This Must Be The Link

It's a link extravaganza. So many stories/goodies!

Comic Book Movie imagines Marvel and DC characters in the Situation Room. Love Hilary Clinton as Wonder Woman.
Nostalgic Times 12 classic actresses who are actual redheads.
Austin Translation the holiday is over but you have to see the greatest mother's day card ever (via Aliens!)
Scanners David Lynch's coffee commercial. "Real Good" says Barbie's head.

And appropos of nothing... the first official still of Brad Pitt in Cogan's Trade (2012)

Brad Pitt in COGAN'S TRADE (2012)

Money Technological prophecies from books and movies. Scifi that's become fact.
Towleroad Sean Penn clip from This Must Be The Place.
In Contention also has something to say about that goth rocker Nazi searching drama.
Letters of Note Quentin Tarantino's letter to a teenage fan. Fun / flashbacky. Remember when he was with Mira Sorvino?
CriEnglish Zhang Ziyi and Aaron Kwok share a cold bathtub in the new AIDS drama Love for Life (Zui Ai). Ziyi claims she'd doing anything for this movie.
People Magazine It seems like they've been together our whole lives but Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have separated.

USA Today Woody Allen promises that his Rome picture is "an out and out comedy" and that he's going to be in it. First time in front of cameras since Scoop.
Stale Popcorn's 'Cinema of the Absurd' returns with Teen Witch (1989)
Antagony & Ecstasy's 'Blockbuster History' returns to look at The Labors of Hercules (1958) and the birth of the sword and sandal subgenre. Speaking of...
Twitch has the first trailer to Ronal the Barbarian, a bawdy Danish toon. America does seem to be the only country that views the animation medium as only for family films.
Frontiers has an interview with Raja, the latest winner of RuPaul's Drag Race and, yes, there will be a "Heathers" tour...

Hence this Heathers style photo with (left to right) Delta Work, Carmen Carerra, Manilla Luzon and Raja.

More from Thor?
Scene Stealers has been really working that Thor groove lately. They've got a top ten list of Most Iconic Movie Weapons.
Low Resolution has assorted thoughts. Joe's always a good Reid. (see what i did there?)
Cincinatti The Avengers will shoot in Ohio just as podcast guest Robert hinted this past week. For two whole weeks

Links: Arthur Laurents, Joel Edgerton, Parker Posey, Will Smith

TV Guide A brilliant suggestion: put Parker Posey in the boss's chair in The Office. Did you see her on Parks & Recreation last night? She's dependable with hilarity, that one.
The Art of Manliness how to jump from rooftop to rooftop, like a frenzied movie hero.
Boobs Radley Imagined conversations between Scarlett Johansson and Sean Penn. Teehee.
My New Plaid Pants a big week for Joel Edgerton. A leading role in the new Kathryn Bigelow flick? Yes please.
Variety Quentin Tarantino wants Will Smith for his Django Unchained movie. In our opinion any actor would be crazy to turn Tarantino down. He nearly always finds something new or untapped in their talent. He's pure magic that way.
The Beats Within new blog on Madonna as a musician (still underappreciated). This is a really interesting interview with Guy Sigsworth who cowrote "What It Feels Like For a Girl"
Movie Morlocksk spends an evening with Terence Stamp. We love him.

Hey U Guys shows the delightful first image from a pirate movie from Aardman Animations. Hugh Grant will be voicing it matey.
THR It might be Keanu Reeves for Akira. Hollywood is just determined not to cast Japanese actors even though the property is the selling point.
Movie|Line is every Kate Hudson movie the same? Chart!
Salon looks at the best devil portrayals on film.

Finally...I meant to write about Arthur Laurents passing yesterday but this one made me sick with loss. The theater great had a hand in so many properties that are just magic (Rope, West Side Story, The Way We Were, Gypsy ... the list goes on) and he lived to be 92 years old; a long and accomplished life it was. He won Tony Awards and was twice Oscar nominated (both nominations were for the ballet drama The Turning Point) but somehow they snubbed his brilliant screenplay for The Way We Were which is only among the pinnacle achievements of its entire genre. Seriously name ten romantic weepies that are better; you can't!

