Linksmith

New York Social Diary RIP gossip columnist Liz Smith. I grew up reading her syndicated column *sniffle* This link is a remembrance of her by Denis Ferrara who was a very close friend and collaborator on her column
Esquire the ten best comedies of the year including Ingrid Goes West, Thor Ragnarok, Girls Trip, and Lady Bird
Independent Firing Kevin Spacey from House of Cards might be more difficult than Netflix thought, legally speaking
Awards Daily the case for Michelle Pfeiffer. Give her her damn Oscar already
Variety Zendaya is doing a film about the first African-American woman to graduate from Vassar (who passed as white to do so). It's called A White Lie

Deadline Wonder Woman 2 has moved to a November 1st 2019 release and Gal Gadot, contrary to reports over the weekend, is already locked in to star. Patty Jenkins will direct again. We hope there's no sophomore slump because the first one was so damn enjoyable/inspiring
Variety keeps us updated with what's going on with Martin Scorsese's The Irishman which Netflix will stream. Variety, perhaps for click-bait purposes, acts like the theatrical release is in doubt but it is surely not; Scorsese would never sign a contract that doesn't give him at least some theatrical distribution so expect the usual limited release that no one goes to in theaters because its' also streaming for free on Netflix situation (upcoming with Mudbound)
IndieWire Denis Villeneuve might direct Bond 25 but right now a relaunch of Dune is still his priority
YouTube new trailer for The Greatest Showman. It's basically the old trailer with a couple more dialogue clips thrown in and some less tuneful than "This Is Me" song that Jackman is talk/singing. I'm still dying to see it because musicals for life, don'cha know
/Film Quentin Tarantino's next movie is about the year of 1969 rather than the Charles Manson murders as previously reported. Let's hope it's better than that 1988 film 1969 which starred Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr

Off Screen
Damn Joan a Barbie doll funeral
Vulture every Taylor Swift song ever, ranked. Fun read even though i think it's silly and click-baity to claim "Look What You Made Me Do" is the worst song she ever wrote
Theater Mania 11 Asian-American shows on stages this season across the country
Playbill Lin-Manuel Miranda's ongoing effort to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurrican Maria

Exit Videos
If only more directors could find a way to harness Kate Beckinsale's natural wit in movies. This video made me LOL so much. Watch every second of it, please. Below that is a Justice League if it were made in the 80s "opening credits" sequence. Cute and weirdly plausible which I'm not sure is a compliment to the movie which is about to open.

❤️ @lily_sheen 😘

A post shared by Kate Beckinsale (@katebeckinsale) on Nov 11, 2017 at 9:30pm PST

Beauty Break: Michelle Pfeiffer's Cover Girl Comeback

by Nathaniel R

Hollywood's greatest blonde is back after a way-too-long hiatus and she's the covergirl for both Variety for their Women in Hollywood issue and in the "Edit" insert of Net-a-Porter for their "white" issue (the clothing trend not the race!). And with these fine profiles / interviews come photos. So let's share beautiful portraiture and the best quotes after the jump...

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Linker

movies

• Deadline we didn't believe this would ever actually happen but supposedly James Cameron starts shooting today on his FOUR consecutive Avatar sequels with an estimated budget of over 1 billion dollars
• Cartoon Brew this year continues to be weak for animated features but next year's trailers are already popping up. Peter Rabbit anyone? And, in case you missed it...
• TFE Isle of Dogs trailer
• Cinematic Corner Sati always keeps us up to date on what Hugh Jackman is doing. Apparently he's making a movie called The Front Runner but, alas, it is NOT an adaptation of that famous gay novel that has never managed to get a movie made despite numerous rumors that it would become a movie over the decades. Instead it's a movie about the politician Gary Hart.

