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Towleroad The Imitation Game (we just discussed the trailer) isn't the only Alan Turing focused artwork in the ether. The Pet Shop Boys just debuted their opera Breaking the Code (yes, opera) about the man.
Theater Mania there's a stage adaptation of Shakespeare in Love in the West End. Here's a review
Vulture interviews True Blood's Nelsan Ellis on the lame actor who wouldn't make out with him on True Blood and his role in Get On Up

Kenneth in the (212) Ryan Gosling joins the waxworks at Madame Tussauds
MNPP freaks out for a John Waters retrospective this September. As well we all should.
Variety big weekend expected for Lucy. I guess this means Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow solo film will get a greenlight
Boy Culture Wonder Woman in Madonna drag. LOL
Awards Daily Heart of the Sea, the Ron Howard/ Chris Hemsworth post-Rush collaboration is test screening
/Film new poster for Mad Max: Fury Road 
Superhero Hype Batman's new costume displayed at Comic Con... but I'm sorry it looks so creepy without someone in it
AV Club Project Runway begins its 13th season tonight

And please to enjoy the Venice Film Festival Lineup. They're sharing some titles with TIFF like Good Kill, The Humbling, 99 Homes, and Red Amnesia. But ther opening night film Birdman is all theirs. Feel the envy. I'd do a whole post as with TIFF but I'm not going to Venice *sniffle* whereas I might be a TIFF and also as you read this I am fulfilling my obligations as a citizen via Jury Dutyzzz. No, for real. Feel for me as I sit in the rooms waiting for my name to be called or not.

Podcast: Summer Fun Times Movie Watching

Nick & Joe & Nathaniel are surveying highlights from the summer season thus far. Nick and Joe love Only Lovers Left Alive and Nathaniel has just returned from How To Train Your Dragon 2. 

00:00 Intro and Lucy
02:20 Alternative Blockbusters & Action Figures
04:00 Favorite Things We Saw This Summer 
08:45 Maleficent and Villainous Backstories 
12:00 Many Tangents: Kill Bill, The Lion King, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Jude Law
19:10 Summer Releases To Come, Melissa McCarthy & Channing Tatum
25:00 Jersey Boys vs. Think Like a Man 2
and...
30:00-48:00 As an appetizer for next week's 2004 10th Anniversary Podcast. We look back at the Oscar winners: Morgan Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Swank and Million Dollar Baby

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes (though sometimes it takes a day to show up there). Continue the conversation in the comments.

Related Reads:
Keith Uhlich on Godzilla and Wesley Morris on Maleficent

Summer Fun Times

Thoughts I Had... While Watching The "Lucy" Trailer

Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Johansson Scarlett Johansson Scarlett Johansson  

Maria Full of Grace if it had been a Luc Besson picture bankrolled by a major studio

That part with the eyeball is cool but I don't understand how increased brain capacity allows you to make your eyes change color and your hair grow super fast and change colors? These are brain functions of which I was not yet aware.

The Temple of Link

Vulture Pharrell on his Oscar loss and Frozen's "Let it Go"
Cinema Blend super depressing think piece about Chris Evans planned retirement after Captain America and why our franchise culture kills an actor's passion
Empire Madonna is not done directing. Next up: Ade: A Love Story based on the novel by Alice Walker's daughter

Guardian wonders when we'll start seeing gay parents in family films from Disney
Variety True Detective will compete in drama rather than in miniseries at the Emmys. Interesting move, right? I still think the Emmys need to start making rulings on this sort of thing just so there's consistency, rather than letting the shows decide. 
The Wire FWIW this is the article that seems to make the most sense as to why HBO is doing that
Film School Rejects Plans for Prometheus 2 move forward. Rumors of multiple Michael Fassbender sound perfect to me. Fill the screen with him.
Salon on Wes Anderson and the art of Twee "It's not easy being twee"
What Culture on 18 screenplays every aspiring writer should read. Some interesting choices / points but it's VERY man's man oriented. Obviously written by a guy who doesn't get into female protagonist cinema because I don't know how you make a screenplay list and don't include All About Eve
St Paul Lutheran Church Get this. Oft employed character actor James Rebhorn (Homeland, The Talented Mr Ripley, Far From Heaven) wrote his own obituary before he died. It's beautiful

From CinemaCon in Vegas
i09 sees and loves footage from Luc Besson's "insane" Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson as a drug mule turned superpowered killer. They liken it to Kick Ass which is unfortunately for me a superpowered deterrent.
In Contention on Angelina Jolie's Unbroken preview - I haven't drawn up my "april foolish" predictions yet but I think I'm probably less bullish on this one than most. I keep thinking Seabiscuit. Not that that film wasn't an Oscar hit but that type of inspirational power of human (or animal) spirit isn't as easy of an Oscar sell as it once was, I'd wager. 

P.S. And in case you haven't heard Jonathan Groff (Looking, Frozen) and Lucy Liu will announce the Tony Award nom this year on April 29th.

P.P.S. I'm not going to link to any of the many articles about the possible reboot of the Indiana Jones franchise (a.k.a. Indiana Jones 5 or 6)  because the only way to end reboot culture and get some actual NEW material up in here is for the media and the public to start ignoring these creatively bankrupt cash-ins that desperately want to keep giving us things we've already had.

What happened to youthful rebellion, I ask? Why do kids today want to see watered down versions of their parents favorite heroes instead of getting their own? Katniss aside, it's ALL their parents heroes over and over again.

Scarlett Stays Super

...superhuman that is.

It appears that after her third stint as The Black Widow for Captain America: Winter Soldier (it's not just a cameo), Scarlett Johansson isn't ready to part with the super-powered set just yet.  

She'll be starring in Lucy as a woman who gains superpowers after being a mule for an experimental serum. It's a new project for director Luc Besson (who seems to be aiming for a big comeback after a quiet decade starting with Malavita this fall). This latest deal suggests she's content to stay in franchise mode for awhile longer still despite surely being one of the richest young actresses in the world what with so many spokesperson deals and big budget thesping already behind her at only 29 years of age. The size that nest egg must be by now (!) but maybe that's purposeful and her interests lie outside of acting like, say, Angelina Jolie. And since Angelina seems to have vacated the A List Action Heroine niche, someone's gotta fill it. 

But for those of us who fell in love with dreamy Scarlett early on it's kind of shocking in retrospect that Action would prove to be her genre of choice. That languorous Ghost Worldly Girl With the Pearl Earring Got Lost in Translation somewhere; how does that girl have all this energy to run around kicking ass? Wouldn't she rather sleep and pout and stare forlornly off into the distance? Doesn't it make you even more curious about the upcoming sci-fi but not that kind of sci-fi drama Under the Skin. Scarjo doesn't seem to have sizeable artistic ambitions -- or she's storing them up secretly for her 30s (she's still only 28!) -- so why did she opt to work with the very artful Birth director Jonathan Glazer inbetween all the green screens?

Time will tell... and hopefully reveal that movie. Still no release date for Under the Skin and hasn't it been in post for ages? At this point it's been almost a decade since Glazer trained his hypnotic camera on Kidman in catatonic grief crisis mode at the opera.

#ticktockticktock