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.

I thought, "hey, I can link, I can link." but now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you ♪ ♫

Criterion Collection Pedro Almodóvar write about his experience making Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down (1990). I so love that one. So weirdly romantic in spite of its whole Stockholm Syndrome business
Natasha VC Brad Pitt before and after makeup. Hee
In Contention Tapley wonders if Eastwood's American Sniper will have an impact on Oscar with its Christmas release
The Dissolve John Lithgow has revealed that Pixar's The Good Dinosaur (which he does voice work on) has been completely reimagined
Buzzfeed investigation into 80s arcana: who deserved credit for Flashdance and didn't get it?

 

The Hairpin the best friends of romcom heroines, in order
The Guardian on "my favorite city in film: Blade Runner's LA
i09 Have you ever wondered how Replicants are made in Blade Runner?
Salon interesting piece on Lauren Bacall (and Bogey's) political activism which the obits have steered clear of mostly
Chiseler Bacall's recent death also prompted this look back at Humphrey Bogarts first actress wife, the now forgotten Mayo Methot
AV Club Keanu Reeves moves to television for a series called Rain about a half Japanese half American assassin but...
/Film ...there's also a TV show being developed based on Keanu's hit The Devil's Advocate in which he is not involved. Strange timing, eh?
RogerEbert.com interviews Ira Sachs on Love is Strange. That finally comes out this month. Do NOT miss it 
Cinema Blend Johnny Depp to star with his teenage daughter in Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers. I do not understand what's going on with that career. I really don't 
Empire Bradley Cooper to headline a new franchise based on the "Mack Bolan" book series about a man at war with the Mafia

Off Cinema
Towleroad Portia de Rossi surprises Ellen DeGeneres on their anniversary
Entertainment Junkie on the Emmy contest for "Best Writing in a Drama Series"
Taye Diggs dancing. That's all. That's enough.
AV Club looks back at the seminal single "Stay" from Lisa Loeb. God, I loved that one. I can't remember if it was written for Reality Bites (1994) or not but if it was Oscar made the worse choice in not nominating it

The Stuff of Nightmares
Cinema Blend Chinese movie theaters projecting audience texts onto screen. 

ahem... I used to worry about keeping The Film Experience PG-13 because I knew teenagers were reading and when the site was first created you didn't want to be labeled NSFW because it shut you off from tons of traffic and search engines and so on and so on. And now I just feel like the biggest prude every day since even mainstream websites that people read at work print photo galleries of "bulges," naked celebrities, and charity events involving random civilians stripping. Case in point in the past 24...

Gawker imagining what's inside Jared Leto's pants courtesy of a quote from Alexis Arquette
Jezebel imagining what Disney Prince Charming dicks look like. 

So basically I am a prude and singing "Class" from Chicago right now as I type this. But I click on all these links, so, guilty. 

'The Best Man Holiday' a Fascinating Portrait in Black Cinema

Glenn here. I get the sense that I am not meant to have much of an opinion on The Best Man Holiday. I suspect that even to the filmmakers it was meant to do little more than make audiences feel good (as well as a little sad – oh gawd, the tears!!) and make money while not rocking the boat. And yet I come to this 14-years-later sequel to Malcolm D. Lee’s original The Best Man (1999) and find it one of the year’s most fascinating films in terms of the evolution of black cinema and filmmaking in general.

 

Oh sure, it’s a perfectly adequate movie. It’s certainly never truly great. There’s quite a bit of stuff here that makes no sense (two deus ex machinas in the span of ten minutes is a bit much), and I’m dubious about some of its politics in regards to female sexuality. It’s also too long. On that same day I had watched What’s Love Got To Do With It? for the next Team Experience poll and that one, a biopic about the life of Tina freakin’ Turner, was shorter than The Best Man Holiday! Nevertheless, by the end credits I had laughed, I had cried, and I felt like I’d revisited old friends that left me with a smile on my face. Even if as a gay, white, Australian, Hollywood probably doesn't think I should have any interest in it. [more]

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Bloggy Action: Sea of Linkage

MNPP Gratuitous Douglas Booth, your new Romeo (of the forthcoming Romeo and Juliet)
PopWatch cute comic strips on the making of Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
In Contention a new possible awards player this November: The Book Thief, a Holocaust drama with Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush
Natasha VC likes plus size Twilight art
Comic Book Movie even though I'm sick of the X-Men, I keep posting about the new stills. It's a sickness! I blame Hugh Jackman who looks pretty great in 70s pants. 

Pajiba shares a sweet vid of Idina Menzel & Taye Diggs singing a Wicked tune for fans while trying not to wake the baby. I've never liked Idina more!
/Film on the Orca doc Blackfish and the trouble it's causing the Nemo sequel Finding Dory
Towleroad Laverne Cox speaks out about her life as a transactress on Orange is the New Black 

Weekend Must Read
Film School Rejects "But why can't I urinate in my seat at the movies?" Scott Beggs one-ups the Onion with this hilarious self-righteous bit o' satire about the collapsing social etiquette of moviegoing. Everyone I know was tweeting this the past couple of days and with good reason. If by chance you haven't read it, go now.

Broken Record
Cinema Blend on the cast of Expendables 3. I don't understand big movie site headlines anymore. First "exclusive" lost all its meaning. Now "Confirmed". The title reads that Mel Gibson is confirmed and the text says he is "in talks". These are not the same things.

Anyway, I won't be interested in this franchise until they include more women or start mixing it up director-wise like the James Bond films for some extra flair. Many people are quick to say that there just aren't that many female action stars but these manys are just not paying attention. There are plenty who are in the huge age range these movies employ (anywhere between 23 and 67!!!) and who have fuller or more accomplished action roles than, say, Kellan Lutz (who will be in film 3) or Liam Hemsworth (who was in film 2). We did a Cast This once about this and the possibilities are endless: Pam Grier, Carrie-Anne Moss, Uma Thurman, Sandahl Bergman, Daryl Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Linda Hamilton, Brigitte Nielsen, Milla Jovovich, Lucy Liu, Rebecca Romijn. You could go on and on. My dream cast would also include statuesque Sandahl Bergman (Conan The Barbarian, All That Jazz, numerous B movies) since I'm betting you she can still high-kick at 62 (dancers' bodies, y'know) and she hasn't acted in a really long time.

April Showers: How Stella Get Her Groove Back

waterworks weekdays at 11

Travel back in time to that unfortunately brief time period when Angela Bassett was headlining movies. After the Oscar nomination for rocking that Tina Turner biopic and lending unforgettable fire (literally) to Waiting to Exhale she got her own picture to headline: How Stella Got Her Groove Back. The movie wasn't great but didn't it have one of the best titles of any book/movie/whatsit ever? The correct answer is yes.

To Shower or Not To Shower. That is the Question

How did Stella get her groove back, exactly?

Lots and lots of sex with Taye Diggs that's how! If that's how one does it, than singer/actress/wickedwitch Idina Menzel is possibly the grooviest chick on earth.

To shower or not to shower? They've just fought... again. These two are always arguing. But since getting her groove back in Jamaica, and returning to San Francisco with her studly groove-inducer in tow, she just can't resist his shameless display. Continued after the jump (mild nudity)

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