Link Catch-Up, Oscar Warm-Up

Some of these links are a smidge old since I've been away for two weeks in Toronto, others brand new.

Get Peanutized the Peanuts Movie is advertising like Straight Outta Somewhere... by going for an internet meme. You can make yourself into a character. The options are a bit limited so this the best i could do at approximating me. I really wanted to be holding a coffee cup or a laptop
Boy Culture Novelist Jackie Collins, sister of Joan, dies at 77. My favorite memory of her will always be Sandra Bernhard reading a passage from "Rock Star" on David Letterman and then tossing the book aside after "wanna pick a flower you lucky man?"
Dark Horizons Brie Larson to play tennis legend Billie Jean King. Good luck Brie because tennis movies never get good reviews!
The Daily Beast interviews Tom Hardy about Legend, The Revenant, dogs, and that sexuality question that keeps popping up
The Telegraph their excellent film critics rank all Woody Allen movies ranked. Good read/insights even if you quibble with order
NYT "Hooray for Hollywood... No Really" a must-read conversation between the smarty New York Times film critics 
i09 Johnny Depp's six most inexplicable career decisions
MNPP Quote of the Day Paul Bettany vs. Jason Statham. Meowwww

MNPP Do Dump or Marry: The X-Twinks - Ben Hardy, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Tye Sheridan
NYT Jack Larson, aka Jimmy Olsen from TV's original Superman, dies at 87 
Towleroad are these the top ten coming out scenes from TV history?
Empire Amanda Seyfried joining the cast of Twin Peaks Season 3 in a new role
/Film Pulp Fiction original cast wish list? This is so weird to consider 
Film Stage Charlie Kaufman discusses Anomalisa 

You Know Awards Season's Coming When...
The arguments get more heated. THR published a negative piece on Truth and Awards Daily thinks it's a hit job from the Right (with more to come from The Left). And Vulture's already declaring the winner which puts a big target on its back. My goodness. We're starting early this year, huh?! ICYMI I also pitted Truth and Spotlight against each other (for fun... I don't actually think they're after the same thing at all). And finally these two pieces framing this year's Oscar Best Actress race as "Under 30 Contest" and "Women of All Ages" just goes to show you how much framing by the media can count when it comes to narrative / awards shows. 

Yes yes. I'm going to start updating the Oscar charts to reflect Festival Madness. Probably tomorrow.

Today's Watch

Downton Wars Episode 1 Bates & Thomas draw lightsabers on each other... for a good cause. Rob James-Collier, tv's most delicious evil gay butler, filmed this for charity, in the downtime on set. Mashing up Star Wars and Downton is not quite as wonderful as it sounds but both episodes have a few good chuckles.
Downton Wars Episode 2 This one is better if way too slow. The asides to the Downton actors sending up their own characters are wonderful - particularly Daisy, Mrs Patmore, and Lady Mary. Bonus Points: Dowager Countess Jedi... Dame Maggie Smith 4evah ! 

Three Hannibals

At some point in the long heated competition between actors for statues each year, someone somewhere will bring up the apples and oranges factor. How do you compare what Actor #5 is doing in movie A about This versus what Actor #3 is asked to achieve in movie Z about That? Which is why this video of three men playing the same exact scene in different films versions of the Hannibal Lecter novel "Red Dragon" is so fascinating.

Any observations?

Location Location Location: Telluride Fest, Hell's Club, White House

Variety Dean Jones, Disney star of the 60s and 70s, dies at 84. RIP
Variety National Medal of Arts recipients this week at the White House include Larry McMurtry, Stephen King and Sally Field! 
This is Not Porn Peter O'Toole playing cricket during The Lion in Winter 
Boston Globe Sienna Miller cut from Black Mass - oh the indignities of how many miniscule roles she gets
Many Rantings of John thinks Game of Thrones will beat Mad Men to the Drama Emmy. Agree? I think I do. I've managed to keep my Mad Men expectations tamped down (but for Jon Hamm who is deserving times a thousand) and four Best Drama trophies for an 8 year series (F*** you F***ing two-part finale TV/movie trend) is nothing to complain about, you know? 
Variety raves Tom McCarthy's Spotlight with the "heftiest roles" belonging to Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. Move it up your Oscar charts 

AV Club Anne Hathaway on losing roles to early 20somethings-- hey she isn't talking about Silver Linings Playbook is she?
Comics Alliance looks at those unboxed Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys. If you're into that sort of thing 
Pajiba tries to recast Galaxy Quest which is going to become a TV series now. Honestly, in some cases why recast? Missi Pyle needs to be a regular! 
MNPP more new pics from A Bigger Splash with Tilda Swinton. It looks more and more scrumptuous the more we see 
MNPP also believes that Jake Gyllenhaal nudity has been removed from Everest. Boo!
Kenneth in the (212) Henry Cavill apologizes for his boner 
Towleroad Candis Cayne's Curb Your Enthusiasm experience. (I've never told you this but I love Candis Cayne -- since Wigstock in 1995 -- and am so glad she's getting more press via "I Am Cait".) 
Empire I somehow missed the news that Neighbors is getting a sequel (already filming) but maybe I blocked it out since Selena Gomez and Chloe Moretz are the antagonists this time for our hapless marrieds played by Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne?
Variety on a new biography "Can I Go Now?" on outrageous superagent Sue Mengers agent to Barbra Streisand who is having quite a posthumous revival of late
Time Out London Joaquin Phoenix on Irrational Man and why he turned down Doctor Strange 

