Cory Monteith (RIP)

Cory Monteith's twitter profile photoWe've lost another Young Hollywood star too soon, apparently to personal demons though the cause of death is "not immediately apparent" according to news reports. Cory Monteith, aka "Finn" from Glee, died last night in a hotel room in Canada. Our hearts go out to Lea Michele and his family and friends.

He played the befuddled singing jock well, with a sweetness of spirit and refreshing modesty. And you know how The Film Experience treasures singing actors.

I had long since stopped watching Glee which proved to be one of the smartest television decisions I ever made. When I started to hate the show during Season 3 I abruptly quit and now the only memories I really have of it are good ones. So this morning I'm replaying one of my favorite TV experiences ever, the Glee pilot. Like the rest of the world when Rachel & Finn spun around each other as "Don't Stop Believin'" kept building my heart soared and I couldn't wait to fall in love with them and the series, too. Glee was one of the great debuts of television history, full of energy, heart and promise. And that's a feeling to hold on to.

RIP Cory.

Linkhead

USA Today no, Jennifer Lawrence did not have a wardrobe malfunction despite all visual evidence to the contrary. That's just the dress!
Filmdrunk uncovers the MTV promo that got JLaw her SAG card - she mentioned it in her speech last night.
In Contention wonders where Ang Lee is in all the who will win Pic/Dir confusion
i09 do you want a documentary about the ill-fated Tim Burton / Nicolas Cage Superman movie? I sure do! Schadenfreude for days on end!
Pop Elegantarium awwww a new Film Experience baby. Congratulations to mom Alexa (who writes the Curio column right here)
EW Hunter Foster on Bunheads with real life sister Sutton Foster. Gah. I ♥ them both
MNPP superheroes working it
Pajiba Celebrity friendships you probably didn't know about. I knew a few but some really goodies unearthed here. Some of these are really surprising (Kyle Chandler & Lorenzo Lamas) others shouldn't be surprising but somehow I didn't know (Matt Bomer & Lee Pace are best friends?) and others are just delightful as in 'they stayed close after filming!' (Christian Bale & Winona Ryder?) but anyway, read it. Fun finds.
Wired Is Glee stealing arrangements from indie musicians? My god I'm so glad I gave up on that show when I did and have never been attempted to return. This story is so sleazy awful. 

And I'll leave you with an old video of Emma Stone shaking it shaking it shaking it.

This makes me want to watch Easy A and Crazy Stupid Love on loop right now.

The Link Experience

Towleroad Revisiting Drive on DVD. Ryan Gosling's scorpion jacket is at auction. One more day to bid! (I suspect this is a good investment as movie memorabilia goes.)
Carpetbagger Author Jeffrey Eugenides on his Oscar ballot. He loves The Tree of Life and all things Woody Allen. Has issues with Bridesmaids. 
In Contention breaking Oscar's biopic addiction. Halleloo. 
Movie|Line today is The Artist day in LA. Officially! Harvey Weinstein continues to be a god amongst mortals when it comes to Oscar campaigns.

 

My New Plaid Pants JA has gone totes l'amour fou for Jean Dujardin. Pervy animated gifsm, dancing in boxer shorts, gratuitous photo spreads. But can you blame him?
Empire another new role for Jennifer Lawrence in the adaptation of the novel Serena about an ruthless ambitious married couple running a timber empire in 1929. This role was once earmarked for Angelina Jolie so clearly Hollywood has faith in Jennifer Lawrence.
IndieWire for your consideration at next year's Oscars. The Sundance crop.
Towleroad Director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) is out of the closet. I didn't realize he was in. 

The TV Experience?
Brief somewhat random thoughts on Glee vs. Smash and more small screen after the jump...

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With This Post, I Thee Link

Daily Mail the rumors are heating up yet again that Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood are tying the knot. Remember when he was a little boy dancer (Billy Elliott) and she was a little girl anorexic (Once and Again)?!? If they have a baby soon I will officially feel as old as Luise Rainer who turns 102 this week! OMG. 
The Playlist Steven Soderbergh's The Side Effects will star Blake Lively (yes, they're still trying to make her happen), Jude Law and Channing Tatum. Funny how Soderbergh is more prolific than ever despite all that "retirement announcement" nonsense.
La Daily Musto hears a crazy story I've never heard about Rosemary's Baby. 

MUBI details the current controversy about The Artist appropriating a piece of Vertigo's score. Kim Novak is really really upset about it.
THR ...thinks she's taking her complaints way too far. 
The Playlist Yay. Katee Sackhoff, who we're always rooting for since she has more charisma than many whole casts combined, gets a big movie role... albeit in a tired franchise. Ready for another Riddick movie?
Scene Stealers Kansas City critics pick The Descendants as best picture (yes, I'm done writing up critics awards. Sorry!) and the NSFC may have given them the courage to go with Kirsten Dunst as Best Actress for Melancholia. I don't mean to suggest that smaller critics groups can't find their own courage but it seems fairly obvious on a year to year basis that a win for an off kilter choice from one of the three biggies (NYFCC, NSFC, or LAFCA) can often result in a chain link of appreciation. It's just too bad that Dunst's heat came so very late in the game.

I can't believe this is online but this is my favorite 2 and a ½ minutes of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ... the film that may finally cause all Oscar pundits, professional and amateur, to accept that Oscar is no longer wary of remakes, even instantaneous ones that no one has any excuse for making but for money.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Opening Titles from Onur Senturk on Vimeo.

Off Cinema
Tech Crunch more web-only TV series with bigger stars are coming.
Insider Chris Colfer and Lea Michele will stay on Glee somehow. I'd say "uh oh" but for the continual shark jumping of that show. It defies the very notion of shark jumping since there are sharks in each episode and this season... "Sharks" with "Jets". [groan. sorry]
Broadway Buzz Alan Cumming gets remarried to his man. Tells Rick Santorum to eat it. 

Mama Bening Baby Wiig

JA from MNPP here. Have you heard about Imogene? Out next year, it's Kristen Wiig's follow-up to Bridesmaids - actually it's a project she'd been trying to get off the ground for ages that the super duper success of Bridesmaids made possible. It's directed by the duo of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini who made the splendidly sour American Splendor, and is similarly dark in comic tone. Wiig plays the title character whose plan of using a suicide attempt to win back an extra boyfriend somehow, weirdly, backfires, and she's forced to move home and live with her... let's say difficult mother played by Annette Bening.

Bening! So surely you guys have heard about this movie already. Well there are some pictures and a poster online today, which you can see here. There's something reminiscent of Bening's Mars Attacks! character to the look of her character, isn't there? I say that with awe and admiration - that's one of my very favorite Bening performances.

Also in the cast are Matt Dillon and the chipmunk-cheeked croooner Darren Criss from Glee, the latter apparently playing a love interest for Wiig. Cue everybody gaping sack-jawed at the age difference - she's 38 while he's 24 - which hardly merits a mention when its say Methuselah Steve Martin pawing at Toddler Heather Graham or the like.

This is one of my most anticipated movies for 2012. While I love the ridiculous over-the-top characters Wiig hammers away at on SNL she's proven herself really smooth at how she's branching out into a movie career, playing identifiably human characters (so good in Whip It), complicating things when she could just go for an easy bug-eyed laugh.