Little Links of Horror

EW Marisa Tomei joins the cast of Empire as a lesbian billionaire - whoa. Please let her throw down with Taraji
Nicks Flick Picks is also on the halfway mark, year in review beat with a lot of movies I haven't seen (sigh)
Jane Fonda on her summer screenings and returning to work on Grace and Frankie - she got an acting coach!
EW Pride & Prejudice & Zombies photos. Yikes. What's with the lingerie ad costumes? 
Awards Daily thinks Scorsese's Silence might be ready just in time for Oscar. I personally hope he takes his time and we get it next year. I like having breaks from the Oscar regulars or Oscar just becomes too much like the Emmys! 

Slate thinks Rolan Emmerich's Stonewall looks too much like a cheap musical
Playbill reminds us that Magic Mike (2012) is being made into a stage musical. What isn't... but still I'd totally forgotten
Business Insider here's an area you never see covered: the weapons department on a studio picture. Terminator Genisys in this case
Comics Alliance new pics from Batman vs. Superman. One of them seems to have Superman surrounded by a bunch of zombies so....
Twitter cracked me up when looking at that picture 

Yes No Maybe So
Queen of the Desert trailer has arrived, asking the question "Who the hell is Gertrud Bell" - I can't give it its own post because there are too many trailers these past couple of days. But you should YNMS in the comments if you're in the mood. So jealous of Robert Pattinson when he's holding those lion cubs. Awww. 

Show Tune To Go
Showtunes to Cherish For All Time
These couple of weeks have all been about City Center productions for me. Every summer they do these amazing staged readings. Last week I saw Jonathan Groff and Ana Gasteyer do William Finn's "A New Brain" which is a terrific underperformed musical. (Gasteyer as it turns out was born for the musical stage, SNL aside). Next up is Sutton Foster doing "The Wild Party" so naturally I'm quite excited.  

In between those two shows, as you may have heard, Ellen Greene reprised her "Audrey" role in Little Shop of Horrors this week at a staged reading at City Center.  Jason went. I went. Joe Reid was wayyyyy up front (I was green with envy and confused since I bought my tickets the second they went on sale!). The New York Times Ben Brantley raved. Everyone was there. Or everyone will pretend to have been there years from now when people are still talking about this. 

Ellen, who is now in her sixties, was in fine form and wearing her original costumes no less. She was a shameless ham, milking her every line, pose, and big notes for maximum audience pleasure. Whenever a singer with a gargantuan voice has a signature tune that they've sung for decades the tunes always get a little more affected every time, possibly to keep them entertained. (Have you heard Jennifer Holliday do "And I'm Telling You" lately? It's just a series of abstract vowels and growls now, it's so weird.) Ellen nearly took "Suddenly Seymour" there but still brought the house down. "Somewhere That's Green" on the other hand was just so tender and yearning and funny... my god the goosebumps. That voice can still send shivers all over you of aural pleasure, innate empathy, belly laughs. She's a treasure.

FWIW Jake Gyllenhaal played Seymour and he was very funny when ad-libbing (it's a staged reading with limited rehearsal time so some flubbed lines allow actors to embellish or get the audience on their side) and his voice ain't half bad either. 

Ellen Greene's standing ovation was so epic and rumbling I feared the balcony would collapse and kill us all. Which would, come to think of it, be a fitting end for this grim comedy. The movie (be very grateful that her performance was preserved for all time) granted Audrey and Seymour a happy ending but they die in the musical. And then they sing their warning tale.

Whatever they offer you, don't feed the plant!

Picking a favorite song from this musical is impossible, I've listend to it so often over the years, but "Skid Row" is the one that doesn't get any attention that I cherish so here that is. 

A Quick Chat with Marisa Tomei

Marisa Tomei with Tracy Letts in "The Realistic Joneses" (L) and John Lithgow in "Love is Strange" (R)

Jose here. Last week I had the opportunity to chat with the lovely Marisa Tomei about her new film Loitering with Intent (out in theaters and VOD) and I couldn't help but mention to her that she ended up giving my favorite supporting performances of 2014 both on film (Love is Strange) and on Broadway (The Realistic Joneses). Much to my delight - and evolving psychic abilities - my fellow Team Experience members agreed with me and she ended up winning our Best Supporting Actress award as well, so I thought I might share this fragment of our conversation...

JOSE: Pony from The Realistic Joneses and Kate from Love is Strange are such rich characters!

MARISA TOMEI: I looooove Pony!

JOSE: Pony reminded me of Honey from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Did you have her in mind at all?

MARISA TOMEI: No, other than that she was around a lot! Because Tracy Letts’ wife, Carrie Coon, played Honey on Broadway the year before (laughs) and I did keep thinking she’d be much better in this part...but then I got over that. I wasn’t really drawing any parallels though, other than that I’m drawn to those kinds of parts and that I like the part of Honey and that their names are so cute…

JOSE: And you were so amazing as Kate in Love is Strange.

