Q&A: Brie & Saoirse, Superhero & Oscar, Actors & Politics

As promised it's time to answer ten reader questions, pulled from your comments. We'll try to do this weekly for awhile because I don't want you to abandon us in the offseason. "DON'T LEAVE US," he cried out, voice trembling, mascara running. 

Pedro: Who are your top ten actors/actresses that also participated in politics (were appointed/elected to office or just participated in an election but were not elected, for example)?

You guys aren't supposed to ask top ten questions! I have not paid close enough attention to this weird occurrence, so I dont even know who has done this really. The most famous examples are surely Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger with Glenda Jackson a distant fourth. But I have no personal favorites since basically I don't like it when actors shift careers. My 11th commandment proposal: Acting is a rare gift - thou shalt not waste it!

Of course Nancy Davis and Ronald Reagan were no great shakes in the acting department before they became POTUS & FLOTUS so the loss wasn't extreme. We're supposed to be saying nice things about them this week since Nancy just died (RIP) so I'd better just move on before I get myself into trouble since our national fantasy about how great the Reagans were is all kinds of f***ed up and problematic...

But, P.S., I did find it momentarily fascinating when there were rumors that Ashley Judd was going to do it.

DJDeeJay: what's your favorite example of male objectification in a movie?
[The answer and 8 more questions after the jump...] 

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Bewitched, Bothered, and Be Link-ed

Thrillist Best Movies of 2016. haha. I don't know exactly how this column is going to work but I'm curious to find out
THR an interview with producer Irwin Winkler on Martin Scorsese's Silence and the Creed sequel
Frontier an oral history of "The Golden Girls"
Twitter Why Leo waited until just now to win an Oscar 

Nick Flicks Picks are you following his supporting actress project? The gold numbers reflect full performance reviews
Guardian Fans keep trying to restore Star Wars (1977) because George Lucas doesn't want
Film Mix Tape praises Michelle Visage as RuPaul's Drag Race returns (TONITE. WHEEEE)
Comics Alliance if you want to have yet another superhero's cameo in Batman v Superman spoiled for you, here is the info
Deadline How Mark Rylance won the Oscar without any campaigning
AV Club Disney's next animated feature will be an adaptation of The Nutcracker 
i09 a fan film about Darth Maul, the only good thing to emerge from that second Star Wars trilogy 
Variety an interview with Julian Fellowes on the series finale of Downton Abbey. Good stuff. Between the exits of Mad Men and now Downton, I have so few shows that feel like they're a part of my life (from staying power) left.

Read Only if You've Seen The Witch
If you've already seen The Witch I'd recommend reading these two takes on its most riveting scenes and primarily its divisive ending and the subversive extent of the femininism within the film. Salon's look at Thomasin as a "Final Girl laced into a puritan bodice" is great and a piece at Vague Visages takes a more mixed tack. Angelica Jade Bastién grapples with what she feels is unearned about the film's jawdropping finale:

I love the film, but how feminist can The Witch be if Thomasin remains primarily a cipher? 

Wouldst Thou Link Deliciously?

• Medium wonders why diehard horror fans reject artful genre works like The Witch and It Follows
• The Film Doctor reviews Owen Glieberman's book "Movie Freak: My Life Watching Movies"
• Flick Chicks loving on pets in the movies. Awww
• Boy Culture interviews Molly Bernard from TVLand's great sitcom Younger (the one starring Sutton Foster that I'm always hoping you'll start watching. Sutton 4evah!)
• The Film Stage an interview with director Robert Eggers of The Witch
• Vanity Fair Kate Winslet's son wants her to EGOT. Perhaps Broadway is next?

