Link or Dare

Film School Rejects on Comic Con leaks and what the studios should worry about instead
Arts.Mic Netflix has the best opening titles
Empire Jennifer Lawrence attached to The Rosie Project, a romantic story of a man with aspergers and a free spirited woman who inspires him
/Film X-Men Apocalypse teaser posters 
Queerty interviews Alex Keshishian on the seismic impact of Madonna's Truth or Dare (1991) back in the day. It changed lives! My friends and I still quote it regularly to this day.

Freier Fall 2 -- um, WHAT? They're raising money for a sequel to that very hot LGBT movie that's streaming on Netflix that stars Max Reimelt from Sense8.   
Awards Daily Sasha compares Oscars to the presidential primaries 
Guardian one million dollar reward in the case of Judy Garland's missing ruby slippers 
i09 first look at HBO's series version of the old sci fi classic Westworld
FSR checking in with Hayao Miyazaki who is still working -- albeit on short films -- and experimenting at 74. 
Variety Guillermo del Toro on his female centric Gothic horror, Crimson Peak 

Off Cinema
B&N Reads Esther Bloom on inappropriate books she read as a tween. I didn't do this but I remember the whispered conversations in school about books we weren't supposed to be reading.
Playbill interviews two of the most talented people in the world: Sutton Foster and Jonathan Groff and talks tv learning curves, their summer productions at City Center, and Groff's fanboy obsession with Foster before he himself was famous. It's sweet 

Pic of the Day
"Chewie's Angels" (from Comic Con via HitFix) Mwahhhaaaaahaaa. L-O-V-E.

Do the Right Link

Classic
Cracked 5 true (?) stories of dangerous movie scenes. Reckless endangerment on the sets of Inglourious Basterds, Evil Dead and Carrie, among others.
After Elton "Best Movie Ever? Truth or Dare" well, it's one of them at least! Anyone who ever questions Madonna's magnificence, needs to watch it.
Gothamist The Zeigfeld Theater in Manhattan is losing a million a year and may close. This is terrible terrible news for cinema since it's the only grand theater left in one of the two most important movie markets. It's hallowed ground. The place where I first saw Moulin Rouge! and first saw Michelle Pfeiffer in the pflesh. And so many other great experiences.

Current 
BadAss Digest theories on an important deleted scene in The Amazing Spider-Man
Vulture has an excellent interview with Spike Lee on his new film, Hollywood today, and the Obamas.
Salon Who are you, Katie Holmes? 

...and this is my pick for Tweet of the Weekend from Allie Goertz

Hee.

Future
Coming Soon The Dark Knight Rises and... Charles Dickens?

Madonna from "Truth or Dare" to "MDNA"

It's hard to believe that the be all and end all of celebrity documentaries, Truth or Dare (1991) is already over 20 years old. Actual age aside, Truth or Dare is timeless not just because it captured one of the most famous women who has ever lived at the peak of her popularity, but because of how daringly it performed that capture. I'm sure it's impossible for anyone under 25 to imagine how shocking Madonna's behavior in the early 90s was. Believe it or not there was a time when the demistification of Celebrity was anathema to Hollywood.

You can argue that some of the magic went out of the movies the more access we had to the magicians on and behind the screen, but there was no stopping the intrusiveness of the information age. Madonna's acclaimed film and --  to a lesser extent though no one wants to give it credit -- her often reviled "Sex" book predicted all of it by revealing more and More and MORE (and then some more) of herself. Madonna has never been a great actress but she has given a genius film performance and this was it. (Her performances in Evita and the short film Star! are a distant second.)

If you're interested in influential landmarks in pop culture I urge you to read Rich Juzwiak's exhilarating piece on Truth of Dare (it's out on Blu-Ray for the first time) over at Gawker 

Madonna has rarely had her finger directly on the pulse—it took her years to dabble in electronica and new jack swing and French house—but over 20 years after its release,Truth or Dare is relevant as ever. (It's out on Blu-ray for the first time today.) It's as close to a memoir as Madonna has ever gotten, and it's brilliantly fitting that the music video master stuck with the trusted audio-visual format that catapulted her to success. Why write when you can be? Madonna's life banged the dust out of vérité entertainment, suggesting the documentary didn't have to be stuffy, that it could be wildly entertaining and overwhelmingly trashy... 

