Ride on the Link Train

news
• Coming Soon first image Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked
• TMZ Meryl Streep files for trademark claim on the use of her name. Wonder what prompted this?
• WSJ Is the Star Wars franchise slipping in popularity? (This seems like a lot of panic for nothing since the movies are regularly grossing a billion)  

• Variety Bernadette Peters off to a great sales start taking over for Bette Midler in Hello Dolly! on Broadway
• Tracking Board Juliette Lewis joins the cast of the next Sam Taylor-Johnson movie A Million Little Pieces 
• The Wrap Oprah responds to her action figure from A Wrinkle in Time
• Tribeca Film Matthew Eng, who co-writes our "Months of Meryl" column, interviewed the queen herself! Check out his chat with Streep about her work on The Post.
• AV Club Sam Raimi likely to direct the Kingkiller Chronicles which already has Lin-Manuel Miranda attached for the music

opinion
• Film Mixtape Our own Chris Feil's top 15 films of the year: Lady Bird, Raw, Personal Shopper, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and more...
• Advocate Sir Ian McKellen on the 30th anniversary of his coming out
• Fandor "What if Pixar made Phantom Thread?" <-- SPOILERS in that article, major ones, so be warned. I'm not sure what to make of this piece. I love the concept and the header image and the cartoon being described but it's basically like 2 separate articles shoved up against each other since they keep leaving the imaginary film for multi-paragraph detours into the real one.
• Cinematic Corner Sati picks her 35 best shots of the year

exit video

Nicole eats "micro-livestock" aka bugs for Vanity Fair's secret talent theater. Jason made me lol with his response to this video:

Nicole Kidman dislodged her jaw and swallowed Lars Von Trier whole one time on the set of Dogville so bugs ain't shit"

Best Dressed at SAG

by Nathaniel R

Marvel at this feat of fashion engineering. Somehow the 16 actors (+ god knows how many stylists) got together and took the title This is Us to heart and made it work. Everything was gorgeously coordinated and complimentary though not samey samey. From the royal blue throughline of the gowns to small color accents on the tuxes to the peppering of earth tones, purples, blacks, and golds to keep it vibrant and versatile. The more you look the more cohesive and beautiful it becomes. Bow down. Okay now on to the gowns... 

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Best Golden Globe Tweets

by Nathaniel R

BREAKING: Nicole Kidman has finally used her Instagram account which had been taunting us for years (or at least it felt like that... months?) with "no posts yet". Here is the beauteous moment in full.

For those of you who don't have Twitter and thus missed any of these delicious bites, photos, or observations, here you go. These are culled from the vastness with speed and imprecision but I hope you find a chuckle you might have otherwise missed... 

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Interview: on the Ghostly Costume Design of "The Beguiled"

 by Nathaniel R

The costume designer Stacey Battat has, to date, worked mostly in female-oriented contemporary indies. That's quite a perfect niche to build a design career from. Or at least it is when the women who've visually helped define your early work are such stylish talented icons themselves. Battat first made her mark on two Parker Posey features in the late Aughts (Broken English, Happy Tears). Soon after she was deep in the Julianne Moore business (Still Alice, Freeheld, What Maisie Knew). Other credits include The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her and Him and Mozart in the Jungle but it's been her partnership with writer/director Sofia Coppola that's come to define her young career.

The two began working together on the LA dreamy Somewhere (2010). Battat proved invaluable to all the fashiongasms of Coppola's arguably most underrated feature The Bling Ring (2013). Then came an atypical challenge: a forgotten girls school deep in the Civil War era.

I spoke with Battat recently by phone to talk about one of the most visually striking films this past year, The Beguiled, and what she brought to it. Our interview, edited for clarity and length follows...

Click to read more ...

Into the Link-Verse

• Dim the House Lights a conversation about those Sondheim auditions in Lady Bird
• /Film why is Big Little Lies still competing as "Limited Series" when it has a second season order. The controversy is starting to bubble up
• Cartoon Brew I didn't even know that there was ANOTHER new awards show but come to think of it there's always another new one, isn't there? We now have the European Animation Awards and they gave their top prize to Loving Vincent. This is not to be confused with the European Film Awards which also gave Loving Vincent Best Animated Feature
• Cartoon Brew on the key points of that giant Disney/Fox deal. It's scary people. Now basically only 4 American-owned entertainment companies have control over America’s cultural identity. 

• Forbes on the teaser for Into the Spider-Verse with Miles Morales finally making it to screen...
• Indie Wire talks to the great actress Lesley Manville about Phantom Thread and Hollywood for women over 40
• The Wrap ack. I totally forgot to link to this last week. In an unprecedented move The Academy added 'Standards of Conduct' to membership details after the explosion of sexual misconduct news this past month
• Coming Soon the first poster and teaser for New Mutants
• Out January 25th is when RuPaul's Drag Race returns
• Vogue Philip Seymour Hoffman's partner Mimi pens an essay with Adam Green about living with an addict and the actor's final sad year.

List-Mania
• EW a timeline of Nicole Kidman's most iconic 2017 moments
• After Ellen a list of the best lesbian or bi movies of the year
• GQ Top ten books of the year and each author chosen gets to recommend a book, too. Fun angle! Do you have a library card? You might need one after this.
• Variety Owen Gleiberman and Peter DeBruge's top ten lists
• EW best and worst tv shows of the year
• Out most iconic looks of 2017. It's heavy on music video ladies for some reason but there's some fun surprises like "Allison Janney with a parrot on her shoulder" from I, Tonya
• CBC an A-Z guide to the year in queer: God's Own Country, Melina Matsoukas, and much more
• THR top ten movies of the year from Todd McCarthy and staff. Call Me By Your Name all over the place.