The Real Link Deal

Today's Must Read
"I am Diane Keaton's Crisp White Shirt" an imagined monologue by Charlotte Barnett. I can't even describe how much I love this, guys. I love it as hard as Diane Keaton's crying jag in Somethings Gotta Give is long.

I am immaculate, woven by gods from fibers of cotton and Nancy Meyers’ discarded screenplays...

Movies
EW talks to Cate Blanchett about Manifesto but works in a Carol bit, too, bless them.
Interview talks to Tracy Letts of The Lovers about his dual career as acclaimed actor and award winning playwright

Go Fug Yourself Elle Fanning on the cover of Vogue
Tracking Board Jeff Goldblum's career is busiers than ever. Now he's signed on for a thriller called Hotel Artemis with Jodie Foster and Sofia Boutella
EW Anya Taylor-Joy and Maise Williams will play Magik and Wolfsbane in the New Mutants movie. (But it's still so diappointing that the rumor is that the movie is leaving out the Asian member of the original comic book group, Karma. Who also happened to be an LGBT character. Hollywood just loooooves gay erasure and whitewashing. They cannot get enough.)
Variety Thom Yorke, of Radiohead fame, hired to score the remake of Suspiria from director Luca Guadagnino
NYT Michael Parks, Tarantino favorite and prolific character ever, dies at 77
THR Kenny Miller, B movie actor of 1950s drive-in classics dies at 85
Variety talks to the costume designer of Snatched, dressing for laughs
The Playlist remember that Michelle Williams movie Suite Francaise that had Oscar buzz but then sat on a shelf for years? It's now going to Lifetime TV

TV
BuzzFeed is thankfully keeping this handy list of cancellations and renewals on TV up to date. I'm so sad about The Real O'Neals . I expected American Crime  but anthology cancellations hurt less since they come to a natural end each year anyway.
Vulture 13 shows that defined dystopian TV before The Handmaid's Tale
VF Hollywood Scandal probably ending next season. But will ABC shift their drama strategy away from wealth porn?

And the teaser FINALLY for Top of the Lake Season 2 starring Elisabeth Moss and Nicole Kidman. We couldn't be more excited about it. If you missed season 1 with Elisabeth Moss investigating the disappearance of a young girl and finding a much larger crime that she wasn't expecting you really must catch up with it. Jane Campion's still got it and she still makes riveting human drama rife with feminist implications.

Stage
WAMC Will Swenson talks about Waitress
Theater Mania Tina Fey on her new Mean Girls musical
Playbill Glenn Close remembers her Broadway debut, going from understudy to star
Playbill Lin-Manuel Miranda to fund O'Neill Theater Center Scholarship for artists of color

Celebrating "Waitress": 10 Years Later

By Spencer Coile

Jenna (Keri Russell) knows pies. Caught in a dead-end marriage to an emotionally and physically abusive husband, Jenna dreams of the day she can finally save up enough money working in the local pie shop and escape her boring life... that is, until she finds herself pregnant. Giving insight into Jenna's mind through the use of potential pie recipes, Waitress follows Jenna as she (begrudgingly) agrees to have the baby, keeps working, and begins an affair with her new doctor (Nathan Fillion). 

Indeed, Adrienne Shelly's 2007 film--released ten years ago to the day--was lauded for its down-to-earth nature, its humble storytelling, and the central performance from Keri Russell. There are no tricks up Shelly's sleeve here; she managed to tell a simple, heartfelt story that is imbued with messages of strength, female friendships, and the power of a good pie. What makes the film equally as affecting is the fact that, although Shelly wrote, directed, and starred in her own work, she was tragically killed before the release. Considering this complicated history, not to mention the film's eventual legacy, let's help oursevles to another slice and dive into the sweet and savory Waitress. 

Click to read more ...

Links

Yahoo longtime TV star Holland Taylor (The Practice, Two and a Half Men, Bosom Buddies) and TFE stage/film/tv obsession Sarah Paulson are dating! Taylor, who is 72, said she never came out to the media before "because I live out"
Hateful Eight track listing for the soundtrack
Playbill two new Broadway musical productions are from all female teams. One is Waitress, based on the indie film
Variety Disney sees 2500 actors for Young Han Solo
Variety Sundance competition lineup announced
Youtube Scowl at the moon! It's the new Batman v Superman v Joy teaser
Awards Daily Listen up - Star Wars was never just "a boy's thing"
This is Not Porn Chris Pratt on the set of his very first movie. Thin body. Big hair.
Vulture Jane Fonda talks about her dance parties. Wait, what?
Pajiba Channing Tatum doesn't like Alex Pettyfer. Pettyfer says why
Screen Daily Michael Fassbender will play two roles in Alien: Covenant - makes sense that there would be multiple David8 androids.
New Yorker looks back at Patricia Highsmith  and the creation of her novel "The Price of Salt" aka the "Carol" we're obsessing over