 But while we're on the topic of the Queen a few notes on MDNA after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Girl With the Drive-By Linkings

Film School Rejects 33 things we learned from David Cronenberg's commentary on The Fly (1986)
Slant Ed Gonzalez unleashes his Prime Time Emmy predictions
Wow Report a funny run in with young actor Logan Lerman
Awards Daily Sasha Stone (aka David Fincher's #1 Fan*) loves loves loves the early footage of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

And while we're on the subject have you seen the fun Muppets parody of it's "feel bad" trailer?

Alt Screen on the Gus Van Sant retrospective at MOMI
IndieWire on the director of Norwegian Oscar submission Happy Happy, Anne Sewitsky
Antagony & Ecstasy travels back in time to the gender-flipping anxiety of Mr Mom (1983)
Pink is the New Blog Madonna unleashing a Truth or Dare perfume next year. The Brand ever expands... and if that reminds one person to check out Truth or Dare, it's done the world a service. Best music doc evah.
IndieWire in non-news news Tom Ford has his A Single Man follow up planned but has no intention to make it in the next couple of years ??? I post this only as a reminder of what passes for news on the future-obsessed blogosphere. Let's discuss films that actually exists! Anyone? Anyone? ;) 

Broadway Blog No Way! A Meryl Streep interview from 1977. "I think she's going to be the next Carole Lombard" HEE. Her laugh and breathy intakes are exactly the same 31 years ago. Now go read what Broadway Blog has to say about her.
Cinema Blend more trouble for Netflix. This worries me so. Nobody should wish death on DVD services since Netflix had such a better selection than most services and any service that has more films is good for film buffs. The scarcity of older films is so scary.

Drive I Said
My New Plaid Pants recorded a Q&A with Drive's director Nicolas Winding Refn for you. Go watch it if you got a spare 37 minutes.
Self Styled Siren on Drive. I haven't read this yet because I haven't yet written my review and you shouldn't either unless you've seen the film. But if you have The Siren is always worth a read.

Just for fun
Business Pundit interesting map of the USA that renames states as foreign countries with similar GDP. 

*I mean this in the most endearing way because David Fincher is the man.

Strike a Pose, on the Croisette.

Jose here. If The King's Speech hasn't given you enough of socialite Wallis Simpson to last you for a while -- I personally thought Eve Best's performance was the best thing in the movie and she should be getting the praise HBC is getting. But that's a whole other matter. Back to our post -- all you have to do is remember that our beloved Madonna is making an entire movie about her.

The shooting has remained pretty secretive and other than a few pictures the paparazzi have snagged (like rising star Andre Riseborough as Simpson to your left), we don't really know what the thing's looking like.

Maybe we won't have to wait much longer. Madonna has decided she wants her film to be part of the Cannes Film Festival just a few months away. French newspaper Le Parisien is reporting that the pop icon plans to have her film included in the festival's official selection.
This won't be official until festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux announces the official selection in April, so will the Queen of Pop be able to have her way this time?

The first official screening will take place next month when Madonna presents her second feature film to private distributors in Berlin. 

Madge is no newbie to the Cannes Film Festival, just a few years back she presented her documentary I Am Because We Are, which didn't seem to make a huge impression but wasn't trashed either. She had more luck with the smash documentary Truth or Dare which made a huge international ruckus at Cannes in 1991.

Madonna at Cannes in 1991 and 2008

So we'll just have to wait and see how W.E. fares with the picky Cannes audience. Will New York icon and Jury President Robert de Niro feel swept away by this very American tale? Or will W.E. be too much Wallis, too soon?