Linkers Dozen

TFE Mrs de Winters or Danvers? So little time to vote for these ladies without first names. It's Beauty vs. Beast
Google has Valentine's stories today, with simple line animations and audio, and they're just adorbs 
NY Times film restoration isn't only for old hollywood. They also do porn!
/Film Black Widow film still being considered by Marvel Studios. But then, what isn't?
Coming Soon Ron Howard replacing Alejandro González Iñárritu in the director's chair on a new Jungle Book. Because a) they're so interchangeable! and b) we need another Jungle Book for some reason I guess.
LA Times what are the most memorable clips for the lead nominees. How to choose a key moment?

 

Extension 765 features a must-read list by Steven Soderbergh of everything he's watched last year. All I can say about this is that I LOVE THAT HE WATCHED ALL THE EPISODES OF "SMASH"
All Things Considered on the friendship between Shirley Temple and Bojangles
Cinema Blend The Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn romance may get its own biopic. Take that one millionth, Liz Taylor movie!
Variety with her remake of Murder She Wrote no longer happening, Octavia Spencer picks "Red Band Society" as her TV series
Awards Daily "Meet the Academy" a pie chart
VF Leonardo DiCaprio on why he didn't star in Moulin Rouge!

To be honest, I’m not really prepared to do a musical, simply because I think I have a pretty atrocious voice 

Bye!

P.S. Right after I posted this news update, Ellen Page came out. What timing.

Silent Linking

Variety glorious piece gently berating Disney for their self-loathing Frozen marketing ('no, this isn't about girls and it's not a musical, either!')
Towleroad James Franco's '50 Shades of Batman & Robin'. Ha! I know a lot of people hate Franco's absurdities and his ubiquity but I love that he has turned the boredom of professional acting (all that time not acting on film sets or between jobs) into performance art.
EW Marcia Gay Harden will play Christian Gray's mother in 50 Shades of Gray. Can the movie just be about her instead?
MNPP which is hotter retro reminder: American Hustle's JLaw or... 

Vanity Fair Katey wonder whether Lena Dunham or Kristen Stewart have the Sundanceiest Sundance movie
Time Wispy beautiful Gal Gadot from Fast and Furious 6 will play the world's most famous Amazon warrior, Wonder Woman. Or at least Diana Prince in that likely-to-be-terrible Man of Steel 2 Men of Steel? Batman vs Superman? World's Finest. (I don't care what it's called. So bored of superhero movies... especially Batman. He's been on movie screens regularly since 1989... hibernate in the cave for a bit, PLEASE. Make us miss you)
Cinema Blend Two competing live action version of The Jungle Book are headed your way. It's Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu vs. Jon Favreau. I can't be the only person who still remembers the 90s live action version with Jason Scott Lee, can I?
The Wire Joe Reid on Her's NBR win
Hollywood Elsewhere Jeffrey Wells is grossed out by some hearsay that someone somewhere who is savvy about Oscars thinks Saving Mr Banks is going to win Best Picture. (P.S. You can find someone somewhere who thinks anything... even among people who are generally not completely dumb about the Oscars)
Coming Soon a new Ira Levin adaptation is coming: Veronica's Room. If it's anywhere close to as good as previous Levin adaptations like Rosemary's Baby or The Stepford Wives (original) than we are in for a treat.

Today's Must Read
Gawker Tom Scocca's essay about "Smarm" and social media. A lot of food for thought. Don't dismiss it unless YOU'VE written a 9,253 word thinkpiece...

Finally... 

Library of Congress findings on Silent Films

Finally, I'm noticing a lot of news sites suddenly reporting about these awful stats about the survival of silent film... or the lack thereof that is. This chart and many of the articles, are stemming from a September 2013 report from the Library of Congress which you can read in full here.

