morning news items, or recommended stories / essays
• Boy Culture Comic gold Teri Garr interviewed about her MS (which sadly ended her career, she's now confined to a wheelchair) and her famous co-stars (still loves Dustin Hoffman, was not a fan of Gene Wilder)
• Forbes asks that the internet stop trying to make the most powerful woman in the movie world (that'd be Wonder Woman) into a victim with constant outrages. She's a hit, enjoy her.
Eight additional stories after the jump including a Downton Abbey reunion, Emmy hopefuls, Batman Returns and more...
• TVLine there's a Downton Abbey movie in the works to film next year. Hmmm, didn't they wrap up every storyline in the finale?
• IndieWire goes to 'an Evening with Sofia Coppola' and discovers she wanted to shoot her now abandoned The Little Mermaid feature underwater.
• ET Kate Beckinsale is now dating a 21 year old actor/model/comedian
• Variety TV showrunners name their favorite shows -- lots of mentions for The Leftovers, Big Little Lies, and Master of None. It was also nice to read a single shout out to AMC's Humans which I actually think is a much stronger A.I. drama than the far buzzier but one note Westworld from HBO. I get that Westworld is well made and beautifully acted but I also think its repugnantly nihilist. It seems to think that the only thing in the world that mankind fantasizes about is either raping or killing each other. I beg to differ with that world view. Yes there are dark sides to humanity but even within the darkside there is a lot more variety than that!!!
• The Stranger our friend and sometime contributor Manuel Betancourt on the first time he posed naked for an artist. How come the first thought in my mind in all of these situations is "draw me like one of your French girls"?
• Variety "why movies need directors like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller more than ever"
• Broadway.com Darren Criss made out with his eventual American Crime producer during his Broadway run on Hedwig. Hee
ICYMI
This article is months old but it was new to me somehow this week so I have to share
• EW Gorgeous write up of the weird, whimsical, wondrous Batman Returns by Darren Franich. (I had hoped to be in the early 90s in Pfandom by the time this movie's 25th anniversary rolled around but I got super behind as you know and am still in the early 80s. sigh). An excerpt from Franich's brilliant piece.
The joy of Batman Returns is that [Selina Kyle's] transformation is both a downward spiral and an ascension: She becomes her real self, and it kills her, and it makes her whole.