When I was younger I was probably a bit of a snob about [taking on blockbuster roles]. But they’ve gotten better. I’ve flirted with several of those films, having meetings and getting close, but ultimately it never felt like they’d really be fulfilling. There were too many requirements that went against my instincts for character. I’ve been spoiled. I’ve never had to make those compromises. I’ve not met a director yet with one of those films where we go through the script, they say: ‘You know what, fuck this set-piece, let’s focus on the character!’ I understand, but it’s best I don’t do it.

Video of the Day
Check out this incredible mashup of movie characters in "Hell's Club" starring Al Pacino, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta. I especially like the Collateral on Cocktail staredown and unobtrusive Boogie Nights appearances

Telluride Lineup
The high altitude festival kicks off today with the following 27 film lineup. TFE never attends Telluride because it is against our "deeply held religious beliefs" to pay for the privilege of giving a festival free publicity (unlike most A list festivals you have to pay for a press pass). Titles in red are also playing at TIFF some of which have already played Cannes or Berlinale and some of which will also play NYFF. Titles in blue are playing NYFF but not TIFF which is a roundabout way of saying we'll be seeing most of them within a month, just not this very weekend! They'll also be giving awards/holding tributes to director Danny Boyle (Steve Jobs), Rooney Mara (Carol) -- Nick made a funny -- and documentarian Adam Curtis (Bitter Lake) so Oscar Campaign Season has officially begun. Speaking of Rooney, here's the new poster for Carol. Unimaginative but pretty!

• CAROL (d. Todd Haynes, U.S., 2015)
• AMAZING GRACE (d. Sydney Pollack, U.S., 1972/2015)
• ANOMALISA (d. Charlie Kaufman, U.S., 2015)
• BEAST OF NO NATION (d. Cary Fukunaga, U.S., 2015)
• HE NAMED ME MALALA (d. Davis Guggenheim, U.S., 2015)
• STEVE JOBS (d. Danny Boyle, U.S., 2015)
• IXCANUL(d. Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala, 2015)
• BITTER LAKE (d. Adam Curtis, U.K., 2015)
• ROOM (d. Lenny Abrahamson, England, 2015)
• BLACK MASS (d. Scott Cooper, U.S., 2015)
  Why anyone would be seeing Black Mass at either fest when it opens on 09/18, I cannot say!  
• SUFFRAGETTE (d. Sarah Gavron, U.K., 2015)
• SPOTLIGHT (d. Tom McCarthy, U.S., 2015)
• RAMS (d. Grímur Hákonarson, Iceland, 2015)
• MOM AND ME (d. Ken Wardrop, Ireland, 2015)
• VIVA (d. Paddy Breathnach, Ireland, 2015)
• TAJ MAJAL (d. Nicolas Saada, France-India, 2015)
• SITI (d. Eddie Cahyono, Indonesia, 2015)
• HEART OF THE DOG (d. Laurie Anderson, U.S. 2014)
• 45 YEARS (d. Andrew Haigh, England, 2015)
• SON OF SAUL (d. Lázló Nemes, Hungary, 2015)
• ONLY THE DEAD (d. Michael Ware, Bill Guttentag, U.S.- Australia, 2015)
• TAXI (d. Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2015)
• HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (d. Kent Jones, U.S., 2015)
• TIME TO CHOOSE (d. Charles Ferguson, U.S., 2015)
• MARGUERITE (d. Xavier Giannoli, France, 2015)
• TIKKUN (d. Avishai Sivan, Israel, 2015)
• WINTER ON FIRE: UKRAINE’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM (d. Evgeny Afineevsky, Russia-Ukraine, 2015)

Off Screen
Vulture smart negative review of Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz. I like the album quite a lot more than this but salient points made 
Broadway Buzz Kathleen Turner to costar in "Would You Still Love Me..." Off Broadway. It's about gender reassignment surgery. But not her characters (sorry, Friends fans). Her child is considering it in the play.
NYT a profile of a "fit-model". I include this because I had never heard of this job until I became friends some years ago with a girl who is one! (Hi, Jenn!) People get this job not from magazine-beauty but from having ideal/average proporations/measurements for clothes-sizes. It's always neat to realize that each industry has jobs you've never imagined that people can actually earn livings from.
Gothamist on the best non Broadway theater companies in NYC 
i09 novelist Don DeLillo to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Book Awards this fall 

