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« J U L I E | Main | Beauty vs Beast: Mother Machine »
Monday
Jun292015

Somewhere That's Link

Defamer Elizabeth Berkley finally coming to terms with the love out there for Showgirls -- like Faye Dunaway with Mommie Dearest this has been difficult for her
Towleroad ...and there's video of the event, too!
Theater Mania to say that I am excited to see Ellen Green reprise her Audrey Little Shop of Horrors role this week (I bought tickets the day they went on sale, long before Jake Gyllenhaal nabbed the Seymour part) would be the understatement of the summer. I'm more excited for it than any upcoming movie. Yes, even Magic Mike XXL. She talks about returning to the role.
Awards Daily Kathryn Bigelow (our filmmaker of the month for Anne Marie's "Women's Pictures" series, every Thursday) pens an op-ed on endangered elephants

Birth.Movies.Death New Spider-Man movie will have a "John Hughes Vibe" and they're not going back to the Goblin again for a villain. Wow... you mean they realized that three times as villain in 12 years was enough?
Hayley Atwell continues to ace her social media game 
VF Meryl Streep asking Congress to revive the Equal Rights Amendment 
EW why Inside Out kept "Bing Bong" a secret (would that more films would keep em)
Nicole Kidman just celebrated 9 years with Keith Urban 
Interview Kyle Maclachlan talks about returning to Agent Dale Cooper for Twin Peaks
Dissolve upcoming movies for EuropaCorp including a sequel to Lucy... even though Scarlett Johansson morphed into an entirely digital entity by the end? well, ok!
The Movie Scene on all this talk of gender equality in "objectification" for the cinema which is usually lusting after only women
Ant-Man gets a "meet the crew" tv spot so finally David Dastmalchian, T.I., and especially the always wonderful Michael Peña show up in the promotional material

Oscar Talk
Hot Blog setting the Best Picture field -is Carol the only possibility thus far that's been seen
THR on the more inclusive more foreign Academy invites 

Must Read
Vulture's TV Awards series has been fairly cool, including entries from actual TV artists, but they ended incredibly strong with this piece by Matt Zoller Seitz on Mad Men as TV's Best Show overall. Frankly, it might well be the best essay on Matthew Weiner's masterful achievement that I've ever read and I've read a lot of them! Love this 'graph near the opening:

All of the episodes, even the ones I don’t especially like, are inexhaustibly detailed: packed with comic and dramatic moments; period-accurate clothing and hairstyles and music; imaginative, hilarious, and often deeply moving performances; and screenwriting that depicts the complexities and contradictions of the human personality with more insight and empathy than any American series in recent memory. It’s a historical drama about how individuals are and are not affected by the local, national, and international history that’s constantly unfolding around them. It’s a psychodrama about how our personalities are shaped by our parents, our lovers, our friends, our bosses, and everyone else we know, as well as by people we’ve never met but feel as though we know: the politicians, civil-rights leaders, athletes, movie stars, musicians, and other icons who inspire, entertain, confound, and sometimes anger us as we muddle through our daily lives. It’s also a series with an unusually strong affinity for mythology, spirituality, religion, psychoanalysis, pop psychology, literature, poetry, cinema, and all the other means by which human experience is transformed into narrative. And at every level — the scene, the episode, the season, and in total — it is a masterpiece of construction, filled with major and minor bits of foreshadowing and recollection, lines and images that seem to answer each other across time.

Read it! And hope along with us that it pulls off a historic fifth win at the Emmys in September. Mad Men (2008-2011 wins) is currently tied with Hill Street Blues (1981-1984 wins), LA Law (1987,1989-1991 wins), and The West Wing (2000-2003 wins) for the most Drama Series wins (4 each). The leader for nominations is Law & Order which was nominated 11 times, far outdistancing its nearest rivals (The Sopranos, Mad Men, ER, Studio One, and The West Wing)

P.S. on the TV Front:  I just watched my first episode of Fresh Off the Boat since y'all were complaining about Constance Wu not making our Best Actress list. It's really funny. They won "best couple" at Vulture 

PRIDE WEEKEND - SHOWTUNE TO GO...
I was feeling so much love for heroes of the past (and present -- it used to be that only Broadway had multiple out stars but now every medium does) but I was especially pleased that I wasn't the only one singing Madonna's praises... she supported the LGBT community long before it was par for the course with celebrities but gays can be fickle and though her iconic status will never be undone, sometimes people are assholes about her what with all the ageism and so on. 

