Posterized: Fast & Furious

Furious 7 went from 0 to 4004 (theaters) today and is certain to collect huge box office bounty this weekend. The other films have been hits and then there's the morbid curiousity factor of saying goodbye to Paul Walker which may lure back moviegoers who haven't really been paying attention. That would include me. I only realized today, looking over this list, that the first film is the only one I've seen in theaters... though it seems like I've seen them all (is it cable showings, or their interchangeability as suggested by their very similar posters, minor variations in titles, and cast lists?)  

Cast List by numbers: Vin Diesel & Paul Walker (6 films); Jordana Brewster & Sung Kang (5 films); Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges & Gal Gadot (4 films); Dwayne Johnson & Elsa Pataky (3 films); Lucas Black, Luke Evans, Eva Mendes, Laz Alonso, Don Omar, John Ortiz, Matt Schulze, Shea Wigham (2 films)

The Fast and The Furious (2001, Rob Cohen)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003, John Singleton) - aka the only one without Vin Diesel. 
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, Justin Lin) - aka the only one without Paul Walker... but its the biggest detour as the cast list is mostly different. Only Vin Diesel shows up of the originals and one the fourth film hits, everyone seems to be back for good.
Fast & Furious (2009, Justin Lin) - the principle cast all returns
Fast Five (2011, Justin Lin) - aka the one where The Rock joins
Fast & Furious 6 (2013, Justin Lin)
Furious 7 (2015, James Wan) aka Paul Walker's swansong

So how many have you seen?  And are you hitting the seventh entry this weekend? 

Winnie The Tweets

It's our semi-weekly collection of Most Awesome Tweets if you don't have twitter or you can't possibly catch everything. The topic of the week was the bizarre news about a live action redo of Winnie the Pooh (after the jump)...

Mad Men's return is also reigniting Mad Men mania and you should expect the next seven weeks online to be Mad Men Manic. Question: can AMC's awards campaign PR team keep the heat on for an Emmy Farewell/Comeback?

Let's start with some real creative fan commitment -- a full manicure set! 

LOOK AT MY NAILS! Mad Men-icure ALERT! http://t.co/KUGTQwsTD2 (cc: @MadMen_AMC) pic.twitter.com/6wOuZeVef5

— Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously) April 2, 2015

Tweets on Winnie the Pooh and more after the jump... 

Click to read more ...

White-Tailed Link

The Guardian features a new short story from Rupert Everett, writing about his altar ego movie star Keiran O'Nightley
Playbill reviews special features on the Blu-ray for Into the Woods
/Film Batman getting another animated film, this time in style of the 60s TVshow
Instagram Hugh Jackman is still threatening to quit Wolverine. I'll believe that when I see it. I'm not as gullible as the rest of the internet. It's the man who cried wolfverine.

Variety YouTube gets slammed for placing age restrictions on The Fosters' sweet gay kiss between high school friends Connor & Jude (actors Gavin Macintosh and Hayden Byerly who are 16 and 14 respectively) in an historic storyline
Playbill talks to Richard LaGravenese about Barbra Streisand's Gypsy project and the (gulp) Lady Gaga rumors
Boy Culture Madonna performs "Ghosttown" her best single in ages with... Taylor Swift?
Empire Broadway legend Audra McDonald will play the wardrobe in Beauty & The Beast extending its all star singing cast. But the wardrobe doesn't have any solos. Grrrrr
The Matinee why don't contemporary films produce iconic film cars any more 
Variety NBC will next mount The Wiz for a live music event. That actually might be an inspired choice. We'll see.
Coming Soon I could've sworn this was old news but maybe it only feels like old news since everything is being remade / recycled but Disney's Mulan will get a live-action redo
/Film talks to Elizabeth Olsen about The Scarlet Witch 
Salon fills you in on 'everything you need to know about' Trevor Noah, the young comic who is taking over The Daily Show when Jon Stewart leaves
AV Club Jon Hamm could have starred in Gone Girl? Huh.

TODAY'S WATCH
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson IS Bambi... in this well deserved SNL spoof of Disney's live action remake obsession of their animated canon

The Rock also starred in a...uh... 'suck the poison out of me' sketch. Haha.

Baywatch: the Film?

Manuel here to bring great news to fans of 90s TV shows and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I know you’re out there!

Not to be outdone in this week’s “craziest Hollywood pitch ideas finally being developed” (coughTetriscough), Paramount has announced that it’s moving forward with its long-gestating Baywatch film adaptation with none other than Johnson himself, he of great box office power when paired with an established brand, in talks to star. May we hope this turns out to be more Charlie’s Angels than Bewitched? More Mission:Impossible than The A-Team? In true 21 Jump Street fashion, it seems they’re going for comedy, as they’ve hired Sean Anders and John Morris, of We are the Millers fame. If the film truly embraces its own kitsch appeal and zeroes in on 90s nostalgia, it might make for an interesting... no, I can't even finish that sentence.

That said, I’m burying the lede because we all know the next bit of news should this movie stop moving forward and actually start, you know, casting and shooting, will be about who will fill in for Pamela Anderson as the requisite bombshell beauty who’ll most likely be described by casting agents and directors alike as “a strong kick-ass” character. 

So, let the name-tossing begin. Who would you cast to don the iconic red swimsuit? Which actress do you think could be the new CJ Parker (or better yet, the new Stephanie Holden)? Or, if we wanna go more the Magic Mike route, who are you hoping will skimp on wearing shirts and join Johnson at the beach?  And yes, amuse me with your left-field choices because the cynic in me knows the same three names will be bandied about soon enough.

Waiting For Link Man

efilmcritic Erik Childress's wonderful annual list of Blurb Whores of the Year
THR August Osage County wins big at the Capri festival in Italy, winning four prizes. Harvey Weinstein and Chris Cooper were also honored at the festival. In non Weinstein awards they honored 12 Years a Slave, Saving Mr Banks, and The Great Beauty as well as Valeria Golino (remember her?) as European actress of the year
EW Downton Abbey on the cover. Can't wait for its return this weekend
Variety 3 time Oscar winning producer Saul Zaentz (Amadeus, Cuckoo's Nest and The English Patient) has passed away
i09 Disney Princess themed lingerie from Japan! 

MNPP vicious but true takedown of Ron Howard's Rush
Cinema Blend The Rock for a new iteration of Green Lantern? There are worse ideas, casting-wise I suppose but DC movies are so hopeless!
The Guardian finds that The Wolf of Wall Street uses the naughty F word 506 times, which "breaks down to Scorsese giving 2.81 fucks a minute." LOL. But who spent the three hours counting? That's what I want to know.
USA Today Character actor Joseph Ruskin (Prizzi's Honor, The Magnificent Seven) has passed away
The Wire as we move into the dumping ground of each film year (that'd be new January releases, not platformed holdovers) Joe Reid looks back at ten January releases that didn't suck
Vanity Fair funny Proust questionnaire with T Bone Burnett whose latest movie music work I can't stop listening to. That'd be Inside Llewyn Davis

Hitchcock with Barbara Harris on "Family Plot"Finally...
My friend Matthew Rettenmund who writes Boy Culture has compiled a list of all of Hitchcock's leading ladies who are still alive. (Make sure to note the punny captions). I found this list of ten surprising even though I recently made that oldest 100 screen actors of note list. He's right though that at least two of the major leading ladies (Doris Day & Julie Andrews) don't seem like Hitchcock heroines at all. I forget every time that they headlined one. Those moments were just so atypical in their careers, don't you think?