Showtune to Go
Since we were just talking about Lucille Ball here's a comic number "Jitterbug Bite" from Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Uptown Link You Up

Guardian Amy Schumer taking up active role in fight for more US gun control
Variety in strange news MacBeth will be available to stream shortly after its December release
Empire Channing Tatum has only just now agreed to play Gambit in the upcoming superhero film. This is why i hate internet superhero culture. We've been hearing about this for about ten months. And he's only just made it official so now we get to hear about it again? 
/Film Relativity's bankruptcy has saved us from at least one reboot: The Crow (though as with Terminator the idea of rebooting it makes no damn sense since the very concept enables endless sequels with very little connective tissue to the originals
Playbill at least one cast member (Josh Gad) of Beauty & The Beast is done filming
The Matinee looks back at Her after reading Aziz Ansari's "Modern Romance" 
E! Online WHOA. Kyle Chandler played Coach Taylor (Friday Night Lights) again... albeit for just a few seconds

 

YNMS
We've done so many of these lately that to do them all would be a bit like becoming a trailers only site and no thank you... so a few that we missed are Alex Ross Perry's Queen of Earth starring Elisabeth Moss who was so so excellent in Perry's Listen Up Philip (it also has a great poster!),  the Oscar hopeful Brooklyn (which I loved at Sundance), Nancy Meyer's The Intern which we will obviously see because Anne Hathaway (♥), the Half Nelson directors returning with Mississippi Grind though they've moved from Gosling to Reynolds in the "Ryan" department, that continuous shot German movie Victoria (which Sebastian already talked about) and the latest trailer for the animated version of The Little Prince. 

Video To Go
"Uptown Funk" as sung by the movies. 

Cute. (I was wondering what they'd use for "Michelle Pfeiffer" and had no idea that she was referenced in The Bucket List) But wow is that a boy-movie montage. Even the dance breaks are sans-actresses!

Who You Gonna Link?

Samuel Adams has the only appropriate response to news that Ben Affleck will direct and star in a stand-alone Batman movie
Hayley Atwell (and Emily VanCamp) were flirting awesomely @ Captain America himself on Twitter and he didn't respond! Resulting Conclusive Fact: Chris Evans is bad at social media
THR sad. AMPAS lost their swanky screening room in Manhattan

Film School Rejects on Han Solo and other characters who don't need original stories, backstories or prequels. In my opinion that's roughly "all" characters. I need my mystery. I like my introduction to stay an introduction. Hollywood and lemming-like audiences keep stealing the mysteries away!
Guardian in the absolute grossest news of the week Federico Fellini's estate is licensing La Dolce Vita for a remake. Nothing is sacred.
Conan O Brien Jennifer Lawrence does a growly impression of Cher's "Believe"
Movie Dearest gives an advance take on hot tickets at OutFest in LA. I wanna see some of these
Out interviews a very intimidating RuPaul. It's amazing
Variety Teen Wolf renewed for Season 6. Danger! It gets more incoherent each season and they're about to graduate high school, a clear time to end it! 
JoopaDoops awesome Muppets/Mad Max Mashup. I love Animal so much. Always have.
Harper's Bazaar interviews Natalie Portman who isnt so sure about the #AskHerMore red carpet trend

I get asked so many questions about the Middle East, and I'm like 'Can you please just ask me about my dress? Let's just talk about the dress!'"

Theatah People
Time Out this is sad. Jan Maxwell, super duper talented stage actress -- I've seen her in two shows and she was best in show both times despite sharing the stage with people I was otherwise obsessed by -- is retiring from acting citing lack of interest in the type of work you can make a living doing!  
Gothamist Patti LuPone continues to be a hero destroying badly behaving theatergoers -- she's had it with your cel phones!
Broadway.com The Lovely Laura Linney and Bernadette Peters on "Watch What Happens" they talk Downton Abbey, Into the Woods and more 
Playbill John Cameron Mitchell compares each Broadway Hedwig to a Superhero - Fun.

Who You Gonna Call?

Oooh, look. It's the first image of your new Ghostbusters in costume: Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones,Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon. IMDb has no information on who did the costumes yet but Paul Feig has never worked with the same costume designer on a movie twice for some reason so it could be anyone.  

On a scale of 1 to 100 how excited are you to see this movie in 378 days when it opens? Frankly, I'd be a lot more excited about remakes of any kind if they gender-swapped like this. If you're not rethinking, why remake?

Magic Mike XXL x 5
RH Reality Check on why straight men should see Magic Mike XXL 
Variety Guy Lodge argues that its summers "most subversive studio pleasure"
Pajiba on Channing Tatum & Joe Mangianello's reaction to hearing the movie called "feminist"
Same Same and Glenn Dunks loves it too, Jada Pinkett Smith and all

This is all a way of saying that even though my review (icymi) was somewhat south of completely satisfied I did enjoy it and the positive reviews have left me wanting to see it again (since they liked many of the things I didn't) and the negatives have not convinced me to lower my solid grade (B).