All in all it was a good weekend. And all the marriage equality will eventually lead us into a less homophobic world as there are endless examples of people being less prejudiced once they are familiar with the "other" (any kind of prejudice applies). On this note, Variety is wondering when film is going to catch up with TV when it comes to comfort with the gays?  

Sirs Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi were the Grand Marshalls of the NYC parade. And anyway, gay geniuses of the past and out talents of the present should both be celebrated. And not only on Pride Weekend. So how about some Cole Porter via John Barrowman in the movie De-Lovely as we move into a new week. (That movie is kind of a mess -- anyone remember it? -- but this seen is lovely) 

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Reader Comments (13)

If the new Spider-Man movie is starting with a new villain? I'd most want them to do Mysterio, honestly. I can imagine it now: It's set across five days. The trailer goes like this: We see the school (whether high-school or college) bring in practical VFX whiz Quentin Beck for an assembly on Monday. We see a moment or two of it going badly. We see a couple clips of strange things happening at the school. We see the doors lock. We see the students sleeping, overlaid with dialogue clips of how they're nervous to terrified about what could happen next. At 1:55 in the trailer, we see them sleeping as the light is rising and we see a clock, helpfully pointing to 5:59, ticking a couple times. When it turns to 6:00 on the dot, a loud noise wakes the students. A sheet is in the middle of a room. We hear a projector turn on, revealing our fishbowl headed antagonist. We hear everyone say, nearly simultaneously (enough to indicate general quick wit, but not enough to be creepy): Quentin Beck? He snaps back something to the effect of: "It's Mysterio now, you arrogant, CGI loving worms." End trailer.

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterVolvagia

Streep has championed equal rights for women for years ... now she gets credit...

Nicole and Keith ... good for them, but how many days of the 9 years have they been together????

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered Commenterrick

Showgirls is a much better movie than Mommie Dearest, for the record. Dunaway is not supposed to come to terms with that awful movie, since she was much bigger than this flop. Showgirls is Berkeley's best movie...

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered Commentercal roth

Hooray that you are watching Fresh Off the Boat! It's my favorite network sitcom by a good mile. Constance Wu would be a fantastic surprise Emmy nominee.

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterChris James

Hayley Atwell... the new Queen of Social Media.

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterSteven

cal, that's crazy talk. ;-)

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterPaul Outlaw

That Mad Men article is amazing, captures everything I've been trying to convey to people but couldn't find the words to. "But what's it about?" has always haunted me when discussing TV shows as rich as Mad Men.

June 29, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterSteve

So what about Inside Out as a potential Best Picture nominee? It's obviously a frontrunner for the Animated Film award, it's likely to pick up nods for screenplay and maybe some of the sound categories. It's also raking in a lot of dough.

June 30, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterDusty

Sorry, I should have specified that I was responding to the Poland article that Nathaniel included in this link round-up. It seems to me like he dismisses the movie rather too easily. Since the Academy has started nominating 5+ films both Up and Toy Story 3, which received similar acclaim for their ingenuity and for tugging on people's heartstrings, have been nominated. I think the film's biggest hurdles re: getting a BP nomination are 1) it's about a girl, not a boy, and 2) The Good Dinosaur, which releases later in the year, may be a huge distraction.

June 30, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterDusty

I was nearly two weeks not online (and it was a quite easy break), but of course I have to congratz America for making the gay marriage dream come true in every state. Way to go!
And hopefully the rest of the world will follow! 8)

June 30, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterSonja

I just watched the pilot of Fresh Off the Boat, too! And for the exact same reason! I find myself unable to stick with shows lately, even when I like them, so who knows how many more I'll get through. But so far the pilot was good.

June 30, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterDJDeeJay

Why no comments about Vulture declaring "the Americans" "Best Drama of the Year" ? http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/vulture-tv-awards-best-drama.html

June 30, 2015 | Unregistered Commentermagicub

De-Lovely was good - i liked it. Why Ashley Judd. Was cast was beyond me - Cole Porter's wife was much more Kathy Bates like. Why did they do that?

June 30, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterJimmy
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