 
MNPP JA tells us about a movie we haven't heard of called Blues for Willadean. Character Actress Bonanza! Dale Dickey in Daisy Dukes.
IndieWire The pilot for Revolution is available to watch. Have anyone of you watched this "all the powers gone out!" sci-fi tv pilot yet?
"Chloe" is back! Rejoice. This time Drew Droege is "Reading" 

The New Yorker has a lengthy profile on the Wachowski siblings prior to Cloud Atlas's release who, as you undoubtedly know, don't often get lengthy profiles since they're rather reclusive. Lana Wackowski, formerly "Larry" gets plenty of time and...
Gawker has a response and takes issues with the way Lana's "gender situation" is handled.
"Digger" by Ursula Vernon, a "very peculiar epic" starring a wombat and a dead god, just won the Hugo Award for best graphic story...
Hugo Awards things you've heard of like Doctor Who and Game of Thrones won the dramatic presentation prizes (aka film & television)
fuck the imperialist system "Tom Marvolo Riddle" Wow, I'm actually linking to something Harry Potter again. Something three months old even but it amuses

Vulture The CW is developing a Wonder Woman origins TV show titled Amazon. Ohmygod but I'm sick of origin stories. The dirty secret of them is even though we all know all these stories already Hollywood likes them because they can cast youngies.
Movie|Line Lana Del Rey writing a screenplay. Movies as happy place? We can relate. 
MNPP It's Daniel Radcliffe and Max Minghella for the film adaptation of Joe Hill's Horns 
Incidental Comics "Sketchbooks of the Pros". Hee
Empire Renée Zellweger is going to direct and act in a comedy called 4 ½ minutes. Johnny Knoxville leads the cast as a comedian who looks after the Zeéeeee's child.

Eeeep! Downton Abbey Season 3 Tease. 

 Very short but enough to remind that we love this show in all its soapy glory. People crying, kissing, arriving, looking worried, hostile or just deeply in love? Yes, please.