Stage Door: Asher Lev, The Jungle Book, Love's Labour's Lost

How has "My Name is Asher Lev" never been made into a movie? The novel by Chaim Potok, about a young Hassidic Jew who becomes a controversial and successful fine artist (painting crucifixations of all things) is one of those mainstays of primary education so you'd think that there would be a movie. Most of those get-em-while-they're-young classic novels can claim multiple film versions. But there's only been runs at the stage. I recently saw a new adaptation by Aaron Posner at the Westside Theater. 

The production was minimally staged but the set was a moody beauty. The night I attended the understudy for the female roles (there are only three actors in the production) went on. Turns out she was Chaim Potok's actual daughter! Imagine that.

Ari BrandAri Brand was constantly on the stage in the title role but adeptly swung around between various ages from little boy to grown man to track Asher Lev's artistic awakening and simultaneous emancipation from and acceptance of his faith. But the chameleon in the cast was Mark Nelson who plays quite a few characters including Asher's father and is particularly memorable as his jovial uncle and Asher's mentor artists who speaks largely in manifestos about what art is and how artists should live. Asher's struggle couldn't be more specific (a Jew painting Christian iconography) but the themes are wildly flexible to any coming of age or coming into one's own spiritual or ideological journey which is surely why people love it when they're young. 

It's Your Last Chance: My Name is Asher Lev plays through September 1st at the West Side Theater. 

Movies and TV Moving to the Musical Stage
Playbill warns that there's a GLEE stage musical in the works? God Antoinette Perry help us all. We've really gone over the top and back down again with the cross pollination of mediums. In September HONEYMOON IN VEGAS hits Paper Mill in Jersey and over in Boston at the Huntington Theater Company they're launching Disney's THE JUNGLE BOOK which is aiming for Broadway (eventually) and one supposes they're dreaming of another Julie-Taymor-does-Lion-King size hit. Here's a Making Of with director Mary Zimmerman, whose biggest hit Metamorphosis was so good. Let's hope she doesn't fall into the Julie Taymor trap of not being able to edit herself. Bostonian readers who've seen the show do tell us what you thought! 

The great Norbert Leo Butz in BIG FISH

The migration continues directly on Broadway with Big Fish (Sept 2013), The Bridges of Madison County (Jan 2014) and Rocky (Feb 2014) among others. Which are you most interested in hearing about?

Exit Music
And did any of you get a chance to see the final Shakespeare in the Park for the season: Love's Labour's Lost? I'm still humming this particular show stopper. 

Heavy rotation on my playlists.

It's National Bird Day ~ Best Birds on Film!

It totally is! Every 5th of January as it so happens.

There's no reason to post about it other than that I actually threw on this Finding Nemo seagull t-shirt this morning "MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE" ... before I knew! [insert eery music]

It's a sign that silly list-making is required of me. 

Though this year in cinema was definitely the Year of the Dog, we did get at least one memorable bird in Lord Shen, the villain of Kung Fu Panda 2. There were also feathers flying everywhere in Rio but I can't seem to bring myself to watch the screener because it never shows up in "Best Animated Film" nominations. Not that you should trust those when Cars 2 does ferchrissakes.

Favorite Feathered Film Things!

18 Ben Foster as Angel in Let Us Not Speak of That Movie or that guy from Barbarella I forget his name.
17 Kevin in Up (2009)
16 Lord Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
15 Camilla from The Muppets 
14 Those ostrich costumes in Priscilla Queen of the Desert
13 The vultures from The Jungle Book

12 Maleficent's crow in Sleeping Beauty
11 The Crow (1994)
10 The mariachi owls from Rango
09 those seagulls "mine mine mine mine mine mine"
08 Natalie's final pirouette transformation in Black Swan
07 Matthew Barney's flock in Cremaster 5 (1997)

Cremaster 5

06 Björk at the Oscars
05 Babs in Chicken Run (2000). Remember her?
04 The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
03 Pixar's For the Birds
02 The Birds (1963)
01 Michelle Pfeiffer as Ladyhawke (1985)

P.S. Tweety-bird and Road Runner are assholes.

P.P. S. images that came up this morning when I searched for "Ben Foster Angel Screencaps"

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