"Frozen" Gets a Cast for the Stage

Full casting for Broadway hopeful Frozen has been announced. The names have been trickling out for months but now it's all official. The out of town tryouts begin in August in Denver (so if you live there, do report back!). It's quite a high profile gig for all of the cast members none of whom have been Tony nominated and many of whom are in early stages of their careers.

This image, headshots for the two leads Caissie Levy and Patti Murin, is going around and though accidental I couldn't help but giggle a little. Do they share a hairdresser and colorist? Hopefully the differences in the stage sisters will be easy to read via acting and costuming. It's going to be weird to have it on Broadway where Wicked, which Frozen rips off so liberally from, is a Broadway mainstay. We'll see. One assumes Disney will add songs by already EGOTed team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez to the second half or that's going to be one lopsided stage musical with all the songs sung before intermission! [More on the cast after the jump.]

Click to read more ...

Linkscaping

Comics Alliance Joss Whedon on which Avenger would make the best US President
Vulture Tom Ford celebrates Jake Gyllenhaal's lack of manscaping
THR Viola Davis to star in Steve McQueen's Widows, a female heist picture 
Acidemic offers tips for hunting for buried genre treasures (in this case vampire films) on Amazon Prime
Bloody Disgusting the "Godfather of Gore" Gordon Lewis has passed away at 87. He's the cult filmmaker Juno and her new pal Jason Bateman obsessed over together
Huffington Post Danielle Brooks and Gabby Sidibe love their plus size bodies for Lane Bryant. Cute commercial

Watch This an interview with John Butler who made Handsome Devil which will hopefully get a release soon. Fair warning: the type is ridiculously small. What is this, Tumblr?
Coming Soon Dr Strange gets wobbly cosmic blurs motion posters
US Weekly continuing the garbage fire theme of 2016 in which both people and Love keep dying, Naomi Watts & Liev Schrieber are breaking up 
EW Tom Holland in Spidey suit with mask off, a image from filming a scene or just goofing off?
CASFFA 2016 our own Glenn Dunks was on the jury and Best Film went to Eva Nova which is Slovakia's entry in Foreign Film
TFE... those foreign film charts if you missed them. Sooo many exciting prospects to seek out 
Playbill Tony Awards announce their eligibility dates for next summer. The awards show will be June 11th 
Playbill The Broadway adaptation of Disney's Frozen just had a creative team shakeup
Kenneth in the (212) King Cobra opens next month. I forgot all about James Franco's latest gay baiting 

Off Cinema
Time Out lists the 25 best Broadway cast recordings of the new century. I definitely don't love the whole list (the high placement for The Full Monty is rather baffling) but there are many gems here. The two albums I've listened to the most from this list are Wild Party (love this write up) and The Light in the Piazza (utterly sublime -it would've been my #1)
Slate the cast of Wil & Grace reunites for a special episode about the 2016 Election
John Oliver breaks down the Trump scandals vs the Clinton scandals. The punchline is a work of prop department genius 

Tweet of the Day
Post-presidential debate movie jokes for the win 

Last night's debate was like a nightmare version of 9 to 5 in which Dabney Coleman had the same amount of screen time as Dolly, Jane, & Lily

— Matthew Eng (@Eng_Matthew) September 27, 2016

#Links

CriticWire this ongoing conversation about what critics should review is troubling/interesting
i09 seems we're getting a new Interview with the Vampire movie
Variety on what's holding Hollywood back from putting gay characters in franchises. I mean imagine if this hashtag were successful...
#GiveElsaAGirlfriend for Frozen 2. It's what the fans want and the narrative really calls for.
Pajiba omg. There's a kickstarter for a deck of "woman cards" which has awesome illustrations including Hillary, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Beyoncé

