Link Roundup and a "Trumbo" Shout-out on the Hill

David Poland on why certain films overperform or underperform come Oscar time. Much of this is both true and frustrating. Why couldn't Warner Bros see what they had in Creed for example?  
Comics Alliance on the fan campaign to make Iron Fist an Asian hero in the new tv eries. So far Marvel/Netflix has rejected the idea which is just maddening since the origin story is pretty racist in modern context.
The Envelope interviews Julianne Nicholson who was so so good in Black Mass
Word and Film An interview with actress Ileanna Douglas (we've missed her) about her new memoir "I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories From a Life Lived In and Out of the Movies"

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw picks his favorite films in multiple categories
Variety Guy Lodge's top ten list. It won't surprise you to hear that it's a good read. And Joy and Magic Mike XXL are on it keeping things provocative.
Pajiba John Krasinski is on his way to a Chris Pratt like reinvention. Trying to keep up with wife Emily Blunt perhaps?
Variety Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette reprised their famous roles at Jason Reitman's live reading of True Romance. How fun.
The Playlist says Jennifer Lawrence is going to play Robert De Niro's dad in the next David O. Russell film. Now they're just purposefully antagonizing us now, right? 
Awards Daily Spotlight takes the Las Vegas Film Critics prize for Best Picture
Daily Herald Mad Max Fury Road takes Best Picture from the Chicago Film Critics Association 
AV Club Sean Penn to play Andrew Jackson in an HBO miniseries. Sadly it is not a remake of the Broadway musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" but we'd rather see that! ...albeit with its original Jackson, Benjamin Walker in the lead role

Off Cinema
Rolling Stone Readers Poll of the 10 best songs of the year: Adele, Madonna, Drake and more 
Boing Boing Matt Haughey is a genius -- he started photoshopping dildos where guns were in photos of GOP candidates and it's both funny and satirically pointed 
The Daily Beast best TV shows of 2015: UnReal, The Knick, Empire and more...

Star Wars ♫  give me more Star Wars...Nothing but Star Wars ♬  don't let them end...
Thrillist unearths a time capsule of photos from the premiere of The Phantom Menace (1999). Dakota Johnson is just a baby!
Pajiba "a serious discussion of which original trilogy Star Wars character is best in bed" Hilarious. The gif game is strong with this one. (I agree with the rankings pretty much but I'd still do Luke.)
Screen Crush on the diversity of casting in The Force Awakens 

Today's Watch
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) honored Kirk Douglas on the floor for his 99th birthday! It's always shocking when someone in Congress does something cool but apparently this Cohen fellow is a good guy with a strong civil rights record so there you go. But mentioning a screening of Trumbo in DC? That movie's reach has been such a surprise this month.

ICYMI we sang the praises of New Zealand actor Dean O'Gorman who plays Kirk Douglas in the movie here. 

While you are waiting for Star Wars...

... please enjoy this photo of JJ Abrams sharing a twizzler with Chewbacca.

This is not a still from the movie but will give you a feel for how much JJ Abrams loves Chewbacca. It comes through in the movie, trust! (Our review will be up sometime tomorrow but in short: it's good family entertainment fun and nothing like those awful awful prequels!)

Also here's Oscar Isaac singing that silly Star Wars theme song. Quoth Katey...

This video makes me want to throw my underwear at the screen ."

Watch this video on The Scene.

Tweetweek: Clue, Star Wars, Awards Silliness

We weren't allowed to say this for fear of screening crashers but as you're reading this I'm probably watching the credits crawl at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. More soon obviously.

The past week has been just crazy with awards announcements and it's easy to drop usual columns on accident but I can't not share these choice tweets that amused on actressexuality,.

Clue, Sir Patrick Stewart, Golden Globes and a lot of Star Wars silliness after the jump...

When Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, he really skimped on explaining the whole gays-and-actresses thing

— Tim Robey (@trim_obey) December 9, 2015

Click to read more ...

I link. I die. I link again!

Daily Mail Tim Burton's type is hilariously permanent. Now he's on to Eva Green who fits it like a T
New Yorker The brilliant Emily Nussbaum on sexual consent and PTSD on Jessica Jones and its Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 6 reflections
DGA Chris Nolan interviews Quentin Tarantino about The Hateful Eight which will now enter wide release on January 1st instead of the 8th.
Slate reflects on what the Star Wars franchise is given that it's not "sci-fi"
Variety has a few old FYC and congratulatory ads for Star Wars from the 70s. Good stuff
Vanity Fair today's celebrities all want to be Han Solo

News
The Black List  If you've got some free time you can wade through Hollywood's favorite unproduced scripts. List was just announced today.
Collider Mad Max Fury Road may return to theaters in a black & white version -- Miller's original intention before they opted for super saturated color.
Variety Brad Pitt's satire War Machine wraps shooting in the United Arab Emirates.
Tracking Board Warner Bros is moving forward with a Speedy Gonzalez feature, date TBD. (He was my second favorite of the Looney Tunes as a child, after Pepe Le Pew... but they both have cultural stereotyping issues. How will they walk that line?)
Variety Melissa McCarthy is nearly free of Mike & Molly

