it takes two to make a link go ri-ight. It take two to make it outta site

Two-Some Links

• Stuff has the cutest story ever: Stunt doubles from Mad Max Fury Road fell in love on set (while punching each other in the face and so on)! I swear to god Fury Road is like a gift that keeps on giving. Have you seen it yet?
• Bryce Dallas Howard still hasn't quite convinced people she isn't Jessica Chastain. So she's trying it in musical form in this cute video. But they really do look alike -- it's the coloring plus the chins.
• Deadline Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara will co-star in Collateral Damage. Plot details are scarce but Jackman is an ad executive trying to overcome a personal tragedy. They better not be romantically paired! There are plenty of actresses in his age range (mid 40s) who he'd be great onscreen with.

  

Today's Must Read #1 - Awards Fallout
Entertainment Weekly Mark Harris wonders why the Tony Awards are so afraid to be the Tony Awards. Even if you don't follow the Tonys this is worth a read in the way it echoes what we're always saying here at The Film Experience about the odd choices Oscar producers make. It's as if every awards show is terrified of really thinking about its core audience and serving them and accepting that nothing is for everyone anymore. (It was different when there were only three channels but that hasn't been the case in a very very long time and many institutions have had trouble with that paradigm shift and they're constantly all "maybe [insert teenage/early 20something star] will bring in new viewers by reading from a teleprompter about something their fans aren't interested in!?!?")

[More Tony Fallout: The Visit closes on June 14th; Gigi closes June 21st; Fun Home's sales quadruple after its Best Musical win; Kelli O'Hara is getting some mainstream attention - like her insanely quick costume change going viral, that dancing gif, and a little photodiary in Vogue]

Today's Must Read #2 - Mia Wasikowska
Film Comment Nick Davis interviews Mia Wasikowska! Nick even mentions Streep's Jane Eyre shout-out at the Globes but I liked this exchange on costuming best (just a small sample)...  

As an actor, do you like being in dialogue with people like the cinematographer and the costumer, or do you prefer responding to creative choices they’ve made independently?

I do like collaborating, but I also feel I’ve been working with such wonderful people that there’s nothing I could even add to what they’ve already imagined. As much as possible, we still find ways to feed off each other, but really, across the board, everyone on these films I’ve been doing has just been incredible. Costumes, especially, are so important, especially on a project like "Madame Bovary". Every color was so representative of Emma’s place in her journey... 

..Enquiring minds are dying to know if you got to keep your gloves from "Maps to the Stars".

That’s so funny! I didn’t! I should have. They’re so stingy, they never let us keep any of the costumes. But for sure, those gloves were completely great.

Exit Video #1 Swiftie Spoof
The hilarious Jeffery Self & Drew Droege ("Chloe"!) & Robert Michael Morris ("The Comeback") and more co-star in this spoof of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" (recently discussed right here due to its movie trailer riffings) called "Sad Studs" that's also an activist reminder of FDA's obnoxious anti-gay policies. 

Exit Video #2 Showtune to Go
Judy Garland would have turned 93 today if she had lived to be a very old lady. Not that she would have still been working -- not every actor has the stamina to work into their 90s like Christopher Lee & Betty White (both born the same year as Judy) -- but oh what glorious entertainments the world was robbed of when we lost her. "The World's Greatest Entertainer" and also one of the best movie stars the cinema ever had. 

They're playing
Ta-tlee-a-ti, Ta-tlee-a-ti, with Shostakovich,
Ta-tlee-a-ti, Ta-tlee-a-ti, Mozart and Bach,
Ta-tlee-a-ti, Ta-tlee-a-ti, and they don't know which,
'Cause anything can happen when they start to rock

I chose this number from Thousands Cheer (1943) because of the Mozart mention. Shameless Plug: Our Best Shot episode of Amadeus (1984) is tonight -  don't forget. Especially since it's about to leave Netflix Instant Watch. Have your entry posted befoire midnight so we can include you in the visual fun. Even if you only have time to skim your favorite scenes, you should join us.

Links

Vanity Fair "Introducing Caitlyn Jenner" Annie Liebovitz's great photo of Caitlyn (née Bruce) is all the rage on the internet today. Vanity Fair's cover story will be 22 pages in print form
VF Tumblr also has behind the photoshoot footage
Awards Daily wonders what the Academy's documentary branch will do about the new New York Times policy -- previously their policy was to review every single movie that opened in New York City
In Contention the screenwrite of Grace of Monaco live tweets it to "correct" the record
You Must Remember This I'm so behind on this podcast which is typically great and educational about Old Hollywood -- the latest episode is about the Manson Murders in Hollywood but don't let a ton of "Star Wars" titled episodes fool you. It's not Lucas's space opera but 40s-era stories about stars during wartime
The Film Stage looks at the 10 favorite films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder which include Johnny Guitar and Salo, or: The 120 Days of Sodom; sounds about right! The prolific gay auteur would have  been 70 this week

