When Meryl Met Anna... and Other Stories

Salon Sandra Bullock to play Texas senator Wendy Davis, who famously filibustered an anti-abortion bill for 12 hours. Oscar #2?
Variety interviews actor/playwright Tracy Letts who is really having a good year you must admit. Lady Bird is a hit in theaters and his new play just opened in Chicago
Hollywood Reporter has a good interview with Steven Soderbergh
Instagram Lupita Nyong'o loves her natural hair and is upset with a magazine for airbrushing it away
Variety Replacing Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World is going to cost at least 2.5 million
MNPP Do Dump or Marry: Thor Ragnarok edition

Stage
Deadline this is a surprise the Tony Awards have declared the recent production of "1984" ineligible for prizes. They have not stated why exactly.
Playbill reviews are in for Broadway's new musical The Band's Visit, based on the Ronit Elkabetz film of the same name if you remember that one
Theater Mania photos of Kelli O'Hara and Patrick Wilson rehearsing for Brigadoon. Hope it's swoon-worthy
Playbill Jake Shears (of Scissor Sisters fame) joining Kinky Boots on Broadway next year. Damn, I guess I'll have to see it a third time

Harassment Epidemic Updates
AV Club on Hollywood's long overdue moral reckoning
New Yorker Emily Nussbaum has a terrific piece on Louis CK's comedy through the lens of recent allegations
New York Times Louis CK has confessed to the claims against him "These stories are true"
Medium Actor Anthony Edwards has come forward to say he was molested by a producer when he was underage
Guardian Ellen Page has detailed homophobic remarks director Brett Rattner made to her during the production of X-Men: Last Stand
Washington Post showing their utter depravity GOP officials are now citing the bible to justify Roy Moore's sexual assault on an underage girl. And just think, last month they were slamming Hollywood for its depravity with Harvey Weinstein.

Oscar Campaigns Heat Up
Awards Daily Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) to receive Rising Star award at Palm Springs
Variety Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project) to receive Vanguard award at Santa Barbara

And cheeky Meryl Streep met with Anna Wintour (who she sent up in her Oscar worthy work in Devil Wears Prada) to promote her new star vehicle The Post

u know where i'm at, u know where I be, u in the blog just to linky 🎵

If you missed part one of our massive link roundup to catch up on news and such, that's here. Going a lot shorter for part two

/Film on the 20th anniversary of Boogie Nights
This is Not Porn Sigourney Weaver with a pumpkin
/i09 Jeff Goldblum riffing on the meaning of "Ragnarok" - I was personally alarmed to see this whole story this morning because I feel like I knew all this classic mythology stuff when I was in diapers and I KNOW we learned some of it in school. Is mythology not taught anymore? Weird cause kids tend to love it (since there are superpowers, monsters, etcetera)
Jezebel a fine interview with famous primatologist Jane Goodall about her work, the new documentary about her, and climate change

Film School Rejects 35 things we learned from Edgar Wright's Baby Driver commentary
AV Club Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood on filming Gerald's Game, another Stephen King adaptation that people are actually liking (what is happening?)
Coming Soon Director Taiki Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Thor Ragnarok) is very coy about whether or not he'll direct the long gestating live action remake of anime classic Akira but if he does, he won't be casting non-Asians. So if they must make this movie, let's hope he gets the job.
Playbill Idina Menzel didn't want to write a memoir so her sister wrote a book about their lives "Voice Lessons: A Sisters Story"
/Film Corey Haim & Corey Feldman, teen idols of the late 80s, are getting the Lifetime movie treatment
W Magazine Cara Delevingne is now an author ("Mirror Mirror") and a brunette
The New Yorker "Everything that I'm afraid might happen now that I've lost my headphones"

Congrats to the MacArthur Genius Grant Winners.
The 24 recipients for 2017 have been named who will each receive the grant of $625,000 which is a lot of change for most writers and artists and performers. Celebrities of course make truckloads of money but that's much different than toiling away for your craft in most arts careers. Twenty four recipients from many different kinds of field were chosen so let's just list those in the arts: Annie Baker (playwright), Rhiannon Giddens (musician), Taylor Mac (performance artist ♥︎), Yuval Sharon (opera producer), Tyshawn Sorey (composer), and Jesmyn Ward (writer)