• Out how's this for an odd sounding project. Moonlight's writer Tarrell Alvin McCraney is going to script a musical for David Oyelowo and Disney that is a cross between Othello and Cyrano. What the what now?
• Coming Soon Julianne Hough and Tyler Hoechlin among the cast of the new biopic about the fitness pioneer family the Weiders called Bigger
•  Deadline potentially big news for anyone hoping for a Sharon Stone comeback. The actress, previously with Gersh, has now signed with CAA for representation in all areas
• The Atlantic mother! as a descendant of Antonin Artaud’s 'Theater of Cruelty'
• my new plaid pants Luke Evans new film Professor Marsden will be part of New Fest, the LGBT film festival. That's potentially awkward given his history!

tv

• The Ellen Show Sterling K Brown strips down and drives a tractor (?) for Ellen DeGeneres
• The Daily Beast Dynasty's Gordon Thompson comes out in his 70s. But he didn't play the often victimized gay character Steven Carrington on that 1980s blockbuster TV show but his evil half brother Adam.
• Vulture some fun comic nuggets about the new season of Will & Grace

randomness

• Londonist body art of famous painting on five models walking around Britain. The text keeps saying they're naked but they're not. They're all wearing pasties and underwear but it's still a neat art project if not cool "body painting". Give me Keith Haring in the 80s or Demi Moore in the 90s in their altogether. That was awesome body painting!

exit video

• Here's a cool video essay on the scoring of Wonder Woman

How Wonder Woman's theme music went from bombastic to smart from Dan Golding on Vimeo.

Beauty vs Beast: Super Cat Scratch Fever

Jason from MNPP here with today's new "Beauty vs Beast" -- I finally got my boyfriend to watch Wonder Woman this weekend (it's finally out on VOD) and he was as surprised as I was by how much he enjoyed it (I was skeptical given DC's lousy track-record and he was skeptical because he doesn't like superhero movies). But he had one complaint that I very much got - there are a couple of full-body CG shots where Diana's hopping around where the effects look pretty goony, or as my boyfriend put it, "That looked like Catwoman." 

Which got me thinking about Catwoman. The Halle Berry one, I mean. Which isn't as dire for me as it is for most - I actually enjoy the 2004 dud, albeit for camp value. But you kind of get the feeling that the film's director Pitof (whose career was, probably rightly, murdered by the film) intended the camp value, which then got me thinking about what a blessing it is that Patty Jenkins was able to give us a female superhero and take her (and her girly love for love) seriously - there's a long history of female superheroes being treated as less than serious by male directors, from Supergirl to Showgirls. 

Of course Tim Burton took Catwoman seriously once, and from that we got the Greatest Superhero Performance of All Time. And he also proved that taking something "seriously" doesn't mean you have to drain all the fun, or even the camp, from it - a lesson every DC movie not named Wonder Woman could stand to learn. So I hope we get a proper Catwoman movie some day, but until then, I'll make due with the camp of Halle Berry smashing the beauty magnate villanness Sharon Stone's cement face in. Which leads me to this week's purrfect poll...

PREVIOUSLY When I was out of town last week Nathaniel took y'all back to Disney's film Hercules (which sidenote I have never seen, whoopsie) and faced off its hero and hell-ward villain, and in a squeaker the titular ginger took the crown with just over 51% of your votes. Always bet on ginger. Said Emma:

"I consider Hercules the second dishiest Disney character (second only to Nick from ZOOTOPIA... don't judge me!), so had to vote for the eye candy."

YNMS: Professor Marston & The Wonder Women

by Nathaniel R

Well, the timing couldn't be better. The producers behind Professor Marston and the Wonder Women must be pinching themselves that Wonder Woman has been such an inarguable smash hit.  It might -- though the public is stubborn about trying new movies out that aren't CGI based or sequels -- generate some box office interest in this biopic about the man who created the fictional Amazon princess. Luke Evans plays the Professor and the women (yes, plural) in his life are Bella Heathcote and Rebecca Hall.

Trailer and Yes No Maybe So™ breakdown after the jump...

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