The AV Club with some funny news: E.L. James will basically rewrite 50 Shades of Grey to make more money oh and to tell things from Christian's perspective.
Variety bummer news: Sofia Coppola stepping off the director's chair for The Little Mermaid
The Stake urges you to remember that Point Break (1991) is "tremendous" before you see the inevitably terrible remake - while on that topic...
RedBubble has a cool graphic poster of that movie for sale
The Playlist a new tearjerker project for Channing Tatum, Two Kisses for Maddy about a widower raising his daughter 
Cinematic Corner falls hard for Furiousa and Mad Max Fury Road
Reel Talk thinks we need to start taking Nicholas Hoult seriously (as do I post Fury Road... though I was far less convinced previously)
CineMunch wonders who your favorite drunk actresses are on their latest podcast -- with gin drink recipes!
CHUD great new poster for the final Hunger Games movie. Those movies are dull but I will give them this: they've always had wonderful smarts about the teasing
MNPP's quote of the day reveals two Stephen King properties that the studios actually don't want. Weird
MNPP gets excited like Chris Pratt for Jurassic World 

Tweet o' The Week
Squarespace no longer seems to allow tweet embeds -- they say they do but they never show up at TFE anymore so this is a snapshot of a tweet from the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain herself. (About the formerly ubiquitous Bryce Dallas Howard). It is wonderful. Gingers forever.

Showtune to Go!
June is Pride Month and with Caitlyn Jenner kicking things off with that Vanity Fair reveal today let's go back to one of the most moving original gay anthems "I Am What I Am" from La Cage Aux Folles. It's only one of the greatest songs ever written about being true to yourself. (I adore that moment at the beach in Paris is Burning when the two ladies start singing it).

Sing out, John Barrowman! 

Beauty Break: China Through the Looking Glass?

Eeep. We haven't even mentioned the Met Gala which is like the Oscars of May for how many stars come out. Each year the Met Gala theme comes from the new event exhibit which this year is "China: Through the Looking Glass." It's tough to say what is Chinese inspired about many of the looks we saw a few nights ago but who cares about themes when you get THIS photo (shared by Jessica Chastain) of three of the best and most beautiful actresses on the planet. As I said on twitter...

My brain / heart / cinephilia just exploded. See you next week once i’ve collected the pieces. 

[more photos after the jump]

Click to read more ...

Interstellar Takes Top Empire Honors

Manuel here bringing you more awards from this past weekend; Nathaniel wasn't the only one still handing out awards for the 2014 film year. The Jameson Empire Awards were handed out this past weekend (as were Nickelodeon's Kid's Choice Awards which were gaga for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1). Unsurprisingly, it was Christopher Nolan's divisive Interstellar which nabbed its two top prizes. 

Nolan was also on hand to receive the Empire Inspiration Award, which I guess was as good an excuse as any to see Jessica Chastain looking fabulous (she presented the award to her Interstellar director).

Check out the full winners list below.

Click to read more ...

We Can't Wait #6 - Crimson Peak

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's Jason...

Who & What: Guillermo Del Toro directs a script he co-wrote with Matthew Robbins (the two have worked together several times but Robbins' most important credit is clearly having directed the seminal-to-me The Legend of Billie Jean - "Fair is fair!"); British playwright Lucinda Coxon (who also wrote the script for the upcoming The Danish Girl) was brought in to add "the proper degree of perversity and intelligence" to the tale.

Mia Wasikowska plays an aspiring novelist named Edith Cushing (I have to share the character names, they're too juicy not to) who gets swept off her feet by the dashing and dark Sir Thomas Sharpe (played by the dashing and dark Tom Hiddleston) and subsequently carried off to his sinister Gothic mansion full all of the requisite spires and shadows with an incestuous-seeming Jessica Chastain as the Lady Lucille Sharpe sneaking amongst them. Charlie Hunnam plays an old friend of Edith's (named "Dr. Alan McMichael" and it doesn't get much more "decent" and "boring" and "doesn't stand a chance in hell" than that) who warns her against the lot of it.

Why We're Excited About it: Del Toro's said that this is his stab at making one of his small Spanish-language movies in English and, while I'll defend the Hellboys and Pacific Rim plenty, there's no denying his greatest works have been the smaller character-based oddities of The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. The list of influences he cites on Peak - The Haunting, The Innocents, and The Shining - are all the precise titles we want to hear mentioned, while at the same time he says his aim is to deconstruct our genre expectations. Plus the cast is as talented as they are gorgeous (which is to say plenty) and if you've watched the pitch-perfect trailer then you've seen the spectacular costumes (those poofy sleeves!) they're running up and down the haunted staircases in as a storm blows the curtains and the fireplace goes out and man oh man do I love me a good old-fashioned Gothic haunted house movie!    

What if it all Goes Wrong? As small as Del Toro kept saying he wanted this movie to be, the trailer is BIG, full of CG ghosts rising through floors and sets seemingly built all the way up to the thunderstruck heavens -  even if it's contained to mostly the titular house and grounds I do worry that the filmmaker's well-documented giddiness over his subject might've maybe carried him away on a storm-cloud of everything-but-the-haunted-kitchen-sink and we'll lose the characters underneath those gorgeous poofy sleeves.

When: Carve your pumpkins and throw on your best velvet cape and head straight to the theater - the movie hits right when the movie should, just in time for All Hallows. Universal's got it slated for October 16th in the US.

Previously...

#7 45 Years
#8 Bridge of Spies
#9 Taxi
#10 Freeheld
#11 A Bigger Splash
#12 The Dressmaker
#13 The Hateful Eight
#14 Knight of Cups
#15 Arabian Nights
Sidebar 3 Animated Films
Sidebar 2 Tomorrowland
Sidebar 1 Avengers: Age of Ultron
Intro Pick a Blockbuster