Year End List Mania
DuJour does a 'hollywood issue' style 'performances of the year' gallery piece. Youth gets the best placement leading with the first three slides going to Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Rachel Weisz. But Steve Jobs, Carol, Son of Saul and other films also featured.
IW 20 Breakthrough Performances of the year
Rolling Stone top 50 albums of the year: Kendrick Lamar tops the list but the Hamilton Original Cast Recording, Adele's 25, Joanna Newsom's Divers and Madonna's Rebel Heart (yaaas) all make the list too

Bless Her
Annie Liebovitz shot a bunch of powerful women for Pirelli's 2016 calendar. Amy Schumer posted her photo with no retouching. Love the body you're in!

Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman. Thank you Annie Leibovitz!

A photo posted by @amyschumer on Nov 30, 2015 at 7:39am PST

Finding a Waitress in Paris: Hollywood Takes Over Broadway

Manuel here to bring some Hollywood-tinged stage-bound news to give us a brief respite from the fun that is Hollywood awards season.

Cindy Lauper and Kinky Boots, Elton John and Billy Elliot, Alan Menken and Sister Act, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bring it On, Marc Shaiman and Catch Me if You Can. It seems as if Broadway is on a movie-adaptation streak, no? Movie based adaptations have won seven of the past fourteen Tony Awards for Best Musical! This season alone will see Honeymoon in Vegas (based on the 1992 film of the same name), musicals based on Oscar-winning films Dr Zhivago (which recently announced its star) and Gigi (for what it's worth, its pre-Broadway engagement stars Vanessa Hudgens), as well as Bull Durham. Down the line we’re still expecting First Wives Club, Amelie, American Psycho, The Bodyguard and Ever After to make it to New York in the near future. Time to add some other titles to that growing list.

Jessie Mueller, who just won a Tony award for her performance as Carole King in Beautiful is attached to a musical being developed based on Waitress, the 2007 Adrienne Shelly film starring Keri Russell about an unhappy diner server who makes delicious pies (and falls for dashing Nathan Fillion in the process). I loved that film, which features a great ensemble, and the show is being developed by Sarah Bareilles (below performing a lovely number from the musical starting at 2:20) so color me intrigued.

Speaking of Russell, another one of her films has been developed for the stage. August Rush is hoping for a Broadway-bound run. The production will be directed by John Doyle (whose minimalist Sweeney Todd was fantastic and rightly earned him a Tony Award for directing). The Academy Award nominated film (Best Original Song) starred Freddie Highmore as a talented orphan prodigy in search of his parents in New York City.

Another of Highmore’s films is coming to Broadway a bit sooner. Finding Neverland, begins performances March 15 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater and will open on April 15, after a rather high-profile casting change (those of us eager to see Jeremy Jordan return to the stage will have to wait as the role of Barrie will now be played by Broadway vet Matthew Morrison)

That said, the film-to-stage adaptation I’m most excited for is An American Paris, based on the Vincent Minnelli film of the same name. Anyone who’s seen the film knows this property is overdue for a stage adaptation (that eponymous Gene Kelly/Leslie Caron dance sequence is to die for!) so I’m eager to see how it works on stage. The show opens on Broadway in March 2015. 

Any of these upcoming productions strike your fancy? Do you have a film you’re dying to see reimagined for the stage by a particular musician?

Happy National Pie Day! What's Your Favorite Pie Scene in a Movie?

my first pie I baked solo! Today is National Pie Day and if you don't celebrate it by watching Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet make pies as a substitute/preamble to carnal rutting in Labor Day (reviewed), you should eat one. To the left you'll see me as the proud chef of my first pie a month back. It was pumpkin (duh!), messy, and a little burnt but I devoured it anyway. Despite the deliciousness I had planned for this Very Important Day, film festivalling has thrown off my other blogging instincts (I'll be back to normal Monday). So no big pie-celebrating top ten list or visual extravaganza for this very special day.

When I think of pies in the movie I often think of The Help or Waitress but in neither of those cases would I want a slice, you know? The other most easy-to-retrieve pie memory is the now extinct slapstick gag of cream pies in people's faces. 

Help me find better cinematic attachments to pies by citing your favorites in the comments.