Throwback Thursday: Still ended up in outer space...

Lynn Lee here, with a little "before they were in Star Wars" trip down memory lane...
Remember when Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren did a novelty song with Justin Timberlake?

Does this mean JT will be joining them at some point in our favorite outer space saga?  Maybe there can be a truce trio - or even a quartet with Daisy Ridley...

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) is one of those films that I didn't love when I first saw it but gradually burrowed its way into my soul.  I now think it's one of the Coen brothers' best.  Of course, a lot of credit goes to the gorgeous musical performances, especially Oscar Isaac's solo turns, even if they're continually punctuated (and punctured) by the complete lack of on-screen audience appreciation.  Or maybe all the more because of that: you feel like you're making a private discovery, whether of the character or the actor, or both.  Definitely worth revisiting, if nothing else as the sad-mask companion piece to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" or for the always-welcome reminder that Oscar Isaac can sang.

Linking & Housekeeping

Pajiba Strange news. Johnny Depp did not report to work as planned. Work being continued cashing in of his 2003 brilliance as Jack Sparrow. What is afoot?
Interview on the evolution of Chlöe Sevigny
Comics Alliance tiny Ant-Man billboards. Here's to clever marketing !
Cleo have any of you seen Adventure Time? Thinkpieces on this animated show intrigue
Attitude Giorgio Armani urges you to not dress so "gay"!
The Kenneth in the (212) was The Former Bruce Jenner inspired by Belinda Carlisle?
Instagram meet Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel's son
Towleroad RuPaul recap. Conjoined twins extravaganza

All the FUN of a serious and rare medical condition without the humanity and decency that even American Horror Story provided

Cool Projects
Cinematic Corner is hosting a "White Swan Black Swan" blog-a-thon -- now through the end of the month - which looks at dual personae. 
Nick's Flick Picks has gathered his own secret TBA jury for a screening/retrospective of the entire Cannes Competition lineup of 1995 from the utterly gorgeous Shanghai Triad through the Palme D'Or winner Emir Kusturica's Underground to the provocation that was Kids. Ambitious! 
Antagony & Ecstasy continues reviewing reader requested films (this time it's Evita) for a donation to the American Cancer Society. I urge you to all do this. It's a great cause and Tim is a great critic. He's doing a few reviews for fellow TFE staff (including me) in June.

True Story
Sunday night I dreamt that Meryl Streep had died suddenly and unexpectedly. The nightmare was so real that when I woke up Monday morning i was in an absolute panic wondering how I could possibly write about such a loss and feeling bad about every time I complained that she said yes to everything rather than carefully picking her projects. The nightmare was so real that I immediately googled Meryl Streep and was greeted by happy news instead of sad. La Streep was actually in the news that very morning but for funding a screenwriting workshop for women over 40.  Whew and Awesome. And what The Dissolve said...

Whatever we did to deserve this woman, it wasn't enough.

71 Days Until Magic Mike Matt XXL
More character posters keep emerging.. so here's Matt Bomer. With Horn, Pettyfer, and McConaughey absent this time around, does he get an expanded role? In addition to being ridiculously pretty, he's said to be a very nice fellow in real life as told to us by actress and co-star Kathy Deitch.

TFE News
Apologies  that 'April Showers' never got off the ground this month as a returning blog feature, though they definitely fell from the sky. Overplanning, TFE's great sin! But that won't stop up from committing it again and again. 

TO CLOSE OUT APRIL: Sci-Fi / Artificial Intelligence theme week, Broadway stuff (Tony nominations in just one week), 9 to 5 party (tomorrow night - join us for some mowie wowie) a couple of Campions (In the Cut & Bright Star) and the completion of the April Foolish Oscar Prediction charts. No really. Stay tuned.

COMING IN MAY: The Orson Welles Centennial, 1979 Smackdown and Sidebars, and finally some 2015 movies to be excited about, discuss, and get us back to the movie theaters including: Mad Max Fury Road, Avengers Age of Ultron, Far From The Madding Crowd, Hot Pursuit, Saint Laurent, The D Train, Pitch Perfect 2, Aloha, and Tomorrowland.

