Secret in Their Link

DListed - Ralph Fiennes breaks out the dance moves at the Venice premiere of A Bigger Splash
NYT Aretha Franklin suing to block festival showings of Amazing Grace, a recently finished documentary about the making of her album filmed in 1972.
Variety looks at the swift progress of new distributor Broad Green Pictures which surprised everyone with its acquisition of and good numbers for A Walk in the Woods. They also have Learning to Drive in theaters
The Globe and Mail an evening with Udo Kier (!)

 

AV Club in his continuing bid to not ever be remotely as cool / likeable as he once was Johnny Depp is joking about eating his dogs
WSJ Magazine "A day in the life of Danny Strong" a profile of the diminutive Emmy-winning ever busy actor/screenwriter of Buffy and Girls fame behind the scenes of Empire's second season
Yahoo Judy Carne (Laugh-In) dies at 76
MNPP Who Wore it Best: Luke Evans speedo edition 
Playbill Magic Mike ....the Musical may start its stage run in Las Vegas rather than on Broadway
Boy Culture Jean Darling of Our Gang silent serials has died at 93 
Comic Alliance on the "very serious" "no-jokes" "grimace" of Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Good conclusion
Variety Will Smith has replaced Hugh Jackman in Collateral Beauty and Rooney Mara has exited the project, too
The Broadway Blog looks back at The Pajama Gang which got a movie version in 1957
MNPP Jake Gyllenhaal gifs from Demolition. Sweet medicine. I'm seeing this Thursday night. woooo 

Oscar Season Cometh
Awards Daily on emergent Telluride Oscar contenders from Black Mass and a lot of praise for Spotlight
The Hollywood Reporter from Telluride: a lukewarm reaction to Carol (?), Black Mass's hilarious and haunting moments, great performances in Room, and not loving Suffragette

Image of the Day
How perfect is this photograph of Chiwetel Ejiofor from Interview by Sølve Sundsbø? Director Cary Fukunaga interviews him so it's double-handsomness).

FUKUNAGA: You have how many movies coming out this year?

EJIOFOR: Well, there's Secret and The Martian, and, next year, Triple 9. And then I'll be shooting the Doctor Strange movie.

FUKUNAGA: It's exciting. And I've done one thing that whole time. [Ejiofor laughs]

Beauty vs Beast: Gyllenhaal x 3

Who is with me in missing Jason's Beauty vs. Beast column? He's been offline a lot this month. So here's a Beauty vs Beast in his honor, training our eyes on the one and only Jake Gyllenhaal. Or, rather, the Jake Gyllenhaals as he's versatile.

Therein lies the twist. It's All-Beautiful Jake (Brokeback Mountain & Love & Other Drugs) versus Beautiful & Beastly Jake (Donnie Darko & Jarhead) versus All-Beastly Jake (Southpaw & Nightcrawler). Who gets your vote? Ready? You're always ready for Jake. So go... Vote and Comment. Pound your keyboard so hard that you wake Jason up and he returns to us next week to resume his series.

JAKE vs. JAKE vs. JAKE

Beautiful Jake

Beauty *and* Beast Jake

Beastly Jake

Poll Maker

Previously on Beauty vs Beast...

Janet Leigh's Marion Crane beat Anthony Perkin's Norman Bates by a slim but still surprising 55% of your votes. Your love blindsided us. Jason and I both thought it would turn out differently given that Norma Bates is an immortal villain and Marion Crane is well, dead and buried (or, rather, submerged) but y'all are so predictable when there's an actress involved. Hence this week's all male challenge. There's no actress to win your automatic vote. However will it turn out? 

Podcast: Ant-Man and Southpaw

We're spoiling you with two podcasts this week. Yesterday we talked 1995 (to tease the Smackdown). Now, conversations about Marvel's Phase Two ender Ant-Man with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas, and Michael Peña, and the new boxing drama Southpaw starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams.

Contents (43 minutes)
00:01 Marvel's Ant-Man
27:55 Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw
40:00 Coming Attractions: Mistress America & The Finest Hours

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation!

Southpaw & Ant-Man

What Did You See This Weekend?

