Links: Brangelina Kaput, Broadway Blockbuster, Festival Afterglow

Brangelina No More
Vox looks at the parallels between Liz & Dick and Brangelina
EW Madame Tussaud's already separated Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's wax counterparts. Nathaniel wept. (Seriously, I'm not doing okay with this. I don't care if anyone thinks its silly. Double star wattage couples of this magnitude happen only a few times a century.) 
Slate ranks the remaining A list power couples

Brangelina, smack dab in the middle of their storied romance

Liz and Dick were only divorced for 16 months before they got back together so if I may put in an early request for 2018 Wishes. Lots more (and not just Brad & Angie) after the jump.

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Podcast Special: 25th Anniversary of Madonna's "Truth or Dare"

Nathaniel, Nick, and Joe revisit the seminal rock documentary by Alek Keshishian  Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991). The film was a blast in 1991, became one of the biggest documentary hits of all time, and proved prophetic thereafter for celebrity culture and reality TV narcissism which hadn't been invented yet. Well, reality TV hadn't; Narcissism precedes Madonna.

Topics include but are not limited to: Our first viewings, Warren Beatty's terror at the project, the Antonio Banderas fixation, celebrity cameos, and Madonna's relationship to both the camera and LGBT culture.

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the convo in the comments...

• What's the story of your first viewing? 
• Have you watched it recently (Hint: it's streaming on Netflix!)? 
• Do you think Blonde Ambition is Madonna's best era?

 

Truth or Podcast

Beauty Break: Happy National Siblings Day!

Let's hear it for siblings, fictional and otherwise! Today is National Siblings Day so I dedicate this to my sister and brothers even though they're not movie people and won't read this. But let's look at beautiful photos of three of our favorite sets of screen siblings. Starting with the most successful of all...

Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty and more after the jump...

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The New Actor Hierarchy: Oscar's Most Beloved Male Stars

Leonardo DiCaprio is now an Oscar winner but where does he stand in history?

If you're feeling celebratory -- and we've all lived through his rise into cinematic legend so why shouldn't we? -- you really need to check out this cute video of Leo getting his Oscar engraved or this silliness of a party of bros celebrating his win like mad men (hey it's better than the bro-ness of the pussy posse reuniting) or the once mocking memes that have turned into odes to Leo Joy. Good funny stuff.

Even if you weren't enamored with The Revenant (*raises hand*) or find it downright suspect, his filmography is so loaded with memorable films that surely anyone can find one therein to direct all their feelings towards in this momentous week for the 41 year old superstar. I'm choosing to view the Oscar as a career achievement Oscar for specifically prompted by Gilbert Grape, Romeo + Juliet, and The Departed... love them all!) 

Last year when Julianne Moore won her long-awaited Oscar for Still Alice we quickly tabulated the All Time Oscar Actress Hierarchy; movement in the ranks at last!  Given that DiCaprio waited even longer for his eventual statue, nabbing his first nomination at the dewy age of 19 for What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), four years before Julianne Moore's first nomination, it seemed only right to do the same thing for the men in the wake of Leo's coronation. 

What follows is Oscar's 32 All Time Favorite Actors !
It's restricted to men with 5 or more nominations. Only the acting statistics are accounted for so George Clooney, for example, is not (yet) ranked. If you counted non-acting nominations, you'd also see DiCaprio jump a rank as he was nominated for producing Wolf of Wall Street two years ago and Brad Pitt would also factor in since he won Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave. Now that many major stars are involved in producing these types of extra nominations stats are likely to make Oscar lists of the future progressively murkier so we're opting not to include them for now. 

If you'd like to see how the ranks were determined (it's not as simple as basic addition or there would be many ties) that's at the bottom of the post.

OSCAR'S FOUR KINGS
And 28 other Royals 
after the jump 

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Linkovers

must read
"Want to work in Hollywood? Only straight, white men need apply?" this new study from USC is getting a lot of attention and it is pretty damning evidence all told. (How did diversity issues get so much worse instead of better? - It boggles the mind.) That study is just for films but TV is doing a lot better. On that note it looks like we lost Lee Daniels to TV for good  (*sniffle... no more Paperboy or Precious). In addition to "Empire" Season 2 he's developing a girl-band series called "Star". NYT also looked at the diversity gap on the bigscreen from that study and Dana Delany tweeted in response underlining why she doesn't do film anymore.

The migration of actors (particularly female) and creatives to television has been well documented. I can only blame moviegoers at this point. They just only seem willing to look at "adult" and female stuff on television and save their ticket dollars for fx films 

links
Variety Todd Haynes to get a tribute at this year's Gotham Awards
Empire remember when Lasse Hallström was a big deal? His breakthrough was My Life as a Dog (not a literal title) and now he'll be directing a movie called A Dog's Purpose which is actually about a dog, a reincarnated dog who helps various owners in his lives
imgur a native of Florida photographs Edward Scissorhands locations 25 years later. The foilage sure grew and the colors sure are drabber now
Interview republishes an archival interview with Warren Beatty from 1972 as we await anything on his long-gestating Howard Hughes biopic
MSZ "Unloved" series looks at Peyton Reed's Down With Love and The Break-Up
Filmmaker Magazine talks to Randal Kleiser about Summer Lovers, an 80s guilty pleasure starring Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher.
Indie Outlook compares American Sniper and Selma to find the structure of "Oscar Bait". It's interesting but I wholly disagree on the notion that Selma's focus on the mechanicas of civil disobedience makes it dry and unsatisfying. I think that's exactly what makes it so good and so much more worthwhile than a simple "great man" biopic would have been. Love that movie.
This Is Not Porn Jessica Lange on the set of King Kong (1976). Hee 

spandex city
CW Seed This is actually cool. CW, which had a major hit with their fun and well-crafted Flash series is now streaming the original Flash television series from 1990 -  I had forgotten that existed even!
Comic Alliance "why I'm boycotting Marvel Comics" more on Marvel's very real diversity problem 
Htxt.Africa talks Star Wars and The Jungle Book from a Disney Africa presentation. Also says Doctor Strange looks "horror-movie-dark" 

for London readers
Facebook  Desperately Seeking Susan is getting a 30th anniversary screening at the Prince Charles Cinema 

the Leftovers

Oooh, here's the Season 2 trailer to HBO's "The Leftovers" which had so many good parts for ladies last season. This new season shakes things up a lot so we don't know quite what to expect. 

free the bacon
Kevin Bacon demands more male nudity in Hollywood