The Real Link Deal
Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 9:37PM 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
Reader Comments (26)
The disappointing thing about the New Mutants movie is not that it's leaving out the asian/LGBT member - it's that Anya Taylor-Joy is appearing in a fucking (excuse my language) comic book/superhero movie! I get why they want her - she's amazing. I'm just worried that'll be a CGI crapfest like most of the other comic book/superhero movies so far.
In which she's given nothing to do, and only ends up looking silly, wearing a silly costume!
Fuck you, comic book/superhero money, fuck you very much!
And don't say "if she appears in something big scale like that, it'll be a career booster for her that will give her the freedom to do smaller, more experimental movies on the side". The problem with that argument is that these comic movies have a tendency to contract their stars for thousands of sequels, which means there WON'T be any time to do the other smaller movies!
Thom Yorke, of Radiohead and occasional PT Anderson movie scoring, hired to score the remake of Suspiria from director Luca Guadagnino
Jonny Greenwood sir. He scores PTA's movies.
Nicole Kidman is so smart to diversify the way she has lately (TV, cinema, stage).
Elle Fanning is fronting Vogue? Has Dakota even had that honor (yet)?
I'm going to say it: I was seriously underwhelmed by Top of the Lake, round one. Great acting, especially Moss and Mullan, but it just went nowhere for me. I may have gotten too much "Masterpiece!" buzz before diving in when it hit Netflix.
Now Kidman just killed it in Big Little Lies (the therapy scenes rank with the best work she's ever done), so I'll probably give season 2 a try... with expectations in check.
I wonder if that infamous interview will affect Noah Galvin's career after the cancellation of his TV show.
I'm so very sad about the cancellation of THE REAL O'NEALS. I loved everyone in that family but also it was fantastic having Martha Plimpton on TV weekly.
I'm in the "watched one episode and gave up" camp when it comes to Top Of The Lake. Elisabeth Moss' accent was SO off (if the character had lived in the USA for several years she might have just gotten away with it, though the show was pretty explicit that she hadn't). Too distracting.
Oh man, loving the look of Top of the Lake. Will be great to see Campion work with such iconic Aussieography like Bondi Beach. And loving Nicole's "deglam" look.
Suite Française is not a masterpiece but deserves better than Lifetime TV.
Please watch reruns of American Crime S3.
Nicole's Top of the Lake character looks crazy! lol
I was also underwhelmed by Top of the Lake 1. Good acting, but much ado about nothing.
I'm not surprised about American Crime. I think this is an example of a show that critics praise for topical subjects when the show itself is only mildly involving, especially compared to other great anthology series like Fargo or American Crime Story, topical shows like The Wire, etc.
As far as Top of the Lake goes, I was one of those people who wasn't as hooked as I would have liked, but I think it's because I was expecting something more like Broadchurch or Happy Valley. In any event I may check out season 2.
Interesting to hear people that weren't into Top of the Lake. To me it ran circles around True Detective which was praised to the skies and I kept thinking had they been on each other's channels the reviews might not have been that way.
I adored Top of the Lake. It took its time, it wasn't fussy and was oh so moody. The acting was superb and the suspence was maintained until the very end. I don't quite understand people who did not appreciate it. Maybe did not give it enough of a chance? Maybe don't care much about female narratives? Don't know
The new trailer is very good. There seems to be some Moss/Kidman rivalry. Kidman has moved into the mom part of her career but her take on it is mesmerizing. She is constantly surprising and i must admit i m impressed with how she s achieving longevity.
No tea, no shade, but what happened to Dakota Fanning? Like, seriously. She was everywhere about a decade and a half ago and then nowhere, and now her little sister has taken all of her heat. Does she not want to act anymore? Did she go to school? Has she been making movies which I haven't seen? Like, where is she?
I know you're all super excited for Kidman, Pfeiffer or Moss, but I don't think is positive to have three or four things opening at the same time. Lords of distribution, give us time to savour and process!
ABC has been the wealth porn channel since the Bush era. Remember Desperate Housewives/Brothers and Sisters/etc.?
Big fan of Top of the Lake once I gave it another try since it didn't resonate at first. Some of these recent television crime dramas require a lot of patience to get through the first couple of episodes, but eventually solid acting and writing will hook you. Happy Valley, Hinterland, Lava Field, and (recently for me) Fortitude, are all worth sticking with, because there's definitely much more going on, but the pacing is much different than other shows.