EW Congratulations to Colton Haynes, he of bolting from TV series just when everyone is falling in love with him (Teen Wolf, Arrow) and amassing a massive Instagram following. He is officially out of the closet after years of rumors and hints and non-denials
New Yorker Kiki & Herb are back after 8 years! My favorite cabaret act of all time
Final Girl looks back at James Whale's The Old Dark House. That's a fun ol' horror flick for Whale while he was warming up for Bride of Frankenstein (1934) 
TV Line I was never into the show Alias (Jennifer Garner has never done it for me with the exception of Juno) but if you were you'll probably like this oral history
Awards Daily Alicia Vikander sets up her own production company - first project is called Euphoria and Eva Greene is her screen-sibling co-star
Towleroad Channing Tatum introduces the Men of Magic Mike Live. (I thought they were doing this as a Broadway show but it looks more like it's going to be more of a Las Vegas revue thing.) 

Yes I will review Captain America: Civil War but until then...
Here are some articles on Avengers 3...
Games Radar 26 easter eggs for comic fans in the new movie
E! News 20 (fawning) questions you'll have after the movie 
Comics Alliance schools Emily VanCamp (Agent 13, Cap's current love interest) on the world of "Stucky" fan fic. How did she not know that fans obsess about Steve & Bucky being in love? 
Screen Crush all the Captain America: Civil War rumors that turned out to be false and the sites that published them. Haha. Another reminder of how useless the internet is when it comes to obsessing over things that don't exist yet!  

Finally because I couldn't unsee it...

When Posters Collide pic.twitter.com/Hej8wERYKi

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) May 6, 2016

 

The Huntsman: Winter's War

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad...

The Huntsman: Winter’s War, now playing, promises a “new” fairy tale. That’s true only if you’re willing to stretch the definition of the word. This “new” and awkwardly titled picture is both prequel and sequel to Snow White with some Frozen fan fiction in the middle. It begins long before the events of the revisionist Snow White & The Huntsman (2012) and eventually skips ahead to pick up where the last movie left off. In case you’ve forgotten your blockbuster history — spoiler alert! — Snow White and her Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) triumphed at the end by killing the true twin stars of the picture: Queen Ravenna and Her Oscar Nominated Costumes (a.k.a. former Oscar winners Charlize Theron & Colleen Atwood).

Dead though Ravenna was, when there is money to be made in franchise resurrection, nobody stays buried. In the new film we learn that the royal witch came to power alongside her kind loving sister Freya (Emily Blunt). After an unspeakable tragedy, though, Freya also became evil. Ravenna had that Magic Mirror to inspire her wickedness but Freya opts for a worn Blu-ray of Frozen as unholy talisman...

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Coming Soon: "Frozen" vs "Wicked" On Broadway

As you may have heard Frozen will be coming to Broadway in the Spring of 2018. The original composers will write additional new songs which is smart since the second half of Frozen the movie is weirdly not a musical at all. The songs abruptly end after "Let It Go"  

It will be curious to have two versions of Wicked on stage simultaneously, though.

Shade. (I couldn't resist.)

No matter how much one loves Frozen, it's hard to deny that it shamelessly rips off of Wicked. When Wicked's producers rather dimly dragged their feet on a film version of their 3 billion dollar smash (they should have started immediately since it takes years to get a picture made properly and now a picture will feel "old" when it arrives) Disney swooped in with their own version of Wicked called Frozen -- even using the same leading lady with the huge pipes (Idina Menzel) and had their own billion-dollar smash (with endless revenue yet to come in merchandising).

Consider: 

• Sisters / Besties. One is good and likeable. The other is secretive and perceived as "Wicked"
• The "Wicked" girl is strong with magic and this scares people and she hides herself away from the fearful citizens of Arendel/Oz
• During her escape/rise into her power she sings an athem of self-actualization "Let It Go"/"Defying Gravity" 
• And then the villagers come after her and the good girl has to intervene. (From their the stories diverge... as they do with the supporting cast, too) 

Wicked will obviously still be selling out in 2018 when Frozen arrives. 12 years and a few months into its run it's still always near the top of the box office charts. It will be so strange to see them side by side. Do you have a preference?