The Link Visits
• Lit Hub interesting essay on the popularity of world-building in genre fiction
• Coming Soon Wreck It Ralph 2 has a scene with all the Disney princesses
• Cartoon Brew trailer for something called Another Day of Life which combines documentary footage with CG animation for a different kind of movie
• The Guaridan a five star review of the great silent film Pandora's Box, which y'all know I love. It's maybe my favorite silent
• The New Yorker the emptiness of the new Star Wars universe. I liked Solo more than most and disagree with a few key points here (Emilia Clarke had plenty of screen time to develop that character for example. She's just not an inspired actor is all) but it's still an interesting good read about the problem of prequels and self-consciously mythic work.
• Tom Cruise... speaking of self-conciously mythic. Top Gun 2 began filming
• Boy Culture Madonna gives her blessing to a book/movie deal that uses her music as backdrop for a boy's coming out story. It was a project mainstream publishers rejected. Bet they're sorry now that it has a six figure movie deal.
• Variety Angelina Jolie in David Oyelowo may be starring in a new fantasy drama called Come Away about the parents of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Say what? It's from Brave director Brenda Chapman
• Variety a report on the trouble of ultra cheap or ultra expensive movies in Japan. It's not just Hollywood that has a no mid-budget films problem
• Awards Daily the summer of Donald Glover
• Towleroad deleted scene from Love Simon featuring Colton Haynes
Theater People
• Stage is a new streaming service for theater fans launching this August. Taye Diggs is going to host the first three episodes of their debut talk show called "Crossovers" with Leslie Uggams, Billy Magnussen, and Tamara Tunie as initial guests
• Playbill Tony-bound musical adaptation The Band's Visit will launch a national tour in one year's time.
• TFE ← I just wanted to point you back to this interview we did with two cast members from the musical comedy Desperate Measures last year. The show was so successful it's reopening today at New World Stages for an open run with most of the original cast (including these two) rejoining. It is SO worth seeing so I hope some of you in NYC or visiting will make it!
Reader Comments (8)
I wish Tom Cruise would go back to doing interesting films again. He's a very compelling screen presence, but I have no desire to watch Mission Impossible 18, or Top Gun 2.
That "parents of Alice and Peter Pan" movie sounds incredibly dumb and so 2018. Combining the senseless prequel trend with the endless rebooting of fairy tales. At least it doesn't seem to be linked to Disney, yet. Can we get Jolie and Oyelowo playing a couple in literally any other project, please?
Tom's a 1 man nostalgia van.
Tom Cruise.... keeps making the same old shit and they've become boring to watch.
I see all of those Disney princesses and I'm asking.... where's Princess Shuri of Wakanda from Black Panther? I know she's a Marvel character but since Disney owns Marvel, she's technically a Disney princess and the most badass of them all.
Tom Cruise is too old for "Top Gun 2" - Disney has ruined "Star Wars"
I'd love if TOP GUN 2 turned out to be about a bunch of men whose toxic bro attitude has driven away every woman who's ever loved them and then they realize they really just love playing volleyballs with the dudes without shirts on and they then start up an airline just for the gays.
Alas.
Somebody asked me on Twitter what I thought of Emelia Clarke in SOLO and I said I had no real point of reference since I don't watch Game of Thrones, but that she was fine. Everybody in SOLO is fine because nobody is being asked to do anything outside of their already established personas. That includes Glover who of course people are flipping tables for, but, like, he's just fine. He's maybe even bad because the role is badly written, but probably just fine.
Billy Magnussen! He is so flipping funny. But alas, as much as I love theater, I can't pay for yet another streaming service. Unless Stage starts showing filmed versions of productions, like National Theatre Live.
It's so weird to me how much flack Emilia Clarke comes in for, as opposed to, say, Kit Harrington or any number of other underwhelming actors on Game of Thrones. She's no great shakes, but she's enormously affecting in that one role.