Links: Martin, Cheno, Lynch, Diggs, Max, and More

To Purchase Click on Poster

<---LOOK at this amazing Blue Velvet poster making the web rounds. [Hat tip MNPP]. I so love painted movie posters and it's only 7 bucks. Click on photo to go to the artist's site.

Links
El Desio Pedro Almodóvar blogging from the set of Silencio (!!) with two photos
Dissolve Today in Ballsiest News: Nate Parker (Beyond the Lights) who we just celebrated as a Born in '79 Hottie is directing and starring in a feature biopic of Nat Turner, a slave who led a bloody massacre against white captors in 1831. But here's the ballsy part: they're naming it Birth of a Nation (!) 
Vanity Fair Don Hertzfeldt (World of Tomorrow) says being an artist should be your full time job. Hear hear! Start donating to creatives you believe in or purchasing their work. Life is not free. 
MUBI "Psychopolitical Realism in Mad Max: Fury Road" - provocative piece
Far Flung Correspondents looks at Fury Road's use of Giussepe Verdi's "Dies Irae" from his Requiem mass
Decider pays tribute to Under the Skin, now streaming on Amazon, which we are confident people will continue to discover and be floored by
Comics Alliance Chris Pine may be the new Steve Trevor for the new Wonder Woman film
AV Club celebrates Steve Martin's ear worm "King Tut" - have I ever inadequately expressed to you how much I love Steve Martin? If not, know that it's muchly. 

Vulture passes out fun awards to the movies that screened at Cannes including "Most Likely to Make You Hug Your Cab Driver" (The Palme winner Dheepan) and  "Hottest Movie With No Sex" (Maryland ....starring Matthias Schoenaerts naturally. He can't help himself)
MNPP Jude Law accessorizes with chest hair at the Spy premiere
Boy Culture Little Darling Tatum O'Neal is now dating women
Forbes the current gender quake in the film world - female directors want to work but it's not a meritocracy 

Broadway's Season
Towleroad Taye Diggs is set to play Hedwig on Broadway (such an amazing/unexpected choice!) and TMZ reporters continue to be awful but sometimes they're hounding obnoxiousness gets wonderful things like Taye Diggs deadpan monologue about being a drag queen and prostitute in high school come out. He's kidding but what else are you going to do in a situation like this?
Time Out NY Why Kristin Chenoweth deserves the Tony
Theater Mania "Taystee" from OITNB (Danielle Brooks) is joining the revival of The Color Purple on Broadway. She'll play Oprah's old role "Sofia" 

Showtune to Go...
A little Cheno. If you ever have the chance to see her live (on stage or in concert) do not hesitate. Spend the money. Simply put: She's one of the best live performers of all time. She ALWAYS delivers (I've seen her several times) and in a really big way, too - spontaneous, disciplined, great sounding, and just hilarious.

Review: Far From The Madding Crowd

In Far From the Madding Crowd, a new film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, every eligible man wants Carey Mulligan’s winsome Bathsheba. But she cannot be tamed! (Funny how commitment phobia reads as strength in a female protagonist and weakness in a male protagonist). Or at least she won’t “settle” for less than what she’s already planned for herself. Nevertheless the wanting continues and the camera, observes her, often at a distance as with a memorable shot of Bathsheba laying back from her saddle, as if enjoying the tactile and visual sensations of the powerful creature beneath her and the vibrant foliage and sky above her.

(This review contains a general trajectory ending spoiler but it is based on a 151 year-old classic novel.)

Three bachelors and Bathsheba's issues after the jump... 

Click to read more ...

The Forever Link

Before We Get Started...
Here's the only sane reaction to the news that The Lovely Laura Linney (who has barely been on movie screens these past five years) has joined the cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. This comes from Aaron Fullerton on Twitter:

Laura Linney was cast in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 and, for her sake, I hope she simply introduces it like an episode of Downton Abbey.