I had a busy movie weekend with Southpaw (better than it should be), Ant-Man (fun but also *shrugs*), a second viewing of Tangerine, and a double-podcast recording session (coming soon). Last night I nearly slipped into a coma of boredom when accidentally catching a half hour of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. (As I type this The Boyfriend is watching The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part One but not even Julianne Moore can get me near that. The appeal of that franchise continues to escape me -- not scary, not moving, dull action sequences -- and since it does I'm not sitting through a padded four-hour finale.)

Pixels high concept was so review and quality-proof that it seemed likely to explode just from brand(s) familiarity alone (like, oh, Jurassic World). But nope. Slightly lower on the list Jake Gyllenhaal had his best opening where he was the main draw since Jarhead in 2005. (I'm not  counting Prince of Persia since the video game was the main draw and no one seems to remember that movie just 5 years later, including Jake Gyllenhaal). 

What did you see this weekend?

BOX OFFICE
Early Estimates. July 24th-26th Weekend
01 Ant-Man $24.7 (cum. $106) 
02 Pixels $24 NEW 
03 Minions $22 (cum. $261.5) Tim on the Minions phenom
04 Trainwreck $17.2 (cum. $61.5) Podcast
05 Southpaw $16.5 NEW 
06 Paper Towns $12.5 NEW
07 Inside Out $7.3 (cum. $320.3) Podcast
08 Jurassic World $6.8 (cum. $623.7)
09 Mr Holmes $2.8 (cum. $6.4) 
10 Terminator Genisys $2.4 (cum. $85.6) Review

Misc: Suffragette Colors, Cruise Stunts, Karl Shows, Jake Trains

Look, Suffragette finally got a poster. [src]

Unfortunately it's fugly (not Carey. She pretty). Incidentally purple and green are my favorite colors but I never like them in combo unless I'm looking at The Joker. 

Film/TV
Pajiba marvels that 'Tom Cruise does his own stunts' is way more than just lip service
Southpaw a Featurette as Jake Gyllenhaal trains for the movie
Towleroad Rob Lowe dubsmashing The Sound of Music
AV Club Oscar Isaac headlines Show Me a Hero for HBO, which now has a trailer 
AV Club hating on Teen Wolf's current season - I'm finding the show more and more incomprehensible every year. Considering quitting
The Guardian in "current weirdest movie news" Mel Gibson is now a "Creative Adviser" on a Chinese WW II epic The Bombing

Off Arts
I'm really struggling to be more well rounded as a person - i only think of the arts! - so every once in awhile i must share current and extremely random items of fascination
New Yorker "The Really Big One" -- this article on the fault lines in the Pacific Northwest is more terrifying than any disaster movie 
Slate investigates the tails of seahorses -- they're actually square unlike the traditional round 

Showtune to Go
I saw On the Twentieth Century a couple of weeks ago starring Kristin Chenoweth (one-of-a-kind amazing as usual) and you only have a few more days to see it (it closes on the 19th). The show was a little too manically staged for me but Chenoweth as a movie star and Andy Karl as her coattails riding actor boyfriend were both delicious and sensational and more than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately there's precious little quality video of Andy Karl online so here's a promo for his turn in "Rocky The Musical" in 2014 which seemed to prophesy the revival of that franchise - Creed coming at you soon. 

For whatever reason Karl barely ever does TV or film (unlike a lot of other stage stars) so his profile is weirdly low with the general public considering he's funny, sexy, good-looking, traditionally masculine, talented and all  of that. I was enraged all over again watching his extremely funny work in "On the Twentieth Century" as a narcissistic actor that Christian Borle won a generous second Tony for "Something Rotten" when his category was filled with so many better and truly inspired performances from Tony-less men (one of them even in his own show). The Emmys tendency to love the same people over and over again is much documented and groused about online, but the Tony habit of the same is even more mystifying since they're dealing with different shows and characters altogether each time. With the exception of a few people as default nominees, I'm deeply grateful that Oscar voters have somehow not inherited this usually* awful and stingy gene!

* there are people who have deserved multiple Tonys of course (Cheno, McDonald, Foster, Bernadette, etcetera). But... generally spread the wealth is a wiser and more justified impulse.