The Planet of the Links

Pull it together, Nathaniel! There is so much showbiz news of late that we've been buried in avalanche of it. How to stop and collect the linkage? So herewith a looooong list of links in a vain attempt to catch up or but by the time you've read it we'll surely have missed another 20 stories in addition to those that already slipped by in the past two weeks. What I'm saying is "too many things too many things too many things" 

So read on and click away for The Avengers: Infinity War, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jessica Chastain, Big Little Lies paydays, Sundance buzz, and much much more. Please to enjoy or at least peruse...

Click to read more ...

The Link and I

Link time. Here we go...

Screen
/Film Deadpool 2 and X-Men Dark Phoenix have both wrapped, both due in 2018
/Film Turns out Beyoncé was offered Plumette before Gugu in the recent Beauty & The Beast movie. Insane that they offered Beyoncé a teensy part when Belle was right there. WTF, Bill Condon?
Coming Soon Gong Li will lead Martin Campbell's next thriller Ana -- the tone is said to be similar to La Femme Nikita.  We'd be super excited because Gong Li is always welcome in leading roles but Campbell's new one The Foreigner with Jackie Chan isn't exactly winning raves
Film Society Helen Mirren named as the honoree at next spring's Chaplin Award Gala in NYC. Robert De Niro was the honoree earlier this year

 

Into Todd Haynes talks about Wonderstruck and about meeting with Barbra Streisand to talk Gypsy !!!
Variety it's official The Current War has moved to 2018 as the Weinstein Company sorts itself out
Tracking Board Sandra Bullock's Netflix thriller Bird Box casts Patti Cake$' breakout Danielle Macdonald 
Variety Alfonso Cuarón talks about the Lumière festival, The Shape of Water, his new Mexican film Roma his first since Y Tu Mama Tambien
Coming Soon the young cast of those four Avatar sequels hit Disney World (only one of them is playing a human character). 

Page Turners
The Guardian Tom Hanks has written a book of short stories
NPR there's a new book out on the ultimate screen classic Casablanca

Stage 
Playbill Sir Ian McKellen will provide the voice of the demon in a new stage adaptation of The Exorcist
Playbill Kelli O'Hara likely to reprise her Tony winning performance in the West End production of The King and I next summer in London
EW Whoopi Goldberg & Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in a Damn Yankees concert, how fun!

More Sexual Harassment Stories
NYT Sarah Polley on the switch she felt moving from actress to director in terms of respect
Variety Eva Green has joined the chorus of women who have awful Weinstein stories to tell
BBC Woody Allen reacts to the Weinstein allegations
TFE Björk's harassment story (in case you missed it)
Boy Culture model/actor Ronnie Kroell speaks about how harassment happens to men in Hollywood, too. There are gay Weinsteins out there

and something a little lighter to end with...
Medium a hack for men (using The Rock as a mental example) who dont want to be accused of sexual harassment

Review: Hugh Jackman's Last Stand as Wolverine in "Logan"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Logan, the latest and last (for now) solo Wolverine movie, was not kidding around when it opted for Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” as its trailer music. It’s not just the severity of the title, but the elegiac lyrics, and the dying man as guiding spirit / inspiration. Some trailers lie but this one spoke world-weary truth. This is exactly the kind of movie James Mangold, who also directed the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, delivers.

Wolverine’s mutation were never those iconic claws, which were a science experiment to weaponize him, but his ability to instantly heal which also slows down his aging process. The movie franchise got very silly about this, placing him in the civil war context in X-Men Origins as if the once feral Canadian hero was an immortal vampire rather than a mutant. 

But Logan is anything but silly about aging...

Click to read more ...

2016's Box Office Scorecard. Big & Minor Hits (Some Flops due to Budget)

Each day for the past two weeks we've been looking back on the year that was from different angles. Today, the biggest hits of 2016 in two different categories (franchise vs original).

It will surprise no one that the year's biggest hits continue to prove Hollywood right (sigh) in pursuing nothing but animated and superhero pictures and franchisable intellectual property and neglecting the nurturing of movies for adults. On the bright side quality pictures do occassionally break through audience resistance to original concepts and voices, often with the help of awards at year's end. So next time you hear people complain about awards season, remind them that we might never get movies made for adults if there weren't shiny gold statues to chase.

How many of these 35 pictures have you seen and which will you hit next? 

Click to read more ...

Michael Fassbender is embarrassed by his Magneto

by Murtada

Michael Fassbender gives good quote. Following a career retrospective tribute at Toronto this week, he was interviewed on stage by TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey. Fassbender came on candid and ready to tell good stories. Here are excerpts from the conversation as reported by Vulture:

He reportedly cringed while watching a clip from X-Men:Days of Future Past (2014):

"I don’t actually like that performance there, to be honest. I just think it’s me shouting. It’s just like some dude shouting."

He based the android David in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) on David Bowie and Greg Louganis:

"My mom was a fan of Greg Louganis and I just remember watching the Olympics thinking his walk was so funny and mesmerizing, the economy of movement."

He thought he was miscast as Steve Jobs (2015)

"He [Aaron Sorkin]wrote all that stuff! It was so dense! It was such a mountain, and I’m a slow learner, so when the script arrived for me and the opportunity came to play the part, I really thought, This is not me. This should be somebody else. It’s a miscast scenario.”

Co-star Liam Cunningham moved into his place to rehearse their long 23-minute interrogation scene in Hunger (2008)

We got up every morning, cooked porridge, and we started rehearsing. "We did it every day for 11 days. The goal was to do it ten to 15 times a day and then Steve [McQueen] would come in in the evening and watch us, give us some notes, next day same thing.

Fassbender is at TIFF with his latest Trespass Against Us, which is about a conflict within a clan of Irish outlaws. It’s the feature debut of music video director Adam Smith, co-stars Brendan Gleeson and has an original score by The Chemical Brothers.

What is your favorite Fassbender performance? And has he ever made you cringe?