The Links
NY Times profiles Tom Hardy on the cusp of even wider stardom with Mad Max: Fury Road
The Guardian looks at five great moments from Shirley Maclaine's career
CHUD Director Josh Trank (Chronicle) has left the as yet untitled Star Wars spinoff film
EW interviews Matthias Schoenaerts about Far From the Madding Crowd, being called "the Belgian Brando" and his favorite movies (he loves David Lynch!)
Coming Soon from Shakespeare to a video game adaptation? The MacBeth team (Fassy, Cotillard, and director Justin Kurzel) are doing Assassin's Creed together.
The Dissolve Helen Hunt reuniting with the director of The Sessions for a road trip movie. Dakota Fanning co-stars
The Dissolve Because A24 is the best one of their next projects will have Cary Fukunaga telling the true story of a father who went on a cross-country walk to work through his grief about his gay son's suicide
Deadline Channing Tatum to star in an adaptation of the old sci-fi novel "The Forever War" from the 70s which is about soldiers fighting an endless war with no clear concept of why they're fighting. Apparently the novel has ideas about the future including the eliminating of heterosexuality (?) and the melting pot creating one homogenous race that are hard to imagine in movie form, given Hollywood's timidity about race and alternative sexuality 
MNPP a fun new poster for the horror comedy Cooties 

Superhero Mania
Time Out the first ten Marvel films in 40 gifs -- this would have been so much faster than that Marvel Marathon I attended!
Comics Alliance shares 11 in universe or comics references within the movie
Bryan Singer keeps releasing photos of his new X-Men team from the set including Jean Grey () in acid washed jeans and Jubilee in that familiar yellow jacket
Mark Ruffalo is calling Marvel out on their lack of female action figures
Pajiba collates a list of actors and directors considered for all the Marvel movies - what a difference many of them would have made
Dark Horizons they've narrowed down the new Peter Parker to Asa Butterfield and Tom Holland. Holland is the better actor but immensely less famous so let's hope they realize they don't need pre-movie fame for one of the most globally famous heroes ever created

Showtune to Go!
Remember Robin De Jesús, that awkward drag-loving teenager from Camp (2003)? He recently turned 30 and here he is from his new cabaret show #TheStruggleisReal (May 4th at 54 Below) doing Miley Cyrus ("Wrecking Ball" is totally a standard already) and reminding us that there was more to that movie than Anna Kendrick's breakout. 

Bad Movie-thon

Jose here. Ah, it’s Oscar season and all movie lovers can talk about is who was snubbed or who will and should win. While basking in the glow of acclaimed movies and conversations about the merits of sound editing and screenwriting is nothing to frown upon, most people forget that new movies are released each week, yes, even during Oscar season. And yes, most of these releases are of dubious quality, but sometimes you can only watch your favorite Best Foreign Language Film nominee so many times before you want to go see something new, right?

But what to choose among the pile of critically lambasted offerings that 2015 has brought us so far? I saw a bunch of them, to bring you this concise report.

Click to read more ...

Tweets o' the Week

Clash of the twitter threads. I recently started muting words on twitter on subjects I just had no interest in hearing about anymore and in some cases never did despite the rest of the world's inexplicably insatiable interest (my timeline is blessedly "Kardashian" free - you should try it! I'm missing nothing) and I've been so much happier.

Twitter is still a colossal time sucker in some ways but it keeps the pop culture conversation lively and my favorite thing about it is hearing smart people say amusing things that I didn't think to say - that I felt but never put into words (like the first tweet below). Anyway, here are a dozen or so tweets that amused or edified. Just because it's fun to share them.

Really enjoyed A Most Violent Year. First film I've seen in ages where guns are actually treated as guns i.e. INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS.

— Catherine Bray (@catherinebray) November 21, 2014

Okay but why aren't there Pitch Perfect action figures?

— Lucy Knisley (@LucyKnisley) November 21, 2014

will julianne moore and sally kirkland both starring in movies about dementia lead to vote-splitting

— Mayukh Sen (@ericbrohmer) November 21, 2014

More after the jump including Viola Davis, Janis Joplin biopic, Matthias Schoenaerts, Selma, and the greatest title card of all time...

Click to read more ...