• Sundays with Cate Murtada on Michelle Pfeiffer in French Exit which has finally been released
• ...TFE and my own take in case you're finally seeing the movie (which I'm hoping to watch again very soon now that I'm acclimated as a huge fan of the novel)
• Vogue on Pfeiffer's expensive wardrobe in the picture
• THR "Searching for Shelley Duvall" -someone we missed this profile from Seth Abrahamovitch. Duvall, who has been absent from the public eye for years and years talks with him about fleeing Hollywood and The Shining.
• AV Club revisiting a musical number from Muppets Treasure Island that speaks to the now “Cabin Fever”
• Coming Soon speaking of musical numbers. A new musical animated short called “Us Again” will premiere before Disney’s Raya and teh Last Dragon in its theatrical run next month.
More after the jump including Bridgerton news, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Frankenstein movies, and yet another remake of The Three Musketeers...
• IndieWire interesting though also frustrating report on the best picture race and how there’s no longer a simple non-spun way to measure what’s popular (like ticket sales in previous years)
• Deadline Simone Ashley (Sex Education) lands the female lead for season 2 of Bridgerton opposite Jonathan Bailey. (So is each season going to marry off a Bridgerton?)
• Slate an interesting piece on Marvel Comics history and how a newspaper profile fawning over Stan Lee caused deep rifts with his co-creators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko at the time.
• Cartoon BrewThe 2005 Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender was Netflix’s most popular animated kids show in 2020.
• Variety cinemas in Hong Kong are reopening this week with COVID infection rates dropping to single figure daily increases.
• Cartoon Brew HBOMax is diving deep into the adult animated show business with 3 new series ordered, 1 renewed, and 4 more in development
• Vulture talks to Jamie Dornan about his shirt-ripping performance in Barb and Star
• MNPP Jason is fully in love with Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar… and not just for Dornan
• OuT a profile of queer artist/writer couple Noelle Stevenson & Molly Ostertag. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is mentioned a lot but Stevenson’s great comic Nimona is never mentioned which makes me so sad. The animated feature version of it was just cancelled by Disney though it was already well into production.
• Advocate Harvey Guillén, so brilliant as “Guillermo” on What We Do in the Shadows, is the first LGBTQ+ actor latinx actor to nab a Critics Choice nomination. What’s more -- and we didn’t notice it at the time of nominations -- that category is majority queer men.
• MNPP a preview of this year’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema at lincoln center next month
• Theater Mania is doing “an oral history of thee Broadway shutdown” there are four parts already.
• /Film Like Peter Pan, King Arthur, and Robin Hood, some stories never go out of fashion with filmmakers even if film history is riddled with as many flops as hits involving them. So yes there’s another Three Musketeers coming. At least it’s a French production and the cast is super-duper exciting: Eva Green, Vincent Cassell, Louis Garrel, Romain Duris, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Vicky Kreips
• The Guardian the 20 best Frankenstein movies ranked
• IndieWire Regé-Jean Page, skyrocketing to fame with Bridgerton, to host SNL
RIP
• Lynn Stalmaster legendary and career-making casting dirctor has died. The only casting director ever awarded the Honorary Oscar.
• Ari Gold Gay reecording artist has died at 47 after a long battle with cancer
• Florence Birdwell the voice teacher to two of Broadway’s most insanely great singers Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O’Hara, has passed away.