• Towleroad congratulations to producer Greg Berlanti (The Flash, Brothers & Sisters, Arrow, The Broken Hearts Club, etc...) who welcomes a newborn son via surrogate to the world
• Black Phillip from The Witch has his own Twitter account. He boasts a lot and has real species pride
• Vanity Fair Amy Adams going to television. She'll star in a series version of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects (which is extremely actress-friendly as we've previously noted)
• Awards Daily How the year of the woman became the year of the man... again
• Decider Joe Reid ranks EVERY Oscar nominee 

Best of Best of
• CineMunch the second Annual CineMunchies with prizes to Mad Max and Room and best food & drink moments in movies - I am totally here for that spaghetti scene in Brooklyn
• Antagony & Ecstacy Tim finally reveals his top ten list with surprising choices beyond Mad Max and shocking exclusions - no Inside Out? WTF 
• Cinematic Corner chooses 15 best shots of the year: Crimson Peak, Youth, and more...
• Entertainment Junkie's 10 best: Tangerine, Inside Out, and more 
• Variety Carol named best film of the year by International Cinephile Society 

News That Requires Not Linkage
Batman v Superman is going to be 151 minutes long. Uff. 

Potentially Awesome TV News
We've long hoped that a TV Variety show could air which would really work - it's such a fun abandoned form but too many recent attempts have been shoddy (that Rosie O'Donnell attempt) or so manic they're unwatchable (Neil Patrick Harris's). The Tracking Board says that we could get another attempt as early as this year starring Maya Rudolph (Great choice: She's funny, can act, also rocks) and Martin Short. 

Today's Watch
How they brought Colossus to life in Deadpool... five different actors and a whole team of visual fx artist

On Deadpool's Overhyped Sexuality

Social justice warriors argue that "Straight White Male" ought not to be a default setting and they're right - it's a wide & diverse world. Arguably nowhere is this default more set in stone than in superhero movies.

I actually rushed out to see Deadpool this weekend because it promised to be something different in this regard. This, despite no real desire to see the movie since the hard obnoxious sell felt like flop sweat (though it sure as hell worked and no flopping occurred). I didn't end up reviewing the film but this piece I wrote for Towleroad is as close as I got. It's called "Pansexual Antihero or Gaybaiting Joke?" because the buzz surrounding the smart ass mutant's sexual desires is empty.

Here's an excerpt but I hope you'll read the whole thing...

Deadpool fits comfortably in the X-verse, being a mutant, but also by selling the troubled 'otherness' that is the X-Men's chief inclusive draw for moody adolescents and beyond. He's neither hero nor villain, but an amoral guy who discovers he has cancer. His superpowers are unlocked through a sadistic experiment to rid himself of the cancer which leaves him badly disfigured but incapable of being killed. This anti-hero has been described as "omnisexual" by the writer of his comic and the media has consistently referred to him at "pansexual". But is he either of those things, or just a typical straight guy who loves a good dick joke?

extra random thoughts about the movie after the jump...

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Deadpool lands on huge pile of money. Makes crude jokes about paper cuts, probably.

Breaking News: Superhero fatigue has NOT set in after all, goddamnit. The extreme negativity that greeted the arrival of Fantastic Four 3ish and Avengers 2 last summer suggested that we were on the brink but along comes Deadpool proving everyone still wants the spandex supers... even B list supers from Fox (!). Warner Bros and Marvel are probably breathing sighs of relief given that Clark vs Bruce and Steve vs Tony are opening soon and have budgets so gargantuan they'll need the continued fervor to sustain them. But more on those later. The crowd I saw Deadpool with seemed really into it but more on that later. More. Later. More. Later. God, it's like a movie trailer in here tonight --- "COMING SOON!"

WIDE BOX OFFICE
01 Deadpool $135 new
02 Kung Fu Panda 3 $19.6 (cum. $93.9) 
03 How To Be Single $18.7 new
04 Zoolander 2 $15.6 new 
05 The Revenant $6.9 (cum. $159.1) Costumes, Cinematography, Production Design 

LIMITED RELEASE
excluding previously wide
01 Where to Invade Next  $1 new 308 screens Review & 2nd Opinion
02 The Lady in The Van  $.5 (cum. $1.9) 130 screens Review
03 45 Years $.4 (cum $2.7) 237 screens Podcast
04 Carol $.1 (cum. $12.1) 141 screens Top Ten List 
05 The Danish Girl $.08 (cum. $10.7) 88 screens Interview Alicia

I took in both How to be Single and Deadpool and also emptied my DVR (hey, it was freezing in NYC) so I'm caught up w/ Younger, Teachers, The Fosters, The Flash, and I also sampled SyFy's The Magicians and liked it... and not just because Arjun Gupta is the prettiest.

You?