His life was inspiring, too. Imagine having the guts to live as an out gay man as early as the 1950s. I didn't know where to begin -- I'd need a whole blog week. MUBI is terrific with the obituaries, always rounding up good articles to read, like this recent lengthy dishy profile from New York Magazine when the revival of West Side Story opened on Broadway.

Reader Spotlight: Chris

Continuing the weekly or twice weekly series of reader spotlights. Today's reader is Chris a Midwestern reader with a great sense of humor who started reading TFE in his senior year of high school back in the mid Aughts and never stopped. That's the way we like it, the never-stopping part.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first moviegoing experience or first movie obsession?
CHRIS: I'm pretty sure it was The Little Mermaid, because I have a distinct memory of Ursula's entrance. I can't remember my first movie obsession, because there have been so many. Probably the biggest was the summer that Moulin Rouge! and Hedwig and the Angry Inch came out. I flipped for both movies individually, but collectively they made me feel like musicals were back for good.

Take one Oscar away and give it to someone else.
I have to go with two on this one (and I'd take them away from double winners actually): First, I'd give Sean Penn's Mystic River Oscar to Bill Murray for Lost in Translation, because Murray gave a career-defining performance and, let's be honest, Penn was light years better in Milk anyway. Second, I'd give Hilary Swank's second Oscar to Kate Winslet for Eternal Sunshine, because it's her best work and Hilary Swank was the weakest performance in the category by a mile!

You're suddenly in charge of world cinema for a year! How do you you wield this awesome power?
I'd get rid of the whole "Oscar movie" release pattern! I hate that having to wait all year for the quality movies, and then try to cram in far too many movies into too little time. Plus, living in the crappy midwest means most of the smaller films don't stick around and I have to rush to see them ASAP anyway.

Have you ever dressed as a movie character for Halloween? And has a movie character ever dressed as you?
I went as Wall•E. Made it myself, too! On the flip side, Joseph Gordon-Levitt totally raided my wardrobe in (500) Days of Summer.

Chris makes his own costumes. JGL steals his look! 

Three Favorite Actresses?
Only 3 is so not fair! I'd have to go with Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Laura Linney.

Name your favorite movie in the following five genres: musical, drama, scifi, horror, woody allen. Go!
Aladdin, Boogie Nights, Children of Men, The Shining, Interiors. Most of those are hard to narrow down just to one, but I was half tempted to put The Room as one that fits all these categories. Jokes!


Previous Reader Spotlights: Peter, Ziyad, Andrew, Yonatan, Keir, Kyle, Jamie, Vinci, Victor, Bill, Hayden, Dominique, Murtada, Cory, Walter, Paolo, Leehee and BBats

Linked Up

Today's links.

• Towleroad Sean Penn to receive the Stanley Kramer (and other movie news)
• Playbill Olympia Dukakis will star in the little seen Tennessee Williams' play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore starting tomorrow off Broadway. D'ya think the title inspired Martin Scorsese back in the day?
• Serious Film takes a long predictive look at the eventual Oscar Supporting Actress lineup, the 7 top contenders and some more still.
• MNPP's wishin' and hopin' for Eastern Promises 2
• Movie|Line the most scathing reviews of new wide release Season of the Witch
• Just Jared Kristin Chenoweth is out and about, a free woman. Now that she's done with Broadway's high-grossing Promises Promises, can we please get her into a movie musical? C'mon Hollywood. You're so lame. Make more musicals. OBEY.
• AV Club a sequel of sorts (more like a spin-off) to Knocked Up centering on Paul Rudd & Leslie Mann's married couple? For sure count us in. They made a great comic pair. 
• THR the recipients of Oscar's technical achievement awards (which we be handed out on February 12th)
  

A few more... I can't stop.

• Chateau Thombeau It Happened... an 82 flashback. (I'm on a Tootsie kick cuz of that Dustin Hoffman griping over in new Best Pics episode.)
• In Contention party for The Social Network's dvd.
• Cinema Blend Vera Farmiga and Elle Fanning to star as mother and daughter in indie drama Pure Life
• China Lion is new distribution company that will hopefully make more Asian films available in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US of A. I think you should know that the Chinese remake of American blockbuster What Women Want (pictured right) is opening in 2011. Why do we care? Because it's Gong Li and Andy Lau and not Helen Hunt and Mel Gibson, that's why!