MARISA TOMEI: They were the same producers as this. I got that because while we were shooting Loitering with Intent and going to get a sandwich or something, one of the producers, Jay Van Hoy, said “ I think one of our actors is dropping out of our movie, do you wanna be in it?” (laughs). He then said that Ira [Sachs] was directing it and Ivan Martin and I had gone to see Keep the Lights On and we loved that movie. I was familiar with Ira’s work and so it all came around.

JOSE: Both characters are so heartbreaking and they both feel so lived in…

MARISA TOMEI: I didn’t have a lot of heartbreak with Pony, that was really easy, because she really didn’t think that deeply, so I don’t think she made compromises for her husband, he made a lot of compromises for her actually. I think both of them were in a bargain, a whole “let’s not talk about stuff” deal. A lot of times before I’d ask myself what was my preparation, and I feel stupid for saying this (laughs) but sometimes my preparation would be visual. I’d think “pink” and also did a background story and my regular homework...but in general it was a lot of hoola-hooping and thinking in pink.

Of course, I was sent home with visions of Marisa Tomei as Kay Thompson in Funny Face. God, does she always make me think pink. What about you dear readers, were you in love with either of these performances? What are some of your favorite Marisa Tomei characters?

Top Ten: Worthy Performances That Will Win No Awards

Jose here. Every year as the awards race picks up, it seems as if we’re all collectively Lacuna-ed into forgetting all the great performances that came before Oscar narrows them down to twenty that by then, have won or been nominated for dozens of other awards. But what about the performances so “small”, “weird” or “foreign” that stand no chance in hell of competing with the FYC ads in the trades and/or Harvey Weinstein’s Sauron-like powers? We celebrate those performances, right now:

10. Keira Knightley - Begin Again

Sure, The Weinstein Company is behind this one, but even Harvey knows there is no point in trying to get a nod for this low-key, charming musical, especially not when he can get Keira an Oscar for a WWII flick, which makes more sense, right? Her performance here reminded me of Last Night in which she does so much with her eyes, which is something Begin Again director John Carney achieves with everyone in this cast. I’m still shocked that not a single awards body back in 2007 recognized the subdued and lovely performances by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová in Once. Why do you think this kind of acting seems so unworthy of awards?

More after the jump...

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Yes No Maybe So: "The Rewrite"

Hugh Grant returns to the romantic comedy genre in "The Rewrite". Here's Matthew Eng to break it down for us in our Yes No Maybe So way

YES

• Marisa Tomei
• Marisa Tomei
• Marisa Tomei
• Let me say it again. Marisa. Tomei. I’ll take her wherever I can get her, and I’d watch The Rewrite if only as a dolled-up delivery system for the most undervalued Oscar-winning actress working today. Why active, actress-friendly directors like David O. Russell and Woody Allen have yet to scoop her up and make a comedic muse out of her is totally beyond comprehension. She’s moving, miffed, and magnificent in Love is Strange, giving a pitch-perfect supporting performance, in the purest sense of the term. And she seems to be serving up her usual best here (i.e. rich, relaxed, and revealing character work) and top-lining (!) the damn thing as Hugh Grant’s older screenwriting pupil/inevitable love interest and she also seems to have a scene where she adorably re-creates the “Born to Hand Jive” scene from Grease with two little girls, and so for that and for My Marisa, I’ll be there.

more and the trailer itself after the jump...

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Tribeca: On Distribution Anxiety and Stag Getaways

Tribeca coverage continues with Nathaniel on "Loitering With Intent" and "The Bachelor Weekend".

The way I see it, distributors pick up movies for one or more of four reasons, all of which are market driven. 1) The Shop-worn Genre. There's a reason so many low budget horror movies are made each year - the audience is faithful. There are virtually no other genres with audiences that loyal but faith-based movies are making a case for themselves right about now. Variations on this include any recognizable type, though: the murder mystery, the buddy comedy, sci-fi, etcetera 2) The Name Factor. If you can pin your marketing on recognizable faces or names in front of or behind the camera, you have a decent shot at getting media attention and then, goes the thinking, selling tickets. 3) Marketing Hook, Easily Identifiable. This is where  "high concept," the term being popularized in the 80s for movies you can sum up in one sentence, comes in. 4) Passionate Advocacy / Prestige. This one is harder to see coming but sometimes deep pocketed distributors do pick up films just because they love them and want them seen. Although even this passion is suspect because oft times the goal isn't wholly altruistic but part of the whole "prestige/awards" marketing hook and resume dreams.

But, real talk: The bulk of festival movies will never spend much time, if any, in regular movie theaters...

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