My interest in Moss and Kidman is significantly renewed due to their outstanding performances in Handmaid's Tale and Big Little Lies, respectively.
I liked Top of the Lake for its acting, ambience, and unexpected story turns. I'm not sure the Holly Hunter part really worked but I still enjoyed it for sheer Holly Hunter-ness. Looking forward to season 2.
Noah Galvin has such perfectly smooth skin and big features that he looks like he's constantly photoshopped. Or like a cartoon. How is he real?
Jennifer Jones and Michael Parks starred in the fascinating, underrated The Idol, 1966.
RIP Michael Parks
I, for one, am incredibly excited for New Mutants, although it's a shame they left out that character. Love ATJ, though! Her eyeballs, my God.
Lastly, I am really, really upset about The Real O'Neals. Kids need that show, I wish I had it when I was in high schools. The family's character in that show is so strong, you get them right away from the opening title card. My hopes are that it reaches cult status. Such a great show with wonderful comedic and heartfelt performances.
@ Tony T
I think it's less a lack of interest in female narratives and more the first point you made about not giving it a chance. That is, and this is just my particular thing with TV, but if a series doesn't really hook me by the first episode, I don't continue. I understand this means I miss out on shows I could potentially end up liking by the end, especially the slower ones that build to something and/or try to do something different with genre (like Top of the Lake), but most times when I "stick with" a show and give it a chance, I'm only mildly interested by the end and wish I just stopped watching (Mr. Robot comes to mind). For me, there's so much TV out there (and content in other forms in general) that I shouldn't have to sit through, say, three episodes to decide whether or not I'm gonna continue watching a show. My friend and I have this discussion all the time and I guess it's just a question of how I'd like to spend my time. I'd rather just watch another movie instead of giving another hour to a show I probably won't end up liking.
Does this make sense?
I'm a bit disappointed that "The Catch" was cancelled. It was one of the Shondaland shows.
The basic premise of two lovers who will do anything to be together never really worked. The two actors tried valiantly, but somehow it just didn't click.
But what the show did while trying to make it better, was to bring in this fabulous supporting cast (Sonya Walger, and then my always beloved Gina Torres among others), and the supporting cast was just killing it. Omg, they were great. I hope they get their own show.
RIP Michael Parks... in my honest opinion, he should have won the Oscar for Kevin Smith's "Red State", a film that despite the bad reviews, I insanely love and think is a masterpiece, and along Clerks and Chasing Amy, proof that Kevin Smith is a voice to listen, despite his flaws.
Great, great actor, his villain in Smith's film is one for the ages.
re: The New Mutants... the three characters they seem to have left out, and (most likely) why...
Karma: being lesbian, I don't think was a huge thing for leaving the character out. It was her story, deeply rooted on the Vietnam war. You can't explain in 2017 introducing a character whose deeper motivations come from a war that ended in the mid-70s and is a teenager NOW. Needs huge rewrite because she's a character "out of her time"
Magma: that was an easy call for getting cut from the film... huge backstory, she's a ROMAN born and raise in the Amazone jungle in Peru. Romans in the south-american jungle. She'll likely be center of the sequel, introducing her and her villainous nemesis, the mutant vampire Selene. It makes sense.
Cypher: supposedly the cheapest character at first, is the one that most divide fans between love (count me in) and hate. His ability to understand any language traditionally made him useless at fight, but that's mostly because writers always forgot that he could therefore understand body language and use it in fight, plus that DNA is a code, a language, that can be decyphered and rewritten with his power, specially after merging with Warlock and accessing to the techno-virus. In the last New Mutants run, he basically became The New Mutants' Dark Phoenix, showing up as a basically omnipotent villain from the future in which he not only controls everyone with sensors, acts like a despotic Big Brother (for the greater good), but also can alter reality and travel through time, given his unlimited range of power. Having him in the film is like opening Pandora's Box... once you explain his powers, you can't have him too downgraded nor too upgraded, and there's no easy middle point to him. Plus his "friendship" with Warlock, his "bromance", makes both of them to literally become one, something many audiences will relate to homosexual behaviour.
Oh that Blanchett interview :)