List Mania
Slant picks the 25 best films of the year from 45 Years through Chi-Raq and on to Mad Max: Fury Road. But since Carol is way down at #19... What?
Los Angeles Times Brooklyn tops Kenneth Turan's otherwise alphabetical top ten
Indie Wire critics poll for the year with Mad Max & Carol fighting for supremacy. Fassbender & Rampling take the acting prizes
Pajiba celebrates the best 'comfort movies' of the year - not particularly challenging but great watches from your couch in your jammies: Cinderella, The Intern, and more...
AV Club on the best film scenes of the year including Creed's continuous shot boxing match and lots of interesting and unexpected choices -- yay for including "Summer in Ohio" from The Last Five Years

Today's Watch
If you've got a free two hours you can watch all six previous Star Wars movies at once?  It's an art installation. Click on the image if you wish to do this craziness.

The Link Awakens

Vulture every lightsaber in the Star Wars franchise ranked. Solid rankings actually and I rarely say that about other people's lists ;)
NPR talks to Harvey Keitel about his role in Youth
Coming Soon Trainspotting 2 is officially a go. The entire principal cast returns to reprise their roles. Ready for round two of Ewan McGregor as Renton?
i09 Ryan Coogler may follow up Creed behind the cameras of Marvel's Black Panther (2018)

LA Times Directors of Room, Love and Mercy, Brooklyn, Sicario and more discuss nailing crucial scenes
People Sisters "The Farce Awakens". Tina Fey & Amy Poehler are going head to head with Star Wars on December 18th
Interview Magazine talks to Jake Lacy (Carol), our favorite "square" boyfriend at the movies
In Contention Laverne Cox helps with the Tangerine Oscar campaign
Awards Daily the current BFCA scores for several movies. It's always amusing to see how this lines up with their actualy nominations (which arrive on December 14th)
BroadwayCon it's pricey but theater fans are getting their own convention this January. A big list of theater favorites (Alice Ripley, Jonathan Groff, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kerry Butler, etcetera...) already confirmed as guests
The Tracking Board has a ton of information and downloadable PDFs of 2015's Hit List, the best as yet unproduced specs

Old Queens We Love
Hey we were as surprised as you that they all showed up in the news feed on the same day
THR Kathleen Turner speaks about equal pay in Hollywood and reveals new plans -- a King Lear adaptation starring her. I just died reading that. She is so amazing on stage.
THR two time Oscar winner Glenda Jackson sticks toe back in the acting waters after years of retirement... from acting at least
/Film Barbra Streisand is supposedly going to direct a Catherine the Great movie. I'll believe it when I'm in the theater. She's as bad as Warren Beatty about kicking back at home and occassionally promising to work. It rarely happens!
Vulture Sir Ian McKellen improvised a song for Beauty & The Beast but Bill Condon didn't put it in the movie!
The Stake discovers how funny Carrie Fisher is with an old bit from SNL. That's a good thing about the Star Wars revival since she's a national treasure. Read her books!
Wall Street Journal talks to Carrie Fisher who gives good quote as usual.

Was there ever a point when you thought, ‘I don’t want to do this new movie’?

Never. I’ve been this character for 40 years, why would I not? Because I’m going to be associated with Princess Leia more? There is no “more.” And I’m a female working in show business, where, if you’re famous, you have a career until you’re 45, maybe. Maybe. And that’s about 15 people.

List Mania !
Guardian is doing a top 50 countdown daily... they're almost to the top ten and for US readers they've already covered lots of films you loved from 2014 (Mommy, Birdman, etcetera) some from 2016 (The Lobster) and 2015 goodies like Steve Jobs, Sicario and Tangerine (way way too low at #48)
BOFCA released their awards and they yelled "what a day. what a lovely day" giving Mad Max Fury Road five prizes. As we stated last season, we're no longer going to follow / write about all the regional critics awards - just the one's that are long running with history. Why? There are nearly 40 of them now and most debuted in the past 10 years. It's too much and only important in the cumulative. But we'll probably link up like this.
Time Magazine recently hired Stephanie Zacharek (good choice, Time) and her top ten list is here: It's topped by Spotlight as so many top ten lists will be and includes both Hollywood triumphs (Creed) and indie sensations (Tangerine). Love what she writes about I'll See You In My Dreams:

How do you know when there are no surprises left in life? The surprise is that…you don’t. In Brett Haley’s gentle but potent comedy, veteran actress Blythe Danner plays a seventy-ish retired schoolteacher, long widowed, whose staid life takes a sharp left when two men appear on the scene almost simultaneously: Pool cleaner Martin Starr is the kind of platonic friend you meet only once in a lifetime; silver fox Sam Elliott is the love interest you never could have planned for.

Must Watch
I shudder when I see mashups like this to think of the man hours in making them. Adele's "Hello" cobbled together from a huge variety of movies...