The Linking Dead

Towleroad Jack O'Connell will star in Andrew Haigh's Alexander McQueen biopic. Good casting
MTV Is Jon Hamm funny... when the punchline is always just, "Jon Hamm"
Guardian Tom Hardy to play famous Antartica explorer in 1914 set film
/Film Scott Derrickson says he wants to make a Doctor Strange sequel 'in the vein of The Dark Knight'. First the Inception inspired visuals than this? Someone take his Chris Nolan dvds away pronto!
Tracking Board Catherine Keener joins Del Toro & Brolin for the Sicario sequel called Soldado
The Talkhouse Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce sings the praise of...wait for it... John Travolta & Lily Tomlin in infamous Moment By Moment (1978)

Express Susan Sarandon in costume as Bette Davis for Feud
Interview talks to rising star Alden Ehrenreich - great photoshoot too
Comics Alliance shares concept art from Suicide Squad that wasn't used. Too colorful and fantastically gorgeous (Enchantress) - not grimy and ugly enough for Warner Bros / DC comic aesthetic!
Nerds of Color grades the reviews for Doctor Strange on how they deal with the Swinton casting as The Ancient One 
i09 Star Trek: Discovery just lost Bryan Fuller as its showrunner
Variety Apparently Jude & Robert are going to make yet another Sherlock Holmes movie. Wasn't 2 enough? 
/Film Shaun The Sheep Movie is getting a sequel. Hopefully this one will have a less awkward title 
Coming Soon lots of photos from the set of Thor: Ragnarok as it wraps filming 

Gay Gay Gay
People Trevante Rhodes talks about playing gay in Moonlight (straight stars are getting much better at these interviews but one wishes gay actors could get a crack at some of these key gay roles) 
Variety Will & Grace considering a possible TV revival after their election special reunion
THR Sean Hayes apologizes for not coming out sooner while receiving a prize from OutFest
Kenneth in the (212) Stonewall Fundraising Event gets help from icons like Cher, Madonna & Steve Nicks 

TV
Playbill Patti LuPone on joining Crazy Ex Girlfriend
YouTube John Cleese recap of The Walking Dead's first six seasons - it's funny and I don't even watch the show
Vulture reminds me why I don't watch the show by discussing its more exploitative qualities when it comes to the violence
Fusion a great piece on the non-sexualized dude robots on Westworld 

Just 4 Fun
Gothamist best dog costumes at Halloween in Thompson Square Park including movie spoofs like Human Centipede, The Little Shop of Horrors, and Harry Potter
Vulture remembering the best Celebrity Vines

...And Lady Gaga on Carpool Karaoke 

On This Day: Silly Walks, Full Frontal Oscar Nods, and Bell-Bottoms

Is today your birthday? If so you share it with multiple Oscar nominees and winners, the great John Cleese, the US President with the cutest name, Macy's Department Store and the NYC subway system.

That's quite good company which we'll explore after the jump (warning: one NSFW photo ahead) on this day in showbiz history...

Click to read more ...

No More Movies for John Cleese

Margaret here to break it to you that British comedy icon John Cleese is done with the movies. So he claimed, anyway, at a promotional appearance for his new memoir, So Anyway..., at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. 

In answer to a fan who asked about upcoming film projects, he flippantly announced that at age 74 he is too near death to work on new movies. "I have only got five or six years left, and then I will be gone." Noting the upside that this exempts him from worry about ISIS or Ebola, he quips: "Most of the best people are dead - I will be in excellent company having a wonderful time."

 

Perhaps he's not serious about quitting film; many of his showbiz peers have cried retirement only to be back at work almost immediately. (Remember when Steven Soderbergh claimed to be retiring and then it turned out he has no idea what that means?) It could also be that full retirement won't constitute an enormous shift for him. Over the last decade and change, Cleese has been primarily been cropping up in the voice casts for animated studio features. His last movie project as writer/producer, Fierce Creatures, is almost 20 years old. 

 

He can at least rest comfortably on the knowledge that his best work is immortal.  A Fish Called Wanda is a comic treasure (and earned Cleese an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay), but it's his work with Monty Python that keeps him at legend status. Naturally, a fan at the Cheltenham Literary Festival asked Cleese about that comedy group. He was typically acidic in his response, insisting that the Python members were never "huge friends" and sayin this of his former co-stars:

 

 

"Michael [Palin], as you know, makes those travel programs that I put on any time I can’t sleep. Eric Idle is very good at lyrics so he is writing songs. Terry Gilliam is off trying to raise money for one of his plotless ­extravaganzas. And [Terry] Jonesy is just insane – he writes children’s books and recently went to Lisbon and directed an opera about vacuum cleaners."

Harsh, perhaps, but certainly in the biting Python spirit. Which former Pythons are you still keeping up with? What Cleese/Python project will you treasure most once they're all fully retired?