Link 15

New York Times Deanna Durbin, juvenile Oscar winner and 30s/40s star, has died
Rope of Silicon the first suggestive poster for Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac ...
Nymphomaniac ...which also now has an official website
Us Weekly Reese Witherspoon talks about her arrest and taking responsibility for the crazy 
People Seth Rogen's mancrush on Zac Efron. I'm wondering what the "expletive" was but FWIW Zac is "very veiny" 
DP/30 David Poland talks to actress Alicia Witt
NPR the music from The Great Gatbsy (2013) 
Empire Logan Lerman joining Brad Pitt in the WW II tank thriller Fury 

All Superheroes All The Time. Must Be Summer
Vulture a practical guide to not hating Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man Three. This is amusing but Gwynnie is actually wonderful in the movie. Take that! 
YouTube a teaser for The Wolverine that I like more than that big trailer
The Playlist Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch confirmed (sort of) for The Avengers 2. I'm confident that Joss Whedon can do right by witches (duh!) so yes, please. 
Movieline A sweded Iron Man Three parody from Thailand 

(Sort of) Off Cinema
The Stranger an excellent and funny piece about professional basketball's first coming out by heterosexual filmmaker Sherman Alexie (Smoke Signals, The Business of FancyDancing) 
ValleyWag an oblivious startup party from AirBnB themed on The Great Gatsby 
In Contention this is a few days old but fun. President Obama as Daniel Day Lewis as President Obama 

How Had I Never Seen This?
Meryl Streep with Adam Guettel ("Rain") 

As a lifelong Streep fan and also someone who loves Adam Guettel -- some of you may remember I recently saw him do a rare live performance -- how had I never even heard of this collaboration? Or is my memory going already? Thanks to TFE Reader Rene for pointing this out to me in the last Meryl post.

Say What? A Streep and Her Dog

Awww. Meryl Streep walking her dog in Manhattan.

Amuse us by adding a dialogue or caption to this photo in the comments. I'll select a winner later.

Into The... Trainwreck?

For those of you who've had the pleasure of seeing Stephen Sondheim's classic Into the Woods (1986) on stage, you know that, like most of the great composer's once-prolific oeuvre, it is very particularly a Work of Theater. Some artists' skill sets transfer easily between stage, screen, television and literature and so on but others do not. Certain geniuses are so tied to a particular medium they become it; Stephen Sondheim IS Musical Theater. 

But musical theater is different from musical cinema. Naturally compromises will have to be made. The person doing the new compromising is Rob Marshall who Hollywood is still giving the musicals to, presumably because of the huge success of Chicago (2002) and not the floppery of Nine (2009). So yes, compromises must be made...  but they do not have to be made in casting. Many star actors -- if you're forced to cast that way -- have great singing voices. Les Misérables may have botched its casting of Javert (Ugh. Russell Crowe) but elsewhere Tom Hooper seemed to understand that beautiful melodic musical-friendly trained voices were required and could be found in big stars (Hathaway, Hackman, Seyfried) and rising ones (Tveit & Redmayne) and he cast accordingly... except for that bit about letting Helena Bonham-Carter "sing" again post-Sweeney Todd.

Unfortunately Hollywood loves to repeat its mistakes and somehow Sweeney Todd did NOT result in Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter being lifetime banned from future musicals ...

Click to read more ...

And the Best Oscar Tweets Go To...

Previously: Fun Arrivals Moments, Full Winner's List , Seth's Hosting Job , Red Carpet Convo - Best Actress,

I tried to stay off the internet as much as possible last night since I feel like I have missed so many Oscar ceremonies in the past few years from multi-tasking while watching. But I'm playing catch up today and I favorited a dozen plus tweets last night so I wouldn't lose them.

I know not all of you have twitter -- nor am I recommending it wholeheartedly. The weeks of my life lost! The damage to my attention span and ability to spell "you're" and "your" since "ur" works best...

But I didn't want you to miss out on these gems which made me lol during the past 24 hours. Please to enjoy after the jump and comment if you'd like to tweet right back at any of them.

People spent so much pre-Oscars time practicing pronouncing "Quvenzhane" and "Haneke," they totally forgot about "Misérables."

— Scott Renshaw (@scottrenshaw) February 25, 2013

I know Ben Affleck is smart & talented & kind & a loyal husband & father but it's very hard to not think of how good he probably is at sex

— Melanie Lynskey (@melanielynskey) February 25, 2013

lots more after the jump... including my favorite from Jennifer Lawrence's stumble

Click to read more ...

♩To see- to sell- to get- to bring- to make- to LINK- to go to the Festival! Into the Woods ♫

Slate Why do people hate Anne Hathaway? Might it be sexism?
Yahoo Movies Roundtable on the Supporting Actress. I'm quoted here defending Hathaway naturally. One person even disses her for being so isolated as an actress like she's in her own movie. Um... THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. Fantine's tragedy is that she's abandoned by the world and utterly alone. No safety nets or support systems.
Yahoo Movies Roundtable on Supporting Actor. This one is less divisive.
Variety's The Vote this is pretty horrifying. The Hobbit was added to the visual effects Oscar bakeoff without the committe actually seeing it. Terrible slippery slope there, Academy. Fix yourself! 

Kevin O'Keeffe on the twin protagonists of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty
Pajiba this is so freaking sexy - 47 leading ladies in mannish clothing
Guardian Penelope Cruz is pregnant again... at least we'll see her a couple of times this year before she's gone again (Ridley Scott's The Counsellor and a cameo in Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited)
Billy on the Street "It's Spock! Do You Care?" haha. Zachary Quinto is a good sport. 
Awards Daily Mark Wahlberg and Ted will present at the Oscars. It's going to be a Ted heavy night what with the Norah Jones song, the host, and this presenting duo.
The Film Experience my choices for "best poster design" are up in the Film Bitch Awards 

Hollywood by now you've surely heard that it's official that Meryl Streep will play The Witch in Into the Woods. The film will be directed by Rob Marshall so expect lots of terrible reviews since the world probably hasn't forgiven him for Nine yet. Anyway I thought this called for a poll for all my fellow Sondheim fanatics out there. I've listed my favorite musical phrases from the Witch below and you tell me which you're most excited to hear Streep singing? Got it? Okay... Into the woods with you...

poll by twiigs.com

Off Cinema
Boston Globe "Smash" refashions itself into a show about the making of Broadway musicals for its second season. Promises promises, people. We shall see... (I'll be writing about the show weekly again this year)
Rasky Baerlein When pop culture and politics interlock: Obama and Jay-Z