Pass the Link

Main Course
Pajiba attempts to show that Pixar has more than one female character with its '15 most badass female Pixar characters
Serious Film joins the legion of Beasts of the Southern Wild  fans with bullet points of his amazement
Kenneth in the (212) Remembers a traumatic experience when Hollywood first launched Making Love (1982) starring Kate Jackson, the first mainstream Hollywood picture on the gay experience. 
Daily Mail is Barbra Streisand really going to get in the director's chair again. She's rumored to be prepping Skinny & Cat a biopic romance starring Colin Firth and Cate Blanchett. What accounts for Barbra's sudden burst of activity?

Towleroad where are the new gay classics? Too many straight movies opening for gay pride weekend ;)
The Guardian terrific piece on the Tom Cruise "comeback" and what the word now means
The Guardian also has a profile of wondrous character actress Miriam Margolyes
Movie|Line actor Aaron Johnson (Kick Ass, Albert Nobbs) has wed longtime girlfriend/director Sam Taylor-Wood.
Google celebrates the centennial of Alan Turing, a fascinating gay man who changed the world. Why isn't there a biopic on him?

Ear Candy
The Broadway Blog sneak peek of a song from Cyndi Lauper's stage musical adaptation of Kinky Boots 

Eye Candy
Super Punch The Shining Sculptures. I am so creeped out looking at these. redrum
Old Hollywood Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Suddenly Last Summer 
Queerty Cheyenne Jackson *new photoshoot alert* He does too few! 
Slash Film The Dark Knight Rises outdoes itself with this bit of promotional art. Wow. 
My New Plaid Pants The Amazing Spider-Bum 

Finally I can't even do a Yes No Maybe So on this Andy Samberg Celeste and Jesse Forever type trailer thing -- even though Ari Graynor! -- because I'll never top James St. James quip at the Wow Report

Damn, Andy. Celeste & Jessie Forever looks absolutely, heartbreakingly wonderful. And yet I can’t help but feel it’s this year’s (500) Days of Summer, where everybody loves it to death then turns on it in six months..

Word.

Rock of Ages Will Rock You... (Or At Least Lightly Jostle You)

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

At a recent press screening in Manhattan, heavily attended by the gays, the choreographer turned So You Think You Can Dance judge turned movie director Adam Shankman cheerfully introduced the screening of his latest stage-to-screen musical Rock of Ages. It's his first musical since the exuberant Hairspray (2007) and he charmingly expressed his nerves and excitement about showing it off. He invited the assembled crowd to not take the movie too seriously, "dumb fun!", and sing along with it if they felt the urge. I was sitting near the front and as Shankman bounded up the stairs to exit from the back, he shouted out  'Oh, and I'm gay' as a "no shit" style punchline. The crowd laughed and the lights went out. 

The energy of Shankman's introduction can't have hurt the screening but his invitation to sing-along proved redundant. It doesn't take long for the movie to send out its own karaoke invitation.  In the jukebox movie musical's very first number we meet a small town girl, living in a lonely world, who takes a midnight train bus going anywhere. Her name is Sherry Christian (Julianne Hough) but she's not exactly going anywhere. She's purposefully headed to Los Angeles to try to make it in the music business. No sooner has she begun singing "Sister Christian" (get it? Um… haha?) than the unnamed extras on the bus start grabbing solo lines from the verses until the whole bus is singing about Sister Christian. Her time has come!  

Upon her arrival in the big city, this girl from the sticks lands both a new job and a new bartender/songwriter boyfriend (Cam Gigandet) at a famous club operated by a beleaguered old pro (Cher) and her gayish sidekick (Stanley Tucci). The club is having financial trouble thanks in part to a mercenary money man (Eric Dane) and hopes that a big voice (Christina Aguilera) will resurrect its fortu--- NO, WAIT. THAT'S BURLESQUE! More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

and I can't fight this linking anymore... I've forgotten what I started fighting for ♪ ♫

Vulture the best grimaces and grins from Mad Men season 5. Good stuff
Tim Robey interviews the great Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen on his very busy career (Thor 2, Hannibal TV series, A Royal Affair and more...)
Liz Smith on the Friar's Club roast of Tom Cruise (opening quote via Alec Baldwin) 
EW Jeremy Jordan (Broadway's Newsies and Bonnie & Clyde) joins the cast of Smash. They're really shuffling players for Season 2. Which still won't solve the problem of treating Megan Hilty like she's not the Starriest of Stars on the show. (sigh)
Hollywood and Fine "why I love/hate Rock of Ages" point of view from former rock critic. 

Stale Popcorn on Yentl "Barbra I can hear you". I also like this movie, haters begone.
Movies.com Here's the actor who's playing Osama Bin Laden in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty 
Pop Watch Prometheus deleted scene still. Who is "the engineer" talking with? 
The Mary Sue on the trials and tribulations of superhero costumes
My New Plaid Pants does the only sensible thing and screencaps the red band Magic Mike trailer. Even with all the goodness inherent in such an effort my favorite thing is this comment from a reader named "Paco":

I am starting a petition to have this movie remade every year, with a rotating cast of actors.

Pass that petition right over. Reboot With Depantsing!

Appropos of nothing, it's Sam Hargraves, Chris Evans stunt double!Finally, the Thought Catalog has "The Life of Someone Who Didn't Like The Avengers"  Funny read.

You didn’t hate it, but you wanted to like it more, and you knew that thinking it “wasn’t terrible” wouldn’t be good enough. Like that time that you saw The Dark Knight and pointed out the badly-choreographed fight scenes to your friend who proceeded to have a hissy fit in the theater lobby...

It does get lonely out there if you don't like a universally beloved thing (like me with Forrest Gump/Braveheart. OMG I hate those movies). I never shared this tidbit from my family time away from the blog a few weeks back but my sister didn't like The Avengers at all. Sadly she didn't say why. It's so hard talking movies in depth with my family. They never explain themselves. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I talk out into the void via The Film Experience? 

Twins: "Drunk on brandywine... a thimbleful!"

While we're in Gemini, twins! Daily @ 2:22 pm

Don't be angry with me. When I saw them I knew they were for you. Drunk on brandywine... a thimbleful."

Kirsten Dunst is so thoughtful of her co-stars. She gave Vampire Tom Cruise little boy twins to drink as an apologia for stealing his 1994 would be franchise Interview with the Vampire right out from under his blue veined intensity. 

What a gift. Lestat (Tom) tells little Claudia (Kiki) that she's outdone herself but he doesn't know how right he is...

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6 Thoughts I Had While Staring at Tom Cruise's W Cover

The Rock of Ages push has begun...

• The model to the left must have heard our theory about Tom Cruise's magic sperm: it unlocks great actressing powers ... time-delayed. The effect is only triggered once you are no longer in contact with the stuff (see Mimi Rogers, Penélope Cruz, and Nicole Kidman who all began to do magical work after dumping him)

• Dragon tails are the new nipple clamps.

• Of all the movie stars who have ever worn guyliner, Ewan McGregor wins.

• Why do they photoshop movie stars -- who, generally speaking, are the best looking people on the planet -- to the point where they're barely recognizable? No matter what you think of Tom Cruise he looks pretty great for someone hitting the half century mark.

• What do you suppose the model to the right is whispering in his ear? I'm guessing "Xenuuuuuuuu"

• If Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 release The Master is really a thinly veiled Scientology movie, do you think it was inspired by his time with Cruise on the Magnolia set. And if so, is Mr. Cruise going to be pissed?