Unlinkable

Awards Daily Jazz interviews Ali Fazal of Victoria & Abdul
Variety Rock star Tom Petty was reported dead today but reports may have been premature. Story developing but sounds dire
Coming Soon M Night Shyamalan's sequel to Unbreakable starring Samuel L Jackson and called Glass is now shooting
/Film Charlies Angels, a property which never truly dies but keeps trying to find new relevance, is trying again. They're talking up Lupita Nyong'o and Kristen Stewart for leading roles. Kristen's been doing amazing work lately but she is 100% wrong for Charlie's Angels which needs exuberant pop flair when she's all minimalist / sober as an actor. WTH?

Decider surprise! Gerald's Game, a Stephen King adaptation for Netflix starring Carla Gugino, is good
Coming Soon Daniel Dae Kim's stunt training for the Hellboy reboot
/Film Hocus Pocus moves forward as a TV movie remake - none of the original actors or filmmaking team are involved
David Poland on Blade Runner 2049 with no spoilers "It is Aliens to Alien" ... whoa, that's high praise
Billboard composer Danny Elfman interviewed about Superman's iconic theme (redeployed for Justice League) and his long collaboration with Gus Van Sant
Playbill Judy Garland's final concert, restored/remastered from 1969 will be released for the first time
i09 on why you should be watching the Exorcist TV series, back for Season 2
/Film Amazon still has a lot of work to do to catch up with Netflix and Hulu but they're diving into the sci-fi genre big time

stage of screen
Playbill a new musical version of Roald Dahl's The Witches (previously dramatizes wonderfully with Anjelica Huston as the High Witch in the 1990 film) coming to the National Theater of London
Gothamist more on the Pretty Woman musical coming to Broadway
Playbill the Mean Girls marquee is up on Broadway now. It's not just on Wednesdays when it's pink

funny haha
Electric Literature what 7 classic literary characters' dick pics would look like from Atticus Finch to Jay Gatsby (p.s. this is actually safe for work so go ahead and click if you're at your place of employment)

This is Link

screen
The Guardian talks to Armie Hammer about the peach scene in Call Me By Your Name and more - Hammer also recently got in a good dig at conservative asshole James Woods who is upset by the age difference in the film
Awards Daily Joey ranks the 101 greatest Will & Grace guest stars. Yes, 101.
Decider the 24 best episodes of Will & Grace prior to the revival
THR Netflix is losing some very major TV series on Oct 1st so if you always wanted to complete 30 Rock or Friday Night Lights, you'd best be bingeing...

More after the jump including Cher, Jane Fonda, This is Us, and Hugh Hefner's death...

Click to read more ...

Link Runner 2017

Gurus of Gold pundits make some quick assessments as the new awards season begins
Paste Magazine why isn't Billy Eichner a sex symbol yet?
THR the new version of It is already causing real clowns to lose work
Advocate offers up 17 LGBT tropes that need to be retired from entertainment. This list is so wide-ranging they'll be no queer characters left on TV if they follow it!
/Film cool stuff: scratch off poster to track your viewing of 100 classic movies

The Daily collects obituaries and tributes to the acclaimed horror director Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
IndieWire Dunkirk arranges a special screening at Toronto to celebrate IMAX. Consider that Oscar campaign already ignited
Awards Daily new stills for Call Me By Your Name. These are more likely it. The first few were so underwhelming
Towleroad Heathers is getting a TV adaptation. Leslye Headland directs the pilot which has updates for the Heathers for themselves (one of them is genderqueer) 

Off Cinema
• The Cut good deep dive into Kathy Griffin's life post that T***p photo that got her into so much trouble
• Vox winners and losers of MTV Video Music Awards
• ET literal winners of the MTV Video Music Awards (though, like the Gramys, it's not an awards show that's actually about awards)
• AV Club Jason Segel is having a tall person small door problem. Cute
• Playbill the 29 biggest grossing Broadway shows of all time from the Cabaret revival with Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming ($119 million) to Disney's The Lion King $1.3 billion). Hamilton is already at #18 ($242 million) and it's only been open two years! (It should be noted that these are just their Broadway grosses, not touring companies and the like. 

Exit Video
Seems like there's going to be a few short films about the Blade Runner world before Blade Runner 2049 opens. Here's the first one...