Familiar Faces: The David Fincher Players

Up until The Social Network (2010), when a version of this article first appeared, David Fincher was, moderately, a creature of habit when it came to casting. Certain character actors would pop up in miniature roles in more than one film though only one star was a recurring lead (Brad Pitt). Since then it's been more of a free for all with (mostly) new faces in his films.

For Gone Girl it's all new faces but for three men who you'll miss if you blink:

Darin Cooper, Brett Leigh, and Lee Norris

Brett Leigh appears as a nervous intern (he was previously a Phoenix Club hazer in The Social Network); Lee Norris, best known for "One Tree Hill" and "Boy Meets World," shows up as "Officer Washington" after a gig in Zodiac; and Darin Cooper, who played one of Facebook's lawyers in The Social Network, returns as  "Moustached Man"

We hope next time Fincher finds a way to reuse these three and pulls more performers from his past, too. Why? When directors apply previous actors like favorite daubs of paint from their auteurial palettes, it adds a little magic, don't you think? It's like the films are all part of the same universe no matter how different they are. Let's investigate further with...

The David Fincher Acting Hierarchy
(Quantitatively Speaking)

4 Films. 
There's a three way tie for the top honor, each beating Brad Pitt by one film, albeit with much much smaller roles...

• Richmond Arquette 
Yes, that's the least famous member of the Arquette clan (brother to Alexis, David, Rosanna & Patricia). Fincher gives him tiny roles but some are key: he makes the dread box delivery at the end of Se7en, makes the first two kills in Zodiac and he's also in Fight Club and Benjamin Button. He recently had a fine co-leading showcase in Chad Hartigan's This is Martin Bonner.

• Christopher John Fields 
He stretches the furthest back with the director, all the way to Fincher's debut feature Alien³ (1992) where he played "Rains" one of the first victims of the acid-blooded beastie (pictured left), poor guy. He's also The Game's Detective Boyle, Fight Club's dry cleaning man and a copy editor in Zodiac. He appears to no longer be working, though.

• Bob Stephenson 
You might recognize this actor from series regular gigs on TV's Jericho or The Forgotten. He's part of the SWAT team in Se7en (pictured left), a security officer in Fight Club and a killer in both The Game and Zodiac. He recently appeared on an episode of both Agents of SHIELD and Mom.

3 Films. 
Much more and this man that needs no introduction...

Click to read more ...

Show Me The Linky

The Broadway Blog reviews Smash's "Bombshell" CD and Megan Hilty's solo album "It Happens All The Time"
Blouin Art Info Christopher Doyle, one our our favorite DPs who ought to have plentiful Oscar noms by now but has none is disgusted with the Academy for continually choosing visual fx heavy movies in the cinematography category (we heartily agree that it's a huge "how is that cinematography?" problem) 
Bryan Singer behold the cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past. I'm happy that Fan Bingbing is in it but who on earth will she be playing?
The Guardian will Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby spark a 20s deco & flapper revival?

 

Empire The cast of Divergent, a female led dystopian sci-fi drama (yes, they are a dime a dozen these days thanks to Hunger Games - Divergent's jacket cover even purposefully tries to look like a Hunger Games sequel) is coming together with Theo James & Aaron Eckhart joining to support Shailene Woodley in the lead
Empire (again) Willow's Warwick Davis gets his own podcast to celebrate the anniversary of that fantasy landmark
/Film apparently Ennio Morriconne is not as big of a fan of Quentin Tarantino as the director is of him
Salon on Justin Timberlake's week-long media blitz 
WSJ on the return of the beard with male celebrities -- no, not that kind! -- and with civilians, too.
i09 argues that historical anachronisms are better at recreating history than historical reenactments in movies. Via A Knight's Tale  

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

Hello, lovelies: Beau here, searching for distractions from the onslaught of crap coming our way in the next few months, and the fact that I still haven't seen Before Midnight. (insert vicious, hyperbolic rant here.) Luckily for me, the trailer for the new Coen Bros. is just the ticket.

YES:

Carey? Carey... are you in there?

• Coen Brothers. Duh.
• Carey Mulligan. Duh.

Click to read more ...